Dollhouse: Initial Impressions

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, guys. I'm dealing with major health issues, and also trying to work on two books ( a novel and a non-fiction work), the latter of which has a prospective publisher in the works.

I wanted to give my impression of Dollhouse, having seen the first three or four episodes. Basically, I think this is an average sci-fi series, but with some of the nice touches that make Joss Whedon's work so interesting. I have to agree with some feminist critics that the treatment of the female characters initially verges on the sexist, though knowing Joss, I expect that will change by the end of the series (and I'm not going to fault a series because of a lack of political correctness). The idea of imprintable personalities is intriguing, but it does pose major character development problems because of the way Whedon constructs the personality development process.

Incidentally, I am also making my way through Red Dwarf and Space: Above and Beyond. Has anyone seen the latter? Extremely interesting backstory, but it does seem a trifle jingoistic right now (though I hear the writers tried to undermine that jingoism later in the series, which is, like, natch, from the creators of the X-Files).

Anyway, I hope to be more in play during the school year, though I can't promise. I don't have ready access to a computer right now, having to go next door to use my aunt and uncle's. But I'll try to come up with more regular updates

Farscape Season 3 and 4 review

I'm watching Farscape through right now and am about two thirds through the fourth season. My perception of the series as depoliticized, I feel, is largely accurate. Where I think Farscape broke ground, and paved way for Battlestar Galactica, was in characterization, particularly of female protagonists. Farscape was the first series to try really hard for realistic female characters, with the possible exception of Babylon 5. But while the women in Babylon 5 were desexualized to the point of almost giving the show a sterile feel, the women of Farscape seem natural, realistic portrayals of how emancipated women in space would act. True, there are a few bodice-busting outfits that I think detract from the portrayals at time, but these are counterbalanced by the relative strength of the female protagonists, who are not merely helpless pawns of the male characters.
I think that Farscape's contributions to paving the way for BSG have been underemphasized and frankly, if I had to compare the two, I prefer Farscape's epic story arcs to Battlestar Galactica's random, purposeless plodding through seasons one and two. Time will tell which series is regarded more highly, but my bet is on Farscape.

Farscape and New Age Theology

Farscape is an interesting series when it comes to spirituality. Traditionally, most science fiction series have taken one of three theological paths: atheistic, New Age, or vaguely monotheistic. In the monotheistic category I would place the old BSG, the new BSG, certain elements of Babylon 5, and the Prisoner. The most explicitly atheist series are Blake's 7 and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Besides Farscape, Voyager and the X-Files both tend to take a kind of New Age approach to writing. What makes Farscape unique and set apart from these series is the absolute certainty it attaches to New Age mystic visions, Goddess ceremonies, etc. Unlike Voyager, which only timidly hints at the New Age elements, Farscape goes barrelling in, unconcerned about potentially offending anyone. Given the lack of respect in America paid to alternative religions, this seems a reasonably good sign, though I am disturbed by the level of irrationality both New Age and Farscape religions seem to promote. But then again, the monotheistic faiths are only marginally better in this regard.

Done with BSG: Some thoughts on the series

I finally finished the new BSG and I was a little disappointed at the ending. That the two angel figures really were angels was something I was not expecting and left me feeling a little cheated. The series took on pure fantasy aspects. I'm not against having religion involved in science fiction, especially when it works (as it seemed to do in the first two seasons of BSG). But there seems to be a move in the last two seasons of BSG to align the series more with the religious right and right wing military politics. Rosselin makes undemocratic decisions left and right, as does Adama, and we are supposed to applaud them because they are the good guys. I remember when BSG questioned such politics fully, but as America started its exit strategy for Iraq, BSG started its exit-strategy for controversy. So I take back what I said about the new BSG being better than Farscape. Farscape felt like it had more guts than this series. BSG will remain a noble experiment, but an experiment that failed. As touching as the finale is, the series never risked alienating any one segment of its audience by taking a stand on the dominant political issues - religion and the War - then prevalent in America. Worse, it never fully explored the sub-themes of working class life and rebellion that were so prominent in the early part of the series.

