Inside Space: Time Warp

Here’s a visual script from a segment I wrote and produced for the Sci-Fi Channel’s “Inside Space” television series back in 1993.

The host of the show was Nichelle Nichols.

Nichelle was the actress who played Lt. Uhurah from the original Star Trek television series.

She had he honor of performing the first interracial kiss on television with William Shatner (Captain Kirk).

 

TITLE SEQUENCE

The letters “Time Warp” are present through several stages in earth history…

Ancient sand that blows away…

A medieval parchment burning…

A Roman column cracking…

And the front cover to newspaper announcing that man has landed on the moon

THE SCRIPT

Pretend that the entire history of the universe spans only twenty-four hours.

Planet earth forms..

at four o’clock

The big bank occurs the instant after midnight.

But you will have to wait till three in the afternoon for the sun to ignite.

And life arrives in time for dinner…

at 6 in the evening.

With every tick of the cosmic clock…

a new species evolves and a moment later…

their gone forever.

With every tick of the cosmic clock a new species evolves and a moment later…

their gone forever.

Just a few minutes before midnight, the dinosaurs appear…

rule the earth and mysteriously disappear.

Somewhere, in the last minute before midnight, a hairless ape walks upright.

And in the last second on cosmic history, humans appear, logically contemplating the universe.

Thank you for joining us once again on this journey of discovery.  And I invite you all to watch us next week and every week as we travel again… Inside Space.

(End Title Sequence)

Inside Space… inSide space… inside SPACE… INside space… INSIDE SPACE!

Science Programming, Tabloid Television, and God

Years back, when I was writer/producer of the Sci-Fi Channel’s Inside Space series, I asked Dr. Carl Sagan to appear on the show. Carl was a legend – a Pulitzer Prize winning author, environmentalist, and human rights activist. He was also considered the most famous scientist in the world.

I was quite nervous on the day of the studio shoot. The Inside Space team wanted to present “real” space science subject matter, while the channel was pushing for something closer to “UFOs and Alien Abduction” stories. The Vice President of Programming told me straight out, that Inside Space should not be “heady” like the other PBS series (NOVA and Space Age) I’d worked on. The dictum was “play up Carl Sagan’s celebrity status and ask him about Aliens”. It was going to be a was tough balancing act – to explore “real” science and keep it entertaining enough to keep the tabloid style programmers off our backs.

When Carl walked onto the Inside Space set, he saw our backdrop – a 10 x 20 foot printed slide of the Horse Head Nebula. He uttered just one word, slowly – “A..s..t..r..o..n..o..m..i..c..a..l”. That one word broke the tension. We all laughed and got on with the ninety minute interview.

You Can Be a Superhero Too!

Just about every kid and every grown up guy I know wants to be a superhero like Batman. Unlike some of the other superheroes, like the Incredible Hulk, Batman isn’t from another planet, or a weird  mutant. Batman is a guy just like you and me – except that he has “balls” and makes himself useful  by using advanced  gadgets.

Batman is in the crime-fighting business, and he’s great at it because he has better “toys” than anyone else, and he knows how to use them! Now most of us are just regular people with wild fantasies and flabby tummies, but that doesn’t mean we can’t transform ourselves into being superheroes. All we need is some advanced and extreme devices – not those goofy Batman-themed trinkets. What we need are devices that will make up super productive, super connected,  and super mobil.

As Jack Nicholson’s Joker said in the first Batman movie (my favorite), “Where does he get those wonderful toys?”

– Here’s where.

Web Series Tied to “Blade Runner”

Ridley Scott,  the director of the 1982 science-fiction cult film “Blade Runner”, announced that a new division of his commercials company, RSA Films, was working on a video series called “Purefold.” The upcoming series of linked 5- to 10-minute shorts, which is to be aimed first at the Web and then (maybe) television, will be set some time before 2019, (when the original movie, starring Harrison Ford, took place in a dystopian Los Angeles).

Ridley Scott, his brother Tony and his son Luke are developing the project in conjunction with the independent studio Ag8, which is run by one of the creators of “Where are the Joneses?” a British Web sitcom that solicited storyline suggestions from the audience. “Purefold” will harvest story input from its viewers, in conjunction with the social media site FriendFeed.

But the series won’t be relying too heavily to the characters or situations in “Blade Runner ”  the film based on the  novel by Philip K. Dick “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”.

‘Star Trek’ Shown At The White House And Beamed Aboard ISS

The new Star Trek has arrived at the White House and all the way up to the International Space Station.

Paramount transferred Star Trek, which opened in theaters last weekend, earlier this week to NASA’s Mission Control in Houston, which then uplinked the film to the space station where NASA astronaut Michael Barratt can then watch the movie on a laptop computer inside the Unity module, 220 miles above Earth.

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How To Get What You Want From the Universe

Why is it that some people always seem to get what they want while others don’t? Is it because they were born into the right families and had the right genes? Or is it something else entirely… something powerful like a super-nova, yet subtle like a butterfly.

Boldly We Go… presents 5 strategies that can help guide you to shift your gears from being an earth-bound wanna-be to galactic champion. Follow these coordinates and you can overcome virtually any barrier set before you and claim whatever it is you want from the universe. But be forewarned…this is deep inner space exploration and will require both imagination and the ability to do what frightens you.

Spockama unquestionably knows what he wants and how to get it.

Barak Obama – Spockama – should be the poster child for coming out of nowhere and “getting what you want”. Raised in a broken home by a single, middle-class mom, this bi-racially challenged youth overcame traditional barriers for success – advantages his predecessor, George W. Bush, lavished in: upbringing, inheritance, education and wealth.

So what is Barak’s secret and how can you become more like “The Prez” and get what you want? Take a moment to think about it. (No cheating).