The fractal thing from yesterday reminded me of Prisoners of Gravity, which ran from 1989 to 1994 on TVOntario, and boy did this show punch above its’ weight. Host Rick Green (who went on to create The Red Green show, iykyk) interviewed the type of folk you’d find on panels at sci-fi conventions: top-tier fiction and nonfiction authors, comic writers and artists, and other assorted weirdos.
It was appointment viewing for my sister and I, and a fully formative piece of my childhood. Growing up in a rural mining town, being a sci-fi nerd at age 10 could sometimes be isolating, but this show was a lifeline to a world of geeks. Some of the guests include Ray Bradbury, William Gibson, Douglas Adams, Stan Lee, Alan Moore, David Cronenberg, and a couple dozen other household names. Including James Gleick, who literally wrote the book on fractals.
I’d forgotten about it until I started reading the article I linked yesterday, then it took me a while to track down the name of the show (‘canadian sci-fi fan show’, ‘space guy interviewing comic authors’ and ‘Prisoners of the universe tv show canada’ were useless as search terms, btw. ‘Commander Rick’ got it in one). Then this Wired piece showed up too!
Producer Mark Asquith in the Wired article:
“I remember pitching the show to Daniel Richler and saying, ‘I’m not sure if this is a show for people from Toronto, where there are major conventions and where you can go to the Silver Snail, or you can go to Bakka, but if you’re living in Thunder Bay, if you’re living in a remote place in Ontario, you’ll be the one person watching in, maybe, Ancaster, but this will be the most important show to you. And 25 years later we have these people come up to us and say, ‘I’m now drawing for Marvel comics—or I just got my first story published—and the reason is because I saw Prisoners of Gravity.’ And that’s incredibly moving to me.”
It ran for 5 seasons, and apparently was picked up by PBS. It used to be available in the TVO archives, but that seems broken, so we’re stuck with random episodes on YouTube instead.