A Re-evaluation of Farscape's place in the science fiction canon

I've been re-watching Farscape over the last several weeks. I still love the show and still think it's one of the best sci-fi shows ever, but I no longer rate it quite as highly as I used to. Before, I saw the series as the second best space opera ever made, after Babylon 5. I also would have given it high marks for its anti-fascist message and its general attention to story detail. While I think these elements still hold, they are definitely not as present in the first two seasons, as they later became in seasons 3 and 4. Although I personally like Farscape better than the Twilight Zone, Star Trek, or the new BSG, I don't know that I can any longer defend it as an overall superior series, now that I'm watching it as a whole. Then again, I would rank it just outside the top 10 science fiction series, behind only a very few of the top shows. But tell me your thoughts.

The many assassinations of Adolf Hitler

I'm more in writing mode than blogging mode lately, so I'm working on several story ideas. One short story I may potentially write is called the "Many Assassinations of Adolf Hitler" (copyright 2010 John Weaver, not that I think any regular readers would steal an idea . . . and a poor one at that). In this story, an alternate universe Hitler (who is also a Jewish rabbi) goes through each progressive parallel universe, trying to assassinate his alter egos. When assassination proves untenable, he tries to substitute himself for the original and put his alter-ego in a concentration camp. Basically, the story is talking about the whole ethical relativism of the multiverse ideas championed by Michael Moorcock and company.

I'm also trying to question the whole morality of the alternative history genre, which holds that it can imagine any person being anything, given the right historical circumstances. Because people can write stories like the one above, I find the whole idea repulsive ultimately. But tell me, should I write this story or not?

Firebird Anti-Semitic debate heats Up

I got into a very interesting debate about whether the Firebird series was anti-Semitic. Evangelical fans say it isn't, while others aren't so sure. Check out the debate and tell me what you think. Frankly, the whole tone of anti-Semitic literature within evangelicalism, I find tremendously dissapointing. Novels like Obsessed, with vampiric Nazis sucking the blood of Jews, or Left Behind, where Jews are merely pawns in Satan's end game, disappoint me with their inability to deal with the needs of post-Holocaust Christianity to dialogue.

Working on new surrealist sci-fi story

I'm currently working on an aleternate history of England, where the Nazis successfully invade England in the 1940's and capture the Inklings writing group. Tolkien and Lewis are executed in the story, but without giving into the ubermensches of the Reich. At the end of the story, the Nazis find a graveyard of centaurs and fauns and can not explain where the skeletons came from. Anyway, that's my idea. Tell me what you think.

Finally ordered Avatar, Modern Political Sci-Fi

Well, I bit the bullet and finally ordered the 3 disc Collector's edition of Avatar (non-blu-ray) in an attempt to find out whether I can truly take this film. I must admit, to me, it sounds like "Last of the Mohicans in Space," with the typical regrettable streotypes of indigenous peoples found in every science fiction novel since Little Fuzzy. Since the film has been "unobtainiumable" for me for a while (I'm sorry, I couldn't resist), I've debated whether my money would be better spent on other sci-fi films. I still have yet to see District 9, which sounds like a more interesting premise, or Moon, which sounds better written. So, of the major (or minor) sci-fi films of the last 3 years, which has been the most politically important.

Picture of Dorian Gray

I just finished the Picture of Dorian Gray, which is a mythic fantasy-like novel by Oscar Wilde. It is a really interesting take on the corruption of the aesthetic ideal. What is so fascinating about the novel is that Wilde satirizes himself, particularly his well known reputation for being a dandy. Reading Dorian Gray is a tremendously sad experience, when knowing the facts of Wilde's life (He was put on trial for being gay, and sent to a jail that physically broke him. He died shortly after his release from prison). Wilde's writing, I think, should be the starting point for gay science fiction aesthetics, as he is a brilliant artistic theorist. His work has spawned more re-interpretations than any gay sci-fi\fantasy artist, with the exception of Samuel Delany. So please, check Dorian Gray out.

