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Date Posted: 13:24:59 10/11/02 Fri
Author: matching mole
Subject: My answers, unspoiled
In reply to: Cactus Watcher 's message, "With no episode, new or old, to talk about this week" on 07:49:34 10/11/02 Fri

by anyone else's

1. Both a and b

2. Yes - I've seen all or almost all of the original series, ST: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine (as well as most of the movies). I've seen the first couple of seasons of Voyager and a few episodes sporadically thereafter as well as the first half dozen episodes of Enterprise. I watched the original series in the early seventies when there wasn't much in the way of competition in terms of sf on TV. Both Next Generation and Deep Space Nine seemed different enough from each other and from the original to warrant watching. They definitely seemed very serious in intent and well executed. Next Generation had a lot of outstanding individual episodes and was generally a lot more thoughtful and concerned with characterization than the original show. However I felt it suffered from what I might call the bland superwo/man syndrome. The characters were as well done as they could be but given the view of humanity that Roddenberry wanted to project there was definitely a limit to their development. In general I thought that Deep Space Nine had better characters, in fact some of the best characters of any sf show (with Kira, O'Brien, Odo, and the Cardassian tailor/spy being particularly superb). However it didn't handle the long term story (i.e. the discovery of the Dominion and the big war with them and the Cardassians) as well as Babylon 5 did. Voyager just seemed like Next Generation Lite - nothing really wrong with it but nothing new. Enterprise seemed like a good idea for a show but I didn't see the rationale for putting it in the Star Trek universe rather than starting from scratch. This is a pet peeve (a button if you will) of mine. I don't really see the attraction of creating ever more elaborate fictional universes with ever increasing problems of continuity and consistency unless there's a compelling reason within the story you want to tell itself.

While I generally like Star Trek I do find a couple of its central elements rather troubling. Roddenberry's positive view of humanity seems to have led to most alien species being caricatures of human imperfections. And I am a bit perturbed by having humanity so thoroughly identified with Starfleet throughout all the shows. Sure lots of non-Starfleet characters show up but the ones who always have the right answer are the ones in uniform. I would have really loved it if the Enterprise, for example, had had a Starfleet crew and a team of civilian scientists. There could have been lots of great stories about their interactions.

3. I must confess to never really liking the Star Wars films. I absolutely hated the first film when it came out, I felt that it was a giant step backwards in terms of sf as a serious art form. I've grown more tolerant with age but from a historical point of view I view the start of Star Wars as the beginning of the escalation of the effects driven blockbuster to the forefront of American film-making. As this is not the sort of film I'm particularly fond of, Star Wars does not really endear itself to me. The first three films are quite entertaining, especially the Empire Strikes Back.

4. I was a big fan of Babylon 5 which seemed to be the first sf TV show that was made for sf fans. However the real appeal of the series was that the story was crafted in advance and it really showed. In many ways this show was the opposite of the Star Treks - each was strong where the other was weak. The characters in Babylon 5 were not as well drawn and you never saw the sort of well written stand alone episodes that you got in the Next Generation. But the universe as a whole was much more coherent and the morality was much more complicated and interesting.

5. In general my interest in sf is primarily in written fiction, secondarily in TV, and thirdly in films. My first loyalty in fiction generally is to the written word. However, outside of sf, I generally like films more than television. However IMHO sf films tend to be more about lots of explosions and sf TV tends to more about characters and ideas. Most of my favourite sf films are old, things like The Day the Earth Stood Still or Invasion of the Bodysnatchers or Metropolis.
Besides the shows already mentioned I really like the Prisoner, Dr. Who, and Blake's Seven. B7 and the Prisoner have strong anti-authoritarian bents and rather complicated moralities. Dr. Who (in addition to being very entertainingly bad a lot of the time) was also quite anti-authoritarian and had quite a lot more humour than most science fiction on TV.
A list of sf books I like could go on for quite a while. My greatest influence is probably the New Wave writers of the 60s and 70s, particularly Dick, Ballard, and Moorcock. Jack Vance is another author I really like and, to a certain extent, Firefly reminds me of some of Vance's work. Among more recent writers I'd have to mention the early, and less didactic Sheri Tepper and Connie Willis.

6. I'm not a huge western fan and am not very knowledgeable about the genre. A lot of my ambivalence comes from having lived in the west (in Arizona) and my observations about what I see as really deep rooted contradictions in the idea of the 'West'. I'm really hoping that Firefly explores these themes.

7. My current working theory is that Buffy, Angel, and Firefly represent a continuum. Buffy is essentially a show about family and the interactions among characters occur within a fairly limited arena. Societal forces (the Mayor, Principal Snyder, the Initiative) are fairly abstract. Angel takes place within a more concrete societal framework than Buffy. Wolfram and Hart is more thoroughly constructed and integrated into sociey than any villain in Sunnydale. Firefly is a 'drama with landscape' to use JW's own words and his comments lead me to think that he will explore his themes over an even broader canvas this time. I think that the complex relationships and moral issues won't just (or maybe even primarily) relate to the crew of Firefly but may be between Firefly as a social entity and the larger society in which it exists.

8. Following up on my answer to question 7 I'd have to say that the meatiest potential of Firefly is in the comparison and integration of two different levels of social organization. How do the crew and passengers of the ship interact? What are the moral consequences of these interactions? And how does the ship interact with society as a whole? Are there inconsistencies? Where do they lie?

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