ABSTRACT
Otherworldly science-fiction series conventionally reference urtext The Wizard of Oz (1937), and some such intertexts allude to the production of many of these big-budget adventures at some geographic remove from the media entertainment “command and control” center of LosAngeles.1 The 200th episode of Stargate SG-1 (1997-2007), for example, suspended the usual plot structure in favor of a comedic special episode that riffs on a fan’s gift to the production of a framed drawing of the SG1 team depicted as Dorothy’s companions.2 In the background of many scenes of this self-reflexive celebration, set dressers move about carrying potted exemplars of the distinctive Canadian pines that forest each and every distant world visited through the“Stargate” portal.There was no precedent for big-budget science-fiction television production, local or offshore,when another sci-fi series Farscapewasmade in Sydney (1998-2002; 2004).3 The series concerns an American astronaut, John Crichton, and his adventures in attempting to return home after being inadvertently catapulted into another galaxy, and generated predictable punning about “Oz,” and the“not in Kansas anymore” displaced experience for bothAmerican andAustralian cast and crew.4