Doctor Who's selling really cheaply right now

Don't want to cause a run on them, but the new seasons of Doctor Who are currently selling for as little as $25 bucks a season used, or new and unopened, so you may want to consider getting yourself a couple. I was really tempted myself.

Battlestar Galactica Season 4 and Sucker Punch

I am watching BSG season 4 right now . . . about half way through it. It's o.k., but the story is stretched pretty thin. The lawyer character introduced from season 3 is really the only interesting character left, though Tom Zarek and Rosselin are interesting on occasion. I also hate how Apollo is portrayed as being naive for looking for a democratic solution to problems. Typical Hollywood love of dictatorial regimes, which Rosselin's certainly is.
Sucker Punch looks like an interesting movie, but I heard that the reviews are not good. Still, five cute Elvish-like girls kicking German butt is bound to appeal to the best (and worst) in us. Let me know if you like or hate Snyder's latest contribution to film (or as the snots at my school call it, 'the visual medium').

Working Class Sci-Fi Narratives

I recently finished Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time, an above average sci-fi (or at least potentially sci-fi) novel about a Hispanic woman (Connie) who periodically comes into mental contact with a future Utopian society. The novel is compelling because it is one of the few sci-fi novels I've read that reads like the working class narratives of the early 20th century: Martin Eden, Mcteague, Sister Carrie, etc. It still shocks me how few sci-fi novels feature working class protagonists or situations. There's Clockwork Orange, Woman on the Edge of Time, Iron Heel, and one or two novels from Ian Banks and Kim Stanley Robinson. Overall, however, the genre seems devoted to upper class scientists and politicians, or soldiers whose identity is safely nebulous. Some series, like Battletech and Star Trek, are particularly notorious for giving an overall middle class vision of the world, with very little emphasis placed on working class experience. Though I sometimes think Marge Piercy occasionally slips into excesses of politically correct rhetoric, I still admire her faith in her working class character, and her painful attention to making Connie appear as realistic as possible. Woman on the Edge of Time is a feminist novel I can at least relate to, which is more than I can say for Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, or Margaret Atwood. I suggest you check it out.

V for Vendetta and Psychiatry

The class I teach just got done discussing V for Vendetta, Alan Moore's classic graphic novel. One element I found particularly interesting in V is its use of the Milgram experiment as a metaphor for fascism. The psychiatric politics of V for Vendetta are decidedly ambiguous. On one hand, V is labeled a schizophrenic by the state, yet Moore indicates that the diagnosis of V's insanity is solely arbitrary, based on Doctor Dellia Surridge. This seems to indicate an anti-psychiatric critique, much in line with the writing of R.D. Laing. However, Alan Moore has also expressed a great deal of sympathy for anti-Scientologist forces, like Anonymous, that have adopted the V mask as a symbol of their crusade. In any case, I think V's politics, with his emphasis on personal responsibility, fits more into an anti-psychiatric critique of what is wrong with mentally ill people. A fascinating graphic novel nonetheless.

Has anyone seen Das Experiment?

I've ordered Das Experiment, a German movie about psychological experimentation on people, that borders on sci-fi. I was wondering if anyone has seen it and had thoughts on it. It looks pretty interesting. An explanation of the movie's plot is here.

Where are Sci-Fi Television's Colleges

A good question. Very little effort has been made to portray the college of the future. What would it look like? What would be studied in fields like literature, history, psychology? What fundamentally new concepts would these colleges have come up with, differing them from the colleges of today. Most depictions of colleges in space operas and cyberpunk TV shows show them to be little different from colleges of today, either hyper-militaristic West Points or stereotyped stuffy academic institutions like those shown in season 4 of Babylon 5. Who would be the hated Heideggers and Foucaults of future generations? What would they be set up against? It's a good question. I wish I had an answer to it.

