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57-507: Phoenix Five is an Australian science fiction television series which first screened on the ABC in 1970. It was later also screened on the Seven Network . It was part of a trilogy and followed on from the six part serial The Interpretaris in 1966 and seven part serial Vega 4 in 1968. However, it had 26 standalone episodes produced to make it viable as a syndicated series. Each of

114-634: A suspension of disbelief by a technologically educated audience: Some of the effects are what would be expected from a powerful directed-energy beam if it could be generated in reality: But sometimes not: Ultimately, rayguns have whatever properties are required for their dramatic purpose. They bear little resemblance to real-world directed-energy weapons, even if they are given the names of existing technologies such as lasers, masers , or particle beams . This can be compared with real-type firearms as commonly depicted by action movies , as tending infallibly to hit whatever they are aimed at (when wielded by

171-424: A conventional grip and trigger but some (e.g. Star Trek: The Next Generation phasers ) do not. Sometimes the end of the barrel expands into a shield, as if to protect the user from back-flash from the emitted beam. The "rays" the guns use vary. They are sometimes equated to real life technologies such as: Alternately, the weapon mechanics can be purely fictional. Fictional ray types include: The following

228-528: A female superhero, wears traditional folkloric clothes and tries to save traditional elements of Dutch society against the factory owners. Italian TV shows include A come Andromeda (1972) which was a remake of 1962 BBC serial, A for Andromeda (from the novels of Hoyle and Elliott), Geminus (1968), Il segno del comando (1971), Gamma (1974) and La traccia verde (1975). French series are Highlander: The Series , French science-fiction/fantasy television series (both co-produced with Canada) and

285-453: A group of Dutch space explorers and their adventures, De duivelsgrot (The devil's cave), broadcast from 1963 to 1964, about a scientist who finds the map of a cave that leads to the center of the Earth and Treinreis naar de Toekomst (Train journey to the future) about two young children who are taken to the future by robots who try to recreate humanity, but are unable to give the cloned humans

342-611: A growing number of followers. The British series, Doctor Who , has similarly attracted a devoted following. In the late 1990s, a market for celebrity autographs emerged on eBay , which created a new source of income for actors, who began to charge money for autographs that they had previously been doing for free. This became significant enough that lesser-known actors would come to conventions without requesting any appearance fee, simply to be allowed to sell their own autographs (commonly on publicity photos). Today most events with actor appearances are organized by commercial promoters, though

399-474: A large amount of superhero -themed animation, much of this adapted from comics series, while the impossible characters and settings allowed in animation made this a preferred medium for both fantasy and for series aimed at young audiences. Originally, animation was all hand-drawn by artists, though in the 1980s, beginning with Captain Power , computers began to automate the task of creating repeated images; by

456-630: A man who becomes trapped in a telephone booth, while passersby seem unable to help him, won the 1973 International Emmy Award for Fiction. The series Plutón B.R.B. Nero (2008) was a brutal SF comedy by Álex de la Iglesia , in the line of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , Red Dwarf , or Doctor Who , with 26 episodes of 35 minutes. Other series of the 2010s were Los protegidos (2010-2012), El barco (2011-2013), and El internado (2007-2010), all three inspired by North American productions, with minor SF elements. The latest success

513-469: A number of fan-run conventions still exist, such as Toronto Trek and Shore Leave . The 1985 series Robotech is most often credited as the catalyst for the Western interest in anime. The series inspired a few fanzines such as Protoculture Addicts and Animag both of which in turn promoted interest in the wide world of anime in general. Anime's first notable appearance at SF or comic book conventions

570-428: A number of smaller fiction/fantasy television series, including Tang in 1971, about a secret organization that attempts to control the world with a new super weapon, "Les atomistes" and 1970 miniseries "La brigade des maléfices". Another French-produced science fiction series was the new age animated series Il était une fois... l'espace (English: Once upon a time...space ). Anime-influenced animation includes

627-812: A passage from The Messiah of the Cylinder : All is not going well, Arnold: the ray-rods are emptying fast, and our attack upon the lower level of the wing has failed. Sanson has placed a ray-gun there. All depends on the air-scouts, and we must hold our positions until the battle-planes arrive. The variant "ray projector" was used by John W. Campbell in The Black Star Passes in 1930. Related terms "disintegrator ray" dates to 1898 in Garrett P. Serviss ' Edison's Conquest of Mars ; "blaster" dates to 1925 in Nictzin Dyalhis ' story "When

