Labels: fucking creepy puppets, sci-fi

The European Space Agency is apparently looking to volunteer people for a space mission to Mars. (via inferior 4+1)

WFMU has a lengthy post (with lots of nice pictures) about David T. Sims, who constructs elaborate costumes.

Celestial Intervention Agency Podcast has an episode discussing their favorite SF television shows, and why some of the better ones inevitably get canceled too early.

J.G. Ballard Quote:

I do think that novelists should be like scientists, dissecting the cadaver...

Borges Quote:

We drew our heavy revolvers (suddenly in the dream there were revolvers) and exultantly killed the gods.

Chan Wook Park's new film I'm A Cyborg But That's OK debuts in New York tomorrow.

Joss Whedon Quote:

Remember that they tried to kill us. They did kill us. And here we are. We have done the Impossible, and that makes us mighty.

The Flash died, and the old one came back.

Oh yeah. And this.

Labels: ballard, borges, chan-wook park, CIAShock, EAS, sci-fi, science fiction, SF

Powered by ScribeFire.

Labels: doctor who, sci-fi

Labels: doctor who, sci-fi, science fiction, spaced, time travel

See, this is what happens when I can't get my weekly Doctor fix: I watch sci-fi television series I have no particular interest in.

Finished watching Torchwood on Saturday. It's link to the Doctor Whoverse, and its standing as an official spin-off are somewhat perfunctory. Sure we have the appearance of a Cyber(wo)man, but a Cyber(wo)man whose appearance and behavior in no way resembles what we are used to seeing in Doctor Who. Sure the TARDIS makes a sort-of appearance or at least is alluded to at the very end of the series finale, after Captain Jack makes the first mention of the Doctor in the entire series. Other than that it just appears to be another mediocre sci-fi team drama.

That was mean, wasn't it? I mean, I do really like some of the characters. Of course, none of the characters that I'm supposed to love or simply be enamored with. I have such a contentious relationship with Captain Jack at this point that I can't decide whether I want to kiss him (which he would love) or if I want to punch him (which I'm sure he would also love in some sick/twisted way). I do, however, love Ianto & Toshiko. I can barely stand anyone else on the team at this point. Even if Owen did have a good performance during the whole Weevil/Fight Club thing.

My main problem with the show seems to be its fixation with "love" & sex. Not that there's anything wrong with a person being obsessed with that, I suppose.

Character "depth" comes in the form of an episode-long romance doomed to end tragically before the 50 minute mark. If the experience of said romance was particularly effecting, then that plot thread will continue into the next few episodes, only to be exploited on an explosive level in the season finale.

I had it pegged from episode three.

Over at the Journalista blog Dirk Deppy gave a perfect dissection of the state of current mainstream super hero comics [specifically pertaining to this image]:

"…isn’t that it’s misogynist, but that it’s fucking ridiculous. This looks like sexual-fetish material, sure, but it would have exactly the same weird-ass vibe if both of the depicted characters were men. This image isn’t “sexist,” it’s emotionally stunted. Wrapped in the garb of teenage fantasy, it cannot help but take on an air of unreality that no infusion of sex or violence will dispel. Sixty years of accumulated kiddybook clichés won’t suddenly become adult reading material if you add lesbian relationships, hardcore gore or extended scenes of chartered accountancy; the latter only throw spotlights on the childishness of the former."

This leads me to another pont.

For almost a year now, I've had to listen to some of my closest friends colleagues sing the praises of Battlestar Galactica, to the point that I am now morally obligated, as a fan of science fiction, to catch up on the entire series. It's not that I haven't given the show a chance, it just honestly doesn't interest me that much.

That's right. I said it. I don't care about BSG.

I really don't.

The problem with shows like Torchwood and BSG, and subsequently most mainstream super hero comics, is that in spite of sci-fi and comics being treated as a cultural ghetto, these stories are trying desperately to tap into a cultural vein that allows more "mature" stories to be told within their respective genres. But as most intelligent comic fans know at this point, blood, guts, and sex do not a mature story make. I mean, any adolescent with a word processor can produce a work of fiction that contains "mature" elements like violence and sex, but that doesn't make it any better than the story they wrote when they were eight, that lacked those things.

Torchwood does not make sense to me as "Doctor Who for adults" or "Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets the X-Files". Likewise, BSG doesn't make sense to me as "The West Wing in space", because with each of these shows maintained/maintains an identity wholly unto itself. Doctor Who doesn't try to emulate anything other than Doctor Who. X-Files never claimed to be anything more than X-Files. These stories were strong enough to stand on their own without comparison and without contrast. I honestly don't believe that Torchwood proves itself to be a good enough work of fiction to do that. BSG's standing as a piece of fiction in this regard, after three seasons, is arguable.

It doesn't make sense to me that someone would write a novel or a short story, in hopes of being as good as or comparable to something else. That's just not how the creative process works.; Sure, there's the Picasso line about how "all artists borrow", but that's something entirely different. That's about the transference of inspiration, of ideas. If you set your sights to emulate a specific work of fiction, when your work reaches that level, but never manages to rise above that or become something wholly new and exciting, you have no one to blame but yourself.