C.S. Lewis: Reappraisal

I'm going through C.S. Lewis's letters right now, and frankly I find myself appalled at some of the things Lewis said. Lewis seemed to have a fairly virulent dislike of homosexuals, which was only matched by his disdain for communists and the laboring classes. I do understand that Lewis was tormented, possibly in homerotic ways, in his British boarding school experience, and frankly I would not be surprised if Lewis struggled with some sense of sadism or homoeroticism himself (not that I'm equating homosexuality with sadism, just saying Lewis might have.). But I don't think there's a similar excuse for his position on labor.
I'm going to an Episcopal church right now, and so you'd think I would feel closer to Lewis than I did before. And I still do have a certain fascination with the Inklings' charm. Whatever one might say about them, they were great novelists. But I can't escape the feeling that Narnia and Middle Earth were corrupted in some sense, by the very real prejudices Tolkien and Lewis exhibited in their works.

Atlas Shrugged movie

Do we really need this? Ayn Rand's mammoth novel is being made into a trilogy of films, the Star Wars of the Libertarian\Tea Party crowd. Frankly, I've never understood the appeal of Rand's writings. I don't find her to be particularly individualistic, whatever the claims of her supporters. Certainly, socialist Jack London's Martin Eden stacks up quite well against Atlas Shrugged as a study of individualism. I do think that Anthem is a reasonably scary, well done dystopia, but again I don't think it measures up to the dystopias of Jack London or George Orwell. We all, of course, know why capitalist-friendly Hollywood is producing Ayn Rand, but not Jack London. It doesn't take massive intellectual skills to see John Galt and company call the rest of the world "phoney". It does take such reading skills to understand why Martin becomes the social pariah he does, even as a successful individualist. Oh well.

British Invaders: Best Sci-Fi Podcast out there

I just wanted to spend a post talking about British Invaders , which I believe is the best sci-fi podcast out there right now, along with the Babylon 5 Podcast. What makes British Invaders so unique is that its two hosts are utterly charming (and quite non-American in outlook. One's Canadian and one's British). Moreover, British Invaders deals with major British sci-fi series not normally covered in other podcasts, such as Survivors, Blake's 7, and Red Dwarf. The episodes are not too long (I actually wish they were a little longer, say 45 minutes), but the guys do a great job at expressing their love for British sci-fi. I especially recommend you check out their excellent description of Survivors, which really made me want to check out that series, as well as their episodes on Blake's 7. Keep it coming, British Invaders! We love you.

Queer Cyborgs

Watching Lady Gaga's Alejandro video, I suddenly realized she had read Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto. Well, maybe not, but certainly both Haraway and Gaga realize the power of the cyborg imagery to disrupt traditional male\female, man\machine binary polarizations. The cyborg is a sort of permanent hermpahrodite, neither one thing nor the other, but stuck in a liminal space. Gaga celebrates the cyborg imagery through her combination of cyborg imagery with fascistic elements borrowed straight out of Fritz Lang and the 90's cult classic Dark City. I don't know how comfortable I am with gay cyber Nazis, but there it is . . . if it was not weird, it would not be Gaga. I can at least say one thing for Gaga . . . she's a lot more readable than Haraway, and with a catchier beat.

Stargate SG-1 and links to the military industrial complex

Please check out Stargate SG-1's wiki. According to it, the U.S. military supplied the series with a considerable amount of equipment over the years, including jet fighters. The show was even awarded a medal for positive portrayals of U.S. Air Force personnel.

Now pardon me, but it's bad enough the military is recruiting poor city kids and evangelical kids in the churches. Now the military-industrial complex is invading the sci-fi television screen and I am royally pissed. Not that I can do much about it. I suspect such links have always existed. One can't get equipment in Hollywood without the military censoring one's portrayals, to make sure they conform to the military's definition of true combat heroism. Any contextualization of war's costs, or what our "enemies" may feel or experience, is left permanently out of American war rhetoric. Seeing Stargate SG-1, I have that very rare wish that we were actually more, rather than less, like France (I can't stand France normally. Derrida, ugh!). At least French civvies no better than to trust their government, and understand that nation states play by the rules of realpolitik, not patriotism. So long as the American right does not realize this, we are going to be in big trouble.

