Multifandom recs

[selenak]

Discworld:

The BBC is currently broadcasting a radio version of Night Watch, available on iplayer for us non-British folks, and I'm listening, enthralled, to the first episode.

Blake's 7:

If you're a B7 fan, chances are you've already read this, but if you have not: a great new essay, on B7, Blake, Gareth Thomas and Chris Boucher. It's

Comments

[kerkevik_2014]

I love Night Watch! That and Small Gods are two of my all-time top radio adaptations.

Wish they'd repeat Stephen Baxter's Voyage; also the Radio 4 adaptation of Lord of the Rings and the Radio adaptation of Star Wars: A New Hope. They deserve to be heard on the radio again.

kerk

[selenak]

I've got the LotR adaption on CDs, but it would be nice if it were broadcast again, yes!

[kathyh]

Radio is what the BBC does best, not that I'm biased or anything. I first discovered Terry Pratchett through a reading on radio of Equal Rites, which can't have been long after it was published.

Fascinating essay on B7, which I both agreed and disagreed with. I do agree the series is unlikely to be remade because of terrorism, but I think the author forgot, or maybe didn't realise, that while the show was actually being broadcast acts of terrorism were occurring on the British mainland as well as Northern Ireland, which perhaps deserved a mention when accusing the BBC of cowardice.

The praise for Chris Boucher was well deserved but maybe Terry Nation should get some of the credit for the political nature of the show. From the Daleks to Survivors to B7 his work had a dystopian political element to it.

Damn, now I want to rewatch :)

[selenak]

The 70s were full of terrorism - we had the Baader Meinhof Group, of course. But I think both the distance of time and the different death scale tends to make people not consider this.

[zahrawithaz]

That Blake's 7 essay was fascinating, even for someone who's never seen the show. I wish it had been written in a more friendly way for newcomers (I think some of the throwaway opinions you disagree with function to establish an in-crowd vibe typical of fandom spaces, though I doubt they were intended that way), but I especially liked the point of how thoroughly we flatten things in memory. It made me think of the point we've discussed many times before, that DS9 & TNG are usually contrasted when they have quite a bit in common.

And it did make me want to see Blake's 7 and understand its influence on some of the media I love (especially DS9).

[selenak]

I especially liked the point of how thoroughly we flatten things in memory. It made me think of the point we've discussed many times before, that DS9 & TNG are usually contrasted when they have quite a bit in common.

Very true. And it happens to all of us; I try not to do it, but sometimes when I rewatch I realise that I've exaggarated Character X' trait to no end in my mind, and that show/movie y doesn't nearly emphasize such and such as much as I thought it did. Plus of course there are a great deal of people online who never watched certain shows or movies or read certain books to begin with, and still spout opinions about them based on fannish osmosis, which continues to their spreading, etc.

I think you'd enjoy B7. It's also a manageble canon, four seasons which are British-size, which means not 22 episodes per season but 13.

[zahrawithaz]

It is indeed a natural human tendency! I suppose self-awareness is the only cure.

I appreciate the recommendation, though I'm feeling a bit overloaded with space shows at the moment. I'm still trying to finish DS9, which I would like to write several essays on, am still completely obsessed with Wolf 359, am watching Killjoys in real time, and have started watching Farscape (because of its influence on Wolf 359)! If I keep watching all this, when am I going to write my essay comparing and contrasting Gul Dukat with [spoilery character] on Wolf 359? Or anything else?