The Visitors came forty years ago this month

I was reminded of something earlier today, and I can't believe that this somehow slipped past the radar screen...

Last week, May 1st, was the fortieth anniversary of the premiere of the NBC television miniseries V.

That doesn't seem possible.  It's like it was only yesterday that creator Kenneth Johnson unleashed his nightmarish vision of fascism on a global scale.  The Visitors came to major cities across the planet, in fifty ships each three miles in diameter.  They looked like us.  They came from a dying planet and they needed humanity's help.  They came in peace.

And it was all a damnable lie.  Their intent was to rape the Earth, seizing every precious natural resource.  And the fate of mankind?  Something truly horrifying.  Four decades later and the scene of all those humans in cold storage still sends a shiver up my spine.

It was a grand endeavor.  What if Nazism had conquered the planet?  V was about that.  Every aspect of true-life fascism was portrayed, magnified through the lens of science-fiction.  But it was also about hope, and taking a stand and fighting back.  More than it frightened us, V inspired us.  The film was dedicated to the resistance fighters, wherever they have been found, past present and future.

This franchise deserved better!  Johnson's original plan as he presented it to NBC was that after the original miniseries, there would be three or four television movies each season, depicting the Visitors' occupation of Earth in various places.  But the executives didn't want that.  They wanted a second miniseries and using that to launch a weekly series.  They got that, but the follow-ups lost a lot of the spirit of the original.  V wasn't something like Star Wars, it was about a much deeper notion.  And then around 2009 ABC tried to reboot the franchise, but it failed for various reasons (I thought it was quite an admirable effort though).

It was an awe-some television experience.  So many moments from it that no doubt still stick out in the minds of many.

But here is my favorite moment.  Not just of the miniseries, but one of my most favorite moments in television, ever.  The final scene of Part One of V, the original miniseries.  Abraham, the elderly Holocaust survivor and his friend Ruby, find a group of teenagers who are vandalizing Visitor propaganda posters.  He stops them.

No, I won't say anything else.  Let the scene speak for itself:

 

 

And from that moment, humanity has a symbol of resistance.

It's a little dated now, but what do you expect from a television miniseries forty years old?  Don't let that stop you from watching it.  And you'll probably be like the rest of us were at the time: wondering how the HECK did any major broadcast network get away with all the stuff that they showed in this movie?

You'll see what I mean when you watch it.

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"Faith manages": Babylon 5 returning with animated movie!

I'm feeling some geeky gears in my gray matter starting to rotate like they haven't in a VERY long time.

Babylon 5 - the single greatest television series that the Nineties ever spawned - is coming back as an animated film.

The show's creator J. Michael Straczynski unloaded the news on Twitter earlier this afternoon.  More details are coming soon, including the movie's title and release date.

I cannot emphasize enough how stoked I am about this.  Babylon 5 was like an extra few years of education on top of what I got in college.  The five-season story about that miles-long space station all alone in the night, the "last best hope for peace" in a galaxy rife with plotting and intrigue, shattered the ceiling both as a broadcast series and for what the medium was capable of giving viewers.  Had it not been for Babylon 5 paving the way, there may have never been a rebooted Battlestar Galactica, or Lost.  Or The Walking Dead for that matter, along with an armful of other shows.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how this goes.  One thing that popped into mind: wouldn't it be really sweet if we saw an animated Garibaldi watching Daffy Duck cartoons?  That would be soooo meta.

If this show has always been just off your radar screen and you want to "get a feel" for it, I wracked my brain trying to think of a clip from the show to put in this post, just a little iota of what it's about.  Someone on Facebook found one and it's perfect.  From the third season episode "Passing Through Gethsemane", Brad Dourif as Brother Edward, telling Delenn (the late Mira Furlan) and Lennier (Bill Mumy) about the last night that Christ spent before His death:

 

Yes, a science-fiction series that is respectful toward the concept of religion.  Just one of many such moments that Babylon 5 came to be renowned for.

This would be something that would compel me to get HBO Max, just to watch this.  I've always loved this show, its universe and this amazing cast of characters.  Ever since first reading about it in Starlog several months before it premiered in the winter of 1993, I've been enchanted by what this series was attempting.  And it pulled it off beautifully.

And now, more is coming.  Thing I'll celebrate by making some bagna cauda.  Hey, it's easier to find than Zima...

 

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Gordon Lightfoot died yesterday

The man is responsible for a lot of well known songs.  One of the local stations played "Sundown" around lunch today.  There are a few others he did too.

But the main subject of this post is about one that's especially dear to me.

I was almost two and a half years old when Gordon Lightfoot released his haunting ballad "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald".  The song came out several months after the loss of the largest ship on the Great Lakes in a fierce November storm.  It was featured on Lightfoot's album Summertime Dream as well as getting a single release.

Dad bought the 8-track of Summertime Dream.  And his favorite song from it must have been "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald".  I know this because I heard it so many times that it got impressed in my young memory.  That song is the earliest one I can recall knowing the sound and words of.  I very clearly and distinctly remember the sound of it, listening to it as I played with my toys in the living room.

