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simple: an alien of almost godlike (yet oddly limited) abilities and lifespan and his (usually human) companion explore and often meddle with events across space and time, which often conveniently centre on some incarnation of London, England. Originally intended to be traditionally educational, the program quickly abandoned the highly scientific tone of its first season, and by the 1970s it had completely abandoned conventional technology and 'technobabble' to focus on relationships, human psychology and sociology, and cosmic questions of good and evil. It was in 1971 that the quirky, well-intentioned, and heretical meddling of the Doctor finally found its true foil, in the ruthless, ambitious, and terrifying Master.

Since the 1940s, reaction against a corrupt or somehow powerless leadership has often taken the form of the vigilante superhero, and in the 1970s this subgenre of SF/F television exploded in popularity. 'The Six Million Dollar Man' (1975-8), 'The Bionic Woman' (1976-8), 'The Invisible Man' (1975-6), 'Gemini Man' (1976), 'The Man From Atlantis' (1977-8), 'Wonder Woman' (1976-9), 'The Amazing Spider-Man' (1977-9), and 'The Incredible Hulk' (1978-82) all followed their Lone Ranger roots in fighting on the side of justice against evil and corrupt criminal and sometimes even governmental structures that often held themselves to be above the law. (Again, here, we see the influence of Watergate.) Many of these superheroes came into being as a result of technology and side-effects of technology, most commonly cybernetics or radiation.

The place of overlap between a few survivors struggling to survive and the superhero struggling for justice was filled by the few heroic rebels struggling to overthrow an oppressive regime: a theme perhaps best exemplified in the British series 'Blake's Seven' (1978-81). Fighting against a galactic power tongue-in-cheek named the Federation, this series broke at once with the Star Trek convention that only the red-shirts ever die. Even Zen, the popular computer of the rebel ship Liberator, was killed in the third series, and ... well, let's just say that even success does not always breed individual happy endings.

While not itself a television show, the film 'Star Wars' (1977), which immediately spawned two animated series ('Droids', 'Ewoks') and ultimately a franchise which lasts to this day, can be seen as the gateway SF/F production which finally left the gray ambiguity of the 1970s behind forever. Blazing back into the cleancut blacks and whites of the spaghetti western, 'Star Wars' abandoned the moral morass of Vietnam and Watergate for a rebellion on the sides of good which, ultimately, will triumph over the forces of a cosmic evil, its heroes overcoming terrible odds to destroy the tools of evil and then the very source of evil ... and that without a single loss of life among the core heroes.

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