In
my previous blog post we had a flashback to 1970 and a nearly-forgotten science fiction film (
Toomorrow) about a pop music band. The film
Toomorrow featured a newly manufactured pop music band called Toomorrow that was hoped to become a music selling device similar to
The Monkees.
The Monkees were first beamed into people's homes in September 1966 along with
Star Trek. Also arriving in 1966 was
Dark Shadows. As a larval science nerdling, I immediately "got"
Star Trek. I was appalled by
The Monkees and
Dark Shadows.
Dark Shadows was an anomaly: a soap opera that came to feature vampires. It was broadcast in the late afternoon when kids were getting home from school. I can't blame
Dark Shadows for my dislike of horror, but the show did nothing to interest me in horror and paranormal themes.
Building on the "success" of
Dark Shadows, Dan Curtis brought out a series of horror and paranormal-themed movies including
The Night Stalker. A parnormal-themed television program (1974),
Kolchak: The Night Stalker, became a source of inspiration for Chris Carter, the creator of
The X-Files.
Sound Science
While
The Monkees were on television, there were endless Elvis movies such as
Easy Come, Easy Go (1967) written by people such as
Anthony Lawrence. The
bio for Lawrence at IMDB is funny.
In 1972, Lawrence brought to television
The Sixth Sense, his own entry in the"parnormal thriller" genre, a story about the adventures of a "professor of parapsychology". One episode (written by
Gene L. Coon not long before his death) included
William Shatner.
Harlan Ellison was the story editor.
Ten years later, with the help of
Nancy Lawrence,
The Phoenix was brought to television (see
the webpage of Diane Mullen). The
instructions for writers of episodes of
The Phoenix was written by Anthony and Nancy Lawrence. According to the ancient astronauts backstory for the show, aliens visited Earth 40,000 years ago and left behind
Bennu and Mira, two advanced life forms with human appearance who were to awaken when Humanity was ready for them to use their "psychic faculties" to help prepare humans for
alien contact.
The paranormal abilities of Bennu were to a great extent technology-assisted. Bennu was born on a distant exoplanet where music was a "super science". Bennu was destined to use the science of "
Sonics" to help the humans of Earth to attain a higher level of existence.
All this reminds me of the 1970 science fiction film
Toomorrow. In that film, the alien visitors to Earth wanted to use Earthly music to save their decaying civilization (or something). In
The Phoenix there was a criminal alien who specialized in "
creating discordant emotion and destructive passions" and who found his way to Earth.
Stargate was a more successful 1990's Sci Fi show that also incorporated Egyptian mythology as was done in
The Phoenix. After a quick look at the
original scripts and the television episodes that got made (they are on
YouTube) I get the feeling that there just was not adequate financial support to make
The Phoenix a viable show
. By
1987 Hollywood had figured out how to make modern Sci Fi television.
Next:
Alien Invasion, 1967
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