Outside the Beltway

AG Monday!

Part four (of four) on Harlan Ellison. This week: forays into TV and movies.

Steven L. Taylor
6

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In this episode, the last of our four-part series on Harlan Ellison, Steven and Tom discuss more of Ellison’s works on the big and small screen.

Come for A Boy And His Dog, both the novella and the movie version. It’s the rare film version of anything that Ellison wrote, and it’s also not bad. You want to know what’s really bad?

Stay for The Starlost, the monumentally awful Canadian science fiction TV series, based on Ellison’s idea for a show set on a giant space ark. But it was so mangled that Ellison disavowed it, as did its co-creator, Ben Bova. It’s remarkable the actors and everyone else involved with this show didn’t take their names off it, too. Is it the worst SF ever on television? We’ll tell you our very strong opinions on that subject. 

Apocalyptic disasters! Screenwriting disasters! Acting disasters! A telepathic dog who’s fun! Walter Koenig in his least fun role! The guy from 2001! The guy from Miami Vice! Piles of literal wreckage! Piles of metaphoric wreckage! It’s all here.

Ancient Geeks is a podcast about two geeks of a certain age re-visiting their youth. We were there when things like science fiction, fantasy, Tolkien, Star Trek, Star Wars, D&D, Marvel and DC comics, Doctor Who, and many, many other threads of modern geek culture were still on the fringes of popular culture. We were geeks before it was chic!

For feedback, contact someancientgeeks@gmail.com. You can also find us on Facebook, Reddit, and Bluesky. Also, check out the Ancient Geeks blog on Substack! And if you like what you hear, please tell a friend. Also, we always appreciate a review on the podcast platform of your choice.

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6 responses to “AG Monday!”

  1. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    And I thought a temporal anomaly had been discovered in the monolith around Jupiter/Saturn 😉

    1
  2. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Kathy: There was one, but it was rectified by reversing the polarity of the neutron flow.

    1
  3. Kingdaddy Avatar
    Kingdaddy

    But neutrons have no charge! You can’t reverse the polarity!

    Yes, I am a pedant. That, too, is irreversible.

    1
  4. steve222 Avatar
    steve222

    Let me first say that I am not a techie. I had little interest in podcasts as I prefer reading, which is faster for me. I have been taking long walks outdoors when the weather allows as I was told it’s good for me. (Also took up lifting weights.) So I tried to figure how to listen to these podcasts and couldn’t figure out how until today. I started with the first Harlan Ellison. While I read a lot, 3-4 books a week, I have never been that interested in the authors as people. I was aware of Ellison since I watched Snyder and Cavett when I was a teen and I remember Ellison being on with Snyder. I thought he was full of himself. Very bright and erudite, but full of himself and I also thought that if I was making the kind of money I thought he was making I would have been more careful about saying bad stuff about fans and producers.

    The first thing I read by him was a Boy And His Dog. I much preferred full length books when I was young so I only read stuff people in the sci-fi club recommended. Great writer.

    Steve

    3
  5. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    @steve222:

    I began to listen to podcasts in either 2011 or 2012, before I had a smartphone of any kind. I found out a local science radio show I like, El Explicador, had eps available for download. So I got a cheap Sony MP3 player. It was a bit bigger than a thumb drive, could connect directly to a USB port, and had a headphone jack. Later it served me to listen to the whole of Duncan’s The History of Rome podcast.

    Around 2013 we got Blackberry phones at work. Duncan often promoted Audible, and I was curious about it. The Blackberry had an Audible app available.

    Since then we began to get regular smartphones. Since then, too, I’ve listened to hundreds of audiobooks, and dozens of podcasts, while driving and cooking. It’s the best way to read for people who are short on free time.

    On the post’s topic, can an actor remove their name from a movie or TV show? Would it even do them any good, considering for most roles they’d be recognizable?

  6. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    “May God stand between you and harm in all the empty places where you must walk.” Sheridan’s Old Egyptian Blessing.

    But, which god? Ra, Horus, Seth, Hathor, Isis, Osiris?

    Me, I’d pick Sekhmet. She’s Ra’s enforcer, breathes fire, and heals disease. What more do you need for walking in empty places?

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