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newnumber6) wrote2009-10-04 11:15 am
newnumber6) wrote2009-10-04 11:15 am
Weekly TV Roundup and PoG Links
Projects: (October 3, 1991) - Isolated upcoming projects in comics, animation, and SF.
Part One: Mike Carlin (on The Psycho), George Pratt (on a comic project about the Blues), Neil Adams (on Bucky O'Hare the animated series based on a comic)
Part Two: James Morrow (on his upcoming novel Towing Jehovah), Michael Swanwick (on Stations of the Tide), William Gibson (on Virtual Light), Dan Simmons (on doing a movie treatment for Carrion Comfort, and co-writing a SF mystery involving fractals and chaos theory)
Part Three: Simmons continued (a bit specifically on the problems of combining SF and mystery), Michael Dorn (on a storyline he'd like to see in ST:TNG, connecting Worf to Cyrano de Bergerac, and his role in Star Trek 6), fandom rumors about ST6 from Toronto Trek, Walter Koenig (on writing a treatment for a ST movie that got rejected, and a suggestion he made for ST6 involving the death of a main character), a viewer letter about the 'death of Star Trek'.
Utopia: March 18, 1993
Utopias in comics and SF
Part One: Bruce Sterling (on Utopias being Bogus), Clive Barker (on Plato's horrible definition of Utopia), Alan Moore (on exploring Utopia in Miracleman, and Utopia as a verb, and the superhero dream being antihuman), Neil Gaiman (agreeing with Utopia as a verb, but disagreeing with the idea that Miracleman actually dealt with a Utopia, and the problem with Utopia is that once you've got it, you fill it with people), Mark Buckingham (on avoiding dealing with Miracleman himself and looking at the rest of the world), Neil Gaiman again (on pulling focus back away from Miracleman himself), Samuel R. Delany (on Triton as a 'sexual utopia', differences from SF thinking and Utopian thinking)
Part Two: Clive Barker (on why fantastic fiction is the perfect place for Utopias), James Morrow (on a 'Utopia' city based on complete honesty in City of Truth and a pacifist utopia in The Wine of Violence), Geoff Ryman (on the Child Garden being an ambiguous utopia, and why utopias often focus on a particular person against the society), Ian M. Banks (on using a protagonist opposed to the Culture in Consider Phlebas, and writing along the outskirts of a Utopia)
Part Three: Sean Stewart (on Passion Play, which involves a dystopia evolving out of an attempt to create a Christian Utopia, and the need for Faith for a society to work), Kim Stanley Robinson (on his utopia novel, Pacific Edge and the question of "Utopia: Can we get there from here?", and the problem of multinational corporations being the biggest threat to a 'better world', and ending his book on a sad note)
Ecology in comics and SF: April 22, 1993
Part One: Frederick Pohl (on Our Angry Earth, a non-fiction book on ecology with Isaac Asimov, and why he doesn't think Zero Population Growth is the most urgent need), Paul Chadwick (creator of Concrete, on what he sees as the biggest Ecological Problem facing us, OverPopulation, and whether/how politics should play a role), Kim Stanley Robinson (on the importance of population control)
Part Two: Paul Chadwick (discussing the religious "be fruitful and multiply" and reading a speech from Concrete about current population expansion), Kim Stanley Robinson (on the Earth's maximum sustainable population), Jerry Pournelle (on solutions to population growth by producing wealth), Joe Haldeman (on tackling overpopulation in The Forever War, and his personal choice not to contribute to it, compared to people in third world countries who sometimes have no choice)
Part Three: Barry B. Longyear (on why Zero Population Growth became 'uncool' and the problems of enacting it in reality), David Brin (on legislating legal population limits in his novel Earth, and the US "growing up", and protecting your greatgreatgreatgrandchildren as a 'genetic investment', and visiting Easter Island)
Next week I'll do Advice (which I thought I'd do this week but got a bit behind on time), Memory, and maybe Medicine & Nanotechnology.
Continuing on TV, I finally finished Tom Baker's run on Doctor Who. Watched the first Davison episode too. Might watch one more to get a sense of him since he spent most of this one in regeneration madness. Overall, my thoughts on the Fourth Doctor (and a bit that he sheds light on Ten)
He's enjoyable, but I don't think I can call him one of my favorites. He can be a bit randomly abraisive and pompous, sometimes more than others. I can see why others like him, and I certainly like him much more than Three, but Two and even curmudgeonly One still top him. Probably around tied with Ten, towards but not at the bottom of the Docs I've seen so far. However, he did have a very good set of companions, perhaps better than any other Doctor I've seen (Two's Zoe and Jamie might be my favorite set of companions, but otherwise his weren't especially interesting, whereas Four had several interesting ones).
I did like that Adric called him on essentially 'making stuff up' for explanations, which is one of the things I had to, for my own sanity, decide applied to Ten as well, since he explains so much in ways that doesn't make any rational sense. The only thing that makes sense is that he's not really trying to explain, he's just trying to baffle the people around him with technobabble because he really likes SOUNDing smart, but (perhaps) knows that if he actually explains it in a way that approaches the reality of the situation, he'll just sound like a babbling madman (or the Time Cube guy). Or maybe he just wants to find somebody really smart who'll call him on his crap. So he makes stuff up.
