Think back. Maybe to last week; maybe 40 years ago. You're watching an episode of perhaps your favorite TV series, or a brand new series, or just randomly tuning in. And there it is ... a story, a character, an actor, an idea, a visual, an opening theme, a moment ... that locked you in, and changed the way you view television and made you a fan forever.
Here's mine:
1963. The first season of the original science fiction series The Outer Limits. An episode called "The Architects of Fear" by a writer named Meyer Dolinsky. The premise of the episode: A group of prominent scientists worried about the nuclear destruction of the Earth from war-mongering nations and cultures unable to get along. They come up with a brilliant scheme: Create a common fear for ALL nations of the Earth that would unite people in their fear rather than divide them by it. They pick straws. A Scientist loses (Robert Culp). He will spend the next few months being transformed into a scarecrow - a lab-created alien from another world, who will land in a spaceship, go to the United Nations and threaten the world, thereby scaring the nations of the Earth into cooperating against a common threat. People pull together during disasters or common threats. It HAS to work.
Of course the moment he lands off course, he's shot by hunters and makes his way back to the lab to die only to run into his wife, who was told he had been killed in an auto accident. She screams at the sight of the monster. But then he makes a gesture only she can recognize and she suddenly realizes that this is her husband. He dies. And his fellow scientists try vainly to explain to her what they were trying and failed to do.
Okay, I'm eight years old watching this show and I am blown away. I never would have conceived this medium could have been used for anything so powerful, so dramatic, so in your face, so moving (and still have a very cool monster). From that moment on I truly believed in the power of the medium to express stories and ideas that, potentially, could change the world. Or, at the very least, entertain the hell out of us.
And here we are 45 years later in a world still ruled by the fear-mongers. By people still creating a boogie man to pit one country or culture against another instead of trying to find what could commonly unite us. So when I see this group of scientists from countries around the world this week getting together in Bali to discuss apocalyptic climate change, I can't help but think back to this television episode all those years ago. Maybe the crisis isn't so severe, maybe it's all a big hoax like some people want us to believe. But what's wrong with the idea of a COMMON threat that might unite the Earth in some powerful changes in the way we live our lives, do our business, and treat our planet? If it all IS just another big scarecrow, so what? If that's the only thing people respond to, and the end result has a positive effect on our fragile planet and people, what's the down side?
Okay, so maybe I'm just an idealist, a pacifist, a bleeding heart, a dreamer ... but if so, the dream began on a Friday night in black & white listening to the "control voice" some 45 years ago.
So what's your episode, your show? It doesn't have to be anything quite this ... Earth-shaking, it could be something as simple as, well, your first moment of lust (Barbara Eden), or the moment you discovered exactly what makes you laugh your *** off (Monty Python).
Think back. And remind us why we're all here on this forum again.
Here's mine:
1963. The first season of the original science fiction series The Outer Limits. An episode called "The Architects of Fear" by a writer named Meyer Dolinsky. The premise of the episode: A group of prominent scientists worried about the nuclear destruction of the Earth from war-mongering nations and cultures unable to get along. They come up with a brilliant scheme: Create a common fear for ALL nations of the Earth that would unite people in their fear rather than divide them by it. They pick straws. A Scientist loses (Robert Culp). He will spend the next few months being transformed into a scarecrow - a lab-created alien from another world, who will land in a spaceship, go to the United Nations and threaten the world, thereby scaring the nations of the Earth into cooperating against a common threat. People pull together during disasters or common threats. It HAS to work.
Of course the moment he lands off course, he's shot by hunters and makes his way back to the lab to die only to run into his wife, who was told he had been killed in an auto accident. She screams at the sight of the monster. But then he makes a gesture only she can recognize and she suddenly realizes that this is her husband. He dies. And his fellow scientists try vainly to explain to her what they were trying and failed to do.
Okay, I'm eight years old watching this show and I am blown away. I never would have conceived this medium could have been used for anything so powerful, so dramatic, so in your face, so moving (and still have a very cool monster). From that moment on I truly believed in the power of the medium to express stories and ideas that, potentially, could change the world. Or, at the very least, entertain the hell out of us.
And here we are 45 years later in a world still ruled by the fear-mongers. By people still creating a boogie man to pit one country or culture against another instead of trying to find what could commonly unite us. So when I see this group of scientists from countries around the world this week getting together in Bali to discuss apocalyptic climate change, I can't help but think back to this television episode all those years ago. Maybe the crisis isn't so severe, maybe it's all a big hoax like some people want us to believe. But what's wrong with the idea of a COMMON threat that might unite the Earth in some powerful changes in the way we live our lives, do our business, and treat our planet? If it all IS just another big scarecrow, so what? If that's the only thing people respond to, and the end result has a positive effect on our fragile planet and people, what's the down side?
Okay, so maybe I'm just an idealist, a pacifist, a bleeding heart, a dreamer ... but if so, the dream began on a Friday night in black & white listening to the "control voice" some 45 years ago.
So what's your episode, your show? It doesn't have to be anything quite this ... Earth-shaking, it could be something as simple as, well, your first moment of lust (Barbara Eden), or the moment you discovered exactly what makes you laugh your *** off (Monty Python).
Think back. And remind us why we're all here on this forum again.
