*Headdesk*

[lil_shepherd]

We are watching the first episode of the new BBC documentary series on science fiction (actually on filmed science fiction with the odd - very odd - excursion into text.) There has already been a lot of yelling in this household, mainly boiling down to: "Who is this idiot?" and and "If it's just about film and TV why didn't they fucking say so?" (

Comments

[sabethea]

UGH.

I thought it sounded interesting, but I am now glad I'd forgotten it was on.

[aunty_marion]

I did a certain amount of the same, but don't worry, the second part is on tonight, featuring - as far as I can tell from the blurbs - Daleks, Cybermen, War of the Worlds, Cybermen, and Daleks.

[lil_shepherd]

And 'Dr Who' isn't Science Fiction but Science Fantasy. No, we've been bitten once, and now we are shy.

[shewhomust]

Seconded, with extreme prejudice!

In this household there were also cries of "Journey into Space!"

And "If you going to bring in Ursula LeGuin immediaitely before you talk about Avatar, surely you want The Word for World is Forest not The Left Hand of Darkness?" (though actually if you are standing in the hothouse at the Eden Project, you might mention Brian Aldiss...)

Not going back for tonight's installment.

[madfilkentist]

Avatar? I'm currently reading that!

Oh, you mean the movie, not the novel by Poul Anderson. :)

[lil_shepherd]

Not the excellent cartoon series, either.

[lil_shepherd]

'Journey into Space', like the 'Quatermass' serials, cleared the streets because ordinary people were committed to listening/watching. And we are talking real SF here, and with the 'Andromeda' serials too.

[moonlightmead]

Oh, thanks for this! I had not known the BBC was doing this - what? Sequence? Strand? Stuff? :) - until iPlayer suggested I might like an online-only mini-documentary about 'the fans'. I hate watching online, but I watched it. 20 minutes of what I thought were reasonably sane interviews and footage. There was a lot more on cosplay than I would have expected, but I don't know: is this a thing in UK fandom now? My only exposure to it is a single trip to Eastercon. But other than that, I think they tried to be representative. Not being immersed in SF fandom myself, just on the edges, I don't know how well they succeeded.

I was away and didn't watch the actual broadcast programme. Suspect I may not now.

Oh, the 'invasion of the fans' thing is at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01ytdk5/my-life-in-science-fiction-2-invasion-of-the-fans and is 20 minutes long, if you are interested.

[lil_shepherd]

Ina and I used to greet this sort of programme with chants of "Let's look at the loonies, let's look at the loonies."

Cosplay is a big thing in comic book and film, and its own fandom, and so at a big comic con or a Worldcon there will be a lot of quite astonishingly good costuming. It has, normally, been a small part of UK SF fandom -- even of media fandom -- but it now growing and drawing in people who would not call themselves fans. (One of Ina's relatives is a European champion and we think her way in was through Steampunk, which is a fandom of itself.)

Of course, there was the BBC series on Seacon 79, though that did cover the Masquerade and another one on Conspiracy 87 (both British worldcons in Brighton) which were not that bad.

Then there were the phone calls made by Ina's relatives when the Mercenaries League appeared on local TV, all black leather and whips and high heels: "Are those your friends, dear?"

So far, this series seems to be ignoring fans, which is probably just as well...