The science channel’s Sci-Fi anthology is really good with big name stars and I watch whenever I remember, however I can’t shake the feeling I have some of these stories on TV before, especially A Clean Escape, The Awakening and Jerry Was A Man. It could be I read these stories and only think I’ve seen them on TV but I don’t think so. These memories are fuzzy so I’m thinking I watched them when I was young. The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery or Outer Limits maybe? Perhaps I wasn’t so young and it was on The Darkside or the New Twilight Zone. Or maybe they were old Sci-Fi movies that I caught when they used to show them on broadcast TV way back when.
Who besides me remembers these (and perhaps the other stories) from long ago TV? Where did you see them?
This was a series called Masters of Science Fiction. It was a parallel to the Masters of Horror series, but apparently didn’t catch on. They didn’t even run the entire series in the US. The series was released on DVD, but with really bad distributioon. I bought a set when a video store went out of business, and finally got to see one of the episodes I’d wanted to see – Robert Sheckley’s “Watchbird”. For no good reason, they completely changed the damned thing, including the ending.
I wasn’t impressed with the series. Two of the stories are about the US president calling for all-out nuclear war. One is a Heinlein story, in which they change the character and his motivation. One is the aforementioned altered Sheckley story, and the last is a Harlan Ellison story (with script by Ellison!) As originally released, it didn’t have the “Stephen Hawking’s…” on it.
Oneo’ these days they’ll do another good SF anthology. This ain’t it. If they can refrain from screwing around with the original story lines, thety’d have something better.
Yeah, both the Sy-Fy channel and the Science channel are pissing me off with this: ALL NEW MASTERS OF SCIENCE FICTION. bull shit.
I pratically got a hard on when I saw the commercial for this on the Science channel. From the way they went on about it, I thought the series had been picked back up.
But no, The Science channel and Sy-Fy need to learn what the fuck “All new” means.