Top Ten Classic Science Fiction Series

Last year, I listed my top ten science fiction shows, including a couple of classic shows that in my opinion stood the test of time. While compiling that list, I discarded quite a few classic science fiction shows that I enjoyed as a kid in the late 1960’s and 1970’s.

The reason these shows were cast away was that they were actually almost embarrassing to watch as an adult all these years later. At the time, in my evolving mind, I thoroughly enjoyed them and I have to say that without them, none of the shows of today would exist.

I think they deserve praise because there were some episodes that I really enjoyed, even watching them again all of those years later.

Star Trek, Dr Who and Space 1999 made my original list, so these will not be mentioned again.

Let’s dive in shall we?

10. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was initially a film and it spawned the series of the same name. The series was set on board a nuclear submarine called Seaview and recounted the adventures of the intrepid crew who encountered all manner of evil sea monsters and even aliens. The stories started off with espionage but gradually introduced weirder elements.

The plots were relatively straightforward and the good guys usually won in the end. Nevertheless, along the way,  the submarine usually suffered, mostly due to monsters roaming around the vessel, somehow finding the control room and ripping out wires and cables, resulting the submarine hitting the bottom of the sea.

You would have thought that if the captain had stationed a couple of guards outside the control room, life would have been so much easier for the crew.

9. The Invisible Man

I loved the novel of the same name by H.G.Wells and the whole concept of invisibility fascinates me. The series of the same name from the 1970s was very entertaining, if a little simplified, and it starred David McCallum, famous from another cult 1960’s show The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

At the time, I loved the special effects. These days they look a little dated.

Sadly the series didn’t last very long, which is a shame. In my opinion, there was a lot of scope for storylines.

8. Blake’s 7

Blake’s 7 is the story of a group of galactic rebels battling against a totalitarian state, led by, as the name suggests, a man called Blake. And it was British, produced by the Terry Nation, the man who invented the Daleks.

Although the special effects are quite tacky, I liked the story and the struggle of this group of renegades against the mighty Terran Federation.

The group often cross swords with the evil Servalan, a ruthless power-hungry woman.

To be honest, I haven’t watched any repeats of the series since the late 1970’s. Perhaps I shouldn’t so that I don’t ruin my memories of it.

7. Land of the Giants

Land of the Giants was the story of the survivors of a crashed ship that was caught in a weird anomaly and whisked off to a planet inhabited by giants. The survivors were known as little people and had to deal with colossal insects, cats and, worst of all, terrible plotlines.

I thought the show was hilarious – even as a kid. Each episode had roughly the same plot, with a few minor variations;

One or more of the little people are captured by a giant with an ulterior motive. The remaining little people rescue them.

That’s basically it.

The show was perfect for a young child like I was at the time, but when I watched the show again in the 1990’s that initial innocent magic was lost. I did see one of the giant telephones when I visited Universal Studios in Los Angeles and it was very impressive. That’s why I’ve popped the show in at number 7.

And the funniest thing about the show?

It was set in 1983!!!

6. Planet of the Apes

I loved the original Planet of the Apes films. I even read the books as a small child (Conquest of the Planet of the Apes was my favourite).  It’s no surprise that the TV series that followed the movies would be on the list of my favourite classic science fiction series.

The concept is wonderful. Based on the original film, two astronauts crash land on Earth 2000 years in the future, having encountered a time portal of some kind in space. In the meantime, a huge cataclysm has occurred on Earth, resulting in intelligent apes becoming the dominant species.

In the series, I loved the main bad guy, a gorilla called Urko wo pursued the astronauts and Galen, the chimp played by Roddy McDowell in their quest to find a solution to their predicament.

Sadly, the series was cancelled prematurely (do not rant, Dave!!!).

5. The Time Tunnel

Of all the science fiction concepts out there, time travel intrigues me most of all. Unfortunately, science fiction writers don’t always consider the potential paradoxes associated with travelling to the past, or indeed, the future.

The Time Tunnel, while very interesting and enjoyable, used to infuriate me because of the plot holes. Basically, the show was the story of two scientists trapped in time and unable to be returned to their own time period. Every week, they were dumped into a past period, for example in the city of Jericho before the walls came down. Miraculously, wherever they landed and in whichever country, the people always spoke English and refused to ask why they had weird clothes – the SAME clothes, I should add.

