Adapting Science Fiction To Television

The book examines the difficulty of adapting from one screen medium to another by looking at both successful and unsuccessful efforts in the area of science fiction. Those difficult efforts at moving from film to TV and from TV to film reveal much about the technologies involved and this highly technological genre as well.

Before it reached television, science fiction existed on the printed page, in comic books, and on movie screens for decades. Adapting science fiction to the new medium posed substantial challenges: Small viewing screens and limited production facilities made it difficult to achieve the sense of wonder that had become the genre's hallmark. Yet, television also offered unprecedented opportunities. Its serial nature allowed for longer, more complex stories, as well as developing characters and building suspense over time. Producers of science fiction television programming learned to create adaptations that honored the source material—literature, comics, or film—while taking full advantage of television's unique aesthetic. In Adapting Science Fiction to Television: Small Screen, Expanded Universe, Max Sexton and Malcolm Cook examine how the genre evolved over time. The authors consider productions in both the UK and the United States, ranging from Walt Disney's acclaimed "Man in Space"in the 1950s to the BBC's reimagined Day of the Triffids in the 1990s. Iconic characters from Flash Gordon and Captain Nemo to Superman and Professor Quatermass all play a role in this history, along with such authors as E. M. Forster and Wernher von Braun. The real stars of this study, however, are the pioneering producers and directors who learned how to bring imagined worlds and fantastic stories into living rooms across the globe. The authors make the case that television has become more sophisticated, capable of taking on larger themes and deploying a more complex use of the image than other media. A unique reappraisal of the history and dynamics of the medium, Adapting Science Fiction Television will be of interest not only to scholars of science fiction, but to anyone interested in the early history of television, as well as the evolution of its unique capacity to tell stories.

“A richly detailed and critically penetrating overview . . . from the plucky adventures of Captain Video to the postmodern paradoxes of The X-Files and Lost.” —Rob Latham, coeditor of Science Fiction Studies Exploring such hits as The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, and Lost, among others, The Essential Science Fiction Television Reader illuminates the history, narrative approaches, and themes of the genre. The book discusses science fiction television from its early years, when shows attempted to recreate the allure of science fiction cinema, to its current status as a sophisticated genre with a popularity all its own. J. P. Telotte has assembled a wide-ranging volume rich in theoretical scholarship yet fully accessible to science fiction fans. The book supplies readers with valuable historical context, analyses of essential science fiction series, and an understanding of the key issues in science fiction television.

Once confined solely to literature and film, science fiction has emerged to become a firmly established, and wildly popular, television genre over the last half century. The Essential Science Fiction Television Reader provides insight into and analyses of the most important programs in the history of the genre and explores the breadth of science fiction programming. Editor J. P. Telotte and the contributors explain the gradual transformation of the genre from low-budget cinematic knockoffs to an independent and distinct televisual identity. Their essays track the dramatic evolution of early hits such as The Twilight Zone and Star Trek into the science fiction programming of today with its more recent successes such as Lost and Heroes. They highlight the history, narrative approaches, and themes of the genre with an inviting and accessible style. In essays that are as varied as the shows themselves, the contributors address the full scope of the genre. In his essay "The Politics of Star Trek: The Original Series," M. Keith Booker examines the ways in which Star Trek promoted cultural diversity and commented on the pioneering attitude of the American West. Susan George takes on the refurbished Battlestar Galactica series, examining how the show reframes questions of gender. Other essays explore the very attributes that constitute science fiction television: David Lavery's essay "The Island's Greatest Mystery: Is Lost Science Fiction?"calls into question the defining characteristics of the genre. From anime to action, every form of science fiction television is given thoughtful analysis enriched with historical perspective. Placing the genre in a broad context, The Essential Science Fiction Television Reader outlines where the genre has been, where it is today, and where it may travel in the future. No longer relegated to the periphery of television, science fiction now commands a viewership vast enough to sustain a cable channel devoted to the genre.

American Science Fiction Film and Television presents a critical history of late 20th Century SF together with an analysis of the cultural and thematic concerns of this popular genre. Science fiction film and television were initially inspired by the classic literature of HG Wells and Jules Verne. The potential and fears born with the Atomic age fuelled the popularity of the genre, upping the stakes for both technology and apocalypse. From the Cold War through to America's current War on Terror, science fiction has proved a subtle vehicle for the hopes, fears and preoccupations of a nation at war. The definitive introduction to American science fiction, this is also the first study to analyse SF across both film and TV. Throughout, the discussion is illustrated with critical case studies of key films and television series, including The Day the Earth Stood Still, Planet of the Apes, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The X-Files, and Battlestar Galactica.

The Routledge Companion to Adaptation offers a broad range of scholarship from this growing, interdisciplinary field. With a basis in source-oriented studies, such as novel-to-stage and stage-to-film adaptations, this volume also seeks to highlight the new and innovative aspects of adaptation studies, ranging from theatre and dance to radio, television and new media. It is divided into five sections: Mapping, which presents a variety of perspectives on the scope and development of adaptation studies; Historiography, which investigates the ways in which adaptation engages with – and disrupts – history; Identity, which considers texts and practices in adaptation as sites of multiple and fluid identity formations; Reception, which examines the role played by an audience, considering the unpredictable relationships between adaptations and those who experience them; Technology, which focuses on the effects of ongoing technological advances and shifts on specific adaptations, and on the wider field of adaptation. An emphasis on adaptation-as-practice establishes methods of investigation that move beyond a purely comparative case study model. The Routledge Companion to Adaptation celebrates the complexity and diversity of adaptation studies, mapping the field across genres and disciplines.

The most successful and controversial Cuban Science Fiction writer of all time, Yoss (aka José Miguel Sánchez Gómez) is known for his acerbic portraits of the island under Communism. In his bestselling A Planet for Rent, Yoss pays homage to Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles and 334 by Thomas M. Disch. A critique of Cuba in the nineties, after the fall of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, A Planet for Rent marks the debut in English of an astonishingly brave and imaginative Latin American voice. Praise for Yoss “One of the most prestigious science fiction authors of the island.” —On Cuba Magazine "A gifted and daring writer." —David Iaconangelo "José Miguel Sánchez [Yoss] is Cuba’s most decorated science fiction author, who has cultivated the most prestige for this genre in the mainstream, and the only person of all the Island’s residents who lives by his pen.” —Cuenta Regresiva Born José Miguel Sánchez Gómez, Yoss assumed his pen name in 1988, when he won the Premio David Award in the science fiction category for Timshel. Together with his peculiar pseudonym, the author's aesthetic of an impentinent rocker has allowed him to stand out amongst his fellow Cuban writers. Earning a degree in Biology in 1991, he went on to graduate from the first ever course on Narrative Techniques at the Onelio Jorge Cardoso Center of Literary Training, in the year 1999. Today, Yoss writes both realistic and science fiction works. Alongside these novels, the author produces essays, Praise for, and compilations, and actively promotes the Cuban science fiction literary workshops, Espiral and Espacio Abierto. When he isn’t translating, David Frye teaches Latin American culture and society at the University of Michigan. Translations include First New Chronicle and Good Government by Guaman Poma de Ayala (Peru, 1615); The Mangy Parrot by José Joaquín Fernandez de Lizardi (Mexico, 1816), for which he received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship; Writing across Cultures: Narrative Transculturation in Latin America by Ángel Rama (Uruguay, 1982), and several Cuban and Spanish novels and poems.