Max Headroom's "War"

I rarely review individual episodes of a series, but Max Headroom is so good that I did want to talk about one particular excellent episode: War. In this episode, the lead character Eddison Carter starts covering a terrorist group (the White Brigade) which is launching attacks on the lower-end parts of Eddison's city. In a stunning twist, however, the terrorist is being funded by network tv to provide "entertainment terrorism", in order to keep the ratings up for certain networks. "War" is an exceptional episode, even if I do detect a certain amount of traditional Brit anti-Irish bias here. The idea of the media literally funding terrorism, of terrorists using special effects demonstrations in place of actual terrorist demolitions, etc. is truly mindblowing. Obviously, there are parallels between the White Brigade and groups like Fox News, that provide the same sort of terrorist "media events", which later turn out to be nothing. I think Max Headroom could do a slightly better job of paralleling government and corporate interests, but that's no fault of Headroom. In fact it's a tribute to the series, one of the few sci-fi series that imagined the future would be even worse than it is now. So, friends, if you get a chance, check it out.

Max Headroom: Anti-Corporate Rabblerousing

I just finished watching the complete Max Headroom series over a period of three days. I can't believe how good the series was! Impeccable writing and cynicism that is nearly a match for Blake's 7 makes Max Headroom one of the best sci-fi series I have ever seen, perhaps the best. The cyberpunk elements of the series are of course great, but what is truly distinctive is how the series used the character of Max to both gain and yet subvert its own advertisers. The set design on the series is absolutely phenomenal, and Max has proved to be a far more reliable barometer of the future then series like STNG. Practically every prediction made in the series has come true in some sense, and some of its warnings about cyberterrorism seem particularly prescient in an era dominated by spin-controlled media who seek to shut down organizations like Wikileaks. I feel so greatful I've had the opportunity to watch this show. It's the only series I've seen that goes beyond Blake's 7 in its attacks on corporate and media manipulation of working class and middle class populations (of which I am a member). I hope to include future entries on Max Headroom, as well as on Firefly, which I have also just finished. Hopefully, some Outer Limits reviews will also be coming your way as well.

Note: I'm still hard at work on the Encylopedia project. Here's the Dialogue breakdown

Babylon 5 (full), original BSG (full), Firefly (full), Max Headroom (full), new BSG (all but the last season and one episode of the 3rd), Farscape (slightly less than half way), Outer Limits (a little more than halfway full), Doctor Who (about 30 episodes done), Twilight Zone (complete), STNG (complete), TOS (complete), Space 1999 (complete), DS9 (about 3 seasons worth), Earth 2 (fully recorded), Blake's 7 (fullly recorded)

Series I have access to that have not been dialogue recorded: UFO, Buck Rogers, Torchwood, Alien Nation, The Prisoner, Hyperdrive, Red Dwarf, Dollhouse (VOY and DS9 I have access to scripts)

Series I soon hope to purchase: Space Precinct and\or Stargate SG-1

As I've said before, I'm going through each series and recording dialogue that deals with political, social, economic, religious, or philosophical issues. Some series, like SG-1, I'd prefer not to watch, so if anyone wants to take those ones over, it'd be a blast. This dialogue recording process has gone relatively well, and I'm hoping to eventually add Stargate Atlantis, Enterprise, Earth Final Conflict, and Andromeda to it, though I don't know that I will tackle the Japanese series myself (not because they are bad, but just because I don't know Japanese culture well enough to comment on them intelligently). Lost In Space is another one I should perhaps tackle.

Why are Female Friendly Shows Being Cancelled/

I recently heard that Caprica, the BSG series targeted at female audiences, has been cancelled and is to be replaced with another Battlestar Galactica series, Blood and Chrome, about a "hotshot young pilot" Will Adama. Do we need any further evidence that the sci-fi channel is dumbing itself down even further than normal? How many times do we have to go through the "Top Gun" hotshot scenario before it gets old? It was entertaining in the BSG remake, but only because Starbuck was such a well conceived character. Clearly, this move is aimed at the testerone section of the public who wants more blood and battles.

