Having a great Sunday morning, this second one in Advent. Woke up to read a Zero- X comic strip called BREAK OUT illustrated by the superb Ron Turner. The story involves the jail break of one of the Austine brothers from Lunartraz with the aid of a robot [ very topical ]. Suffice to say that Captain Paul Travers and his OX crew save the day. Besides the Zero-X, Ron also included a beautiful looking space ship simply referred to as the 'crate', a vehicle worthy of the SWORD fleet. Has anyone else read Break Out?
Moving from Zero-X to another more famous star ship, USS Enterprise [ could the OX stand in for the Enterprise ? ], on TV now is Star Trek: The Original Series [TOS] on a newish UK Freeview channel called CBS Action. I'm obviously coming to this late as they are already showing episodes 19 and 20 of season two. The episodes this morning are A PRIVATE LITTLE WAR and RETURN TO TOMORROW. Six more to go. They are on at 6pm weeknights too.
One of the TOS classic monsters, Mugato, in A Private Little War
Sargon, supermind without matter, in Return to Tomorrow
The blurb explains that CBS have restored the colour quality of these programs. I remember as a kid thinking that Star Trek looked great on colour TV, the uniforms and backdrops all beautifully glowing in warm reds, yellows, blues and greens. These new screenings do seem even brighter. Whatever the colour quality, the stories are still excellent and engaging and there are few old TV series that excite me as much as the original Star Trek. Did you watch it as a kid readers? Is it still shown where you are?
Always loved original Trek, still do, can't really take to its descendents, I don't think they have the spirit of the original, too much politics in them.
ReplyDeleteYes, I believe that Zero X as a TV series would have been a serious contender for Star Trek. It would have required a lot of financing and well developed scripts to accommodate a more extensive storyline, with aliens, props and the other visual effects, to enhance the alien worlds that the Zero X crew would encounter. All in all it would have filled the appetite of Space hungery kids of the 60s/70s, but alas it was not to be. We now look back at what might have been but never was and all down to money and marketing and the right contacts. Regards Paul
ReplyDeleteIts a shame that Thunderbirds Are Go wasn't a commercial success. Maybe that would have been a springboard for further Zero-X projects. I agree it would have made a great TV series. But would it have been puppetry or live action do you think Paul?
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