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Harlan Ellison Wrote Tonight’s MASTERS OF SCIENCE FICTION!!
I am – Hercules!!
The great Harlan Ellison, who wrote the best episode of “Star Trek” more than 40 years ago, co-wrote tonight’s final installment of “Masters of Science Fiction.”
This could be the first Ellison teleplay to see production since a 1998 episode of “The Hunger.” And it may be the first Ellison teleplay with Ellison’s actually name on it to see production since a 1989 episode of “The Twilight Zone.” Which is to say it is a relatively rare event.
I saw a rough version of the episode a month or more ago. The effects were not in place, but Brian Dennehy was excellent as the de facto leader of The Discarded.
10 p.m. Saturday. ABC.
"Stay out of trouble."
(this ships now)
"Harry, let me tell you something."
The Pilot, The Whole Series and Extras Aplenty!! One Of The Two Best TV Shows Ever Made!! Harry Truman, Annie Blackburn, Albert Rosenfield, Big Ed Hurley, Dale Cooper, Donna Hayward, Gordon Cole, Shelley Johnson, Denise Bryson, Roger Hardy, Pete Martell, Lucy Moran, Rusty Tomaski, Julee Cruise, Norma Jennings, Josie Packard, Garland Briggs, John Justice Wheeler, Audrey Horne, Madeleine Ferguson, Clinton Sternwood, Leland Palmer, Andy Brennan, Tommy "Hawk" Hill, The Log Lady, Killer Bob and One-Armed Mike!!
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yeah
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and i've already got a first. city on the edge of forever is one of the greatest hours of episodic television in the history of the medium. tonight's showing would be lucky to be a tenth as good.
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I know he got consultant credits, but I think he was credited as writer for at least one.
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He got "Story By" credits on season five's Objects in Motion and A View From the Gallery.
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not because i was too busy for the rest, but because i assumed they'd been replaced by a rerun of something. maybe i'll watch this.
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Masters of Science Fiction is not a rip off of the Twilight Zone.
The twilight Zone created a uniform creation from which strange stories happened.
Masters is adaptations of the very best sci fi stories written from the golden age of science fiction.
You are an idiot. -
Anthology shows have a pretty bad history; it would be great if this got another chance on ABC (it got good ratings, but nobody pays attention to summer ratings)or another network, but it's a long shot at best. And this show hasn't been bad at all.
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The other two will only be available when they release it on disc.
Caught the first episode, wasn't really too impressed. Missed the last two. Who the fuck scheduled these for Saturday night, anyways? But with Ellison being adapted, I may have to try and catch this one... -
I can't say that I've totally loved any episode either. They've all been fun enough to watch, but there really hasn't been a gem. I'll watch tonight too.
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They adapted Bob Sheckley's story "Watchbird" - too bad - it's a good story, but Bob wrote so many GREAT stories - and you can't even find his books at freakin' Borders or Barnes 'n' Noble - travesty!
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Picard did it better.Harlan has always been a douche.
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The two that I've watched had some foolish religious conclusions that mean nothing to me. All mysticism is immorality, so there's nothing left to discuss.
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QFT man. He is a bitter little man.
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-Who are you?
- I'm Brian Dennehy.
-What? No not fucking Brian Dennehy.
-Yeah, get the fuck out of here.
-Oh Byyy
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And he does owe Morena Baccarin (Inara) big-time after cutting a lot of her scenes in the movie. That prior sentence should give you a clue about my relative newbie-ness of being a Browncoat.
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Some actors, if they turn out to be scumbags in real life, make it impossible to enjoy their work. In the 80's, after already achieving some minor celebrity status, Brian Denehey would talk in interviews about his experience as a Vietnam veteran who served several tours as a combat Marine, describing first hand accounts of the horrors of combat close up. Many years later, he was finally busted. It turns out he never spent a single day in Vietnam and had zero combat experience... though it didn't stop him from telling stories of personal horrors. After he was outed, his publicist said Denehey simply made a mistake. A mistake??? Thinking it's Tuesday, when it's actually Monday is a mistake. Thinking you spent several years in combat in Vietnam when you were never within a thousand miles is not a mistake.
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I remember hunting this down forever after reading about the story synopsis. Finally got the OUter Limits for 20 bucks (DVD) and watched it. It would, if expanded, make a great movie done right. I had heard they were considering it but nothing to date.
