I think that, in the wake of Fox’s decision to cancel Terra Nova, its once-promising but ultimately dull science fiction show about people fleeing a polluted planet to reset humanity’s past, James Poniewozik is right that the failure of the show will diminish the chances of networks taking a chance on purely sci-fi show in the future:

The networks do still occasionally do science fiction, of course; Fringe is still hanging on on Fox, for instance. But since Lost, and the many failures to re-create its success, they’ve tended to focus on small-scale, real-world shows with little sci-fi twists (Person of Interest, Alcatraz) or fantasy (Once Upon a Time, Grimm). The epic-scale, effects-intensive sci-fi show has always been a tough sell on the networks, and to its credit, Terra Nova was trying a brand of sci-fi we hadn’t seen a lot on TV. Now big sci-fi will be an even tougher sell.

This is unfortunate. But it raises what I think is an important question both for the networks and for those of us who would like to see a lot more quality science fiction shows on them: can we think more creatively about communicating that the stories we’re telling are set in the future without using a lot, or any, special effects?

Obviously, the answer ought to be yes. The Handmaid’s Tale, one of the most chilling dystopias in literary memory, requires some mass-produced costumes, but most of the work of communicating that we’re in a very different place with very different values is done through language and the norms that govern the interactions between characters. Children of Men has some effects work of the shooting-things-and-blowing-things-up variety, but most of the way we understand that things are dreadful is, once again, done through costuming, through the news footage that we see aired on television broadcasts the characters watch, through their demeanor and what gets them excited.

In other words, doing world-building due diligence up front could eliminate costly effects work down the line. Language is definitely something that evolves, and evolves rapidly, and is a clear and entirely free way to signal that you’re in a different place. The substitution of “frack” for “fuck” in Battlestar Galactica may have seemed goofy at first, but the term has definitively entered the lexicon, geek and otherwise (I imagine it’s one of the reasons “fracking” for “hydraulic fracturing” sounds persuasively negative, as well as nice and crackly). Ditto for graphic design: the gorgeous orange and white butterfly flag iconography at the heart of Kings, the red logos and typography in Ralph Fiennes’ slightly futuristic adaptation of Coriolanus, or the cut-off corners on the paper in Battlestar were all cheap ways to visually cue that we’re not in the present, at least as we know it. And while etiquette and behavior may seem like dorky considerations, they’re also a terrific way of communicating where power lies, and how intense the division between classes and castes is. Writing a guide to character interaction, whether in terms of address, physical contact, or relative physical positioning might seem silly up front, but it could also create a coherent sense of being in a vastly different setting.

Cool toys and the reshaping of our environment are some of what will make our future look and feel very different. But many of the changes will be seated within ourselves, and our attitudes. We can make science fiction that’s somewhere in between Person of Interest and Terra Nova, and that’s more genuinely interested in exploring possible futures than either one of those shows.

No Robots, a movie by San Jose State University students YungHan Chang and Kimberly Knoll is lovely, sad, and ultimately redeeming. It’s also a great challenge to the way we normally use robots as metaphors:

No Robots from YungHan Chang on Vimeo.

Often, when we see robots in popular culture, they’re actually more powerful than we are. If the Cylons were a metaphor for, say, Irish immigrants to the United States, they’d be telling a story about workers rising up from the slums and engulfing us all in whiskey and potatoes. These metaphors tend to legitimate the fears of privileged class rather than debunking them. But a movie like No Robots has a different power differential. The shopkeeper is angry at a robot who is physically smaller than he is, who is annoying rather than intimidating. He commits an act of terrible violence against that much more vulnerable actor. And then he discovers that things he’s conditioned to want to protect and find adorable—kittens—are emotionally dependent on the robot, who has been stealing milk to feed them. It’s a narrative that questions the shopkeeper’s prejudices and assumptions, rather than suggesting he’s right to be angry and afraid of a new element in his environment.

(HT: io9)

A good post from Nikki, in response to some of my writing, saying that it’s not enough to want more women writing and directing television episodes. She writes:

If we suggest that increasing the number of women ON television might increase the number of women BEHIND television, thereby effecting a change in how sexist or feminist television shows might be, we excuse men from the process entirely, except as Upholders of the Status Quo. Set aside the question about women behind the scenes and focus on the men behind the scenes, who are definitely still in power in the media and it’s that power structure that should be held accountable for the current portrayal of women on TV.

Amen. I’m a pretty firm believer in the carrot-and-stick thing, though, because it’s relatively easy for male creators to clap their hands over their ears when they’re being criticized for not giving us wonderful, developed female characters and just not listen. And it’s much easier to get people to listen when you’re praising, and for other people to see that praise and think “I want that!” So without further ado and in no particular order, 10 fantastic female characters on television who were created by men.

