Careful What You Wish For II

If you miss Part 1…

I’m going to do a lot of moppy whingeing here so if you don’t feel like it, I understand. Old guys whining, “It was better in the old days” is a load of crap. It sucked in the old days. We just didn’t know it.

I’m talking about Science Fiction television. I’m talking about the 1970s. The number one show in 1970 was Marcus Welby, M.D. 1971 to 1975 was All in the Family. 1976 saw that change to Happy Days. 1977-1979 it was Laverne & Shirley. On this list of the top shows of the 1970s only one has a fantastic element: Kolchak the Night Stalker. It lasted one season.

Which isn’t to say there wasn’t any Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror TV because there was. But try and explain to my grown sons. (Millennials, a group I actually have a lot of respect for. Their ideas on race, on religion and other social issues fill me with pride. They are so much better than I was at that age.) I show them Space 1999 or even Star Trek TOS and they laugh. They complain it’s boring. (Those episodes ran a good 50+ minutes.) They don’t understand why these shows were gold.

Which begs the question: why are the old 1970s shows so important to me? The acting is bad, the special effects old, the writing worse. What do I care about The Man from Atlantis when I can watch CGI and The Expanse? (Which I do, but that’s not what is important.) Is it just nostalgic? Remembering what it was like to be 12, not yet interested in girls just yet. Being thrilled by the idea of a planet where apes are the dominate species. Being fascinated by an invisible man who can solve crimes. Or a family trapped in a land of the lost with dinosaurs and sleestaks. You get the idea. This fantastic stuff was important to me. It was the very breath of life.

The 1970s were trying times (as if 2020 doesn’t say, “Hold my beer.”) We had the war in Viet Nam, the threat of nuclear war, the energy crisis, environmental doomsayers (We should have listened!) and all the usual crap that kids have to put up with. And my coping mechanism (not disco and cocaine) was Science Fiction. I could look at Kirk and know things were solvable. (Yes, I know Star Trek was a 1960s show, but it was rerun in Canada every Saturday. It was really in the 1970s that my generation fell in love with the show.) Commander Koenig’s moon might be spinning off into space, but things would work out. Science Fiction television may have been the only truly optimistic thing around. It was the foundation of my own outlook on life. And that, despite bad special effects, I am an optimistic even to these crazy times we are in now.

What about my boys? They grew up in the 1990s-2000s. I made sure they had Star Wars and Jurassic Park and Street Sharks and Spider-man and…. They were raised in a home built not on Hockey or classic cars or hunting or even politics. They were raised on Science Fiction and Fantasy (and later Horror). In our home (and now their homes) no one quotes Vince Scully or Robert F. Kennedy or even Shakespeare. It’s Red Dwarf, Aliens, Doctor Who, etc. It’s a nerd-nest. I admit that. I own that. I am a fan. They are fans. (Which became a lot coolier after The Big Bang Theory came along, but we were (and are) the real deal.) Science Fiction is a Way of Life…

That thirteen year old me who read Starlog and Fangoria knew everything about every new SF film that was going to show up at my local theater. He was dedicated. And my kids… aren’t that same level of rabid. They love their fantasy MMORPGs, their The Walking Dead debates about comics versus TV, Japanese anime and I know they are cut from the same bolt of nerd cloth. I raised them right. (That ought to fuel a ton of rancid response on social media.) I raised them to look beyond the surface. To revel in the fantastic. To be optimistic about the future. (I wish I could promise them an easier world after I am gone.)

So even if they sneer at the Six Million Dollar Man or The Bionic Woman, I know they love all the same stuff, just in their own 21st century rendition. Generation gaps are real but SF bridges that gap like nothing else. We go to the same cons, watch the same characters. (I remember Adam West in that bat suit even if they don’t. When Peter Serafinowicz mimicked him so well in The Tick, I laughed, and my youngest son had no idea why.) They don’t understand, but they do. What really matters, that life is a fantastic voyage and not a dull, dull affair in “the real world” (as if it was real!). And some day I hope to see that love passed on to the next generation (Grampa envy!). If nothing else, when I am in my wheelchair and my grandchild says “The Walking Dead” is so lame.” My son will turn to me to defend his idols, and I will simply wet my diaper with glee.