SGA - The Age - Future Imperfect
From The Age(Melbourne,Victoria,Australia):
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...?oneclick=true
Home > Entertainment > TV & Radio > Article
Future imperfect
By Brian Courtis
March 27, 2005
Science fiction on TV doesn't always live up to its promise, but that rarely deters its fans.
As a child of Quatermass in a galaxy far, far away, I know there has been much for which to thank the television of human beings.
From the start it has encouraged us to boldly go where no one has gone before, while tantalisingly introducing us to the Time Lords, the remarkable Zaphod Beeblebrox, Marvin the Paranoid Android, chicken-soup machine repairman Dave Lister of Red Dwarf fame, that useful all-purpose profanity "to smeg", curious Will Robinson and the appalling Professor Zachary Smith, distinctly odd Uncle Martin, and all the others that add up to that 42, which, of course, is the answer to life, the universe and everything.
Where would we have been without Doctor Who? Would Roj Blake, Avon and Supreme Commander Servelan have fought for freedom, justice and the middle-class human way against other corrupt federations? Without television and the tardis, would Lady Penelope have bothered to keep the Thunderbirds in the pink?
Television's tilt at the heavens has also brought us down to earth. It has allowed us to question our philosophies through everyone from Mork and Mindy and my dinky-di Farscape favourite Joolushko Tunai Fenta Hovalis (Tammy Macintosh), to Fox and Mulder in the X-Files.
We have hypersped through the more conventional milky ways of Star Trek with Captain Picard and felt that, after the first Battlestar Galactica and Stargate SG-1, it was probably time to cash in our frequent astral traveller points. But, no, we don't really need the orgasmic special effects of a Matrix to keep us travelling through television's twilight zones. Science fiction may be TV drama's most neglected child, but it is still enthralling and starry with potential.
They obviously think so at the BBC. After 15 years, Doctor Who is back, this time with Christopher Eccleston as the ninth flying doc, Billie Piper as his newly empowered partner Rose Tyler, the scripts of acclaimed writer Russell T. Davies, a multimillion-dollar budget, and a Time Lord more in tune with the Buffy crowd than with the wobbly studio sets, weird costumes and dodgy Daleks that behaved like supermarket trolleys.
But Who is not on first base this time around. And it's not just the curious alien from the planet Gallifrey that is making us think again about science fiction. There appears to be a resurgence of interest on many fronts.
Science fiction, which, in essence, goes back at least to H.G. Wells' The Time Machine of 1895, was, as a term, said to have been coined by a group of writers in the 1930s. In a world where physics, biology, chemistry and engineering were expanding into extraordinary areas and seemed limitless, these writers wanted to understand humanity's place in the universe. They really did want us to question whether robots dreamed of electric sheep.
Some, of course, were more politically anxious. Like Wells, who wanted to express his disgust with the colonial annihilation of east African tribes through his book The War Of The Worlds, they used invasion from outer space to ask readers to feel what it might be like on the other side of imperialistic genocide. Provocative and thoughtful, science-fiction writers have proved remarkable prophets of their times.
Television has not always had such lofty intentions. But with sci-fi drama, television certainly knows it attracts some of its most fanatically loyal audiences. Programmers know they move, drop or mess with such series as Stargate-SGI - now in its eighth year of production in the US - and all the heavens with all their plagues will empty upon them. No matter what the ratings say.
This week we get to see that complex show's new companion series (or spin-off, in old earthling-viewer terms), Stargate: Atlantis. This further explores and links ancient myths and the latest scientific or astral theories on "wormholes" or "black holes" in space. The reality with these dramas is you can end up spending your life following the devil of their logical detail, or simply go along for the ride. I tend to do the latter.
If I'm anywhere close to catching on to what's going on this time around, it's that our ancient human ancestors were once spread throughout the universe. But, pursued by some nasty, massacring aliens, they were eventually driven into a final refuge, a city called Atlantis in a galaxy called Pegasus. Being sensible folk, these English-speaking, Californian-looking Atlantans left a single wormhole in space and time between them and earth. I also gather their vampiric oppressors, the Wraiths, who seem to treat humans like Big Macs, need to be watched very carefully.
As well as those rather claustrophobic star gate sets in the old series, the new team, having explored Antarctica this week, prepares to make the big leap to Atlantis and gets to play around with some tatty-looking space craft.
There are a few familiar faces for Stargate SG-1 fans. Dr Elizabeth Weir (Torri Higginson), Dr Rodney McKay (David Hewlett) and, briefly, both General Jack O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) and Colonel Marshall Sumner (Robert Patrick) make their presence felt. The most interesting newcomer is Joe Flanagan as heroic Major John Sheppard.
Expect lots of exposition, lots of American military chatter with action, and too little thoughtful scripting.
It has also been that way with the recently updated Battlestar Galactica. The show's vets are presumably still coming to terms with the producer changing the sex of their hero, Starbuck, to a cigar-chomping female top gun, or a Cylon from a-glorified-fridge-with-red eyes to a Madonna look-alike who positively glows when she fakes it with her human lovers. On the Galactica this week, it seems, you cannot trust anyone.
Stargate fans will undoubtedly forgive their own spin-off's sluggish lift-off. Sci-fi fans are more forgiving than most TV viewers. They tend to look way beyond tomorrow.
Stargate: Atlantis, Sunday and Thursday at 8.30pm, Channel 7 ; Battlestar Galactica, Wednesday at 9.30pm, Channel 10 (in Australia)
|*|(*)|*|(*)|*|
Morjana
SG1-Spoilergate
http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/SG1-Spoilergate/
Richard Dean Anderson Fans
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/rdandersonfans/
Fans of Joe Flanigan
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/fansofjoeflanigan/
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...?oneclick=true
Home > Entertainment > TV & Radio > Article
Future imperfect
By Brian Courtis
March 27, 2005
Science fiction on TV doesn't always live up to its promise, but that rarely deters its fans.
