Was The Tripods based on the John Christopher books?

Yup, but only the first two.

I first knew about the tv show, as a kid. There were two separate shows, one for each of the first books. I had no idea there is a book. The second show ended when the second part of the book did, all in the middle. We were crashed. When we discovered that not only there's a book, but also that it was translated into Hebrew so that we can actually read it, and finally find out how everything ends, we were so happy, that had we been a wee version of Angel, we would have immediately become a wee version of Angelus. Um, not unlike his puppet in "Smile Time", probably. But our noses wouldn't come off.

Oh, I got Holocausted out during the 50th anniversary stuff while I was in Jr Hi. I think the current parallel would be the Vietnam era. Kids learn next to nothing about it in school

Kind of OT, but DebetEsse, you were IB, right? What did you guys have to focus on for 20th century world history? (We did a lot on WW1, a bit on the events leading to WW2, and then a lot on the Cold War and Vietnam. We had The End of the European Era and Where the Domino Fell as our main texts senior year.)

Yup. It was Gerry Anderson's first attempt at a show using human actors instead of marionettes. Truth be told, the marionettes were better actors.

Damn, DX beat me to it. They did learn their lesson on the casting for Space: 1999. Pity that the writing didn't improve, though.

Truth be told, the marionettes were better actors.

I dunno, the marionettes were pretty wooden.

And they have all these strings attached to their performance.......

I dunno, the marionettes were pretty wooden.

No way! They had supermarionation!

I dunno, the marionettes were pretty wooden.

Not as wooden as the actors in UFO.

I always found the marionettes disturbingly Garboesque, especially the later, uncanny valley versions -- I remember reading a contemporary of Garbo talking about her perfect blankness and stillness, and how her magnetism was less about her incredible expressiveness than about her total inwardness and inexpressiveness. She was just so terrifyingly perfect and photogenic and remote that she was a perfect empty vessel into which the audience could pour every conceivable emotion.

The supermarionation puppets are so very much her Uncanny Valley döpplegangers: those unnaturally perfect cheekbones and the eerily flawless skin and perfect hair and Anderson's penchant for endless puppet reaction shots. All those aesthetically perfect, alien faces with those impenetrably deep blank stares. Cree. Pee.

Cool Co Worker just bought the dvds for The Fantastic Journey, about a group of people who are trapped in the Bermuda Triangle and go from portal to portal or time to time or something. We watched some of it at lunch.

Kind of OT, but DebetEsse, you were IB, right? What did you guys have to focus on for 20th century world history? (We did a lot on WW1, a bit on the events leading to WW2, and then a lot on the Cold War and Vietnam. We had The End of the European Era and Where the Domino Fell as our main texts senior year.)

Plei, I was not. I was in AP Euro and US, but that works differently (and my Euro teacher sucked a lot. It was her last year before she retired)