From Newsday:
Sci-fi seeks critical mass
BY DIANE WERTS
STAFF WRITER
July 10, 2005
Rodney Dangerfield was wrong. It's sci-fi TV that don't get no respect.
Case in point: A vice president in the TV industry recently asked me what TV shows I watch for enjoyment. I mentioned my favorite is "Battlestar Galactica" on Sci Fi Channel. She laughed. I asked if she'd seen it. No, she said, and laughed again. Did she know, I asked, that it's a gritty adult drama of family members and colleagues in deep-rooted conflict not unlike that of "The Sopranos"? That they're part of a civilization struggling not only to survive but to define itself amid messy terrorist warfare? That it explores the values of competing societies that demonize each other's spiritual beliefs? That it's full of gutsy acting by the likes of Edward James Olmos and sophisticated allegory mirroring today's global politics?
She laughed again.
And she's not the only one. Mary McDonnell laughed, too, when the two-time Oscar nominee was offered one of the lead roles in Sci Fi's latest series smash. From "Dances With Wolves" to "Battlestar Galactica"? "I couldn't equate myself with that particular genre," says McDonnell, a graceful 50ish woman you might expect to see on something erudite like "The West Wing," if not the space-based drama that begins its second season Friday (10 p.m. on Sci Fi). Even McDonnell "felt, like, here I am, this sort of earth mother, and my perception of people in science fiction was sort of pristine. I was very naive and ignorant about the genre. And on the other hand, I'm very interested in the metaphysical in life."
A challenging role
So McDonnell read the script and took the role of a government bureaucrat suddenly elevated to the presidency after an apocalyptic attack wipes out nearly her entire civilization. As the survivors continue to be hunted by an attacking race of human-looking robots that they themselves created, McDonnell's character comes to believe she is a "chosen" leader whose rise was foretold by religious prophets. That makes her a lightning rod for no-nonsense military leaders (led by Olmos), for power-seeking rivals and even soldiers torn between pragmatic duty and spiritual beliefs.
"There are unlimited possibilities, really, because it embraces the other dimension, and the light and the dark of the spiritual dimension," McDonnell says. "We're able to look at religious, war and environmental needs - all of these imbalances we're facing" in our own world today.
"I voted for it as outstanding drama on my Emmy ballot," says Bryce Zabel, who served as chairman of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences from 2001 to 2003, after writing and producing everything from "L.A. Law" to "Dallas" to his own fantasy-tinged creations, "Dark Skies" and "M.A.N.T.I.S." Zabel knows from both sides the battle sci-fi wages to be taken seriously by those adult viewers who can't get past the spaceships and alien species to savor the complex human stories those fantasy devices allow to be told. He says, "They don't know how well-constructed and dramatic and emotional" Sci Fi's new "Galactica" remake is under the guidance of executive producer Ronald D. Moore, most recently of HBO's mystical "Carnivale."
"There is this horrible misconception that science fiction is for somebody else, not for me," says Bonnie Hammer, president of Sci Fi Channel and USA, who campaigns daily to convince skeptics that today's TV genre encompasses more than space and special effects. "It's speculative fiction, it's the imagination, it's anything outside what we know to be true, it's the not-quantifiable," she says. In her seven years overseeing Sci Fi programming, its series have been repositioned not as fantastic adventures but relatably soul-driven dramas.
Click on the link to read the rest of the article.
Sci-fi seeks critical mass
BY DIANE WERTS
STAFF WRITER
July 10, 2005
Rodney Dangerfield was wrong. It's sci-fi TV that don't get no respect.
Case in point: A vice president in the TV industry recently asked me what TV shows I watch for enjoyment. I mentioned my favorite is "Battlestar Galactica" on Sci Fi Channel. She laughed. I asked if she'd seen it. No, she said, and laughed again. Did she know, I asked, that it's a gritty adult drama of family members and colleagues in deep-rooted conflict not unlike that of "The Sopranos"? That they're part of a civilization struggling not only to survive but to define itself amid messy terrorist warfare? That it explores the values of competing societies that demonize each other's spiritual beliefs? That it's full of gutsy acting by the likes of Edward James Olmos and sophisticated allegory mirroring today's global politics?
She laughed again.
And she's not the only one. Mary McDonnell laughed, too, when the two-time Oscar nominee was offered one of the lead roles in Sci Fi's latest series smash. From "Dances With Wolves" to "Battlestar Galactica"? "I couldn't equate myself with that particular genre," says McDonnell, a graceful 50ish woman you might expect to see on something erudite like "The West Wing," if not the space-based drama that begins its second season Friday (10 p.m. on Sci Fi). Even McDonnell "felt, like, here I am, this sort of earth mother, and my perception of people in science fiction was sort of pristine. I was very naive and ignorant about the genre. And on the other hand, I'm very interested in the metaphysical in life."
A challenging role
So McDonnell read the script and took the role of a government bureaucrat suddenly elevated to the presidency after an apocalyptic attack wipes out nearly her entire civilization. As the survivors continue to be hunted by an attacking race of human-looking robots that they themselves created, McDonnell's character comes to believe she is a "chosen" leader whose rise was foretold by religious prophets. That makes her a lightning rod for no-nonsense military leaders (led by Olmos), for power-seeking rivals and even soldiers torn between pragmatic duty and spiritual beliefs.
"There are unlimited possibilities, really, because it embraces the other dimension, and the light and the dark of the spiritual dimension," McDonnell says. "We're able to look at religious, war and environmental needs - all of these imbalances we're facing" in our own world today.
"I voted for it as outstanding drama on my Emmy ballot," says Bryce Zabel, who served as chairman of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences from 2001 to 2003, after writing and producing everything from "L.A. Law" to "Dallas" to his own fantasy-tinged creations, "Dark Skies" and "M.A.N.T.I.S." Zabel knows from both sides the battle sci-fi wages to be taken seriously by those adult viewers who can't get past the spaceships and alien species to savor the complex human stories those fantasy devices allow to be told. He says, "They don't know how well-constructed and dramatic and emotional" Sci Fi's new "Galactica" remake is under the guidance of executive producer Ronald D. Moore, most recently of HBO's mystical "Carnivale."
"There is this horrible misconception that science fiction is for somebody else, not for me," says Bonnie Hammer, president of Sci Fi Channel and USA, who campaigns daily to convince skeptics that today's TV genre encompasses more than space and special effects. "It's speculative fiction, it's the imagination, it's anything outside what we know to be true, it's the not-quantifiable," she says. In her seven years overseeing Sci Fi programming, its series have been repositioned not as fantastic adventures but relatably soul-driven dramas.
Click on the link to read the rest of the article.
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