Many years ago, Friday night TV was must-tape. At 8:00, you had Babylon 5. At nine, there was X-Files. At ten, time for Picket fences. Three different networks, three different kinds of shows, and all three excellent. It got to the point where I didn’t want to go anywhere on a Friday night anymore.
Now, for at least six weeks, we have a troika of excellent SF shows. At 8:00 on Fox, there’s Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, followed by the new Joss Whedon Dollhouse show, and then at ten, on SciFi, the last six (now five) weeks of Battlestar Galactica. Last night, all three shows were superb. Awesomely awesome, as the saying is.
If you didn’t watch Dollhouse, catch it online. You will not be sorry. And next week, you should watch it or DVR it or tape it, because Fox was smart enough to have Summer Glau and Eliza Dushku in several commercials together, talking to each other about how much fun it would be to be each other’s character. Brilliant PR, both for the glamour aspect and the hot-chick-attracking-scifi-geek aspect. Plus, well, I like both actresses a lot. You go, girls.
One other thing about Friday nights on Fox: The lineup is all action chick shows. Oh, sure, there are more than enough guys to go around on both shows, and they’re featured characters, not minor ones. But the women are kicking butt and taking prisoners.
Awesomely awesome, now featuring strong female leads. What’s not to love?
I’m with you on this Meryl, Friday night Sci-Fi rocks! BSG was great, and I am amazed at how much I now like Ellen, whom I had previously pretty much despised. I’m also thinking that if Cavill has “real-world” theological precedent, it is Cain. Awesome story.
Oh, and I do like the chicks, smart butt-kicking chicks that is.
Have you seen “Legend of the Seeker” on Fox on Saturday night? I’ve tried to watch it but am having trouble because Richard and Kahlan are just too different from the pictures I carry in my mind’s eye. (sigh) Sometimes, reading the books can spoil a good story when you see the film version.
Sorry, Meryl, the unquestionably greatest night of tv was CBS Saturdays in the early seventies: Bob Newhart; Mary Tyler Moore; and Carol Burnett.
Or any night “The Prisoner” was on.
Our Rabbi’s son is on the Terminator production team. I’m hoping the show stays alive for that reason…as well as because it’s good television. Good SF on TV is a rare jewel.
Alex, I watched those three shows as well, but they’re in a different class from the current SF shows. You’re comparing comedy and SF. As for The Prisoner, never watched it back then, saw the reruns, thought, “That was IT?”
Illanoy Gal, I watched the beginning, not realizing it was Wizard’s First Rule until the end credits. The show sucks, that’s why you’re having trouble with it. Yes, it’s brought to us by the folks that gave us Xena and Hercules, but they had the ability to write whatever they wanted, and they wanted campy fun. This one isn’t fun. And they can’t veer far off the book, so their hands are tied. And, well, the source for the show sucks.
I keep remembering the words of a friend of mine who copyedited the book: “He keeps on making up rules and then proceeds to break every one of them!”
Meryl, SciFi Friday has broken past the cable network and I really like the lineup. I have yet to see Dollhouse, but as for Terminator: I love it, I don’t know where they’re going with it. With the seeming lack of a strong, singular malevolence against whom they actively fight, playing a game of cause and effect against Skynet’s birth is testing my patience.