Here’s a little gem I found wedged into the nondescript back catalog of the Netflix instant viewing pages. Time After Time, which stars two of my favorite 70s/80s era English actors, Malcom McDowell and David Warner.
Personally, I’d never heard of it, which I thought was odd considering the premise: H.G. Wells pursues Jack the Ripper through time to the 1970s. There’s some fun fish out of water scenes with Malcom McDowell’s socialist free-thinking Wells wandering about San Francisco, but the film really misses the boat by leaning toward comedy. It never achieves the hard edge of the time traveling Ripper from Dangerous Visions.
I’ve also been catching some of the original series Star Trek on the Netflix instant viewing. It always surprises me how few of the original series episodes I’ve seen (I grew up in a TV market that played Dr.Who, but not Trek). It’s interesting to go back and see how an entire mythology sprung up from a few throwaway conceits written by a diverse sampling of sci-fi writers.
My favorite episode has to be arena:
I love how the Metrons show everyone how violence is bad by setting up a gladiatorial deathmatch. When I have godlike powers, I’ll have people fight to the death for the own good all the time.