The Entertainment business : Jerry Orbach, Space Rockers, and Buck Rogers

Science fiction often gets things laughably bad when dealing with the entertainment business. No where is this more evident than the series Buck Rogers, which predicted that disco music would be the dominant art form in the 25th century and then further contended that it would be spread by sinister rock managers like Jerry Orbach! Yes, Jerry Orbach, the cop who is impossible to hate (well almost impossible).
Seriously, though, sci fi television needs to come up with a more biting critique of the entertainment industry which of course its not likely to do, being as it's part of the entertainment industry. Only Max Headroom came close to offering up a compelling portrayal of a media dominated, entertainment-saturated culture. But I guess it may be too much to ask entertainment to stop being entertaining in the service of being enlightening instead. So, for the foreseeable future, expect to see more space disco than you'll ever see Headroom-like shows again.

Inklings article done

I just submitted an article to Mythlore on the Inklings, focusing on the graphic novel Heaven's War and James Owen's Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica. Basically, I'm talking about the mythopoeic elements in both works, as they relate to the Inklings. Wish me luck with this one guys. It's the fourth essay I've sent out (I've had one accepted and I'm waiting on an answer for the other two).

We Need a Better Class of Sci-Fi Racists\Racial Dialogue

In recent years, mainstream filmmaking has made tentative but sure steps to portraying racists with greater complexity. Three films have been particularly emblematic of this: American History X, This is England, and The Believer. American History X is well known, but the Believer is an obscure film that shows how a self-hatred for one's own racial\religious group (here Judaism) can lead to the very bigotry that victimizes you. What makes The Believer such a great movie is that its protagonist, Danny Balint, is a three dimensional racist, not someone who is just solely committed to ruining every minority person's day. I believe that American racial dialogue really needs this kind of honesty, because the mainstreaming of simplistic binaries between good anti-racists and bad racists simply does not work. People know real life is not that simple, and they also are aware of the class advantages that many proponents of anti-racism have had. I think science fiction badly needs some honest racial dialogue. The last time we had an honest movie about race was probably Brother from Another Planet, and that is almost three decades old. Series like Alien Nation tried to say something about race, but they were simply too embarrassingly simplistic to do any good. Star Trek, the most race-obsessed series on television, usually settled for simplistic racial signifers: mean Klingons, cunning Romulans, good humans, mercantile Feringi. If we're going to get somewhere with the genre, sci-fi authors and television producers need to take a good hard look at real racial anxieties in America. I think the ideal place to start is with Octavia Butler's excellent and complex meditations on race, such as Lillith's Brood and Kindred (especially the latter; the former occasionally becomes a feminist jeremiad). Only by doing so will the genre really become the racially sensitive genre it's ostensibly supposed to be.

RPGS and Fundamentalists

I am writing a play called "Fundamentalists in search of an RPG", about a young man trying to leave his culture and using RPGs as the method. The whole fundamentalist objection to RPGs has always interested me. I nearly wasn't able to play RPGs as a kid because of anti-RPG prejudice on the part of one of my grandmothers. Later on, my school banned a kid from bringing an early version of WOW to school, while simultaneously letting my brother and I enchant our classmates with Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. Evangelical reactions to RPGS can often take on rather extreme overtones, with some players even being physically threatened during the height of the RPG scares of the early eighties. In case you guys are interested in this topic, I urge you to check out this article.

