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Wishful Thinking is a five part mini series for television, full of surreal and amusing adventures. It is a stereotypical look at our selves through the digital eyes of two female replicants from Planet X, a Utopia where nature is sustained by technology. One of the replicants travels to Earth where she encounters earthlings and heroines who are comic book cut-outs on a toy like landscape. The magic and atmosphere of Wishful Thinking is enhanced by the production process where characters are superimposed onto computer graphic and miniature set backgrounds using Ultimatte for the key. Using additional Video Effects (from the Quantel Paint Box, Hairy, Encore and Mirage) as an integral part of the storyline, the series of Wishful Thinking looks at the relationship between technology and the female creative concern for ecology, role models presented by the media and those of more violent Science Fiction as well as the media's appropriation and manipulation of female symbols.

The genre of Science Fiction constantly represents women as stereotypes who are either running from fear or waiting to be saved or seduced. We need another kind of female hero and Wishful Thinking, like ‘Alice in Wonderland', presents the idea that the destiny of the curious female is in her own hands and that the experience of the absurd and the new is simply a means of education This first episode, set in Australia, is a blend of technology and drama, creating a new type of sci-fi mythology

Jill Scott, June 1988