Ghostwatch: Behind the Curtains

Greetings, Ghostwatchers! It's happened, again. Yes, Ghostwatch has very kindly been given a mention, this time on ITV's third series of, Harry Hill's Alien Fun Capsule. Which no doubt means the inevitable Foxhill-Xenomorph-crossover-preboot-sidesqual is mere moments away from being green-lit. If that wasn't enough to make or break many a Ghostwatcher's week, Saturday's installment of the popular, satirical, yet inexplicably-futuristic, TV Burp spinoff also saw special-guest appearances by Warwick Davis, Kelly Brook, Charlie Dimmock, and wouldn't you know it, Sarah Greene.

Greetings, Ghostwatchers! Unscrew your Blue Alert bulbs, and get ready to replace them with some red-tinted push-fits, as you guessed it, I'm about to talk about Red Dwarf , again. By now, you no doubt must have realised that I'm a fan. Watching the show is one of my earliest memories, and following the series in the nineties ranks among the most enjoyable past times of my entire life, not counting of course, angling, golf, and the all-time number one. I worked on-and-off for the production company for a number of years, I've sat down for a biryani with one of its creators (after pretending to be a vicar for them), I've currently one of the most comprehensive sets of official trading cards in the world (no, really), and not long back, I redesigned the official magazine Back To Reality, for which I even wroted my first and only fan fiction, exploring a long-mooted suggestion of the cast's to bring back guest actor extraordinaire, Clayton Mark as Elvis.

In one sense, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was a microcosm. A big microcosm. At its height, the series' parent TV franchise embodied four multitasking programmes that successfully built upon a measured mix of speculation and contextualisation. In broader terms, Star Trek as a whole, dramatically explored the disparate notions of belonging and isolation, love and loss, and the militarisation of peace-keeping. Its very premise was a fascinating contradiction; a series that presumed a future without conflict, but where gunboat diplomacy was part of the day job for an exciting star-fleet of exploratory vessels, each busy combing the cosmos for answers to Life, the Universe, and Everything. Earlier this week, for the first time and in most eager anticipation, I caught a limited, theatrical screening of, What We Left Behind - Looking Back at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . This new, feature-length retrodoco, revisting the classic television curio (sound familiar?), discusses both th...

Greetings, Ghostwatchers! Seeing as we're still getting quite a few messages coming in via social media pertaining to the return of Behind the Curtains on DVD, download, or some other medium ('8 Track' still being the rank outsider), it finally seems time for as best an update that can be mustered, re the current status of the doc.   You might recall, in October, the @Ghostwatch Twitter account ran a poll enquiring as to the preferred medium for the doc to return, after selling out... ooh, ages ago, now. 'Blu-ray' won the vote with 44%, and we immediately looked into setting up an Indiegogo campaign to help make this happen. Despite some rousing support, the crowdsource/pre-order came up a bit short of the minimum required, so we took a moment to pause and rewind...

Greetings, Ghostwatchers! Bringing you a brand-new GHOSTWATCH mention of note, courtesy of yesterday's afternoon edition of ITV's The Chase, hosted by the perpetually-effervescent, Bradley Walsh. If you haven't seen the highly-popular game show before, a small team of contestants engage in often, unenviable battles of wits against a rotating team of leading quiz masters for the chance to win a cash prize split upwards of four-ways. Its recurrent, inescapable airing typically follows the channel's sister show, Tipping Point; which, opposed to navigating a high-stress environment built on answering rapid-fire questions against the clock, mostly relies on the well-timed jabbing of a silver-sprayed, disc-dropping, plastic plunger, wired to a heaving shelf.

Greetings, Ghostwatchers! I have a theory. Overall quality is measured by complexity of coding. An admittedly simplistic view, perhaps, but if true, one potential reason why some of us have such megalithic aversions to even the barest of spoilers, ahead of our latest, upcoming, un-screened installment, marked on the calendar in red felt pen.

Greetings, Ghostwatchers! What a wonderful Hallowe'en! I'm pleased to report that National Sèance went fabulously well, once again, with many great/funny/interesting/concerning comments coming in, almost all of October 31st. But this year marked a rare, double-viewing for our annual event, with BBC Two's 'live' Inside No. 9 special, Dead Line , also airing slightly earlier, on Sunday 28th October.