WAS1 Productions

Journey Into podcast presents a story which falls nicely into my Dystoporama series.  The episode features a show from the radio drama X-Minus One, To The Future by Ray Bradbury.

The tale features a pair of scientists, husband and wife, who hope to flee a dystopian war-ravaged world into the past of 1955. They are important to the government they have fled, as their work on new and terrible weapons is sorely needed, so they are pursued. Will they be able to escape the clutches of the seeker hunting them?

It’s a neat tale and has some fun touches, like how both the fugitives and the loyal government man pursuing them, cannot help but covet and indulge on the bounties of the past such as chocolates, liquor and cuban cigars. They must be out of victory gin in the year 2155.

This story was also published under the title “The Fox in the Forest.”

“The Daleks are your servants…”

The Daleks with their simple pepper pot construction and modulated voices are probably the most-iconic monsters of the Doctor Who British television series. They could be argued to be one of the best villains, even given that it took them thirty some years to learn how to navigate a simple set of stairs. Even so, they have always been my favorites. It doesn’t matter that one of their mechanical appendages is a toilet plunger, the rotating dome with its single eye stock and the laser weapon always fill me with equal parts excitement and dread,

The Daleks are a wonderful metaphor for the ultimate fascists in their unceasing efforts to exterminate what they consider all inferior races. “Genesis of the Daleks,” a Tom Baker story from 1975 built upon this. It featured the science team and Davros’ secret police, decked out in black SS style uniforms, toiling away in a secret bunker to win an unending war. The World War Two allusions were obvious but they were backed up with a tight story, giving an interesting bit of retroactive-continuity to the cyborg menace. Read the rest of this entry »

Our alien overlords just tell it like it is… if you’re wearing the sunglasses.

Given the impending dumpster fire in Washington and the overall zeitgeist of the current news outlets and social media theses days, I have decided to entertain myself with science fiction. I’m planning a blog project to review dystopian films and literature as an escape and also a creative exercise. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep it up, but I’m naming the project “Dystoporama 2017” and would love to make it a year-long project, if I have the stamina and attention span.

I watched “They Live” this past weekend. It’s a 1988 film directed by John Carpenter. I’d seen it twice before, but it has been probably eighteen years since the last viewing. It was pretty much as goofy and as fun as I remembered. Read the rest of this entry »