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Testing the Audience
We just got back from Las Vegas. It’s a long drive through the desert, with nothing but country music on the radio. If you’re ever thinking about it, you have been warned. The last time we did the trip was around 1980, and that was by Greyhound bus. Back then it was essentially still ’50s…
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Crusoe Region 2
This one sneaked by without my hearing about it… the full season is now available on a Region 2 3-disc set, presumably replicating the content of the Region 1 release. Which will mean no DVD extras, which is a pity. NBC had a behind-the-scenes crew covering just about every aspect of the show’s making, and…
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The Future is Then
From the day that I saw Kenneth Kendall reading the BBC news on one in Kubrick’s 2001, A Space Odyssey, I wanted widescreen TV. Up until then, I’d no idea that the industry had domestic widescreen in its sights. But given the meticulousness of Kubrick’s research, I imagine that the notion was there on some…
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Children’s TV: a Rant from the Past
Both my website and this blog are being lined up for a design overhaul, and with content in mind I’ve been sifting through some old material. I don’t know what occasioned this rant, but the Thunderbirds movie reference dates it. I could have made changes… but nah. The few times I’ve brushed up against children’s…
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Evolution of an Idea
I’ve been organising my files and came across this short piece that I wrote about Eleventh Hour for some purpose or other. With Chimera‘s impending DVD appearance (news on those features soon, I promise) I thought I’d put it out here. It offers a kind of join-the-dots demonstration of how my thinking went over the…
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The Simpsons and Me
If you read my ‘back in LA‘ post a couple of weeks ago you’ll know that while walking in one of the city’s State Parks I was met by two Golden Retrievers, dripping wet and happy to share, closely followed by anxious family. And if you read on into the comments section you’ll know that’s…
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For Virtual, read ‘Nothing There’
Back when I was working on BUGS we grappled with several ‘virtual reality’ story ideas and none of them ever worked out. We finally concluded that they never would; an action show is about real perils, not perils that you know are merely perceived. When you send your characters into a virtual reality you’re essentially…
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Back in LA
Last night’s wrap party was great. I knew so many people there that I always had someone to talk to, unlike those vast BBC affairs where you just keep circulating because you don’t want to stand on your own looking like a tool. There were loads of people I didn’t know, as well, and some…
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Chimera on DVD
From Revelation Films with a launch date of May 24th, if you’re interested… Chimera wasn’t my first TV work but it was the one that upshifted my career and spoiled me for anything less than big-budget ‘event’ TV. Few official details yet but the product description reads, First broadcast on British TV in 1991, Chimera…
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Oh, Joy
Just as I finish catching up on the second season of the French cops’n’justice drama Engrenages (UK title: Spiral, screened on BBC4 with a credit for co-production), I see from the Canal Plus website that a third season has just wrapped filming in Paris. Season Two was drug trafficking; in Season Three it’s a serial…
Hauling Like A Brooligan
Stephen Gallagher