Do like the new team of companions so far. Tegan, Adric, and Nyssa give me a little bit of the old Jamie/Zoe vibe. Nice to have a set of companions with skills that mesh together well, instead of one companion having to either be superman/woman to compete with the Doctor, or be all but useless in the face of his genius except for legwork.
Otherwise, FlashForward's still in the 'not bad, but we'll see' territory. Heroes is still marginally better. I can't help but think that if they ditched almost all of the 2nd or 3rd season entirely, and just attached this season directly to this one with maybe a tiny bit of connective plot, many of the elements would be workable, even interesting (the current status of Sylar with respect to Matt would be an entertaining way of keeping the actor but not having the problems of the uberpowerful character) but I can't completely forget the past.
The only big new series premiere of the week is Stargate: Universe. Overall, I enjoyed it, although at present I think it's below both SG1 and Atlantis in quality. The early worries/complaints (usually based solely on casting) of it being "Stargate: 90210" seem to be wholly without merit, but there is a strong taste of the new BSG in terms of style. In fact, it looks almost as though... you know in 200 where they did parodies of other SF shows (and a few non-SF shows)? It looks almost as though somebody said, "Hey, let's copy BSG's style for one of those", except instead of being a parody, they did it completely seriously. Very similar. A bit disorienting, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. (a bit more spoilery stuff behind the cut) The premise is a bit too much like Atlantis at first (trapped in another galaxy with no help from home and first mission is just survival), with the change being most of them weren't expecting to go on a big expedition they might never return from, and they're on a ship with a special mobile Stargate instead of a base).
Some differences from the normal Stargate formula - apparently they'll have a time limit they can spend on a given world before the ship moves on (although presumably, if they had a way of knowing where the ship was going, or could make an educated guess, anyone left behind could probably gate to another world furthur along the schedule and meet up later, but they probably won't). The mobile cameras could be cool, and the potential ongoing connection with Earth (due to the ancient communication device) is at least a nice twist - where they can communicate but not get direct help. Plus a load of secrets. (When I first heard they had them, I already came up with a plot based on them).
It does feel like we've only seen the first 2 hours of a 3 or 4 hour episode though. To really get a feel for it I'll have to see how the show is when "We're going to die in the next day if we don't get what we need!" isn't the primary focus for the stories (and I hope it's not for long, because that gets old quick). We haven't even met any enemies.
Part One: Mike Carlin (on The Psycho), George Pratt (on a comic project about the Blues), Neil Adams (on Bucky O'Hare the animated series based on a comic)
Part Two: James Morrow (on his upcoming novel Towing Jehovah), Michael Swanwick (on Stations of the Tide), William Gibson (on Virtual Light), Dan Simmons (on doing a movie treatment for Carrion Comfort, and co-writing a SF mystery involving fractals and chaos theory)
Part Three: Simmons continued (a bit specifically on the problems of combining SF and mystery), Michael Dorn (on a storyline he'd like to see in ST:TNG, connecting Worf to Cyrano de Bergerac, and his role in Star Trek 6), fandom rumors about ST6 from Toronto Trek, Walter Koenig (on writing a treatment for a ST movie that got rejected, and a suggestion he made for ST6 involving the death of a main character), a viewer letter about the 'death of Star Trek'.
Utopia: March 18, 1993
Utopias in comics and SF
Part One: Bruce Sterling (on Utopias being Bogus), Clive Barker (on Plato's horrible definition of Utopia), Alan Moore (on exploring Utopia in Miracleman, and Utopia as a verb, and the superhero dream being antihuman), Neil Gaiman (agreeing with Utopia as a verb, but disagreeing with the idea that Miracleman actually dealt with a Utopia, and the problem with Utopia is that once you've got it, you fill it with people), Mark Buckingham (on avoiding dealing with Miracleman himself and looking at the rest of the world), Neil Gaiman again (on pulling focus back away from Miracleman himself), Samuel R. Delany (on Triton as a 'sexual utopia', differences from SF thinking and Utopian thinking)
Part Two: Clive Barker (on why fantastic fiction is the perfect place for Utopias), James Morrow (on a 'Utopia' city based on complete honesty in City of Truth and a pacifist utopia in The Wine of Violence), Geoff Ryman (on the Child Garden being an ambiguous utopia, and why utopias often focus on a particular person against the society), Ian M. Banks (on using a protagonist opposed to the Culture in Consider Phlebas, and writing along the outskirts of a Utopia)
Part Three: Sean Stewart (on Passion Play, which involves a dystopia evolving out of an attempt to create a Christian Utopia, and the need for Faith for a society to work), Kim Stanley Robinson (on his utopia novel, Pacific Edge and the question of "Utopia: Can we get there from here?", and the problem of multinational corporations being the biggest threat to a 'better world', and ending his book on a sad note)
Ecology in comics and SF: April 22, 1993
Part One: Frederick Pohl (on Our Angry Earth, a non-fiction book on ecology with Isaac Asimov, and why he doesn't think Zero Population Growth is the most urgent need), Paul Chadwick (creator of Concrete, on what he sees as the biggest Ecological Problem facing us, OverPopulation, and whether/how politics should play a role), Kim Stanley Robinson (on the importance of population control)
Part Two: Paul Chadwick (discussing the religious "be fruitful and multiply" and reading a speech from Concrete about current population expansion), Kim Stanley Robinson (on the Earth's maximum sustainable population), Jerry Pournelle (on solutions to population growth by producing wealth), Joe Haldeman (on tackling overpopulation in The Forever War, and his personal choice not to contribute to it, compared to people in third world countries who sometimes have no choice)
Part Three: Barry B. Longyear (on why Zero Population Growth became 'uncool' and the problems of enacting it in reality), David Brin (on legislating legal population limits in his novel Earth, and the US "growing up", and protecting your greatgreatgreatgrandchildren as a 'genetic investment', and visiting Easter Island)
Next week I'll do Advice (which I thought I'd do this week but got a bit behind on time), Memory, and maybe Medicine & Nanotechnology.
