Thursday, September 26, 2013

Masters of Science Fiction: The Complete Series



Your basic Sci-Fi anthology series, perhaps a smidge better.
I personally abandoned the major networks some time ago, I suspect around when just about every show they put on seemed to be sex obsessed. I have since only gone back to catch new episodes of "Heroes". So, it's no surprise that the short-lived "Masters of Science Fiction" series came and went on ABC without my ever even knowing about it. I was aware of the more popular "Masters of Horror" series from Showtime, even though I don't even have Showtime, but then I'm a bit more into the horror genre and love horror anthologies. One thing that puts me off of Sci-Fi anthologies a bit is that they tend to always be about aliens, bleak futures, and robots. Rarely anything else.

"Masters of Science Fiction", in all of its six episodes, doesn't deviate from that, and it also is high on making political and social statements. That's pretty common in sci-fi, but it does get a bit old, especially in a world where the political statements on television are getting as monotonous as the...

Not masterful, but will have appeal for some
Masters of Science Fiction was a series produced for ABC that sought to capture some of the magic of The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. Of the six one-hour episodes made (under 45 minutes without the ads), all included here, only four were shown. The series was arguably not given a chance, as it was aired on Saturday nights in August, not a great time slot.

Some of the concepts are interesting and promising, and there are some top-notch actors, but I still didn't enjoy these much. On the whole the writing is superficial, the logic weak, and the atmospherics that might make up for that are only so-so. I only enjoyed one of the six episodes enough to say I liked it.

The first episode has a nice basic idea to work with, revealed bit by bit in a way that makes much description of the plot too much of a spoiler. Judy Davis plays a psychotherapist who has a patient (Sam Waterston) with a condition she is very anxious to cure, for reasons that are only made...

Pleasantly surprised at the quality...
Masters of Science Fiction: The Complete Series

This was surprisingly a pretty good short-lived series that came out last summer (summer of '2007) on ABC...and amazingly good talent such as Sam Waterson, Brian Dennehy, John Hurt, Terry O'Quinn, Anne Heche, Malcolm McDowell and Sean Astin. Just a bit frustrating that ABC like many networks just don't give science fiction much of a chance to really succeed and build an audience, of course it's not going to do well during summer evenings, because that when most of your potential audience is out of the house and not watching TV. Anyway, to science-fiction fans, this is a must-see. But I also encourage casual fans who love good acting and writing to check this out.

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