No, no, not THAT kind of fantasy, yer slash pervs! š
A discussion on Facebook lead me to posting this:Ā
This one is EASY PEASY LEMON SQUEEZY:
From non-Trek SF telly:Ā Ā 1. Captain Samantha Carter 2. First Officer Lee Adama 3. Chief Engineer Kaywinnet Lee Frye 4. Tactical/Security Officer Kiera Cameron 5. Helmsman Ulysses Adair 6. Chief Medical Officer Dr. Walter Bishop 7. Operations John Kennex 8. Science Officer Orac Ā From Trek:Ā Ā 1. Captain Wesley Crusher 2. First Officer Amanda Rogers 3. Chief Engineer Hugh Borg 4. Tactical/Security Officer Gary Seven 5. Helmsman Morn 6. Chief Medical Officer Dr. MāBenga 7. Operations MāRess 8. Science Officer Saru
If you compare TOS to reboot BSG, then it may look dated and certainly the effects are *now* inferior. BUT at the time TOS came out, it was a revolutionary series, in terms of both conception and (where the studio allowed!) execution. The first inter-racial kiss on US TV: check. A bridge crew of officers which included numerous human ethnicities AND Spock? Check. A future which is has abolished money and where education, food, shelter and healthcare are free for every human? Check. And it’s well known that Roddenberry actually wanted to push even further but the studio wouldn’t have it.
BSG may be absolutely “sexier” and “grittier” but *for the time it was made and released*, it took far fewer risks than TOS. So, BSG may seem edgier but, really, how many real risks did it take compared to TOS? None that I can remember.
Also, I would argue that dystopias are lazy, we’re drowning in them! Every new YA is set in a dystopia with a plucky Mary Sue-ish heroine torn between two boys, one bad, one good, both gorgeous and, like, totally into her. I’m not saying BSG is the same as Divergent or Maze Runner or The Hunger Games but it is Yet Another Robot Uprising Armageddon. It’s hard to write a happy song, very easy to write a sad one. Roddenberry’s genius is that he wrote a happy song that wasn’t The Frog Chorus. (see also Iain M. Banks’ Culture.)
Dystopia… pah, gimme a UTOPIA, like Roddenberry did. Give me an Earth with a mature, cohesive humanity, a place of wonder and beauty that can inspire us now. (And then pit that world against all kinds of wild, external baddie, sure.)
You can’t watch TOS now as it actually was back then because TOS itself changed the world. Trek permeates everything. BSG is quality entertainment, Trek is an entire philosophy of life.
Iāve been watching Salvation on UK Netflix and itās just making me miss HACF.
Why is mainstream US telly so emotionally vapid, so silly and plastic?
In one scene, a character is literally waterbaorded. Half an hour later, heās totally fine and making jokes about it. You know, like any of us would be after being tortured.
The world is literally ending in Salvation and all that the characters care about is whoās fucking who. Really, if I knew I only had a few weeks to live, Iād have other priorities.
Silly, silly, silly.
Iām now waiting for another TV drama written for adults. Please tell me if you find one.
EDIT
Iāve wasted my life watching this shitty series and I canāt believe the big boohoo at the end is that the central female character canāt decide between the two really handsome blokes with great arms. Thus is all of humanity reduced to pubescentĀ mewling.
AND NOW THEYāRE FUCKING DANCING. BECAUSE THAT WOULD HAPPEN.
Iām in fucking pieces. Just when everything was perfect for Gordonā¦ I canāt believe it. Itās so horrible and random and unfair.
Which I guess is why HACF is the most lifelike show on telly.
Seeing his girls and Donna weeping on the sofaā¦. that just fucked me up. The shot where his daughters reach for each othersā hands was killer. And then, the actual sequence representing his stroke was fantastic: spooky and romantic and sad andĀ āWell, this was your life.ā
I canāt believe how ignored this show is when it delivers incomparable drama like tonightās ep. HACF has made all the characters all too real, I donāt know if Iāll ever really believe theyāre not alive, somewhere. Thatās its genius.
Is it then hypocritical of me to ask for happy endings for everyone? I *know* life isnāt like that, I know shit like this happens every day but itās GORDON, for fuckās sake. Heās so awkward and geeky and lovable and tries so goddamn hard for every person in his life. Heās pretty much my ideal of what a best mate would be like. Why have this happen to Gordon? Heās like a fucking puppy, no harm should ever come to him.
I feel soo sad now that Iāll never experience new eps of this universe again, the same as I feel about Falling Skies, Continuum, Warehouse 13, Eureka, Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, Dollhouse and sooo many more.
On the one hand, Iām glad we got more than Firefly or Caprica. On the other, I still think there are great stories to be told in the Grimmverse. It was such a cleverly written and plotted series and the ensemble of actors rolled with it, made it all seem real.