Continuing on TV, I finally finished Tom Baker's run on Doctor Who. Watched the first Davison episode too. Might watch one more to get a sense of him since he spent most of this one in regeneration madness. Overall, my thoughts on the Fourth Doctor (and a bit that he sheds light on Ten)
He's enjoyable, but I don't think I can call him one of my favorites. He can be a bit randomly abraisive and pompous, sometimes more than others. I can see why others like him, and I certainly like him much more than Three, but Two and even curmudgeonly One still top him. Probably around tied with Ten, towards but not at the bottom of the Docs I've seen so far. However, he did have a very good set of companions, perhaps better than any other Doctor I've seen (Two's Zoe and Jamie might be my favorite set of companions, but otherwise his weren't especially interesting, whereas Four had several interesting ones).
I did like that Adric called him on essentially 'making stuff up' for explanations, which is one of the things I had to, for my own sanity, decide applied to Ten as well, since he explains so much in ways that doesn't make any rational sense. The only thing that makes sense is that he's not really trying to explain, he's just trying to baffle the people around him with technobabble because he really likes SOUNDing smart, but (perhaps) knows that if he actually explains it in a way that approaches the reality of the situation, he'll just sound like a babbling madman (or the Time Cube guy). Or maybe he just wants to find somebody really smart who'll call him on his crap. So he makes stuff up.
Do like the new team of companions so far. Tegan, Adric, and Nyssa give me a little bit of the old Jamie/Zoe vibe. Nice to have a set of companions with skills that mesh together well, instead of one companion having to either be superman/woman to compete with the Doctor, or be all but useless in the face of his genius except for legwork.
Otherwise, FlashForward's still in the 'not bad, but we'll see' territory. Heroes is still marginally better. I can't help but think that if they ditched almost all of the 2nd or 3rd season entirely, and just attached this season directly to this one with maybe a tiny bit of connective plot, many of the elements would be workable, even interesting (the current status of Sylar with respect to Matt would be an entertaining way of keeping the actor but not having the problems of the uberpowerful character) but I can't completely forget the past.
The only big new series premiere of the week is Stargate: Universe. Overall, I enjoyed it, although at present I think it's below both SG1 and Atlantis in quality. The early worries/complaints (usually based solely on casting) of it being "Stargate: 90210" seem to be wholly without merit, but there is a strong taste of the new BSG in terms of style. In fact, it looks almost as though... you know in 200 where they did parodies of other SF shows (and a few non-SF shows)? It looks almost as though somebody said, "Hey, let's copy BSG's style for one of those", except instead of being a parody, they did it completely seriously. Very similar. A bit disorienting, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. (a bit more spoilery stuff behind the cut) The premise is a bit too much like Atlantis at first (trapped in another galaxy with no help from home and first mission is just survival), with the change being most of them weren't expecting to go on a big expedition they might never return from, and they're on a ship with a special mobile Stargate instead of a base).
Some differences from the normal Stargate formula - apparently they'll have a time limit they can spend on a given world before the ship moves on (although presumably, if they had a way of knowing where the ship was going, or could make an educated guess, anyone left behind could probably gate to another world furthur along the schedule and meet up later, but they probably won't). The mobile cameras could be cool, and the potential ongoing connection with Earth (due to the ancient communication device) is at least a nice twist - where they can communicate but not get direct help. Plus a load of secrets. (When I first heard they had them, I already came up with a plot based on them).
It does feel like we've only seen the first 2 hours of a 3 or 4 hour episode though. To really get a feel for it I'll have to see how the show is when "We're going to die in the next day if we don't get what we need!" isn't the primary focus for the stories (and I hope it's not for long, because that gets old quick). We haven't even met any enemies.