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684-503: A pyrotechnic during filming, and then an optical glowing line added to the film image in post-production. Stunts are another important category of physical effects. In general, all kinds of special effects must be carefully planned during pre-production . Babylon 5 was the first series to use computer-generated imagery , or "CGI", for all exterior space scenes, even those with characters in space suits. The technology has made this more practical, so that today models are rarely used. In

741-524: A raygun is the Heat-Ray featured in H. G. Wells ' novel The War of the Worlds (1898). Science fiction during the 1920s described death rays . Early science fiction often described or depicted raygun beams making bright light and loud noise like lightning or large electric arcs . According to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction , the word "ray gun" was first used by Victor Rousseau in 1917, in

798-624: A science fiction television series based upon Zoran Živković's story, winner of a World Fantasy Award . Návštěvníci (The Visitors) was a Czechoslovak (and Federal German, Swiss and French) TV series produced in 1981 to 1983. The family show aired in a larger number of European countries. For a list of notable science fiction series and programs on television, see: List of science fiction television programs . People who have influenced science fiction on television include: [REDACTED] Media related to Science fiction television programmes at Wikimedia Commons Raygun A raygun

855-400: A series of French-Japanese cartoons / anime , including such titles as Ulysses 31 (1981), The Mysterious Cities of Gold (1982), and Ōban Star-Racers (2006). The first Spanish SF series was Diego Valor , a 22 episode TV adaption of a radio show hero of the same name based on Dan Dare , aired weekly between 1958 and 1959. Nothing was survived of this series, not a single still; it

912-462: A soul. All three of these television series were aimed mostly at children. Later television series were Professor Vreemdeling (1977) about a strange professor who wants to make plants speak and Zeeuws Meisje  [ nl ] (1997) a nationalistic post-apocalyptic series where the Netherlands has been built full of housing and the highways are filled with traffic jams. The protagonist,

969-492: A staggering array of models; the USS Enterprise had to be built in several different scales for different needs. Models fell out of use in filming in the 1990s as CGI became more affordable and practical, but even today, designers sometimes construct scale models which are then digitized for use in animation software. Models of characters are puppets . Gerry Anderson created a series of shows using puppets living in

1026-412: A typical heroic Kirk -style commander with a solution to every problem; Ensign Adam Hargraves , his stalwart young second-in-command always ready to shoot first and skip the questions; compassionate young navigator Cadet Tina Kulbrick ; and their clunky, glass-domed Computeroid robot Karl . Together they patrolled the outer galaxies defending the innocent and warding off the repeated plots and attacks of

1083-553: A universe of models and miniature sets, notably Thunderbirds . ALF depicted an alien living in a family, while Farscape included two puppets as regular characters. In Stargate SG-1 , the Asgard characters are puppets in scenes where they are sitting, standing, or lying down. In Mystery Science Theater 3000 , the characters of Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo , two of the show's main (and most iconic) characters, are puppets constructed from random household items. As animation

1140-505: Is El ministerio del tiempo ( The ministry of time ), premiered on February 24, 2015 on TVE 's main channel La 1 . The series follows the exploits of a patrol of the fictional Ministry of Time, which deals with incidents caused by time travel. It has garnered several national prizes in 2015, like the Ondas Prize , and has a thick following on-line, called los ministéricos . Serbia produced The Collector ( Sakupljač ),

1197-597: Is a science-fiction directed-energy weapon usually with destructive effect. They have various names: ray gun , death ray , beam gun , blaster , laser gun , laser pistol , phaser , zap gun , etc. In most stories a raygun emits a ray usually lethal if it hits a human target, often destructive if it hits mechanical objects, with properties and other effects unspecified or varying. Real-world analogues are directed-energy weapons or electrolasers : electroshock weapons which send current along an electrically conductive laser-induced plasma channel. A very early example of

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1254-469: Is completely free of the constraints of gravity, momentum, and physical reality, it is an ideal technique for science fiction and fantasy on television. In a sense, virtually all animated series allow characters and objects to perform in unrealistic ways, so they are almost all considered to fit within the broadest category of speculative fiction (in the context of awards, criticism, marketing, etc.) The artistic affinity of animation to comic books has led to

