THE SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY SERIES

A - B / C - H / I - O / Q - S / T - Z

QUANTUM LEAP/NBC/1989-93
[Voice of Deborah Pratt] "Theorizing that one could time travel within one's own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett lead an elite group of scientists into the desert to develop a top secret project known as Quantum Leap. Pressured to prove his theories or lose funding, Dr. Beckett prematurely stepped into the project's accelerator and vanished. He awoke to find himself in the past, suffering from partial amnesia and facing a mirror image that was not his own. Fortunately, contact with his own time was maintained through brainwave transmissions with Al, the project observer who appeared in the form of a hologram that only Dr. Beckett can see and hear. Trapped in the past, Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, bringing things right that once went wrong and hoping that each time that his next leap will be the leap home."

THE RAY BRADBURY THEATER/HBO/USA/1985-92
[Voice of Ray Bradbury] "People ask: 'Where do you get your ideas?' Well, right here. [He enters an artifact filled room] All this is mine. Martian landscape. Somewhere in this room is an African veldt. Just beyond perhaps is a small Illinois town where I grew up. And I'm surrounded on every side by my magician's toy shop. I'll never starve here. I just look around, find what I need and begin. I'm Ray Bradbury and this is" [followed by the name of series flashed on the screen] "Well, then. Right now. What shall it be? Out of all this, what do I choose to make a story? I never know where the next one will take me. The trip. Exactly one-half exhilaration. Exactly one-half terror." TRIVIA NOTE: The beginning of the program was filmed in the Bradbury Building, a Los Angeles landmark completed in 1893 and located at the corner of Third and Broadway.

RED DWARF/BBC/1987-89
[Norman Lovett as Holly, the ship's computer] "This is an S.O.S. distress call from the mining ship Red Dwarf. The crew are dead, killed by a radiation leak. The only survivors are Dave Lister, who was in suspended animation during the disaster, and his pregnant cat, who was safely sealed in the hold. Revived three million years later, Lister's only companions are a life-form who evolved from his cat, and Arnold Rimmer, a hologram simulation of one of the dead crew."

[Variation on original opening] "Three million years from Earth, the mining ship Red Dwarf. Its crew: Dave Lister, the last human being alive; Arnold Rimmer, a hologram of his dead bunk mate; and a creature who evolved from the ship's cat...Message end.

[Sample weekly update] "...Additional. Our biggest enemy is going space crazy through loneliness. The only thing that helps me maintain my slender grip on reality is the friendship I share with my collection of singing potatoes..."

ROCKET ROBIN HOOD/SYN/1966-69
[Narrator] "Soaring through the far reaches of outer planetary space is new Sherwood Forest asteroid, fantastic headquarters of that swashbuckling cosmic highwayman of the 30th century Rocket Robin Hood. Yes, here comes the one and only Rocket Robin Hood gliding through galaxies in his search for star shattering adventure. The interplanetary villains quiver in their space boots when they hear the merry ring of his laughter and feel the blast of his mighty electro-quarterstaff. Rocket Robin Hood, fun-loving astral adventurer in the astounding years to come."

[Narrator] "Arch-enemy of Rocket Robin Hood is the cruel space tyrant Prince John, Despot ruler of the National Outer Space Terrestrial Territories. With the help of the wicked Sheriff of Knot, the Black Prince plans for that terrible day when he will destroy and conquer the entire solar system. Well, he might, if it were not for Rocket Robin Hood. Rocket Robin Hood outlaw defender of right in the astounding years to come."

[Narrator] "Strongest member of Rocket Robin Hood's band is Little John. The brawniest spaceman ever to rocket through the cosmos in the fantastic years to come, This Goliath of the galaxy has the might of a cosmic Hercules, the brute force of a unleashed meteor, combined with a truly super weapon - the electrical quarterstaff. Little John, whose great strength is tempered with a simple good-hearted kindness towards all living things. Mightiest of Rocket Robin Hood's Merry Men in the amazing years to come... Little John."

ROD BROWN OF THE ROCKET RANGERS/CBS/1953-54
[Narrator] "CBS Television presents ROD BROWN OF THE ROCKET RANGERS. Surging with the power of an atom, gleaming like great silver bullets, the mighty Rocket Rangers' spaceships, stand by for blastoff [Rockets blast off] Up, up rockets blazing with white hot fury; the man-made meteors ride through the atmosphere, breaking the gravity barrier, pushing up and out, faster and faster, and then outer space and high adventure for the Rocket Rangers."

[Program closing] "Be sure to be with Rod Brown next week for another thrilling adventure in the far regions of outer space on ROD BROWN OF THE ROCKET RANGERS."

SEALAB 2020/NBC/1972-73
[Narrator] "This is the year two thousand and twenty. the place is the Challenger Sea Mount, the top of an underwater mountain, a complex beneath the sea. Two hundred and fifty men, women and children live here. Each of them a scientist pioneer. For this is our last frontier, a hostile environment which may hold the key to tomorrow."

THE SECRET WORLD OF ALEX MACK/NIK/1994-98
[Voice of Larisa Oleynik] "I'm Alex Mack. I was just an average kid until an accident changed my life and since then nothing's been the same. My best friend Ray thinks it cool. My sister Annie thinks I'm a science project. I can't let anyone know, not even my parents. I know the chemical plant has to find me and turn me into some experiment. But you know something, I guess I not so average anymore."

