Sunday 11 September 2022

Alrightreads: TV XI

John Peel, The Star Trek That Almost Was

1985 / Ebook / 47 pages / UK

**

Non-comprehensive synopses and assessments of adventures that were too silly or too serious to see the light of day in this reality. Expand it with further failures and you'd really have something.

Faves: 'Rockabye Baby, or Die,' 'He Walked Among Us'


Arlen Schumer and contributors, Visions from the Twilight Zone

1991 / Ebook / 180 pages / USA

****

Submitted for your consideration: an exhibition of juxtaposed period telesnaps and poetic observations that authentically capture the eerie essence and surreal stylings... of The Twilight Zone.


Charles L. Grant, The X-Files: Goblins

1994 / Audiobook / 288 pages / USA

**

Trying to capture the feel of a standard 45-minute TV episode in a 200+ page paperback often makes for an awkward slog, but the padding's usually more subtle than sending a parade of characters to the same fate one by one and sending your investigators on pointless detours so they don't accidentally resolve things ahead of schedule. As the first X-Files novel, it's also a bit too premature to have much of a handle on anything.


Andrew Cartmel, The Script Doctor: The Inside Story of Doctor Who 1986-89

2005 (updated 2013) / Ebook / 224 pages / UK

***

Flippantly honest and unnecessarily detailed diary from the man who couldn't save the sinking ship, but proved it was worth salvaging.


Anne Billson, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

2005 / Ebook / 154 pages / UK

**

There's no shortage of pop-scholarly paperbacks with interesting insights on the series, but this glorified recap summary isn't one of them.