1. Trixie, Deadwood, David Milch: I know this list isn’t in order, but if it was, I’d still put it at the top. Milch’s prostitute-turned-accountant, pimp’s-trick-turned-Jewish-businessman’s-girlfriend would still be at the top. We meet Trixie at the beginning of the show when she’s been accused of murder, and watch her help another woman beat a drug addiction even when it means defying her employer’s orders; seek out an education no one ever gave her so she can have more options in life; stand up for her friends when they get married and grieve for them when they bury their children; and develop a new relationship. She’s always making choices. And when she takes steps backwards, we understand why, at the gut level. She’s empowered, but the show doesn’t fall prey to the trap that strong female characters created by men often do — that women’s liberation is purely a matter of will, not circumstance.

2. Alice Morgan, Luther, Neil Cross: Alice, who enters the scene when she murders her parents, melts down the gun, and feeds the remaining parts to her dog, is a certified crazy person, but she’s not a victim. Her attraction to John Luther doesn’t make her a nymphomaniac. And her decision to work cases comes out of a clearly defined alternate morality and worldview. Rather than setting her up to be judged by the audience, she’s a compelling — and sometimes very scary — way to see the universe.
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I think Marc Bernardin has some good points about why, even in an era full of excellent television shows, we arguably only have two science fiction or fantasy shows that operated at the same level of, say, The Sopranos throughout or through most of their runs: Battlestar Galactica and Lost (his choices, not mine). But I don’t really think this is the case:

GENRE IS THINKY. If you look at the average night of television, you’ll see that most drama shows are about doctors, lawyers or cops. Because people – from the audience all the way up to network heads – understand how those shows work. Because a patient will always roll into the ER, some schmuck will always go to court, and someone will always get murdered in “the Big City.”

But science fiction, particularly, is a genre of ideas – ideas that usually resist the reduction into the doctor-lawyer-cop mode. And all too often, when people don’t understand a thing they either don’t let it on the air – unless they monkey with it to such an extent that the ideas are gone and it’s a husk of what it could’ve been – or they don’t support it once it does get on the air. A show with no marketing or scheduling support is a show no one knows to watch, or when to watch it even if they wanted to.

All of the best shows of the Golden Age are deeply idea-based shows. The Wire as treatise on capitalism, bureaucracy, and education is almost too obvious to mention. The Sopranos is a meditation on the nature of evil — and the efficacy of therapy, to the point that the show’s ending mirrors the let-down of terminating. Breaking Bad is a similarly stark moral show, one that also touches on everything from health care reform to the War on Drugs. Deadwood is about the emergence of civil society from the quite literal muck. And not only are all of these ideas-based shows, they’re shows that directly comment on the predictability of genres like doctor-lawyer-cop shows. Levy gets called out by Omar. The cops who beat Bubbles don’t get redeemed by their good intentions and concern for victims. No medical professional is compassionate about Walter White’s cancer, but they are very willing to take his money.

And I think more to the point, this may be jumping the gun a bit. We’ll see how Game of Thrones goes, but in between that, its big order for American Gods, and its big Michael Chabon-written magicians-fight-the-Nazis show Hobgoblin, HBO is making heavy future investments in fantasy. It takes a lot of efforts, and a lot of misses, to produce the shows that define our new Golden Age. The halcyon years for genre may just arrive a few years later than the Golden Age for more general interest television.

-Adam Serwer on Battlestar Galactica and suicide bombings.

-Neville Longbottom is the true hero of the Harry Potter series.

-The man who bought MySpace explains why.

-Nikki Finke: “If you accept the premise that the film business is the folly of the filthy rich, and the indie film business the folly of the stupidly rich, then the fashion business must be the folly of the insane rich.”

-A good analysis of how shifting the lead in a TV show changes its ratings.

Torchwood: Miracle Day premieres on Starz tonight at 10pm, asking what would happen to sex, religion, politics, and the health care system in a world where no one can die—but everyone can feel pain and continue to suffer from disease. As the action moves to the United States, I talked to veteran TV writer Jane Espenson about what it was like to come on to the famous franchise, what she’s learned about writing political science fiction from her work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Battlestar Galactica, and writing a scene where the immortal Captain Jack Harkness and policewoman-turned-alien investigator Gwen Cooper lay it all on the table. I’ll have an interview with Eve Myles, the wonderful Welsh actress who plays Cooper, up in a couple of hours.

What were some of the challenges of bringing Torchwood to the U.S.? Were there things that you thought it was possible to do on Starz that weren’t possible on the BBC? Certainly, the show is somewhat more sexually explicit in a way I think that really works, but I don’t know if there were other things that airing on a different channel made possible. One thing Eve Myles mentioned when we talked to her is the way Torchwood‘s sort of found its stride when it’s able to fit long arcs into a number of episodes appropriate to it: do you think it’s worth it for other American shows to explore shorter seasons, or seasons of variable length on purpose?

