Science Fiction

    I have been a fan of science fiction for quite some time.  Below, in no particular order,  find my ramblings on different topics and links to better sites.
 

SciFi Club

    Yes, there is a science fiction club at the University of Colorado.  We only started about three weeks ago, we're miniscule and we haven't been advertising heavily.  But it's there.  If you're even looking at this page and you're in town, that suggests you might be interested.  Click the heading above for the latest info.  Right now.  I'm not kidding.
 

VTSFFC

    Pronounced "vit-sfik".  This stands for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Club at Virginia Tech.  Well, actually it doesn't because that would be SFFCVT, and then where would we be?  Anyway, I used to go to Virginia Tech.  In fact, I was the president of this club in my fourth year.  And I STILL turned out ok.  Their page is much better than mine, so go visit them.  Also, check out the sci-fi convention they put on, which is . . .
 

Technicon

 
This is a SciFi convention in Blacksburg, VA.  It's small, but dear to me as it is the first con I'd ever been to.  I was immediately inspired to work as con staff and stayed involved throughout my college career.  I was the chair for Technicon 18 in March 2001.  I learned never to do that again.  I still return every March for it since that's the best way to see all the friends I have there and those who have moved elsewhere.  I suggest you to go to this con, even if you have to sell your internal organs to get there.  

Mystery Science Theater 3000

    Inarguably the greatest show of all time.  Ever.  If you don't know it here's the premise.
 
    A character named Joel Robinson (played by Joel Hodgson) works as a janitor at Gizmonic Institute.  His bosses, Drs. Clayton Forrester (Trace Beaulieu) and Laurence Erhardt (Josh Weinstein, no not the same one as the Simpsons) decide to use Joel as a test case for their experiment.  They launch Joel into space in the Sattelite of Love and flee to Deep 13, a cavernous lair deep below the main levels of Gizmonic Institute.  Every week Drs. Forrester and Erhardt send him one of the worst movies ever made and force him to watch it.  We're talking films like "Bride of the Monster", "Zombie Nightmare", and "Manos:  the Hands of Fate".  Meanwhile Joel has built some robot companions.  Cambot records the program.  Gypsy (Jim Mallon) maintains the ship's higher functions.  Tom Servo (Josh Weinstein) and Crow (Trace Beaulieu) watch the movie with Joel and generally keep him sane.  As we watch the movie, the sillhouettes of Joel and the bots can be seen at the bottom of the screen in a row of theater seats.  Joel, Servo and Crow mercilessly riff the movie, providing entertainment to us the viewers.  Before the movie, Joel and the Mads have an "invention exchange" showing off such devices as the flaming gag flower, the chiro-gyro, and my personal favorite, the Tough Loveseat.  At half hour intervals, Joel and the 'Bots can leave the theater.  During these brief host segments, they'll usually have some kind of the skit or a song making fun of the movie.

    At the beginning of season 2, Dr. Erhardt has gone missing.  Dr. Forrester has found a new assistant in the form of TV's Frank (Frank Conniff).  Tom Servo gets a new voice (Kevin Murphy).  Midway through season 5, Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank hire a temp worker, Mike Nelson (Michael J. Nelson).  The Mads plan to elimitate Mike when his job his finished.  Gypsy overhears the Mads plotting, but thinks they're planning to kill Joel.  She finds an escape pod hidden in a crate of Hamdingers (where noone would think to look) and forces Joel into it.  Gypsy ends up saving Mike's life, for when the Mads find out that Joel lands safely in the Australian outback, they send Mike as a replacement.

    The Mads torture Mike the same way as they did Joel, but the inventions soon stop.  At the beginning of season six, Dr. Forrester unveils the Umbilicus, a physical link between Deep 13 and the Sattellite of Love.  Gypsy turns out to be part of the Umbilicus.  At the end of season six, Torgo the White arrives to take TV's Frank to second banana heaven, where toadies and lackies can be free of their oppresive masters.  Dr. Forrester's mother, Pearl Forrester (Mary Jo Pehl) arrives in season 7 to console Dr. Forrester about the loss of Frank.   At the end of the season, Dr. Forrester reveals that they've run out of funding (i.e. from Comedy Central) and cuts loose the satellite.  Gypsy gains control of the ship and flies it to the edge of the universe where Mike and the 'bots become pure energy.