And they certainly interfered with past events with little regard for the consequences of their actions. It seemed okay though because their observers from the future, the team who were trying to retrieve them, didn’t suffer any after effects, like popping out of esixtence.

Plot holes aside, I actually thought it was a very good series, one that I would have liked to have written an episode for.

4. The Six Million Dollar Man

Whenever I ran in the local park I became the Steve Austin, the bionic man. The theme tune to the show would run through my head as I imagined chasing cars and using my bionic arm to punch holes in walls and beat up bad guys – just like the clip above where he encounters Bigfoot.

Yes – I was a huge fan of this show. It was perfect for a twelve year old geek with a huge and active imagination.

I loved the show so much that when Lee Majors turned up later as The Fall Guy I refused to watch it because I didn’t want to imagine Steve Austin as anybody else.

Looking back at the show now, it seems dated, particularly the slow motion portrayal of Steve’s super speed.

I can forgive that though. Lee Majors will always be Steve Austin – don’t believe anything else.

3. Lost in Space

Lost in Space was so bad it was brilliant. By far the best character was Dr Zachary Smith, a cowardly man who thought only about himself. To me he was the star of the show and his verbal duals with the Robot were highly amusing.

To be honest, if it wasn’t for these two characters, I wouldn’t have watched the show. They kept it fresh and interesting (the others were kind of boring really).

Again, with my imagination, I would have loved to have penned an episode or two of the show as some of the episodes weren’t that good. Nevertheless, the best episodes were brilliant and always had Dr Smith at the heart of them – hence this lofty position.

As an aside, the recent film based on the series was not very good, apart from the revamped theme by the band Apollo 440:

2. The Incredible Hulk

The Hulk is my favourite Marvel character and I am delighted that he is the star of the two recent Avengers movies. Of course, before that, he was portrayed by Lou Ferrigno in this wonderful TV series.

I have watched a few episodes recently and while a little dated, I still looked forward to the parts where David Banner, played brilliantly by Bill Bixby, would evolve into the violent green monster and smash things to pieces.

One of the best things about the show was David’s struggle to find a cure for his condition, something that was perfectly captured in the closing credits of each episode with the solitary and very sad piano music:

1. UFO

Of all the classic science fiction series, only three made it into my all-time Top 10. UFO very nearly did.

The reason it didn’t was that it was quite dated. Supposedly set in 1980, it seemed like a weird version of the 1960’s.

That’s my only criticism. UFO was an intelligent and slightly disturbing series about a secret organisation called SHADO, that protected the Earth from mysterious aliens. The function of SHADO was to keep the existence of these aliens secret while at the same time trying to work out what their hostile goals were.

The aliens were humanoid but quite scary. Their skin was green because they breathed a green liquid.

There was enough to appeal to both kids and adults. I loved the Interceptors and had a model of my own, which fired a missile and gave me hours of fun. I have seen the odd repeat as an adult and if you ignore the obvious 1960’s influence, the stories are genuinely good and menacing. Even the end credits were spooky:

This is a prime candidate for a modern reboot.

And finally …

Over to you, dear reader:

Have you seen any of these classic shows? 

Are there any shows that I missed that might be worth investigating?

The Invisible Mancunian

I read a book when I was a teenager – and I loved it.

It was The Invisible Man by H.G.Wells, the story of a scientist who makes himself invisible and falls victim to all of the consequences of his actions.

I have recently been watching a science fiction series called Alphas and also enjoying that. Alphas is about a group of people with special abilities, some of which are very desirable. I started thinking about which ability I would like and my mind drifted back in time to when I read the masterpiece by Mr Wells.

I quite fancy possessing the ability to become invisible at will. Unlike the anti-hero in The Invisible Man however, I would like to change a few things.

If you have read The Invisible Man you will know that Wells thought of almost everything when it came to the drawbacks of invisibility.

First, in order to exploit you invisibility, you would have to take off all of your clothes. Unfortunately that would expose you to the elements, especially here in Britain, where the temperature can be quite unpleasant.

Walking around in the rain would leave a film of water over your naked invisible body, thus rendering you partially visible and scaring the hell out of passers-by. And that’s not to mention the dirt that would cling to your feet and hands as you padded down the street. You would look very strange indeed.