1311-438: Is not known if the show was even recorded or just a live broadcast. The 60s were dominated by Chicho Ibáñez Serrador and Narciso Ibáñez Menta , who adapted SF works from Golden Age authors and others to a series titled Mañana puede ser verdad . Only 11 episodes were filmed. The 70s saw three important television films, Los pajaritos (1974), La Gioconda está triste (1977), and La cabina (1972), this last one, about

1368-404: Is on screen at once. In general, science fiction series are subject to the same financial constraints as other television shows. However, high production costs increase the financial risk, while limited audiences further complicate the business case for continuing production. Star Trek was the first television series to cost more than $ 100,000 per episode, while Star Trek: The Next Generation

1425-527: The Australian Broadcasting Corporation . Later series made in the 1960s included The Interpretaris (1966) Vega 4 (1967), and Phoenix Five (1970). The country's best known Science Fiction series was Farscape ; an American co-production, it ran from 1999 to 2003. A significant proportion of Australian produced Science Fiction programmes are made for the teens/young Adults market, including The Girl from Tomorrow ,

1482-729: The Super Robots such as Mitsuteru Yokoyama 's Tetsujin 28-go ( Gigantor ) and Go Nagai 's Mazinger Z , and the Real Robots such as Yoshiyuki Tomino 's Gundam series and Shōji Kawamori 's Macross series. Other primary aspects of Japanese science fiction television are the superhero tokusatsu (a term literally meaning special effects ) series, pioneered by programs such as Moonlight Mask and Planet Prince . The suitmation technique has been used in long running franchises include Eiji Tsuburaya 's Ultra Series , Shotaro Ishinomori 's Kamen Rider Series , and

1539-619: The Super Sentai Series. In addition, several dramas utilize science fiction elements as framing devices, but are not labeled as "tokusatsu" as they do not utilize actors in full body suits and other special effects. Among the notable German language productions are: Danish television broadcast the children's TV-series Crash in 1984 about a boy who finds out that his room is a space ship. Early Dutch television series were Morgen gebeurt het  [ nl ] (Tomorrow it will happen), broadcast from 1957 to 1959, about

1596-594: The 1950s". Doctor Who , which launched in 1963 and ran until 1989, then was revived in 2005, was listed in the Guinness World Records in 2006 as the longest-running science fiction television show in the world and as the "most successful" science fiction series of all time. Other cult British series in the science fiction genre include The Tomorrow People , Space: 1999 , Blake's 7 , Star Cops and Red Dwarf . Science fiction in Canada

1653-425: The 1990s, CGI required expensive processors and customized applications, but by the 2000s (decade), computing power has pushed capabilities down to personal laptops running a wide array of software. Models have been an essential tool in science fiction television since the beginning, when Buck Rogers took flight in spark-scattering spaceships wheeling across a matte backdrop sky. The original Star Trek required

1710-604: The 1990s, hand-drawn animation became defunct. In recent years as technology has improved, this has become more common, notably since the development of the Massive software application permits producers to include hordes of non-human characters to storm a city or space station. The robotic Cylons in the new version of Battlestar Galactica are usually animated characters, while the Asgard in Stargate SG-1 are animated when they are shown walking around or more than one

1767-661: The 90's and found their way to YouTube at various times. The series has often been belittled as a "Star Trek with gumtrees" but the original Interpretaris was made before Star Trek screened in Australia and it resembles more the children's TV space adventure series of the Fifties and Sixties like Rocky Jones, Space Ranger and Fireball XL5 , which had been screened a number of times on Australian television. It has also been criticized for its low budget, but it more expensive than most Australian dramas of this period because it

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1824-581: The Green Star Waned"; and "needle ray" and "needler" date to 1934 in E. E. Smith 's The Skylark of Valeron . Ray guns were so common on magazine covers during the Golden Age of Science Fiction that Campbell's Astounding was unusual for not depicting them. The term "ray gun" had already become cliché by the 1940s, in part due to association with the comic strips (and later film serials ) Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon . Soon after

1881-645: The Impossible , Michio Kaku used gamma ray bursts as an evidence to illustrate that extremely powerful rayguns such as the Death Star 's primary weapon in the Star Wars franchise do not violate known physical laws and theories. He further analyses the problem of rayguns' power sources. Ray guns as described by science fiction do not have the disadvantages that have, so far, made directed-energy weapons largely impractical as weapons in real life, needing

