If much of the time you are too tired to read or write
science fiction, like me, the next best thing is watching it, or some good
speculative fiction. Fortunately I have Foxtel and an ipad, because if I had to
rely on commercial television for my science fiction fix I would be one unhappy
trekker.
toss-up between Eureka and Misfits. I always seem to make time
to sit down on Tuesday nights and watch Eureka on Foxtel, and after watching
the last episode of the first series of Misfits,
I immediately downloaded the first episode of the second series.
have not watched it yet, is set in a top secret town devoted to science and
geeks. Each week someone’s science experiment seems to have unforeseen
consequences, or the scientist involved decides he wants to be noticed. The
main character is an unscientific sheriff who is more into intuition than
science in preventing these experiments becoming disasters. It is very
tongue-in-cheek and real pop-corn stuff, but I am addicted to its light-hearted
exploration of way-out-there science ideas.
fantasy than science fiction. It’s a British show where five twenty-somethings
are doing community service for various misdemeanours. One day a shower of
small and seemingly harmless meteors lands in the river beside the community
centre they are working in. As a result, they all develop semi-super powers
that accentuate some element of their personality. For example, one guy who
doesn’t fit in and is ignored by others, can turn himself invisible. Another
who is a track athlete can travel into the future and influence it. In the
hands of an American writer these characters would immediately become crime
fighters taking on evil super dudes, but not in this award winning show. If you
have an isomething, you can download the BBC app and, last time I checked,
watch the first episode for free.
ABC2. The spirits of the dead can no longer ascend to wherever they are meant
to go, so they hang around on earth. No one can see them except for a group of
special human angels, and a teenager. The dead spirits discover that if they
eat human flesh they can return to human form, something the angels and
teenager try to stop.
Russell T. Davis stopped producing and writing much of it. Since he left they
seemed to have dumbed it down for kids, where the thing that really struck me
when it was remade, was that it a lot more adult than the original series. But
maybe I have just seen too much of it.
I think one of the major problems, besides its lack of
suspense these days, is the Doctor can’t die, so at the end of each episode you
know the doctor will save the world/planet. In the X-Files they often did
not get or even stop the baddy, not in Doctor
Who. In The Walking Dead just about any of the main characters could
die, without any fanfare, during an episode, not in Doctor Who. Eureka has a
lot more suspense than Doctor Who. In
Misfits they might accidentally kill
their supervisor. Nothing surprising seems to happen anymore in Doctor Who. The last episode of Doctor Who I really enjoyed was the
first one of the current interrupted series with the Dalek who thought he was
human. It was more slowly played, had a bit of suspense, and surprised me by
allowing me to empathise with a killing machine.
started on Foxtel called Defiance. It is set on the Earth after a war in which
the planet was terraformed by aliens. Eventually the surviving humans and
multiple alien races called a truce, and live in an uneasy peace.
of resources. About ten minutes into the pilot episode I thought this guy is
going to drive into town like Clint Eastwood, and be asked to save it, which he
will decline and leave, but then decide to come back and save them. And WTF?,
that is exactly what happened. It is just a western with aliens instead of
Indians, Star Wars on Earth. Each week we will have a story about a
scramble for power between the town and various baddies, with the man with the
biggest gun and/or American righteousness winning. Whoopee. Right-wing crap.
want to watch a western series, or Game of Thrones if you want to be
engrossed in the politics of power.
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I absolutely agree about "Defiance." The Syfy channel has been heavily promoting it for months, to the point I often wanted to puke. I watched the first episode just for giggles and could not remember the last time I saw such a weak show. Most shows like it are canceled with a few weeks but since they have sunk a LOT of money in online game, set in the "ruins" of San Francisco it has already been declared a hit show.
Haven't seen the others and to be honest, don't have the time. Unless its brilliant like Game of Thrones I probably won't get around to it.
I have been recording the new Dr. Who, but also havent had time. Ive watched two eps. I dont think its any worse than previous eps but I do agree that the danger seems irrelevant. Its also too manic, all over the place. I dont think its dumbed down for kids anymore than previous seasons – infact sometimes its so scattered that I lose track. Too many intereconnecting time lines – the doctor's girlfriend is his future wife who killed him or something. I'll keep watching though, for the time being.
Looking forward to the 50th anniversary special. Hope to see the older doctor's turn up. I expect a lot of cameo's like the very good 20th anniversary, The FIve Doctors.
Beach Bum, as I am not a fan of Defiance, I expect it to be a roaring success.
Anthony, if you get time to watch one, I very much recommend Misfits – it's original, clever, with unexpected twists, and has a great British attitude.
Further on Doctor Who: generally one of the roles of a writer is to make the us care about the main character. We should want the main character to survive and achieve her goals. But the Doctor has no goals, and we know he will survive. So therefore the writers should concentrate on us wanting his companions to achieve their goals. At the moment we have no idea what the goals of his new companion are or it indeed she has any and if she dies, then maybe the doctor will show us some emotion. Or the writers could try and make us care about the characters in the worlds the doctor lobs into. The writers should make us care that they are saved. But with the episodes being so manic, we don't have time to care. In that Dalek episode I mentioned we had time to care about the young woman, who turned out to be the deluded dalek. Another episode I enjoyed from a couple of seasons ago was where a child was trapped in a world through the wardrobe, the writers made me care about the child's fate. Doctor who at the moment is like watching one of those c-grade horror movies full of obnoxious teenagers who we are supposedly supposed to care about. The movies fail because we would prefer to laugh at their stupidity and hope they die.