by Ricky Young
If this look-back at the 1983 BBC2 science-fiction season has a theme, it’s that if you’re a simple God-fearing man (or, to a lesser extent, woman), just trying to make his way in the world in the shadow of that first cracked atom, then whatever you do, for heaven’s sake give scientists a wide berth.
In nearly everything we’ve covered so far, men of science have either directly or indirectly been responsible for alien invasion, alien near-invasion, alien semi-invasion, or just alerting aliens to our existence so they can stage – yes! – an invasion. It’s almost as if American society in the 1950s went to bed at night afraid of sudden and total destruction from a massive yet amorphous enemy far away.
Not that such mattered to me, watching these films after my tea every Tuesday night for four months, a stripling of nine tender years. I’ve tried to revisit as many as I can, and I’ve found that it’s less the stories and the dialogue that have resonated over the ensuing three decades, but certain images, sound effects and colours.
It also sort-of explains why I blew up that government aerospace research lab that time, with everyone deliberately trapped inside. Goddamn good-for-nothing scientists.
Continue reading If My Calculations Are Correct, Part Two →
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