Day: August 21, 2008

Sci-Fried

Closing out today’s science fiction-heavy posts, first here’s an in-depth re-evaluation (in two parts, via Gerry Canavan) of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which suggests that ultimately the show must be understood as a creative failure:

Again, though, in order to find something interesting to say about the characters, the writers had to go out of their way to concoct Rube Goldberg plot machines that would allow for emotional arcs without messing with the precious status quo. If you start looking, you can find a lot of episodes that go to the same well: there’s always something to trigger or mitigate unusual behavior, something to excuse the characters from acting like real people as soon as they put on those damn Starfleet unitards.

I don’t agree completely with everything he says here, but it’s hard not to see the show as deeply flawed in its slavish devotion to its status quo. Even Deep Space Nine, which I think was ultimately the better show in almost every way — admittedly, in part, because TNG helped pave the way for it and it also became a very different show — had this problem. I’ve always felt that my two very favorite episodes of each (“The Inner Light” on TNG and “The Visitor” on DS9 would have worked better if they weren’t Trek episodes, if in the end they didn’t have to return to business as usual.

This is what I loved about Farscape, and what the cast and crew talk about time and again in their DVD commentaries for the show: there was no reset button. Because really, only a show with a reset button could air an episode like “Conspiracy” and never return to it.

And next, Cinema Blend argues that Star Wars killed Babylon 5.

And you know, I don’t buy the argument at all. Babylon 5 had a five-year plan, and it was on the air for five years. Even for that final year, when the quality was really starting to slip. It even had spinoffs, in which the quality was sometimes not even present. To claim that the show would have taken off in year five and become some kind of huge cultural touchstone in the geek community if only it hadn’t been for that meddlesome George Lucas (and his mangy droid)…well, it’s beyond silly.

And this?

Farscape blew the minds of the few who bothered to see it, before being quietly cancelled and forgotten by all but the most hardcore fans.

Quietly? Really? There was a huge fan campaign that got Ben Browder, albeit briefly, interviewed on CNN about the show and a Sci-Fi miniseries made. There are still webisodes and comics planned.

And don’t get me started on the “Farscape, Firefly and Serenity are all crap” folks commenting there. They’re entitled to their opinions, but these ones are pretty ill-informed. (If Firefly had 20 episodes, please direct me towards those last five. I’ve never seen ’em. I don’t think anyone inside this universe has.)

Are any of these shows as big a hit as Star Wars? No, even if they arguably should be. For a lot of people, science fiction is Star Wars, or Star Trek, of their like. And that’s unfortunate…but I think it would also be unfortunate if Babylon 5 was the series by which you judged everything else. I think you lose out on a lot great stuff if you restrict your focus in either way.

Closing the gate again

So they’ve cancelled Stargate Atlantis.

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I still very much enjoy the show, but on the other hand, I don’t think it’s done anything too novel or different in quite some time. Then again — have I run out of other hands already? — you could maybe argue that the show has never done anything terribly novel — and that neither did its parent show, Stargate SG-1, when it was on the air. Stargate is sometimes criticized for just recycling familiar science fiction tropes, and I do think there’s plenty of validity to those criticisms. But I also think the fun of the show is in the intelligence, humor and overall polish they bring to those tropes. Maybe it’s not the single most innovative franchise, but it’s exciting and fun and full of nice character moments.

Although, seriously, they should have made better use of Amanda Tapping the one season she was on the show. I never really thought the character was a good fit for the position they put her in, but once they had, they really didn’t try. Why no Carter-centric episode, for instance? And the way they wrote out Torri Higginson was, at best, unfortunate.

And I’m also not so sure how I feel about wrapping up the series with a DVD movie. That’s had mixed results for SG-1. (I enjoyed both Ark of Truth and Continuum, but they were both just decent episodes wrapped up in movie-length clothing.)

So basically what I’m saying is: I’m surprised and disappointed by the news, but not too surprised and not exactly heartbroken.

Ripples of Ripley

John Scalzi on Ellen Ripley and the rise of strong female characters:

Yes, it’s a little perverse to note that success of a character template by pointing out examples of other filmmakers doing it badly. But on the other hand, it’s also nice to know that at this point in time, science fiction audiences not only don’t have a problem with strong, problem-solving lead female characters, they’ve come to expect them to be that way — and they know when such a character is being done badly.

I’m reminded of Cherie M. Priest’s earlier thoughts on the character — namely that what makes her special is that she isn’t special; “she’s just some woman who happens to be on board when the shit hits the fan.”

I’m also reminded of something I wrote back in October, when discussing this soon-afterwards-canceled Bionic Woman remake. I asked:

Can we please move past the idea that girl power, female empowerment, begins and ends with a girl who can kick somebody’s ass? This is what made Buffy the Vampire Slayer initially so intriguing: she was a victim who could turn the tables on her assailant, who was a reversal of the helpless cheerleader of so many bad horror movies. But even more important were Buffy’s mental and emotional strengths, which she often possessed because she was a woman, not in spite of the fact. To make a character strong or fast “for a girl” — which is what I’m afraid Bionic Woman is sometimes doing — is to sort of miss the point. The climactic fight scene between Michelle Ryan and Katee Sackhoff in the pilot episode, for instance, feels less like a clash between two strong and complex characters, and more like a rain-soaked cat-fight.

Now I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but there are fundamental limits to (as one commenter on Scalzi’s column calls it) the “HGWKKF,” or “Hot Girl Who Knows Kung Fu.” I think Buffy was always most interesting when it directly confronted those limits and dug deeper into the source of Buffy’s real strength — not just her ability to land a punch or spin a kick. Being the “chosen one” by itself isn’t all that interesting, after all; it has the potential to make you less powerful, not more — because you’re the agent of someone else’s power, someone else’s choice. Buffy was at its best when it acknowledged this fact, when it demonstrated that her true strength wasn’t bestowed from without, but rather came from within. (The third season episode “Helpless,” which as it happens I re-watched just this week, is a terrific example of this.)

And yet I think the type of female hero represented by Buffy — and by Ripley and Sarah Connor — remains unfortunately rare. There’s a handful of other examples in the comments to Scalzi’s column — I’d probably include Aeryn Sun on the list and, outside of genre, Veronica Mars — but by this point strong female characters should really be the norm.