ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the sicence fiction audience provides a point of departure for analysing the characteristics of elderly television audiences. Writing to the producers of the show is one of the few ways in which the elderly do engage with the show, and analysis of these letters indicates that they regard the show just as much as theirs as do the young science fiction fans, though in a different way, with references out to their own experience rather than inwards to the show's mythography. Bliese rests content with using her example of Sarah to challenge the stereotype of the elderly as “passive” consumers of media. In fact, the difference in television viewing habits between Mrs McLaughlan and Miss Harring is worth exploring further. In the case of one elderly woman afternoon soaps seemed to give her the focus on her daily affairs that was otherwise lacking.