The runner-up has to be The Chipmunks Christmas Volume 2.  And there were a few others that come to mind.  But "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" was my first "grown-ups" song.  And Lightfoot himself was the first musical artist that I remember the name of.  I know because I asked Dad what was he listening to and he told me "Gordon Lightfoot".

Don't know much else what to say with this post.  Except that I tweeted this last night, and it seemed right that I put it on my blog too.

So here is "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald".

 

 

 

Thanks for the good memories Mr. Lightfoot.

 

 

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Preview: The Knight Shift's very last blog post

Am looking at making a few edits and additions to this blog.  Nothing too drastic though.  I used to change up The Knight Shift's appearance about once a year or so.  But it's had this template for five years now and it really does seem to be the best it's looked.

And I'm going to make sure it stays looking good, up until the very end.

A long time ago I heard about something that, it was kind of a legend.  That somewhere in the bowels of the CNN headquarters in Atlanta, there was a videotape.  And it was explicitly noted that it would not be used until the end of the world had been confirmed.  CNN founder Ted Turner had declared when the channel first started up that it would be on the air until the absolutely final moments of Planet Earth.  There would be no signing-off of CNN until then.

It turned out that this was not a myth.  Turner did make a "hold until end of the world" video.  Here it is on YouTube.  Depicting a military band playing "Nearer My God To Thee".  To be followed by CNN going out into darkness eternal.

When the tale turned out to be real, an idea hit me.  That I should also have a final post to be made on this blog.  There are actually two posts for the occasion: one to be made when my own passing away happens (hopefully a LONG time from now), and one to also hold for publishing until the apocalypse truly is upon us.

So if you are wondering what the very final words will be on The Knight Shift, after all this time and more, here's what is "in the vault" ready to be used at the closing of human history.  Please ignore the January 2050 timestamp.  That's just a placeholder for the actual date of Armageddon.

Anyhoo, here it is:

---

---

 

I want to be well into my eighties before I leave this earth, however it happens.  I was a kid when Halley's Comet visited in 1986 and it really was a letdown unless you lived in more southerly latitudes.  Hoping I'll get to see it during its next appearance and praying it will be much better.

Well, there it is.  When you all see that post, you will know to step away from the computer or put down your smart phone and embrace your loved ones as destruction rains down upon us.

I just like being prepared, is all :-)

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Dr. Charles Stanley has gone Home

"Well done, My good and faithful servant."

 

Let us be thankful for the very long time that God let him be among us.  A lot of people came to Christ... and drew closer to Him... because of this man's seemingly tireless efforts.  Dr. Charles Stanley truly had a servant's heart.  I for one learned quite a lot from watching his In Touch weekly series on television.

I got to meet him once.  It was January 2001, some friends and I went to a service at First Baptist Church of Atlanta.  Stanley struck me as one of the kindest people I've ever encountered.  He asked where was I from and I told him Reidsville, North Carolina.

"Oh I know where Reidsville is!" he replied.  "That's right down the road from Danville!", where he grew up.

I asked him if he could sign my Bible and he did on the inside front page.  Below his name he wrote "Isaiah 64:4".  It reads as thus, from the New International Version:

 

Since ancient times no one has heard,
    no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
    who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.

In hindsight, I should have taken that verse more to heart.  I am thankful now though, that I get to appreciate it anew.

See you later Dr. Stanley.

EDIT 04/19/2023: my best friend since forever, Chad Austin, is managing editor of Biblical Recorder.  He just published an excellent article about Dr. Stanley's early years, from his first devoting his life to Christ on through serving as pastor of several churches and becoming a teacher.  It's a very inspiring read and I felt truly moved by it.  Click here to read "Stanley's global ministry has deep, formative roots in NC".

 

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Anyone else feeling this way too? (Spoilers for Stranger Things)

The very last shot from "The Piggyback", the finale of Stranger Things season four:

Click to enlarge

That's the overwhelming sense of things that I've had for much of this past year and I imagine it has been for a lot of other people too.  The visual metaphor is a most fitting one.  Many of our heroes, who have just gone through an incredibly exhaustive tribulation that spanned the width of America, enjoying a brief moment of joy and reunion.

And then they see the particles floating downward, not just them but everyone else in Hawkins.  It builds up to the final scene as Hopper and Joyce lead the others out of the woods... and toward the inescapable reality that for all their effort they have failed after all.  All they can do is stand from afar and look on as the Upside Down begins its invasion of the world.

Here's the sequence in its entirety, from the goosebumps on the back of Will's neck on through the devastating conclusion:

 

That, for me, is the thematic encapsulation of what I've had to watch unfold around us these past couple of years especially.  Growing darkness.  For each apparent win it becomes apparent that it hasn't been good enough.  That the battles may be won but the war is far from over.

I feel like I'm in that field, standing at a distance away from the chaos and turmoil that's threatening to engulf everything.  Looking onward toward the encroaching darkness and the world really is being turned upside-down and inside-out.