SEVEN DAYS/UPN/1998-2001

 [Second season opening - Voice of Jonathan LaPaglia] "Ever wish you could live your last week all over again. My name is Frank B. Parker and I do it all the time. I work for a secret government project experimenting with time travel. When things really get screwed up, I'm the guinea pig they send back to take care of it. Fact is, they can only go back 7 days."

SHAZAM!/CBS/1974-77
[Narrator] "Chosen from among all others by the immortal elders, Billy Batson and his mentor travel the highways and byways of the land on a never-ending mission to right wrongs, to develop understanding and to seek justice for all. In times of dire need young Billy has been granted the power to summon awesome forces at the utterance of a single word, SHAZAM! A word that transforms him in a flash to the mightiest of mortal beings, Captain Marvel."

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE'S THE LOST WORLD/SYN/1999-2002
[Narrator] At the dawn of the last century, a band of explorers searched for a prehistoric world. Driven by ambition, secret desire, a thirst for adventure and seeking the ultimate story, they are befriended by an untamed savage beauty. Stranded in an strange and savage land, each day is a desperate search for a way out of...THE LOST WORLD."

THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN/1973-78
[Voice of Richard Anderson as Oscar Goldman] "Steve Austin. Astronaut. A man barely alive. Gentlemen...we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's first Bionic Man. Steve Austin.....will be that man. Better than he was before. Better.......Stronger.......Faster..."

SLIDERS/FOX/1995-97/SCI/1998-2000
[Voice of Jerry O'Connell] "What if you could find brand new worlds right here on Earth, where anything is possible? Same planet, different dimension. I found the gateway" Season 1

[Revised Opening #2] "What if you could travel to parallel worlds. The same year, the same Earth, only different dimensions. A world where the Russians rule America or where your dreams of being a superstar came true or where San Francisco was a maximum security prison. My friends and I found the gateway. Now the problem is...finding a way back home." Season 2

[Revised Opening #3] "What if you found a portal to a parallel universe? What if you could slide into a 1000 different worlds? Where it's the same year and you're the same person but everything else is different. And what if you can't find your way home?" Season 3-5 Note: Cleavant Derricks narrated season five.

SOMETHING IS OUT THERE/NBC/1988
[Voice of Joe Cortese] "I was your average street cop. Name? Jack Breslin. Then I met your average not bad looking alien from another planet who crashed on Earth and was stuck here. We work pretty well together. Because I know my way around. And, well, she can read minds...among other things."

SPACE: ABOVE & BEYOND/FOX/1995-96
[Voice of James Morrison] "We thought we were alone. We believed the universe was ours until one night in 2063 on an earth colony sixteen light years away. They struck! And now we're at war. My name is Lt. Colonel T.C. McQueen. I'm an In-vitro, a race of artificially gestated humans. I command a Marine Corp squadron....the 58th. They call us the Wild Cards. We fight when called, in space, on land, and at sea. To lose this war means more than defeat. To surrender is to never go home. All of us must rise to the call above and beyond."

SPACE CASES/NIK/1996-97
[Voice of Harlan Ellison] "The eye of the future see them. Five clever Space Cadets snuck aboard an alien ship, flung through a weird hole in space, thousands of light years from the academy. Yeah, it seemed like a good idea at the time but will they ever get home? Or are they forever destined to be...SPACE CASES.

SPACE PATROL/ABC/1950-55
[Jack Narz as Narrator] "SPA-A-A-A-A-A-CE PATROL! High adventure in the wild, vast reaches of space Missions of daring in the name of interplanetary justice! Travel into the future with Buzz Corry, Commander-in-Chief of the SPA-A-A-A-A-A-CE PATROL!"

STARMAN/ABC/1986-87
[Voices of C.B. Barnes as Scott Hayden; Roberts Hays as Paul Forrester, a.k.a. the alien "Starman."; and Michael Cavanaugh as government agent George Fox]

STAR TREK/NBC/1966-69
[Voice of William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk] "Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before!" (Theme music by Alexander Courage).

STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION/SYN/1987-94
[Voice of Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean Luc Picard] "Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. It's continuing voyages to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before!"

STAR TREK VOYAGER/UPN/1995-2001
[Opening narration to premier episode "Caretaker" that introduced the crew of the starship Voyager commanded by Captain Kate Janeaway]

[Narrator] "Unhappy with a new treaty, Federation colonists along the Cardassian border have banded together. Calling themselves 'The Maquis' they continue to fight the Cardassians. Some consider them heroes, but to the governments of the Federation and Cardassia, they are outlaws."

SUPER FORCE/SYN/1990-91
[Voice of Patrick Macnee as Industrialist E.G. Hungerford] "This is the year 2020 and the world has changed. In 2020, times are tough, but this man is tougher!"

SUPER PRESIDENT/NBC/1967-68
[Paul Frees as Narrator} "Super President! His power was born in a cosmic storm. Every molecule charged with might. Power that enable him to change his molecular structure to steel, to granite or whatever the need requires. The great desire to serve his country in the cause of justice has brought James Norcross to the highest office in the land...as Super President. SUPER PRESIDENT!"

SWAMP THING/USA/1990-93
[Voice of Dick Durock as the Swamp Thing] "The swamp is my world. It is who I am; and it is what I am. I was once a man. I know the evil men do. Do not bring your evil here. I warn you. Beware the wrath of SWAMP THING."

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