Sentimental

By chance, I came accross a site dealing with Dutch tv series of the 60’s and 70’s. Quite odd if you remember I bought a book on the Oebele series of that era only last Sunday at the book fair. The site hasn’t got round to making their Oebele pages, but Floris is there. It was a series about a dashing knight called Floris, and his Arab sidekick Sindala. It was directed by Paul Verhoeven (of Robocop, Basic Instinct and Total Recall fame) and it launched the career of the actor Rutger Hauer who was later to star in one of my favourite films: Blade Runner. He had our young girls’ hearts go pitter patter back then.

I suppose my generation was the first to get really hooked on television. Many childhood memories revolve around the series I watched. Star Trek, of course. My cousins and I used to play ‘Star Trek’ around my grandmother’s flat. I used to watch ‘Thunderbirds’ and ‘Captain Scarlet’, not fully realising I was watching puppets on a string.

I may have been a little too young for Peyton Place, but I did watch it if my mother let me. She did often enough, and I also saw a lot of the original Mission Impossible series. I clearly remember my young (english speaking) cousin teaching me not to say ‘negro’ but ‘black’ when we were discussing an episode from that series.

Can you imagine a generation grown up with Captain James Tiberius Kirk’s romantic conquests as a role model?