Equlibrium and Hate Crimes Laws

Equilibrium is only an average sci-fi movie, but it does have one exceptional element, which is that it realizes the potential dangers of hate crimes legislation. Dystopianism in Equilibrium is brought about by "the revolutionary precept of the hate crime" (in the nation state of Libria). I fully understand why so many minority groups do want there to be hate crime legislation and I do sympathize. My problem with such legislation is that ultimately it criminalizes thought as well as action, and therefore could eventually lead to the criminalization of hate speech as well. I would vigorously oppose that, since criminalizing hate speech would likely turn the U.S. in an even more totalitarian direction than we are already going. What if "Christophobia" was labeled hate speech, or anti-corporate rhetoric? No, Equilibrium got it right, in spite of its occasionally insipid plot and lame shots at psychiatric drugs. And it's an enjoyable movie to boot!

Teaching Queer-friendly Sci-fi and Literature

This semester I have incorporated two quite LGBT-friendly texts, Corpus Christi and Wicked. Both of them are going to be a challenge to teach. Corpus Christi is a play that transposes Christ's passion to a bunch of gay men living in 1950's Texas. I'm not claiming it's great art (it's also not bad art either), but it is the only prominent work of literature that has addressed Christ's life from a queer perspective. I'm interested in seeing how my students respond to it. I'm not trying to brainwash them into blindly accepting a pro-LGBT position, but I do want them to think about the potential consequences of some of the rhetoric currently directed towards the gay community.
Wicked, I've already posted on. But it's one of a series of texts that I would like to incorporate into a course called "The Wizard of Queer," about LGBT-oriented sci-fi and fantasy. Wicked and at least one work by Samuel Delany, would be my first choices. Do you guys have any other suggestions?

A Boy and His Dog

I'm almost through watching this classic 70's nihlist sci-fi film (it's taken me almost a semester to watch it). I think there's a lot to commend in this picture, particularly the lack of sentimentality about the lead Vic and his dog Blood. Vic is basically a trigger-happy rapist in waiting, while Blood undercuts everything you've ever believed about what dogs think of humanity. I think the film's cult status stems in large part from the director's refusal to bow to pressure and turn this film into safe family fluff, a la Buck Rogers and The Black Hole. A Boy and His Dog is probably the last great classic of 70's sci-fi film, before Star Wars and Alien came around and ruined everything.

What is your favorite Earthside sci-fi program?

Normally, I am more a fan of space opera than earthbound science fiction. My favorite space operas are Farscape, Babylon 5, Doctor Who, Blake's 7, and to a lesser extent, the new Battlestar Galacatica. But I was wondering what your guys favorite Earthbound series are. To me, the top two Earthbound series are The Prisoner and Max Headroom. I think the Prisoner set the surrealist tone for so much of the Earth-centered sci-fi that came after it, only it did it much better. Max Headroom, meanwhile, was the definitive cyberpunk show. Politically, Earthbound series tend to emphasize paranoia and distrust of the government, healthy attributes in a state-controlled era of media-spinned, entertainment-saturated American citizens. Many of the top earthbound series have leaned heavily left, particularly Max Headroom and The X-Files. My fear with earthbound sci-fi is not that it will supplant space operas (though it is doing that), but that it will no longer be creative. I just can't get that interested in what's going on in Lost's island or in the parallel universes of Fringe. Neither series, right now at least, appeals to me. I want some real sci-fi ideas, and some new ones, not recycled and inferior copies of great Prisoner and X-Files episodes. The age of remakes and quasi-sci fi should be over. A return to cyberpunk, to thoughful space opera, to outlandish science fiction ideas, should begin.

The Prisoner and the Arizona Shooting

I've been depressed while watching the news on Jared Loughner. As an advocate for the mentally ill, and as a mentally ill person myself, the demonization of the mentally ill occurring in the media is truly astounding. Every news station, from Fox to MSNBC, is using this issue as a political football, a chance to gain ratings. The pictures of Loughner are accompanied by scary music and orchestral accompaniment, the media completely oblivious to the fact that this may prevent a fair trial of this young man. People keep calling Jared's actions "heinous". I definitely think they are "tragic", but the term heinous implies that Jared knew what he was doing was wrong and no one has proven that as of yet.

