The plague storyline didn’t even matter; it would have been resolved in the 2nd or 3rd year, and was only inserted to satisfy a pointy-haired boss who kept demanding something easy to understand. In fact, Crusade never even got to the beginning of the real story, which was to be about Earth black-ops messing around with leftover Shadow tech and the Excalibur negotiating with newly found civilizations to join the Interstellar Alliance, with a Camelot-like air to it, taking off from Marcus’s jeu d’esprit at the end of A Late Delivery from Avalon.
Lost can stay lost.
I’d like to see a re-boot of The Waltons – (1972–1981) beginning from the Great Depression, as did the original, but with new stories.
I thought The Waltons was a fine show. I’d love to see what a new crop of actors and scriptwriters would come up with.
Goodnight John-boy!
But could writers who didn’t live through that era like Earl Henry Hamner Jr. really do it justice?
PBS show Connections with James Burke. I LOVED that show.
I also miss the original National Geographic show on broadcast TV. It was truly a family show that everybody could watch. The whole thing seemed so polished starting with the theme music.
It wouldn’t be easy, but I believe very good writers who do extensive research on Appalachian life during the Great Depression could do it justice. They would also have to approximate Hamner’s down-home storytelling and narrative style.
We have many fine period piece movies and shows, demonstrating good writing (and acting, directing, etc.) with proper research can produce quality, accurate work. I just wrote in another thread about Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. I think he nailed the tone and texture of 18th-century England. It was stylized, but intentionally so.
WKRP in Cincinnati, with the original music soundtrack.
[quote]Thanks to a music-rights loophole, the WKRP in Cincinnati producers got to use hit songs at a savings because the show was shot on videotape instead of film, according to the Star Tribune. Once those rights expired, however, the music in question had to be excised from reruns of WKRP episodes.[/quote] Source: 10 Fun Facts About ‘WKRP in Cincinnati,’ Which Ended 40 Years Ago
Put the music egos aside and bring it back!
As noted in that article, when Shout! Factory got the rights to issue a DVD set for the show in 2014, they worked hard to get clearance for as much of the original music as they could; they have been quoted as saying that there were some cases where it was simply impossible to get the rights to certain songs.
Anyway, that DVD set apparently contains about 85% of the original music, and I suspect that that’s about as close as we’re going to get. This article notes a few of the specific songs that are still missing:
But there was also a box. An eeeeeeevil box.
In the late 70’s, pretty sure these were on a very new-WTBS -
StarBlazers, a Japanese animated show about the battleship Yamato in space (!!!), and Specterman, an obvious rip-off of Ultraman.
I did, too. It’s available on DVD, but hard to find. there’s a library near here that has it, along with (most of) the later TLC follow-ups, Connections2 and Connections 3 (which aren’t as good) . I have a copy of his second PBS series , The Day the Universe Changed on DVD. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.
If you’re itching for more James Burke, there are several books out there. Both Connections and The Day the Universe Changed had companion volumes (which were used for the audiobook versions; both are now available as e-books). He also wrote several books
The Pinball Effect (an interesting experiment – a mechanical “hot-linked” book that can be read in three orders)
The Knowledge Web (associated with the TLC series)
Circles (a reprinting of the columns he wrote for Scientific American)
American Connections
Twin Tracks
The last three books are written very much in the style of Connections
We never learned what the Apocalypse Box was. The only clue we ever got was from outside the show—Gary Cole did its voice.
Oh man, I loved that. I used to watch it every day after school. I could probably still sing most of the theme tune too.
Yeah and it was such a goofy premise - “Let’s find the heaviest thing we’ve ever made and launch it into space!”. I’m sure there was a good reason.
In 2021 they did a reboot in a way of the original pilot, The Waltons Homecoming. I love the original and try to watch it every Christmas. The reboot failed in almost every aspect.
Sliders would be my vote. The concept has great potential, it’s a shame that it was mostly wasted on the original series.
You’ve been in my library, I see. I actually have all 3 “Connections” and “TDTUC” on DVD. Used to show episodes to my AP Euro kids all the time. I need to rewatch them again.
I discovered that as a “grown up”, and I love it! All they’d need for a successful reboot would be a good cast… AND better writing.
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But I want The Duck Factory just the way it was, with a young Jim Carrey as an idealistic kid starting out as a cartoon animator.
That’s sad. But, I think a re-boot Waltons (movie or series) would work with a dream cast of A-list actors and director.
Here’s my lineup (some of the “kids” would need anti-aging CGI):
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Grandpa Walton – Anthony Hopkins
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Grandma Walton – Judi Dench
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John Walton – John Goodman
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Olivia Walton – Uma Thurman
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John-Boy Walton – Ryan Reynolds
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Jason Walton - Tom Holland
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Mary Ellen Walton - Jennifer Lawrence
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Erin Walton - Sydney Sweeney
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Ben Walton - Patton Oswald
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Jim-Bob Walton – Christian Convery
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Elizabeth Walton - Madeleine McGraw
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Ike Godsey – Nicolas Cage
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Emily Baldwin - Frances McDormand
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Mamie Baldwin - Helena Bonham Carter
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Narrator – Morgan Freeman
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Director – Martin Scorsese
Feel free to post your own lineup.
I have the original Starblazers on DVD
Then each episode was remade later much better animation, voicework and they are amazing