As a child of Quatermass in a galaxy far, far away, I know there has been much for which to thank the television of human beings.
From the start it has encouraged us to boldly go where no one has gone before, while tantalisingly introducing us to the Time Lords, the remarkable Zaphod Beeblebrox, Marvin the Paranoid Android, chicken-soup machine repairman Dave Lister of Red Dwarf fame, that useful all-purpose profanity "to smeg", curious Will Robinson and the appalling Professor Zachary Smith, distinctly odd Uncle Martin, and all the others that add up to that 42, which, of course, is the answer to life, the universe and everything.
Where would we have been without Doctor Who? Would Roj Blake, Avon and Supreme Commander Servelan have fought for freedom, justice and the middle-class human way against other corrupt federations? Without television and the tardis, would Lady Penelope have bothered to keep the Thunderbirds in the pink?
Television's tilt at the heavens has also brought us down to earth. It has allowed us to question our philosophies through everyone from Mork and Mindy and my dinky-di Farscape favourite Joolushko Tunai Fenta Hovalis (Tammy Macintosh), to Fox and Mulder in the X-Files.
We have hypersped through the more conventional milky ways of Star Trek with Captain Picard and felt that, after the first Battlestar Galactica and Stargate SG-1, it was probably time to cash in our frequent astral traveller points. But, no, we don't really need the orgasmic special effects of a Matrix to keep us travelling through television's twilight zones. Science fiction may be TV drama's most neglected child, but it is still enthralling and starry with potential.
They obviously think so at the BBC. After 15 years, Doctor Who is back, this time with Christopher Eccleston as the ninth flying doc, Billie Piper as his newly empowered partner Rose Tyler, the scripts of acclaimed writer Russell T. Davies, a multimillion-dollar budget, and a Time Lord more in tune with the Buffy crowd than with the wobbly studio sets, weird costumes and dodgy Daleks that behaved like supermarket trolleys.
But Who is not on first base this time around. And it's not just the curious alien from the planet Gallifrey that is making us think again about science fiction. There appears to be a resurgence of interest on many fronts.
Science fiction, which, in essence, goes back at least to H.G. Wells' The Time Machine of 1895, was, as a term, said to have been coined by a group of writers in the 1930s. In a world where physics, biology, chemistry and engineering were expanding into extraordinary areas and seemed limitless, these writers wanted to understand humanity's place in the universe. They really did want us to question whether robots dreamed of electric sheep.
Some, of course, were more politically anxious. Like Wells, who wanted to express his disgust with the colonial annihilation of east African tribes through his book The War Of The Worlds, they used invasion from outer space to ask readers to feel what it might be like on the other side of imperialistic genocide. Provocative and thoughtful, science-fiction writers have proved remarkable prophets of their times.
Television has not always had such lofty intentions. But with sci-fi drama, television certainly knows it attracts some of its most fanatically loyal audiences. Programmers know they move, drop or mess with such series as Stargate-SGI - now in its eighth year of production in the US - and all the heavens with all their plagues will empty upon them. No matter what the ratings say.
This week we get to see that complex show's new companion series (or spin-off, in old earthling-viewer terms), Stargate: Atlantis. This further explores and links ancient myths and the latest scientific or astral theories on "wormholes" or "black holes" in space. The reality with these dramas is you can end up spending your life following the devil of their logical detail, or simply go along for the ride. I tend to do the latter.
If I'm anywhere close to catching on to what's going on this time around, it's that our ancient human ancestors were once spread throughout the universe. But, pursued by some nasty, massacring aliens, they were eventually driven into a final refuge, a city called Atlantis in a galaxy called Pegasus. Being sensible folk, these English-speaking, Californian-looking Atlantans left a single wormhole in space and time between them and earth. I also gather their vampiric oppressors, the Wraiths, who seem to treat humans like Big Macs, need to be watched very carefully.
As well as those rather claustrophobic star gate sets in the old series, the new team, having explored Antarctica this week, prepares to make the big leap to Atlantis and gets to play around with some tatty-looking space craft.
There are a few familiar faces for Stargate SG-1 fans. Dr Elizabeth Weir (Torri Higginson), Dr Rodney McKay (David Hewlett) and, briefly, both General Jack O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) and Colonel Marshall Sumner (Robert Patrick) make their presence felt. The most interesting newcomer is Joe Flanagan as heroic Major John Sheppard.
Expect lots of exposition, lots of American military chatter with action, and too little thoughtful scripting.
It has also been that way with the recently updated Battlestar Galactica. The show's vets are presumably still coming to terms with the producer changing the sex of their hero, Starbuck, to a cigar-chomping female top gun, or a Cylon from a-glorified-fridge-with-red eyes to a Madonna look-alike who positively glows when she fakes it with her human lovers. On the Galactica this week, it seems, you cannot trust anyone.
Stargate fans will undoubtedly forgive their own spin-off's sluggish lift-off. Sci-fi fans are more forgiving than most TV viewers. They tend to look way beyond tomorrow.
Stargate: Atlantis, Sunday and Thursday at 8.30pm, Channel 7 ; Battlestar Galactica, Wednesday at 9.30pm, Channel 10 (in Australia)
|*|(*)|*|(*)|*|
Morjana
SG1-Spoilergate
http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/SG1-Spoilergate/
Richard Dean Anderson Fans
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/rdandersonfans/
Fans of Joe Flanigan
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/fansofjoeflanigan/
