"Star Wars" it ain't, to be sure. But for early 50s SFTV it's not that bad, either. Granted, the plots are often dire--but I can recall some episodes of George Reeves' "Superman" series that were real groaners too, and that show had a better budget. Granted, some of the acting wouldn't have made the grade in an elementary school play--but often the inept actors have the saving grace of being unintentionally funny (like the androids in "Return of the Androids", which I first saw excerpted on the "Zacherley's Horrible Horrors" video). Granted, some of the specFX and 'scientific' props are little short of laughable even if you set your mental time machine to the era and 'forget' you ever heard of things like CGI--but so were the ones on many made-in-America SFTV shows of that time. (Remember "Captain Video" checking on his Video Rangers via clips from old low-budget Westerns?) Yet despite all the cheesiness, the old "Flash Gordon" series does have a certain charm to it.
Review of Flash Gordon
