It’s
hard to make science fiction. Picture this: it’s 1980. You’re directing an episode of the Original Battlestar Galactica (which was then known as ‘Battlestar Galactica’ without the ‘Original’). Your main star is about to destroy a Cylon base. He has only 5 minutes left. Naturally, your character has to check his watch. Let that be a really advanced watch. It’s 1980: The only advanced watch is a super-cool-duper calculator watch with red leds. Well, what was cool and advanced then, looks a kind of silly in the early 21st century. Not to mention, it’s not really what one would consider a piece of high-tech.
Arthur’s Theorem: Science Fiction starts to suck when current known and existing technologies are presented as technologies that dominate the future.
Fast forward to the now-time: The current Battlestar Galactica is pretty good. I saw episode 10 and I will reveal the main story line below: (use your cursor to highlight the paragraph right below)
TO BE CONTINUED
Yeah. Really. That’s what I thought too. Luckily the show will continue January 2006. Without red-LEDded calculator watches, I presume.
Update: Just a moment, I was thinking of this scene I describe on my own blog. Not at all related, but another famous item of the 80s.
Update (12/03/05): Hughes calculater watch, that watch is apparently.
I remember that BG was one of the only english language shows on Dutch TV in 1986 when I lived in Aalsmeer. That and the really crappy Canadian cop show “In the Heat of the Night”.
That and the really crappy Canadian cop show “In the Heat of the Nightâ€.
That must have been at the public broadcaster ‘TROS’. I always thought ‘The Heat of the Night’ was American…