In 1989, Askwith became a full-time television producer and writer, and one of his first programmes was Prisoners of Gravity. The brainchild of Askwith, Daniel Richler, and Rick Green (who also hosted the programme), Prisoners of Gravity was a Canadian news magazine program that explored speculative fiction, specifically Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Comics. Produced by TVOntario, the series ran for 139 episodes over five seasons.
The establishing framework for the programme is not dissimilar to that of its similarly-targeted peer Mystery Science Theatre 3000, both featuring a stranded host who ostensibly broadcast the programme themselves from isolation. The similarities largely end there, however. MST3K was a comedy programme that focused each episode on a particular film and provided running gag commentary on it. Prisoners of Gravity ran a series of interviews with authors and creators from the science fiction and comics communities, with the host linking the subject matter toether and focusing down on a specific topic for that episode.
Episodes from the first series (broadcast between August 1989 and March 1990, and now sadly believed largely missing/wiped) reportedly focused on areas including UFOs, Star Trek and Comic book conventions. The subsequent four series (preserved, and available for viewing by appointment at The Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy public library located in downtown Toronto, Canada) often featured episodes on much more specific topics. These included "Will Eisner & The Spirit", "Watchmen", "Cyberpunk", "Ray Bradbury", "The Sandman", "Tolkien" and Jack Kirby" among many others.
Many of the interviews for these programmes (including specific interviews with Watchmen creators Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, and Sandman author Neil Gaiman) were apparently carried out by Askwith himself.
Prisoners of Gravity first aired on TVOntario and ran for five seasons and 137 episodes before being canceled in 1994. Many of its episodes were subsequently syndicated, and have appeared (briefly) on PBS, The Discovery Channel and Space, of which Askwith is one of the founding producers.
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