An exercise in reflection, a reaction to ideas, a perspective from a Christian witness, cultural catalyst, an instigator in Europe. As an exercise, NonModern will adhere to several stylistic rules(and break them when necessary.) Find me on facebook or twitter.
I recently encountered an interesting list of the top 50 Science Fiction themed TV shows of all time at IGN. It is not a new list, but it got me to thinking about what my favorite ones would be—and how limited my TV viewing has been in this, one of my favorite genres. Some of the shows would fit into a “guilty pleasure” or “fond memories of childhood list.” Shows mostly from the seventies and eighties like: “The Six Million Dollar Man,” “The Battle of the Planets,” “Buck Rodgers,” “V,” and "Robotech." There are some truly great shows here too, though. So, here are two lists of 15. The top 15 I have to seek out, and my 15 Favorite Sci-Fi Shows so far:
Need to See:
“The Prisoner”
“Star Trek: The Animated Series”
“Red Dwarf”
“Adventures of Briscoe County, Jr.”
“Babylon 5”
“Star Trek: Voyager”
“Stargate SG1”
“Roswell”
“Farscape”
“Futurama”
“The Lone Gunmen”
“Star Trek: Enterprise”
“Battlestar Galactica (2004)”
“Eureka”
“Torchwood”
Top 15
15. “The Invaders” (1967-68)
I have vivid memories of the few episodes I saw as a kid. The idea of an infiltration going unnoticed, and the desperation of a man trying to reveal the conspiracy is rich and has been tapped often since. The “give-away” here of the unbendable pinkies was a fun idea.
14. “The Wild, Wild West” (1965-69)
Goes beyond childhood fond memory as it still works for me today. Almost steam-punk.
13. “The Outer Limits” (1963-65)
Not quite as good as number 3 on my list, but the same basic show.
It’s been around forever (and enough to have some examples of the worst of Science Fiction television as well) and has a concept broad enough to explore anything the writers feel like tackling.
The latest Trek film from Abrams and Co. is all it was supposed to be: exciting, visually stunning, moving, creative, and entertaining. It continues the trend in “new” Trek of exciting adventure along with the traditional Trek idea of delivering a serious message. Instead of just another sequel, reboot or remake, the filmmakers have perhaps invented a new category of film: the riff. Instead of retelling the second story from the first sequence of films, they took its themes, characters, and a few of its plot points and remixed it all into something new. A bit like cinematic jazz.
“I have no idea what I'm supposed to do! I only know what I CAN do!”
The theme this time around is Kirk’s continued journey towards becoming the great leader we all know him to be, in the context of a society threatened by terrorism. The missing ingredient that he has to obtain is the ability to distinguish between the right and wrong decisions of command; something that is far, far more intricate than simply seeing good and bad.
We open in the midst of an exploration mission of the Enterprise, a test run for the five year journey that the original series entailed. As Kirk is prone to do, they are in the midst of testing the limits of the Prime Directive. It seems that the planet they are observing is about to be destroyed by a volcano. Rather than sit by and watch that happen (as any objective, scientific observer would do) Kirk has decided to do good and save the planet and its primitive inhabitants. In doing that he has placed his first officer, Spock, in mortal danger. The “correct” thing to do according to Star Fleet directives would be to let Spock die. Kirk decides to risk influencing the primitive culture and save Spock, inspiring a new religion in the process.
Back on Earth, he is stripped of his command for his actions. At precisely that moment, an act of terrorism is triggered against Star Fleet leading to much of the command structure being destroyed. Kirk quickly figures out where the terrorist is hidden and requests permission to do good again—to take out the threat against Earth.
Kirk’s problem is that, for all his smarts, he is too dumb to embrace humility. He thinks he can solve any problem. He fails to consider that he may not have the whole story, or that an antagonist could be smarter than him, could be playing him. Everyone around him sees the dangers he is blind to, but he won’t hear any council.
He even plays the “the enemy of my enemy” card, to his detriment. In this case the enemy is a wonderful parallel of Kirk. They share many of the same motivations. Every bad thing that happens in this film seems to be born out of the motivation to save loved ones, to do good. Again and again Kirk tries to be the hero, only to place his crew—his family—in danger.
Ultimately this is something Kirk does learn, that he lacks the ethical foundation to distinguish between good and right. It comes a bit too late, however, as we get the inevitable remix of the most famous scene in Trek history. The differences are there, though, and in this case the switch is: (a) good, because the way it is done helps our most important bit of character development along in a stronger way than the original version did, but (b) bad too, because we never imagine that the film will commit to the moment the way “Wrath of Kahn did. In fact, if we have been watching the film closely at all we know that it won’t. The foreshadowing is so forced it feels out of place. You can’t fault the film, though. Audiences could not handle a death of that magnitude anymore. They couldn’t really even back in the 80s, and “Search for Spock” revealed.
Overall “Into Darkness” is great. One of the better, if not the best, Trek yet.
Ananias sipped his cappuccino and sat down with his laptop to check Facebook. He scrolled down the wall through posts from his friends. Colleagues from the tanning shop, classmates from the synagogue, distant family. He actually only had a few people’s posts tagged to show up on his wall, mostly others who were “of the way.” The times were too charged and dialogue a little too heated for his taste otherwise.