1938-591: The Planet Leonicus (from episode 3- To end is to begin), gold lame suits for the Phoenix Five crew and an aluminium suit for Karl the robot, with a perspex head covering fibreglass bulbs. Hicks said, of creating the 'Galaxy Garden' aboard the Phoenix Five: "I got ordinary commercial plastic plants and butchered them to make them look strange. In one sequence I made a gun to fire corrosive liquid onto

1995-652: The UK and other overseas markets in the 1970 & 1980s. It was repeated on the ABC in 1975 with the advent of Colour TV and last screened on ATN 7 and regional stations including WIN 4 Wollongong in the early 80's. All episodes exist complete in The National Sound and Film Archive but there has been no commercial release of the series, although odd eps of Interpretaris and Vega 4 and a dozen or so off air recordings of Phoenix Five have circulated among TV collectors since

2052-533: The domestic television market, most Canadian productions involve partnerships with production studios based in the United States and Europe. However, in recent years, new partnership arrangements are allowing Canadian investors a growing share of control of projects produced in Canada and elsewhere. Australia's first locally produced Science Fiction series was The Stranger (1964–65) produced and screened by

2109-425: The early 1990s had become one of the most popular dramas on American television. Star Trek fans continued to grow in number, and first began organizing conventions in the 1970s. No other show attracted a large organized following until the 1990s, when Babylon 5 attracted both Star Trek fans and a large number of literary SF fans who previously had not been involved in media fandom. Other series began to attract

2166-465: The evil balding, blue-skinned humanoid Zodian of Zebula 9 and the eccentric pointy-eared renegade scientist Platonus . Zodian originally appeared in Vega 4 , and he and his head-shaped twin computers Alpha and Zeta were in the first 13 episodes of Phoenix Five , then were replaced by Platonus and his Cockney -accented computer Tommy for the latter half. This was due to a production break caused by

2223-456: The first decade of the 21st century, changes in provincial tax legislation prompted many production companies to move from Toronto to Vancouver . Recent popular series produced in Vancouver include The Dead Zone , Smallville , Andromeda , Stargate Atlantis , Stargate Universe , The 4400 , Sanctuary and the reimagined Battlestar Galactica . Because of the small size of

2280-423: The heroes) and seldom depleting their ammunition. Rayguns by their various names have various sizes and forms: pistol -like; two-handed (often called a rifle ); mounted on a vehicle; artillery -sized mounted on a spaceship or space base or asteroid or planet . Rayguns have a great variety of shapes and sizes, according to the imagination of the story writers or movie prop makers. Most pistol rayguns have

2337-701: The invention of lasers during 1960, such devices became briefly fashionable as a directed-energy weapon for science fiction stories. For instance, characters of the Lost in Space TV series (1965–1968) and of the Star Trek pilot episode " The Cage " (1964) carried handheld laser weapons. By the late 1960s and 1970s, as the laser's limits as a weapon became evident, rayguns were dubbed " phasers " (for Star Trek ), " blasters " ( Star Wars ), "pulse rifles", " plasma rifles ", and so forth. In his book Physics of

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2394-448: The long-running Mr. Squiggle , Halfway Across the Galaxy and Turn Left , Ocean Girl , Crash Zone , Watch This Space and Spellbinder . Other series like Time Trax , Roar , and Space: Above and Beyond were filmed in Australia, but used mostly US crew and actors. Japan has a long history of producing science fiction series for television. Some of the most famous are anime such as Osamu Tezuka 's Astro Boy ,

2451-413: The majority of science fiction media fandom has been represented by males of all ages and for most of its modern existence, a fairly diverse racial demographic. The most highly publicized demographic for science fiction fans is the male adolescent; roughly the same demographic for American comic books . Female fans, while always present, were far fewer in number and less conspicuously present in fandom. With

2508-459: The network to demand the show remain on the air. Network executives were overwhelmed by an unprecedented wave of correspondence, and they kept the show on the air. Although the series continued to receive low ratings and was canceled a year later, the enduring popularity of the series resulted in Paramount creating a set of movies, and then a new series Star Trek: The Next Generation , which by

2565-434: The plants to make them shrivel up." Science fiction on television The need to portray imaginary settings or characters with properties and abilities beyond the reach of current reality obliges producers to make extensive use of specialized techniques of television production. Through most of the 20th century, many of these techniques were expensive and involved a small number of dedicated craft practitioners, while

