End of Year Ramblings
No, I'm not doing New Year's Resolutions or anything silly like that! Just some musings on the State of Science Fiction Television, as observed from my living room. Several shows have recently ended, but there seem to be several waiting to take their place. The Sci Fi channel, that was for some absurd reason renamed to SyFy many years ago now, has gone back to its roots and is actually producing science fiction programming. I know, shocking. Some stuff has been mediocre at best, or at least didn't hold my interest. I didn't get into Z Nation, and never tried Killjoys or Dark Matter. However, SyFy is making an attempt at redemption with Childhood's End and The Expanse.
Recently left us:
Haven: I will miss Haven. Not the mess that the most recent season was, but the good show that it was for the first few.
Defiance: Short-lived, but was pretty good. The last season was weak, which might have been why they chose to end it, but it was a very imaginative world and likable characters. Particularly the more villainous ones.
Falling Skies: Again, a good show that had run its course. It was a nice change to show humans as the underdogs in an alien invasion plot line. No War Of the Worlds or Independence Day nonsense about how we won against vastly superior technology even though we shouldn't have. No, humanity lost, but didn't give up! The last half of the final season felt awfully rushed, and it probably was, but like Haven I will remember it from when it was good.
New shows:
Childhood's End: A mini-series worth watching, but not as good as I was hoping. If they explained why The Overseers looked as they did, I somehow missed it, but I have a feeling the answer would stink of Christian arrogance even if it was faithful to the book. Overall, I was disappointed in C E, but I give the SyFy channel credit for an honest try at a classic novel like that (which someday maybe I'll actually read).
Shannara: On MTV of all things! I have no explanation for this, but the teasers I've seen look like excellent sets and high production value. I believe they are shooting much of it in New Zealand, which worked well for Peter Jackson and company. Hopefully the writing or acting doesn't suck!
The Expanse: This one just completed its four episode pilot, and I like where they're going with it. Acting was mediocre at best in the first few episodes but the sets and setting partially made up for it. By the forth episode it seemed they had their act together (pun unintentional) and I was eager to see more. I particularly liked how they were able to be reasonably faithful to Newtonian physics without getting bogged down in the fact that they were doing so. When the ship's drive turns off, everybody goes into freefall, and when the ship has to do heavy acceleration everybody straps down and it hurts! When the hull is breached, sound changes and gets thinner, but the walls don't immediately start to disintegrate like in bad airplane movies. My personal favorite was whengravity acceleration fails as a pair of people are running down a walkway, and they start to float away. The hero tethers himself to his shipmate and pushes her away from the walkway, which sends him towards it (Newton's Third Law and all that), where his magnetic boots can grab on and he can haul her back in!
So, I guess we'll see.
Recently left us:
Haven: I will miss Haven. Not the mess that the most recent season was, but the good show that it was for the first few.
Defiance: Short-lived, but was pretty good. The last season was weak, which might have been why they chose to end it, but it was a very imaginative world and likable characters. Particularly the more villainous ones.
Falling Skies: Again, a good show that had run its course. It was a nice change to show humans as the underdogs in an alien invasion plot line. No War Of the Worlds or Independence Day nonsense about how we won against vastly superior technology even though we shouldn't have. No, humanity lost, but didn't give up! The last half of the final season felt awfully rushed, and it probably was, but like Haven I will remember it from when it was good.
New shows:
Childhood's End: A mini-series worth watching, but not as good as I was hoping. If they explained why The Overseers looked as they did, I somehow missed it, but I have a feeling the answer would stink of Christian arrogance even if it was faithful to the book. Overall, I was disappointed in C E, but I give the SyFy channel credit for an honest try at a classic novel like that (which someday maybe I'll actually read).
Shannara: On MTV of all things! I have no explanation for this, but the teasers I've seen look like excellent sets and high production value. I believe they are shooting much of it in New Zealand, which worked well for Peter Jackson and company. Hopefully the writing or acting doesn't suck!
The Expanse: This one just completed its four episode pilot, and I like where they're going with it. Acting was mediocre at best in the first few episodes but the sets and setting partially made up for it. By the forth episode it seemed they had their act together (pun unintentional) and I was eager to see more. I particularly liked how they were able to be reasonably faithful to Newtonian physics without getting bogged down in the fact that they were doing so. When the ship's drive turns off, everybody goes into freefall, and when the ship has to do heavy acceleration everybody straps down and it hurts! When the hull is breached, sound changes and gets thinner, but the walls don't immediately start to disintegrate like in bad airplane movies. My personal favorite was when
So, I guess we'll see.
Now 5 or 6 episodes in, and I'm definitely hooked on The Expanse. Shannara, unfortunately, is another matter. I made it through the first two hours, but haven't yet forced myself to sit through the next two. I probably will at some point just out of sheer stubbornness, but I'm not optimistic about the show. Allanon is ok, played by the they guy who was Slade Wilson in Arrow, but he's the only particularly likable person so far.
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