You can't make "Buffy meets the X-Files" into a sustainable series. At a certain point, your story is going to have to grow wings of its own and be able to carry itself on its own merits. You can't emulate a show like The West Wing, but have your show set in space or under the sea or on a zepplin, and expect it to be any good. The West Wing operates on completely different rules than BSG.

Emulating a piece of fiction that is important, doesn't make your piece of fiction important by association. All it does is make your work momentarily relevant. There's nothing wrong with that, but it will certainly not go down in the history books as even a footnote. Your work can only be encompassed in the cultural dialog if you offer something new and noteworthy to say. It doesn't how clever you spin someone else's ideas, because at the end of the day, there still somebody else's ideas.

Labels: comics, sci-fi, television

It's Doctor Who Week over at Siskoid's Blog of Geekery, so I thought I'd take a stab at a few Doctor Who bits today. I've been rummaging through my notes on the new season (yes, that's right, I take notes when I watch Doctor Who), and I guess I've been enjoying it thus far.



I guess that's sort of a stupid comment, since it's Doctor Goddamn Who and I generally eat up every second of it regardless of how well it's executed or not. But regardless...

Martha Jones: The New 'Plus One'

I was originally a bit iffy on the Martha Jones character. She seemed too out of place in the Doctor's universe for me. Compared to other companions, she's very much a product of her times, and I suppose when your dealing with a time-travel oriented drama, that can be seen as "relevance". I mean, honestly, the only thing that really separated Rose Tyler from Sara Jones was the fact that Rose had a cell phone. Characteristics-wise, that is.



The problem with "relevance" is that it dates the work. It's a great assumption on the writers part to think that any kind of social progress we've managed to make in our history as a species will not reverse itself ever in the future. I mean the "dark ages" is a perfect example of the human race sort of hitting the reset button on culture and rebuilding.



Still, when a character as "relevant" and of-her-time as Martha Jones stands next to someone as "timeless" as the Doctor, it makes the differences that much more distinguished and therefore (when handled correctly) poignant. The problem with many of the Doctor's companions is that they very rarely seem to be products of their times, and so when matched with the Doctor come off as merely infantile or petty in their outlook. All of Rose Tyler's complaints only really add up to the tantrum of a two-year-old child.



Anyway, Martha really came into her own in "Gridlock" (S03E03). Where "The Shakespeare Code" really just sort of played up the fact that she was from the "future", "Gridlock" really pitted her character against some interesting ideas. Which, in my opinion, is the whole point of the Doctor having a companion in the first place. We, the earthly viewers, need a character to relate to. Someone we can cheer on whenever they say, "Hold up. What the fuck is that guy with the second neck doing to the lady with the tentacles?" To which the Doctor would reply with some sort of witty and aloof comment.



Rose Tyler worked well because by the end of her tenure as the Doctor's companion, she was the earthly equivalent of the Doctor's. She was his equal partner. Not equal in her knowledge or skills or even physiological abilities. But certainly equal in courage and curiosity. Too bad she had to be made into a love-interest.



Not that that's a bad thing for hardcore fans.



But, Martha is a totally different creature. Sure everyone seems to be commenting on how hott David Tennant is as the Doctor (with the extra 't' for emphasis), including Martha herself, but their relationship is not likely to reach that point any time soon. If it did, it would be at the hands of a much more inferior team of creators, because Martha is a doctor (lower-case 'd'), and therefore a person of science and intellect. She may not act like it all the time, like when being attacked by pig-men in the sewer beneath the Empire State Building, but when things happen, the Doctor knows he can rely on her intellect.



The thing with Rose was that she carried around so much emotional baggage. This was evident in the second episode of the first season, where she pines to contact her mother, and eventually gets her cell phone all jacked by the Doctor. Of course this allowed for two great recurring characters, Mickey and Jackie, but ultimately it held the Doctor back in a lot of ways. It also held the show back in a lot of ways too.



If the character of Rose, who is inserted into the adventure for the viewer to relate to, is constantly being attached to her relationships with others and her emotional state, than the more fantastic elements of the show will be defined in the context of emotions and not conceptual grounds.

Something like The Face of Boe is alright to view through an emotional/dramatic lens, but the very concept of Daleks turning humans into pigs (livestock of the universe, etc., etc.) is an idea that must be explored differently.


The show seems to be taking a slightly more conceptually focused route than the previous two seasons, which I'm looking forward to. I like the idea of being pitted up against concepts and ideas, rather than being faced with emotion and drama, but that's just me.


Of course the show will still need to provide it's fair share of emotion and drama, which Rose just oozed. Otherwise, why would we watch the show when we could just read a book? Granted, it's a tricky balance, but I have faith that Martha will be able to inject just enough emotional drama, while still helping us stay intellectually grounded.



I'll write more on the last two episodes, which have both been fairly NYCentric later.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Labels: BBC, doctor who, Martha Jones, sci-fi, SF, the doctor