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Directed it and he's fantastic, if you watch Amelie or A Very long Engagement or Deliatessent. So I don't know why that Alien movie sucks, it does but it seems something else happened. Cuz A Very Long Engagement is frakking rock solid.
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Did anyone else read it before the movie? Like I remember their being a scene where the crew was on like some golf cart thing driving threw a valley of giant mutated sunflowers with aliens jumping out from them. I was so amped on seeing that movie, only to watch it not match the script on my shitty black market copy I watched of it. Because I lived in a foreign land I had to watch all my movies off of a blackmarket tape. But still I like it mainly for the fact that Jean-Pierre Jeunet is an amazing director.
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I really think it was the same problem the Buffy movie had. Here you have a wordy character based writer who does drama with horror/comedy elements and you match him up with a director who decides to take it and go all pure campy with it. I remember watching the commentary and Jean-Pierre was patting himself on the back about how funny it was that he added the locks that function off of people's breath. Are you kidding me? If you have a script that's strength is dialog, don't give it to a director who barely speaks English no matter how good his normally is visually and then kill important scenes to save money because the director blew the rest of the budget to "create his vision".
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Harlan Ellison wrote the original screenplay for 'City on the Edge of Forever', which was adapted by Dorothy Fontana to include changes requested by Gene Roddenberry without Harlan's input. Roddenberry owed much of the success of the early ST episodes to his use of screenwriters who were also highly regarded SF writers. The solidity of the story ideas were firmly the responsibility of the writers, not GR.
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I loved the revelation in the Sam Waterston episode. The other two I saw were pretty good, too. Why didn't this show get a shot? Why was it buried on Saturdays in the summer? Be nice if they brought it back for a run next summer.
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... Just asking...
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Over written and just bad, with a denouement you could see before the credits rolled - WHO is picking the stories they adapt? They spent the money to polish up this turd - why not "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" or "Repent, Harlequin" or one of HE's better stories? He wrote like 3 billion...
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i came home from the bar tonight and found out my Tivo didn't record tonight's episode because it was moved to 1am on Monday....that's a really bad sign if a network moves the final episode of a new show to 1am, i'm pretty sure this is dead in the water
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Aug 26, 2007 6:53:00 AM CDT
Once it's torrented, it would be fun to e-mail him...
by jackpumpkinhead
...and tell him about it, considering the pleasantly amusing fits of rage the evil leprechaun throws in such cases - but he wouldn't understand what the e-mail was about.
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I'll have to check it out.
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the network didn't move the show, it was likely your local affiliate. This show was cancelled before it aired, so it was dead a long time ago.
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oooo, look at me - I made Kirk cuss on tv! oooo, look at me - I think Roddenberry is/was a tool. oooo, look at me - I'm so pretentious that Jesus called me on the phone and told me to ease up on the marketing. ooo, look at me, I'm still writing crap screenplays for the little glowing box for shows that take scripts from elementary school children written in orange crayon on blue craft paper.
Dear Heaven,
can we trade Harlan for Gene? Please? -
This episode was way too close to the Twilight Zone episode with Jack CLugman (sp?) where there was a group of people stranded on a planet and Jack didn't want to leave when the rescue ship came. Sure the circumstances were very different and the end was different but it was still too similar for me to really be interested.
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Ellison never did write an ep of B5, though he contributed many ideas. The original plan had always been to do a sequel to 'Demon with a Glass Hand' in the B5 setting, but for one reason or another it never came about. Although, with the 'Babylon 5: The Lost Tales' disc(s?) it's always a possibility that idea might come up again. JMS answered positively when asked about getting Ellison involved with the series again.
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Aug 26, 2007 3:17:36 PM CDT
Harlan is a sourpuss and wouldn't have it any other way
by lettersoftransit
it's just his way. He writes well and he is fun to watch get mad. Part of me hopes there's another writer's strike just so I can go to meetings and watch Harlan go off on the turncoats, weasels and quislings selling us out.
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I'm not going to download it because I don't believe in that sort of thing (which probably makes me one of about 20 internet users, but I digress). Someone please convey my sincerest apologies to Harlan and tell him I'm off to commit sepuku. Thankee!
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That was actually James Whitmore.
