Wrote 4,000 words of a new short story this weekend. Also, overdosed on Bryan Ferry + Roxy Music’s Platinum Collection 3-CD set. Man, was that ever the best fifteen dollars I ever spent, thank you JB Hi Fi!

We started watching A for Andromeda on DVD. Only one episode of the original production survives along with a few short extracts from other episodes.  The story is told with a series of labeled stills from the show. As we sat riveted to the screen, I realised that we are the absolute dictionary definitions of skiffy nerds. Its a 1961 sci fi series that doesn’t even exist , yet we’re still freaking watching it — and having a good time! It absolutely reeks of Quatermass.

I really should get more of a life, shouldn’t I?

7 Comments

  1. Actually, A For Andromeda sounds rather good. A decent SF plot, at least.

    But yes, you should perhaps get out a bit more. Come to Sydney again soon and we’ll get the gang together for a dinner or something.

  2. Join the circle…

    (Adds empty chair to the circle of sad fans)
    (chorus) Hi Cat!

    Given that three of us did exactly the same thing a couple of weeks back, I can sympathise. As we often say of similar things “We can stop any time we like!”

    That said, it says so much more for the quality of the acting, plotting, script writing, and direction that it is still so gripping in such a fragmented form, than says for our collective sadness. It is a very tight and riveting little series. We find we have a similar reaction to ‘Danger Man’, for example (although that is complete). It is rare to find such television these days.

    • Re: Join the circle…

      I love Danger Man too. And all that old Brit TV stuff…

  3. They did some of the old Doctor Who episodes that way I’m told… I always meant to get hold of them but I think you have to buy them off some clandestine black market these days…

  4. I’d been thinking of buying the ‘A for Andromeda’ DVD (I really like the book), but if there’s that little left of the original series, I think I might try renting it instead and waiting for the remake.

    Admittedly, I just bought the complete series of ‘UFO’ on DVD (it was marked down) and watched a few episodes on the weekend. Most of the episodes are as poorly written as I remember, but I’d forgotten just how often they showed women in their underwear: I can understand now why it carbonated my hormones when I was a teenager!

    Sexy women in fetishwear aside, I actually like many aspects of their version of the 1980s better than the real thing – particularly the multi-ethnic cast, the stated assumption that racism had been all but stamped out, and the existence of commercial as well as military lunar settlements. And the Nehru jackets, of course.

    • Andromeda comes as a double DVD along with its sequel. We haven’t watched that yet, but I certainly don’t regret the time or $$ spent on the mostly missing original. But that may well be an indicator of my extreme nerd quotient more than anything else.

      Ah yes, UFO. 1980, where beige was king.

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