It's a powerful sense to be hit with.

But that's not all that scene conveys.

Joyce and Hopper are holding hands, bracing themselves for what is to come.  They've gone through so much for each other and they're going to be together now, too.  They aren't giving up.

Neither is Eleven.  The very last closeup of her shows her face in grim determination that this is not the end.  That the fight isn't over.  That she's going to do whatever it takes to face the threat of the Upside Down.  Eleven is going to finish this.  She's standing between her friends and evil unleashed: literally as well as figuratively.

I look at that final shot and see a battle that has been lost.  Things look bad now.  Very horribly wrong.

But there is still hope.

I don't think this present darkness around us is insurmountable, unconquerable.  I think it can be held at bay, if only for a little while.  Maybe that's all it will take for things to begin to be set right.  We look at how circumstances are now and we're going to acknowledge that the situation is dire.  But that's the furthest we'll allow it to get.

What comes next will be difficult.  The darkness will not give quarter to us.  Many people are going to be hurt in some capacity.

I think of scripture, and the promises of God.  We just had the Easter season.  Remembering a time when things seemed beyond all hope... and then God intervened and turned grief into immeasurable triumph and victory.

That's what we have to cling to, as we stand in our own field looking out upon the world that's being engulfed in evil.

We don't have to win.  We only have to stand.

If there is strength to do just that much, it will be enough.

 

 

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The April Fools prank I helped a friend with

The other week my very good friend Eric Smith (yes, the same one who also made a campaign commercial during that VERY wacky school board race years ago) approached me with a project.  Could I help him pull off an April Fools stunt this year?  I said absolutely, that it would be an honor and a pleasure to work with him.

Along with being an expert welder, Eric is also a professional Santa Claus (the reason his beard is so big and bushy).  And he's a certified beer expert (no really, you can get certifications for that) who regularly posts videos on YouTube as "Beer Santa".  So he came up with the idea for Duke's Mayonnaise Beer.

Here's the video he published two days ago.  Looks and sounds pretty convincing aye? :-)

Maybe next year I'll come up with another prank.  It's been too long since I've pulled off something.  I think my favorite was when I got everyone thinking that I was joining the Amish and turned this site into "Plain Blog by Brother Christopher Knight".  And then there was that other year's prank that got the Vatican's attention... but we won't go there.

So on your way home this evening, stop by your local grocer and pick up some all-natural Duke's Mayonnaise Beer.  Made by Sloof Brewing in Piedmont, Georgia.

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49

 Well, I'm feeling pretty good, here on the home stretch to the half century mark.  Tonight at 6:09 PM EST I officially turned forty-nine years old.

I had come to dread having a birthday.  They used to be something that I looked forward to.  But at least since 2000 it has come with pain preceded by the notion that I really haven't done much with my life.  It probably has something to do with my 26th birthday.  That was spent at my grandmother's funeral.  I was one of the pallbearers.  It also happened to take place a few months after the symptoms of manic depression first manifested and at that moment I was having a depressive episode.

But in the past few months and weeks it's been... different.  There has been no dread at all.  In fact, I've been feeling pretty good about things.  I like to believe it's because I'm finally at long last able to manage having bipolar disorder.  I'll never fully conquer it, but the episodes are getting further and further apart.  I had a manic episode this past fall, and I was able to tell that it was coming.  I got to act accordingly.  Fifteen or twenty years ago that wasn't possible.

I'm still hoping that God might let me have family.  Call me a hopeless romantic or a daydreamer or a fool like Don Quixote.  If He does, I will be able to take care of them in ways that I hadn't before.  Speaking of which, I'm finally coming to forgive myself for some of the things that I did during my lesser moments.

So, I've some reasons to be hopeful, and am eager to embrace life, however it is that I find it.  Getting older isn't a bad thing at all.  I wouldn't want to go back to when I was younger, and I likely wouldn't do anything to make all the pain that happened be as if it hadn't.  Like John Locke said on Lost: "I needed that pain to get to where I am now."

Better days are ahead.  I know they are.  I wasn't able to sit at Microsoft Word for the past month and a half because of some things that arose in real life, but I have been "sussing it out" in my head.  I'm also considering a new job: one that would be entirely different from anything that I have done before in my life.  The people I would be working with very much want to bring me aboard, they have said that my experiences with mental illness and my training as a mental health professional would make me a unique member of their force.  I'm thinking about it, praying about it especially.  Should I take this job you will DEFINITELY be reading about it here.  I'll give you a hint: as part of the training I will be hit in the face with pepper spray.  I doubt my love of Tabasco Sauce is going to make me immune to that.

So, my orbit around the Sun has made it's 49th circuit.  Now on to fifty.  Ever closer to what I've asked God for all these years: to please let me live long enough to see the return of Halley's Comet in 2062.  I'll be 88 years old then.  And hopefully my eyesight will be good enough to view it.  The appearance in 1986 was kind of a letdown.

Maybe it will be better next time.

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