No one is putting the blame on state health care programs that are cutting millions from mental health treatment in favor of more expensive prisons. Even supposedly responsible newspeople are using antiquated terms for Jared, like "madman", "psycho", etc. And of course, our beloved psychiatric community, as is typical, is, if anything, contributing to the media feeding frenzy. And people wonder why the mentally ill don't seek help.

If that wasn't bad enough, there are now calls to clamp down on free speech and hate speech, particularly the Tea Party movement. Readers of this blog will know I am no friend of the Tea Party, but I think these calls are asinine. And that brings me to Patrick Mcgoohan's The Prisoner. Mcgoohan, living in a pre-Cable age, was a fierce individualist, and also a fierce opponent of "individualism" as a political philosophy, rather than a personal outlook on life (in other words, he saw that individualism itself could be corrupted). The last episode of The Prisoner, "Fallout", truly exposed the moral bankruptcy of our media-created Villages, with their manufactured heroes and manufactured villains. Number 6 knew better, or at least I hope he would have. So, I for one, will not join the lynching party aimed at a (probably) schizophrenic young man. I'll leave that for our media intelligentsia. I'm sure they'll do a great job.

Buck Rogers and A.I.

Buck Rogers approach to A.I. is somewhat different from that of the original Battlestar Galactica. The original Battlestar took a very negative view of A.I., seeing it as uncreative and unimaginative. To a certain extent, Buck Rogers shares that predilection, as Buck is always warning Wilma about not relying on computer technology, as it is too "predictable". There is also a good deal of senseless android killing in the series. But the higher forms of A.I., like doctor Theopolis, rule Earth benevolently, where human beings can't. Twiki, like C-3P0, shows human emotions. While he is a silly robot, at least he doesn't follow in the killer robot tradition of Terminator. To me, anti-A.I. prejudice is not necessarily a laughing matter. Series like the old BSG have molded public perceptions of A.I., telling us that such creatures will always be somehow "less than" human. But how will we really know? Who's to say that if we create A.I., it won't be more than us, something deeper, with sensitivity to art, love, compassion. Twiki, whatever his limitations, is in some ways infinitely preferable than the Terminator\Agent Smith\Skinjob stereotype of A.I. that now dominates contemporary society.

Buck Rogers and Genetic Perfection

As a series, Buck Rogers frequently plays with the idea of women and men looking for the "genetically perfect mate". Princess Ardala has the genetic hots for Buck and Buck himself is deeply attracted to "Miss Cosmos". The theory in the series goes, in so much as it is a theory and not an excuse for incredibly skimpy outfits, that the bodies of beautiful men and women will be highly sought out genetic commodities in the future. As much as I hate to admit it, the series actually has a fairly interesting point in this regard, though it would have been more interesting if they had just used the traditional genetic collection techniques of a sperm bank. Then again, seeing Gil Gerard pouring his seed into a cup would probably traumatize me for life. On the other hand, many men would love to know more about the lovely Erin Gray, but I digress. Seriously, though, it's interesting to speculate on what the "beauty market" of the future will be like, when that market is genetically, rather than randomly controlled. It may likely produce a new form of racial hygienics based on beauty rather than the fitness of the German or American volk.

Buck Rogers, or Stupidity Made Manifest

So, I'm watching Buck Rogers for my sci-fi Encylopedia. It's truly abysmal. The series has some of the worst acting ever, even if it is meant to be camp. Politically, it says absolutely nothing, except that the capital of the new world order will naturally be in Chicago (because Mayor Daley did such a good job there in the 1960's, the 25th century naturally had to follow suit). The sexual politics of the series are deeply repulsive. I mean all the eye candy is gorgeous, but I don't like seeing women being objectified the way Buck Rogers so clearly does. Even when compared to series like the old Battlestar Galactica, Buck looks weak. At least the old BSG had some heart, and even one or two characters you could care about. And the dumb android in this series, Twiki, is even worse than Boxey's daggit. All I want to do is put a gun to Twiki's head and pull the trigger. God, what a series.