On Jan 22, 10:19 am, Alan Dicey 
wrote:
> On 22/01/2011 03:53, John W. Kennedy wrote:
>
> > It's not a question of artistic value, but one of historic importance.
> > There are plenty of parallels. The American musical, for example, was
> > strongly influenced by "The Black Crook" (1866, I
think) and the 1902
> > "Wizard of Oz", but neither one is tolerable today. No
one ever does
> > "The Black Crook", and the single amateur performance
of "Wizard of
> > Oz" last summer was the first full-dress production since the 1920s.
> > Similarly, "Lost in Space" is a landmark, even though
most of it is
> > bloody awful. "Fireball XL-5" was a kiddy show,
"The Starlost" was
> > repudiated by its creator even before it went on the air, and
"UFO"
> > was an adult production of a kiddy-show concept. (And
"Fireball XL-5"
> > and "UFO" were British, anyway, which puts them out of
"Pioneers"'
> > purview.)
>
> What, British SF is somehow derivative?  Or is it just British TV?
I doubt the producers of "Pioneers of Television" are fools enough to
believe that, but this is their second year, and it is quite clear by
now that their focus is entirely on US TV. (This /episode/ was about
SF, but the /show/ is about early TV, and, quite obviously, early US
TV at that.)
(There has never been anywhere near as great a presence of British TV
in the US as the other way round. The Richard Greene "Robin Hood" and
similar shows did well in the 1950s, and I have a vague memory of
there being something about Scotland Yard. There was also the first
version of "Danger Man" in which John Drake was a Canadian working for
NATO. Later came "The Avengers" -- starting with Diana Rigg --, the
second version of "Danger Man", and "The Prisoner". There's been
almost nothing since on the major US networks, although, starting with
the old "Forsyte Saga", there's been a good deal of British television
shown on the Public Broadcasting System and, in recent years, BBC
America.)
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