Ciao!

SciFi Friday

09.16.2005

Technorati tag: scifi

Sent out one job application, and have two other cover letters nearly finished. This is exhausting work. But I'm also highly encouraged by a call last night from Matt — he found a full-time teaching job near Detroit, exactly what he wanted. I'm ecstatic for him, optimistic for myself.

Meanwhile, it's SciFi Friday. And I also have the newly released Space: Above And Beyond DVD's I've been waiting for since the show was cancelled a decade ago. Like Firefly, the show was cancelled by FOX only to live on in SciFi fandom. Unlike Firefly, the SciFi network wasn't yet able to turn that into a longer lifespan.

So let me tell you about my three favorite SciFi series of all time — and why I rank them so highly. In chronological order:

Space: Above and Beyond

(1995)

The show took a hyper-realistic approach to humanity's first encounter w/ an alien race. No lazers. No hyperspace. Not even communication w/ the aliens. The show actually starts w/ Earth colonists slowly venturing into outer space, thinking they're alone, and suddenly attacked. The show lasted only one season, and the nature of the alien race was only hinted at. In short, the characters knew as much about this new alien race as the audience. I think that's realistic. If we ever encounter another alien race, I doubt we'd be able to communicate w/ them. We'd probably soon start killing each other and slowly wondering why.

The human context was also realistic. There's no single Earth government; the main characters were a squadron of US Marine Corps aviators (fighting under a UN banner to defend Earth). Their weapons (real bullets, not lazers), clothing, equipment was recognizable, if only slightly more futuristic (the show was set in 2063). There's also hints about what happened between then & now (seems the Chinese are no longer communist after a war waged in the Indian subcontinent). And. More ominously, the idea that perhaps Aerotech (the company w/ a monopoly on civilian space travel) knew about the aliens for some time (the company had purchased abandoned military bases in Nevada).

Firefly

(2002)

This show didn't even last a full season, which is a real shame. But it's about to come out in a movie (Serenity, the name of the ship). What I liked most about this show (beyond the very good characterization) was its historical background (set in 2517). There's not a whole lot to tell us what happened in the centuries between now & then, but we do know that Earth is a wasteland (presumably for environmental reasons) and that two of the major characters had recently fought (and lost) in a war by "Independents" to prevent a monolithic "Alliance" (apparently a US-China combine) from forcing all the scattered human colonies into a single government. Oh, yeah, and there are no alien races. None.

What's really great about the context, is how realistic this post-Earth existence would be. There's a vast divide between rich & poor — and especially between the rich living in "central core" planets vs. the very backwards "rim worlds" where settlers make do w/ 19th century style technology. The end result is a perfectly blended scifi Western.

Battlestar Galactica

(2003-present)

This isn't just great scifi, it's great television drama. Period. Perhaps the best currently running. And it's also clearly an analogy to our post-9/11 world. Like the original series, the Cylons (robots originally crated by humans) have obliterated life on the 12 colonies in a single day, and sent the surviving humans (w/ the lone surviving military ship, Galactica) running through space in search of a new home — the fabled "Earth" of their religious prophesies.

But the Cylons aren't the only threat to the fleet. Often, they're not even the worst threat. The surviving humans (less than 50,000 of them) are desperately trying to cling to their previous way of life — including a civilian, democratic government. But how does a president who's only president because everyone else died (she was Education Secretary) maintain control over the civilian fleet & the remaining military forces? And since some Cylons look human, how does this small fleet prevent the "enemies among us" from committing sabotage w/o infringing on basic civil liberties? Stuff like that.

OK. Off to make dinner & watch some great scifi.

Posted by Miguel at 06:44 PM

Comments

Posted by: tom at September 16, 2005 07:14 PM