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Despite those with good track records (TZ, Outer Limits, etc) the suits just hate them anthology series - guess 'cuz they can't save on standing sets and lots of product placement and whatnot... Kids - go to your local bookseller and read up on Asimov, Heinlein, Ellison, Clarke, Bradbury, Tenn, Sheckley, Chalker, Wolfe and the myriad other "masters" of SF - if you haven't read Eric Frank Russell or William Tenn or Kornbluth or Harry Harrison - man, there is some good shit out there to be found and I haven't even scratched the surface... Go and read, cuz TV ain't about to provide you with it.
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But the screenwriters wrote the scripts, the actors interpreted the script and created the characters that appeared on the screen, the directors created the visual style and the editors crafted the finished film into a coherent presentation. Roddenberry is dead, so he is really not able to enjoy you sucking his dick.
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If you've ever met or seen Ellison in person, it's clear he's a mensch. He does not suffer fools gladly, but if left unprovoked he is a very pleasant man.
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this is a twilllight zone ripp off.. dadpting golden ages stories my ass, it's crap CRAP!!!!!! i tell you. a fricking waste of time watching them, really is sci fi dead? it seems stories, are adapting the same stories before them, only making it worse. its exactly what enterprise used to do.
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Mbeemer, I agree. I've met Harlan and he was couteous, kind, and very congenial. In fact, he even recognized the SFBC copy of "City" I had, flipped it open to a page inside and made a correction in it that they had misprinted before signing the book. Harlan is a great guy and those who say otherwise just haven't ever met him.
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SF is like pizza and sex. Even bad is better than no SF. Unless you're counting anything done directly by the Sci-Fi channel. (Thank God BSG is not) I enjoyed all four episodes. I thought the first one was excellent. I really liked the second one, even read the short story a long while ago. Last week's was ok and Saturday was pretty good. Unless something is blatantly awful can we stop calling every anthology a TZ rip-off? Even Rod Serling did actually start the whole twist ending thing or the whole man's inhumanity to man through sci-fi thing. It's a GD shame that the Sci-Fi channel can't put up a show like this.
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Zombie movies and postapocolyptic stories. For some reason i've always been facisnated with both. Zombie movies usualy scare the shit out of me for a few weeks after viewing but I'm still forced to watch,even the bad ones. I can see where alot of us geeks feel the same way about SF . I also feel that way about pro wrestling to an extent, thats just entertainment money can't buy.
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Aug 27, 2007 4:40:22 PM CDT
discarded is an apt title for the end of this series...
by sasquatch with a swatch watch
Over-written and pompous, joyless and pointless...And the ending was totally anti-climactic and predictable. And whats up with cramming every ten cent word you can think of into a characters mouth? Am I listening to this guy talk or just rattle off synonyms like a thesaurus?
I mean, I like Harlan's writing, but that was a huge letdown. And was was up with the gaseous nonsense in the cameo? Has anyone laughed at old Jewish guys kibittzing since like, the Steve Allen days? Yeah, no one's ever seen that bit of hilarity before...
Anyone know who the other guy was that Harlan was chatting with in the cameo?
PS- Good to see someone giving Jonathan Frakes directing jobs after having 2 box office stinkers in a row. He's a talented man given the right material to work from. -
Nice Steve Allen reference - of course, as MST3K pointed out, Steve Allen already thought of it, so you owe him money...
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Ellison tarnished his legacy forever when he sued Fantagraphics because they said mean things about him. Groth et al are major Anuses. But to be clear. He sued them because they said mean things about him.
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...ALL of the comments about Ellison are correct! That's just how weird and complicated he is. But his I,ROBOT script is still one of the best screenplays ever written!
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what gives?
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I aint no idiot. I read this article saturday afternoon, put it on the ABC channel at the appropriate time, and there was nada
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read Ellison's original draft of "Ciy"? It is far more deft and less hamhanded than the Roddenberry version. Much as I respect what GR did, the truth is the best Trek had little of his direct influence (s1 of TOS, TWOK, s3-5 of TNG). The more he meddled (s3 TOS, TMP, s1-2 TNG), the weaker the result.
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is subscribing to the same thesaurus service Dennis Miller uses for his monologues.
Premise was ridiculous too. Maybe this was a rejected episode of "Starlost."
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