Grimm was always tight and snappy, never bloated and labouring, a rare joy in these days of rampant Netflixitis. We had arcs in seasons, across seasons, characters going from bad to good, good to bad; I loved all that unpredictability.
Above all, Grimm had this finely-honed humour that even when the darkest shit would be going on, someone would pop up (maybe Wu, maybe Hank, often Monroe, bless him) and say something to give it a twist. Which made it all more believable! Life isnāt un-relenting horror, even in the most horrible moments, incongrous, ridiculous things leap out and slap you in the face. The Absurd is a good friend of Death.
Thank you to all the actors of Grimm for giving me a whole set of people to love and hate and cheer and chide. Thank you to the writers for making up sooo many awesome Monster Of The Week stories *and* extending the universe with the myth of the Grimms, Wesen et al. Thank you to all the crew and tech peeps and animators and sound fx and grips and whoever else made it all happen.
Give yourself a pat on the back when you look at what you made. You made something special that entertained and connected with millions of viewers.
The quiet genius of Peter Kay reaches perhaps its purest expression in Car Share.
Nothing happens. Itās just two coworkers sharing a car to work. And back. Thatās it. Nothing bloody happens.
And that nothing is everything.
Kay is better than Beckett, better than Bennett, better than Camus. There is not a wasted word, every interaction is absolutely essential and completely fucking pointless. Morrissey is a mere cack-handed amateur compared to the gentle precision of Kayās exposition on this corner of British culture.
These tiny exchanges are so silly, they are eerily perfect:
āI canāt wait to hit the free bar!ā
āWhat you on about? Thereās no free bar!ā
āThere was a free bar last year!ā
āNO THERE WASNāT!ā
āWellā¦ no-one stopped meā¦Ā ā
The other beautiful thing about Car Share is its pure adoration of pop music. Car Share understands the beauty in the ephemerality of pop music. At the minute, Iām watching a whole conversation about Crazy Frogās weird little penis. It is brilliant. They also stage musical numbers so this is as much musical TV as Glee was but thatās the only thing the shows have in common; Kay is a total auteur and the comedy in Car Share is both way sharper and more real than the committee-written jokes of Gles.
If youāve never seen Car Share, check it out. Itās fucking mint.
SO, I’m bingeing Veronica Mars and I’m too entertained. Like, I expected it to be good but not *this* good. The writing is snappy, the dialogue entertaining, the plots all sewn up with each ep…
Ā
If this was a Netflix series, I feel like forty minutes of each ep would be her just staring in the mirror intercut with flashbacks, flash forwards, zooming pics of the Horsehead Nebula and insects fucking each other.
Ā
I’d forgotten telly could be concise and REFRESHING. Not a fucking slog through hours of self-indulgent pseudery, just WAITING FOR SOMETHING TO BLOODY HAPPEN.
Fucking hell…. just tried to watch the first ep of this and, apparently, casual racism is the NEW EDGY on Netflix.
āBUT HEāS OBNOXIOUS, YOU DONāT GET IT!!!ā
Oh, but I do. Itās yet another excuse for punch down humour. Why couldnāt he have been an obnoxious black cop making fun of crackers? Why couldnāt he have been an obnoxious female cop with a Male Tears mug?
Because that transposition might actually be challenging.
Instead we get Yet Another White Male braying hisĀ āOOH, LOOK AT ME, IāM POLITICALLY INCORRECTā bollocks everywhere.
This is so fucking cliched, itās only made worse by the irritating score boom-tishing Backstromās racist quips like a tiny Richard Hammond sucking off Jeremy Clarkson.
Fuck this show, fuck everyone in it and fuck all the writers.
Manish Dayal as Ryan RayĀ – Halt and Catch Fire _ Season 3, Episode 2 Ā – Photo Credit: Tina Rowden/AMC
āI, Ryan Ray, released the MacMillan source code.
I acted alone and nobody told me to do it.
I did this because security is a myth.
Contrary to what you might have heard, my friend, you are not safe. Safety is a story, itās something we teach our kids so they can sleep at night, but we know itās not real.
Beware baffled humans, beware false prophets who will sell you a fake future of bad teachers, corrupt leaders and dirty corporations.
Beware of cops and robbers, the kinds that rob your dreams. But most of all, beware of each other.
The world is going to crack wide open. There is something on the horizon. A massive connectivity. The barriers between us will disappear, and weāre not ready.
Weāll hurt each other in new ways, weāll sell and be sold, weāll share our most tender selves only to be mocked and destroyed. Weāll be so vulnerable, and weāll pay the price.
We wonāt be able to pretend that we can protect ourselves anymore. Itās a huge danger, a gigantic risk, but itās worth it, if only we can learn to take care of each other, then this awesome new connection wonāt isolate us.
It wonāt leave us in the end so totally alone.ā
– Final statement of Ryan Ray, Ā December 18, 1986.