This represents a continuing trend in sci-fi television to cancel shows that are either female friendly or portray complex female characters. I think that's one of the problems that Firefly (which I recently finished viewing) has had with the general audience. It made the mistake of viewing women as three dimensional human beings with complex personalities, personalities not reducible to stereotypes. Gina Torres's character (sorry, forgot the name), River, Caylee, and in particular, Inara, were superbly drawn, and therefore not appealing enough to men raised to simply view women as sex objects. This accomplishment was all the more remarkable considering that Inara's character was a Companion character, only the second starring sci-fi tv character to be a prostitute (Callie from the original BSG was the first). I think the real problem with the sci-fi genre as a whole right now is that it primarily read and watched by men, and is therefore targeted at the male, rather than female audience.

Will the new Battlestar Galactica be Remembered

I am closing in on the Fourth Season of the New Battlestar Galactica, and I am wondering what the long term impact of the series will be on televised science fiction. An article here argues that BSG still deals with relevant issues. I am a little less sure of that myself, to be honest. Terrorism, while a pressing political issue, has always varied in the amount of press coverage it received. It was "in" in the seventies and the 2000's. But will it be so forever? I think the new BSG broke new grounds in character development and provided some more radicalized political characters, such as Tom Zarek. But compared to Blake's 7 or Babylon 5, it wasn't particularly daring for its time period. Both Blakes 7 and Babylon 5 dealt with terrorists, and sympathized with them far more than BSG did. Both Blake and Captain Sherdian were in a sense terrorists themselves. I don't think that BSG is a genre shifting show in the way that the original Star Trek, Blake's 7, STNG, and Babylon 5 were. Worse, it did not stop the decay of the genre that has been occurring since the advent of reality television. Today, outside of Caprica and the new Doctor Who (and sundry spinoffs), there is very little in the way of good science fiction. Ten years ago, we had a nearly fully functional Sci-fi channel, that ran series like Farscape and the new Outer Limits (relatively decent), as well as Andromeda, which was at least decent for a few seasons. There was Firefly and Dark Angel and a host of inventive programs coming out in the wake of the digital revolution created by the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars franchises. Now, there's literally nothing out there. BSG wasn't the first of a new breed. I fear it may be television science fiction's swan song.

Space Precinct: Cop Shows in Space

So what is your guys opinions on space cop shows like Space Precinct, Star Cops, and Star Rangers. I am thinking of asking for Space Precinct for my birthday, as it looks like an interesting series, but some of its predecessors in the space cops genre do not impress me. There was a really good law show set in the future that aired ten years ago, and during the height of ER, there was Mercy Point, a space hospital show, but basically its very hard to find a market for these kinds of specialized series. It's too bad, though i'm not really one to encourage the Orwellian boot of law enforcement to migrate into space.

Original Outer Limits vs. Sequel: No contest

I just wanted to say how much I prefer the original Outer Limits to its sequel series. The original series had an alien every week, and always was full of interesting ideas. Politically, it was foreword looking and maintained one's interest in how the series would unfold. By contrast, the sequel series was full of crappy special effects and crappy story lines, often having to recycle from the old series just to come up with good plots. There were a few good episodes, including a quite moving Holocaust time travel story, but overall the series drowned in its own mediocrity. It is my hope that future television series do follow the original's example, not its inferior ripoff.

Tourist Attraction, Homoeroticism, and Latinos

I am currently watching the Outer Limits episode Tourist Attraction, from the original series. What struck me as very unusual about the episode is that there is a small scene, almost a throw-away, in which a Latino dictator critiques Ralph Meeker's adventurer character for his hypermasculinity, saying that among Latinos it is quite common for men to show physical affection without this being seen as a sign of homoerotic behaviour. I don't know if the episode is taking shots at homophobia or shots at Latinos, but either way its a pretty risky line to put into an early sixties TV series. As usual, the original Outer Limits proves itself to be ahead of its time.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and the Gay Agenda

Well, this is more in the fantasy category, and this is obviously meant in a somewhat humorous fashion, but for all you flaming conservatives of the right, how dare you let your children watch that homoerotic masterpiece, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Only people with gaydar as dull as a coal-brown nose can miss the obvious subtexts of an "Island of Misfit Toys", an aspiring Elvish dentist kicked out of his community for being "different" . . . and less masculine, and a persecuted, socially marginalized red nosed reindeer. Your children are being perverted by the twisted lies of Satan! Rudolph will corrupt your children . . . first they will follow Santa Claus, next thing you know they'll be dancing to Adam Lambert, and checking out gay Christmas porn. Or, perhaps, just perhaps, they'll spend Christmas with their gay partner enjoying the wonders of Christ and the Christmas season. But OBVIOUSLY GAY PEOPLE CAN"T DO THAT! (ENDING) O.K. rant over. Seriously, I'm glad there's at least one LGBT-friendly Christmas tale out there. We need more.