He had even considered closing his account down. Why have it? He hardly ever posted. Even some of the way had become a little overbearing for his taste. The chance of being forced to stand up for one’s beliefs before the Emperor Cult was a real risk that seemed to be made light of with all the postings demanding that one “like” or “share” to demonstrate one’s sincerity. Jesus had warned against denying Him before men; but Facebook didn’t seem to be what He had been talking about.
With the persecution against the way from Saul, many of those who had been actively “demonstrating” their commitment to Christ with silly “likes” and social media posturing were closing down their accounts or getting off the web altogether. Forget “likes” and “Shares.” Ananias knew that his life of open faith in the city was just as damning if not more so than a designation on his internet presence.
“Oh no. What is this?”
A news item was peppering a lot of postings this morning. It seemed that Saul had obtained papers from the synagogue allowing him to arrest more believers. And it seemed he was headed to Damascus.
Ananias looked around the coffee shop nervously.
One of Ananias’s more dramatic Facebook contacts—one of those that had lately clogged the wall up with “Like if you love Jesus” or “Share if you won’t deny Him” postings—had a new ax to grind. This time it involved Enemy Number One of the Way, Saul himself.
“I don’t care what his motivations are! I don’t want to know how someone could be moved to do this to other people, simply for the way they interpret Scripture and choose to believe. I don’t need to understand him! He should be captured and imprisoned himself!”
Ananias’s initial response was to concur. He had heard the stories of the terrible things Saul had done. And now he was headed this way! Fear and loathing were easy and natural responses.
Then it was as if a voice spoke in his ear. “I say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Did Jesus really mean that? Ananias did not want to understand Saul. He wanted to hate him.
[Ping]
An IM popped up at the bottom of the screen. Ananias looked down to see who it was.
“What?” Ananias looked around. The IM said that it was from the Lord. He didn’t recall friending Him, not on Facebook that is.
[Ananias]
Ananias typed.
[Here I am, Lord]
[Get up and go to the street called straight and inquire at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him, so that he might regain his sight.]
What? Go help Saul? Ananias vacillated. Could this be some joke, or worse, a trick? It all seemed too crazy to be true. The house of a Judas? Really?
[Lord, I have heard from many of this man. He has done a lot of harm to your saints in Jerusalem. And now he is here to capture all the people who call on your name.]
[Ananias, go. For he is a chosen instrument of mine. He will bear my name before nations, kings and the sons of Israel, and I will show him how much he will have to suffer for my name’s sake.]
Ananias thought for a moment. He thought about all those posts demanding “likes” and “shares.” How easy that sort of belief had been; laughable as it was. He drank his cappuccino. He looked back at the screen.
[OK, Lord.]
Ananias gathered his stuff together preparing to leave. He typed “Straight Street” into Google Maps. Then, before he closed his laptop, he deleted his Facebook account.
It seems strange to me that I can come out of these blockbusters that would have seemed miraculous 30 years ago with the thought that it was a nice “minor” effort. However, by today’s standards the dazzling display of an “Iron Man 3” is almost routine. It is crazy how fast we adjust our expectations. Looking back on “Lord of the Rings” or “Spiderman” today, one can really see the seams. What really seems to disappoint most of all is that we come out of a popcorn movie and are disappointed that there wasn’t a lot of “message.” It can’t be faulted for that. Blockbusters are supposed to be brainless entertainment.
But if you really think about it, “Iron Man 3” does have a message by design. It is not just rhetoric that the Mandarin speaks about fortune cookies. Hello, and empty shell metaphor in a movie about a super-suit? Add to that the fact that our hero is traumatized and afraid after his adventure with super humans and aliens, and the idea that this broken, limited, reluctant hero is faced with fighting bad guys who are trying to make people truly super-powered… There is some commentary here about our American idea of heroism that is accompanied by swagger and conceit. By the end of the film Tony Sparks has learned to simply be the man that he is and we are left wondering if he will really be back, despite what the credits imply.
This seventh (or 33rd) season of Who has been disappointing for people who believe we are essentially the sum of our actions. The Eleventh Doctor as portrayed by Matt Smith is one of the most entertaining personalities of the eleven, but his adventures this season, and especially this second half of the season have been very disappointing. Moffat has created some of the most interesting situations and monsters the series has ever presented in the past, but this year has lacked a lot. And Neil Gaiman’s first story effort for Who was one of the best stories. This one proved quite blasé.
It could be chalked up to the antagonist. The Cybermen have always been a bit disappointing. This episode promised to make them scary again, but when have they ever really been scary? It is hard enough to create true tension for a character like the Doctor, since we know he must win in the end, but this current run has been so heavy on the convenient solutions one fails to find anything truly scary.
That being said, there was an interesting twist this time around. When your hero challenges the enemy to a contest (such as chess) to determine the fate of the universe, you just know that the bad guy is going to cheat. It was nice to instead see the good guy truly grasp the nature of the game and do what was needed to save the day.
Next week is the episode that will presumably save the season. I am sad to say that I am not holding my breath.
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