Most horrible of all would be the need to eat. Imagine food being visible as you chewed it in your mouth and then swallowed it, being able to watch its progress as it travels down to your stomach. Worse, and something I don’t think Wells wanted to mention, would be the natural process that converts food to energy – and then to waste.

I don’t really want to imagine seeing an invisible man who needs to go to the toilet.

If I were offered the ability to become invisible, I would accept it with the proviso that everything I wore, everything I ate and everything I touched also became invisible. This would enable me, for example, to carry money down the street without making people gasp in astonishment as a wad of ten pound notes floated past them.

Now then – having accepted this ability – what would I do?

I can sense your dread, dear reader, anticipating all sorts of nastiness as the evil part of me rose to the surface. What you have to understand, though, is that deep down I am a nice guy with no desire to perform any acts that are criminal or hurtful (unless it involves humiliation of people who deserve it); what you need to understand most about me is that I am a mischievous imp. Mrs PM does indeed sometimes call me The Imp when I am in the mood to have a bit of fun at her expense.

One of the biggest benefits of invisibility, for me, is the fact that since nobody can see me, I can go anywhere I choose.

This, I think, would be my first way of exploiting my ability.

I would go to London and sneak in Number 10 Downing Street, causing mayhem at the cabinet meetings, mainly to George Osborne. After that I would haunt the Houses of Parliament by throwing water at random politicians as they started pontificating and lying to the public.

My next target would be musicians, although I would only use my invisibility to sneak onto concerts and join my heroes on stage as they performed to an adoring audience.

In a similar way I would sneak into major sporting events and I may even be tempted to administer justice on cheating footballers. I am sure you have seen a Premiership footballer, paid £200,000 a week, tumble into the penalty area as if he has been shot by a sniper from the stands, sometimes gaining a penalty - an unfair reward for his dishonesty. Such cheating would be stamped out by my invisible alter ego. Although I would be tempted to actually injure them, I am not a violent man at all so I would wait until the trainer came on and then assault the cheating wretch with the magic sponge or whatever other painful means I could extract from his bag. I would then pursue the cheat throughout the match, tripping him up at every opportunity, pulling down his shorts, slapping his face or yelling in his ear as the ball approached him.

Other targets for my mischief would be people like Simon Cowell; I would be merciless. Sharon Osbourne threw water over him – for me it would be indelible black ink.

I would of course, become a fly on the wall and spy on people. I have always been nosey and the thought of listening to people having secret meetings or making crucial decisions in a locked room would simply be too irresistible.

Imagine being able to find out what really happens in American politics?

I could combine my love of travel, with my curious nature, to travel free in first class to America, stay in an empty suite in the best hotels and sneak into various government buildings to find out if aliens have really visited planet Earth or whether George W. Bush really did fix the election.

Even more exciting would be the ability to “meet” celebrities. Of course, I would want to avoid revealing my invisibility so I would somehow get close to them when they were meeting ordinary people and then pop back into the visible world armed with an autograph book and a quip.

My travels would not be restricted to just the United States. There are many places worth visiting and invisibility would give me the opportunity to travel freely and in great comfort, eating the best foods and sampling the delights of the elite all for free, without anybody knowing that I was there or ripping them off.

Technically, if I did such a thing, it would be slightly criminal as I would be getting something for nothing, but my moral compass would accept such actions. I mean, after all, if a hotel room is empty, what would be wrong with using the bed? How about walking around an expensive restaurant cherry picking the best food? I would only be eating scraps (just lots of them). And anyway, people tend to leave food anyway. What about sneaking into concerts and sporting events for free? I wouldn’t technically be taking anybody’s seat would I?

I could live with myself.

And I would write a book about my exploits – imagine what a fun read that would be.

So be careful, dear reader; if you suddenly feel a presence next to you when you are out and about, or a bit of food goes missing from your plate when you are in a top class restaurant, or you see a bucket of ink poured over the head of an obnoxious arse – it might be The Invisible Mancunian.

Don’t forget – I love to travel so an Invisible Imp might just turn up in your neighbourhood wherever you live.

Rest assured, though, that I will not do anything nasty – mischievous but fun.

Over to you: what would YOU do if you suddenly gained the power of invisibility?