Doctor Who, Pyramid of Mars and those Darn Egyptians

Doctor Who's racial politics often keeps me up late at night and Pyramid of Mars is no exception. A fourth doctor story, it is an exceptional tale involving mummy robots, ancient Egyptian gods, ancient astronauts, and the obligatory superstitious savages. The main savage in question, Namin, is a servant of the "one true god" Sutekh and gets killed off at the end of the first episode. I'm not sure, however, that the episode is being deliberately anti-Arabic, because the references in the episode seem to point directly at Egyptians specifically. Hinchcliffe era stories weren't afraid of stepping on people's toes . . . this is the era that brought us Talons of Weng-Chiang . . . but in this case, I think the offense while there, is probably unintentional. Still, Doctor Who usually does a better job of sending up British racial politics when its being ironic, as in Giant Robot or Day of the Daleks, than in its modern politically sanitized vision of the future.

Why I hate superheros

I hate superheroes. I hate them with a passion. In fact, it is my opinion that the whole super hero genre, as a genre, is leading to the collapse of any semblance of communitarian or even democratic values in contemporary America. Why do I believe this? Because of the cult of the ubermensch that surrounds superheroes today. These magical beings are to be worshiped, loved, never questioned, and generally obeyed (minus the good '86 revisionist trend). Superheroes are a genetic elite, who engage in vigilantism for the sole purpose of beating up some poor innocent street kid whose only crime is not being born with the superhero's elite genes. And, oh yeah, they're almost all white and even more male. If they're females, they have to have breasts that stick out into the stratosphere and be surprisingly easy to get into bed with. Does anyone see a problem with this? Sieg Heil, Superman, even if you were created by two Jewish kids from Brooklyn. We know what direction you're taking the world in.

Keywords: Nazis, Superman

Jennifer Government and sci-fi anti-capitalism

For those who are inclined to like anti-capitalist science fiction, you may enjoy Max Barry's novel Jennifer Government. The novel is an over-the-top (I mean completely) satire on consumerism and capitalism that is one of the few genuine anti-capitalist novels I've read in the last thirty years. That being said, the novel reads like an extended Hollywood treatment, so you wonder whether the author is really as anti-capitalist as the novel would make one believe. The novel does a good job of depicting corporate warfare in its most extreme forms and takes several effective shots at the libertarian movement, asking whether sometimes freedom isn't overemphasized in contemporary society. If nothing else, Jennifer Government is an interesting read. I suggest you check it out.

Depictions of Torture in Sci-Fi

I'm providing a link here to a ministry that psychologically tortured me about ten years ago. I am diagnosed with OCD (and now also with bipolar). The ministry locked me in a room for five hours and the staff screamed at me to repent of my OCD or be cursed by God forever. Finally, when they saw I would not relent, they let me go.

Science fiction, to me, has always done a rather bad job at depicting torture. That may be, in part, because some sci-fi people are sadomasochistic at their heart (perhaps myself included). They like to see their heroes battling people dressed up as Nazis, people wearing uniforms, people saluting Nazis, or not saluting Nazis and getting shot. Doctor Who and Babylon 5 have both tried to depict torture but only somewhat successfully. BSG does a better job at it, but I also think there is a definite anti-Islamic strain of sadomasochism running through that series as well, one that I am very uncomfortable with. I think, as sci-fi or near sci-fi treatments go, Clockwork Orange and V for Vendetta are two of the better treatments, particularly the book version of V, which fully teases out the moral implications of V's torturous actions, even if it does somewhat excuse them (for somewhat understandable reasons however). I think, though, the definitive treatment of torture in a near sci-fi setting is Closetland, with Alan Rickman. Check it out. You just may have trouble sleeping after.