Prisoners of Gravity

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Prisoners of Gravity

Commander Rick aka Rick Green
Genre documentary
Creator(s) Mark Askwith
Developer(s) Mark Askwith
Daniel Richler
Starring Rick Green
Theme music composer Norman Orenstein
Country of origin Canada
Language(s) English
No. of seasons 5
No. of episodes 139
Production
Producer(s) Mark Askwith
Executive producer(s) Mark Askwith
Daniel Richler
Location Toronto
Running time 0:25
Broadcast
Original channel TVOntario
Original run December 1989 – April 28, 1994
Links
IMDb profile

Greetings prisoners of gravity, this is Commander Rick...

Prisoners of Gravity was a Canadian public broadcasting television show that explored speculative fiction (ie. Science Fiction, Fantasy, Comic books, etc) and how it related with various issues. Produced by TVOntario, the show was the brainchild of Mark Askwith, Daniel Richler, with the host being Rick Green (of The Frantics fame). The series aired 139 episodes over 5 seasons from 1989.

As told through an introductory comic-strip like opening sequence drawn by Ty Templeton, the premise held that a fan of speculative fiction becomes disturbed by news broadcasts describing the alarming state of the world and decides "I must escape". Building a rocket booster for his Camaro Z-28 (pronounced "zed twenty eight"), he takes off... only to collide with a communications satellite. Commander Rick was not to be daunted by this fate. Instead he, with the help of an organization called Control and the onboard "Nano Cybernetic computer" (NANCY), took advantage of his unusual situation to hijack every week the broadcast of `Second Nature' to discuss issues as seen through the eyes of authors and artists of speculative fiction.

Every week he would interview a number of authors, artists, with filmmakers, animators and the occasional futurist. Topics that were discussed ran the gamut: Censorship, Adaptations, Heroes & Superheroes, Humour, Alternate Histories, Mars, Cyberbooks, Sex... Each episode was a half hour long (a full half hour, being public television) and usually about 6-14 authors/etc were interviewed. Six hundred or so interviews were conducted and aired by the time the show's run came to an end.

During its run, the list of authors interviewed became more and more prestigious, including Neil Gaiman, Guy Gavriel Kay, Frederik Pohl, Clive Barker, David Brin, Charles de Lint, Robert J. Sawyer, Michael Dorn, Spider Robinson... to name but a very, very few.

What really brought each episode alive was how it was fully wrapped in its quirky premise. The visuals, background sounds and onscreen graphics gave a good sense of `being there', without being overblown, or chintzy looking. Rick's smooth delivery helped a great deal as well. It's not quite possible to convey how it felt in words, but when Rick jammed an audio tape into a jerry-rigged video device, it didn't seem forced or phoney.

The program was critically successful and won several awards, including the following:

  1. Two Aurora Awards.
  2. A Broadcast Media Award from the International Reading Association
  3. A Silver Medal from the New York Festivals of Television
  4. Two Gemini nominations.
  5. An Honorable Mention from the Columbus International Film and Video Festival

The show was unfortunately cancelled in 1994 for reasons that aren't quite known, despite its growing success.

Clips of this show are included with the CD-ROM in newer editions of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction by John Clute.

Rick's signature chair was destroyed by his Son, and a friend of his, because he said they could.

[edit] External links

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