    This was to be the end, but the SciFi channel picked the show up for three more years.  Five hundred years later, Mike and the Bots return to the Satellite of Love to find that Crow has been living there by himself all this time.  Crow has a new voice (Bill Corbett) and doesn't remember Mike.  Gypsy (now voiced by Patrick Brantseg) pilots the ship back to Earth where we find it has become planet of the Apes.  Professor Bobo (Kevin Murphy) begins sending them movies provided by the Lawgiver.  We find out that the Lawgiver is none other than Pearl Forrester who had herself cryogenically frozen.  The nuclear bomb-worshippers from "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" appear and eventually blow up the planet.  Pearl and Bobo escape to the world of the Observers, all-knowing creatures who exist using "only their minds".  They actually have bodies that carry their brains around.  In the end, Mike blows up the planet.  One of the Observers (Bill Corbett) escapes with Pearl and Bobo and hunt Mike around the universe.  Mike "Destroyer of Worlds" Nelson blows up another planet.  They stop by Ancient Rome era Earth and eveutally return to present-day Earth where Pearl takes up residence in her ancestral castle and tortures Mike from there for the next two years.  At the beginning of season 10, the satellite begins to disintegrate.  Joel returns to the ship to make repairs and then leaves.  He doesn't rescue them.  At the end of season 10, they do return ot Earth where Mike and the 'bots move into a cheap apartment where they hang out and watch bad movies.

    All this plot development occurs in bits during the 3-minute host segments between movie watchings.  It's actually much more sophisticated than many of the movies they're forced to watch.  In summary, mad scientists shoot a man into space where he hangs out with robots and is forced to watch cheesy movies.   I may evenutally post a listing of the episodes I have.  I'd love a complete collection, but as the rights to many of the films have expired, I doubt if that will be possible.  For now, just check out the links.
 

Babylon 5

    This is a more serious scifi series.  Set in the mid 23rd century, most of the action takes place on Babylon 5, a five-mile long space station orbiting Epsilon Eridani 3.  Babylon 5 is run by the Earth Alliance and serves as a diplomatic post  between Earth and the other alien governments.   The show's creator, J. Michael Straczynski actually planned out a five-year story arc and amazingly, all five years were shown of TV.  Unlike many TV series, this has a definite beginning, middle and end.

    You can actually get this all on DVD.  The pilot, "The Gathering", and the first movie "In the Beginning" are on one DVD.  There's a box set for each of the first four 22-episode seasons.  The fifth season is scheduled to come out next month.  There are four more movies:  "Thirdspace, "River of Souls", "A Call to Arms", and "Legend of the Rangers".  Presumably those will also be released.  "A Call to Arms" was also the pilot for a spin-off series "Crusade".  Unfortunately only 13 episodes of Crusade were ever produced.  These are some good sites for some hot, buttery, Babylon-flavored goodness.

Red Dwarf

    Another comic series.  Dave Lister (Craig Charles) was a Technician Third-class aboard the mining ship Red Dwarf.  He had the misforturne to be teamed up with Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie), Technician Second-class, a mix of arrogance and incompetence.  Lister was found to have smuggled a cat on board.  Refusing to give it up, he agreed to go into stasis for the duration of the mission.  A radiation leak killed the entire crew and Lister was kept in stasis for three million years.  The only other survivor was Lister's pregnant cat who had been safely sealed in the hold.  Lister's only companions now are a holographic reproduction of Rimmer and an intelligent humanoid life form that evolved from his cat (Danny Jules-John).  At some point, they also pick up a neurotic robot named Kryten (Robert Llewellyn).