2622-578: The reusability of props, models, effects, or animation techniques made it easier to keep using them. The combination of high initial cost and lower maintenance cost pushed producers into building these techniques into the basic concept of a series, influencing all the artistic choices. By the late 1990s, improved technology and more training and cross-training within the industry made all of these techniques easier to use, so that directors of individual episodes could make decisions to use one or more methods, so such artistic choices no longer needed to be baked into

2679-404: The rising popularity of fanfiction , a large majority of which is categorized as slash fanfiction . Female fans comprise the majority of fanfiction writers. U.S. television science fiction has produced Lost In Space , Star Trek , The Twilight Zone , and The X-Files , among others. British television science fiction began in 1938 when the broadcast medium was in its infancy with

2736-424: The rising popularity of fanzines, female fans became increasingly vocal. Starting in the 2000s (decade), genre series began to offer more prominent female characters. Many series featured women as the main characters with males as supporting characters. True Blood is an example. Also, such shows premises moved away from heroic action-adventure and focused more on characters and their relationships. This has caused

2793-419: The series concept. Special effects (or "SPFX") have been an essential tool throughout the history of science fiction on television: small explosives to simulate the effects of various rayguns , squibs of blood and gruesome prosthetics to simulate the monsters and victims in horror series, and the wire-flying entrances and exits of George Reeves as Superman . The broad term "special effects" includes all

2850-589: The series had different crews and casts but took place in the same future and used the same space organisation and miniatures, much as Star Trek did in the '80s and '90s, thus making it the first TV sci-fi franchise. The series was set in the year 2500 AD and followed the adventures of the crew of the galactic patrol ship Phoenix Five , "the most sophisticated craft in the Earth Space Control Fleet." This handpicked team consisted of Captain Roke ,

2907-411: The techniques here, but more commonly there are two categories of effects. Visual effects ("VFX") involve photographic or digital manipulation of the onscreen image, usually done in post-production . Mechanical or physical effects involve props, pyrotechnics, and other physical methods used during principal photography itself. Some effects involved a combination of techniques; a ray gun might require

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2964-503: The transmission of a partial adaptation of Karel Čapek 's play R.U.R. . Despite an occasionally chequered history, programmes in the genre have been produced by both the BBC and the largest commercial channel, ITV . Nigel Kneale 's The Quatermass Experiment (1953) and its sequels have been called "one of BBC Television's earliest audience successes" and Kneale became "one of the most influential television and film writers to emerge in

3021-610: The untimely death of producer Peter Summerton. He was replaced by John Walters. Phoenix Five was produced in 1969 in Sydney by Artransa Park Television in association with the Australian Broadcasting Commission and Amalgamated Television Services. The series premiered on ABC television on Friday 24 April 1970 at 5:40pm with other states following in May 1970. It was also sold internationally and screened in

3078-588: Was in the form of video showings of popular anime, untranslated and often low quality VHS bootlegs. Starting in the 1990s, anime fans began organizing conventions. These quickly grew to sizes much larger than other science fiction and media conventions in the same communities; many cities now have anime conventions attracting five to ten thousand attendees. Many anime conventions are a hybrid between non-profit and commercial events, with volunteer organizers handling large revenue streams and dealing with commercial suppliers and professional marketing campaigns. For decades,

3135-450: Was made on film and in colour. Australia, at this time, did not have the numerous movie and TV special effects technicians who worked on US and UK productions - and the FX supervisor Peter Hicks really had to start from scratch. Indeed, costumes for the series were very expensive, ranging from floor-length robes for Zodian, pink tights for the 'microbe' girl (played by Arna-Maria Winchester ) from

3192-611: Was produced by the CBC as early as the 1950s. In the 1970s, CTV produced The Starlost . In the 1980s, Canadian animation studios including Nelvana , began producing a growing proportion of the world market in animation. In the 1990s, Canada became an important player in live action speculative fiction on television, with dozens of series like Forever Knight , Robocop , and most notably The X-Files and Stargate SG-1 . Many series have been produced for youth and children's markets, including Deepwater Black and MythQuest . In

3249-486: Was the first to cost more than $ 1 million per episode. One of the earliest forms of media fandom was Star Trek fandom . Fans of the series became known to each other through the science fiction fandom . In 1968, NBC decided to cancel Star Trek . Bjo Trimble wrote letters to contacts in the National Fantasy Fan Foundation, asking people to organize their local friends to write to

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