I never wrote for the show when it was on the BBC, but I think the freedoms there in terms of language and sexuality are much more on a par with the rules at Starz they would be with a major US broadcast network. I think writers who had worked for the BBC writing Torchwood would have probably felt pretty constrained by some of the network restrictions. Being limited to only the mildest of epithets and making everyone keep all their clothes on—that’s no way to tell a tense and sexy thriller! And yes, I love the idea of developing stories with an eye toward the number of episodes that fit the story. It’s not often that something is both obvious and revolutionary, but that is. Yes, it would be fantastic if that became something that was implemented here.

How did you settle on the health care plot arc? How do you think it’ll resonate in the U.S. and the U.K., which are in very different stages on the road to universal health care?

Russell had the story seed already planted in his brain when I was brought on board, and he’d already thought through a lot of the implications. Then, as a group, we discussed it all at even greater length. Then we brought in a doctor and discussed it all again, and every time it just felt better and deeper and more important. I think it will resonate with US audiences in particular since the warring opinions on health care are so remarkably far apart. I’m less familiar with the UK system, but I knew that Russell obviously had an instinct for what would resonate there.
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Battlestar Galactica is probably the last piece of pop culture I got too invested in, where thinking about the show and worrying about the characters got me shaky, got me anxious outside the window of the viewing hour to the point that I had to detatch myself from it. So I was interested to see We Are All Cylons, Ilana Rein’s documentary about fans who have kept the flame alive after the show’s finale. The movie’s very good at outlining why Battlestar Galactica resonated so deeply with so many people. Though the ending is controversial, the idea that we’ve all got a little machine in our DNA is a useful way to grapple with the idea that we may end up increasingly integrated with machinery, whether we’ve got artificial joints or end up with implants that connect our brains directly to the internet.

But I’m increasingly interested in the role of fandom as an organizing principal for communities, and so I called up Ilana to talk about what she thought the people she interviewed at the Shore Leave convention got out of their participation in Battlestar Galactica conventions and costuming — and what being a fan means to her. It turns out, this Ilana’s first dip into hardcore fandom.
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I think Megan McArdle has some interesting arguments in this post arguing that we should keep our politics and our art separate, but I think, taken cumulatively, it’s the equivalent of not just throwing the baby out with the bathwater but defenestrating it. I want to focus on a central section of Megan’s essay, because I’m less concerned with whether we should keep enjoying art by people once we learn dreadful things about either their personal lives or their political views (I think we should) than the role art plays in shaping our morality and politics. Megan writes:

Art isn’t very good stand-in for Sunday School teachers, for all that we repeatedly imbue it with the job of shaping morality–”poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world”, said Shelley, and it’s a damn good thing he was wrong. Having a keen eye for detail, a a morose grasp of the tragedy of the human condition, and hypertrophied verbal mental muscles does not make you a good policy analyst. George Orwell, who was more of a gimlet-eyed realist than most ideological writers, nonetheless believed a fair amount of ludicrous nonsense, such as his assertions that collectivism was necessary because a capitalist society could never produce enough to win World War II…But when art-as-politics airbrushes out the dead people at the steel works, it can be very convincing, which is why advocates like it; Uncle Tom’s Cabin did more for the Abolitionist cause than a hundred thousand lectures. The problem is, it can convince of the bad as easily as the good–Gone With the Wind reached many more people than Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in part because–despite its ugly racial politics–it’s a much better book with richer characters and more believable action…Authors aren’t good policy architects. They’re also not good moral philosophers–they’re good at dramatizing moral conundrums, which is not the same thing as resolving them…I am not arguing that artists are generally bad people, but merely that we have no evidence that they’re better than us–all of them are at least as flawed as we are. And we’re pretty flawed.

But focusing on fiction as policy proscription is an awfully limited way to look at the political work fiction does, and what readers and watchers are supposed to take away from that art. To my mind, there are three broad categories of that work: to help us approach and understand our history and the conditions of our present; to frame positions in the debates of the day; and to provide space to play with policy and political ideas, an underlooked element in a rigidified political process that is deeply suspicious of error and evolution.

The Holocaust, for example, is an event of such terrible enormity that we cannot assimilate it in a single go, or through a single medium. I know I’ve needed The Diary of Anne Frank, and Victor Klemperer’s accounts of the rise of Nazi bureaucracy, Hannah Arendt’s clear-eyed reporting on Adolf Eichmann’s trial, Edwin Black’s IBM and the Holocaust. But I’ve also approached the systematic extermination of Jews, of gays, of the disabled, and of many other categories of people through Art Spiegelman’s Maus (also recommended: In The Shadow of No Towers, not least for its riffs on Little Nemo In Slumberland), through Christopher Isherwood’s The Berlin Stories, through Isaac Bachevis Singer’s Hanukkah stories set in the Warsaw Ghetto and under tsarist rule in Russia, through the repeated image of young Magneto tearing at the gates of a concentration camp, through Cryptonomicon, through The Debt, due out in August. Sometimes, our reconciliation with the truth of our politics and history comes both in stark confrontation with the facts. And sometimes we need to sidle up to those facts before we can face them, to circle back through multiple perspectives, to reach for scriptural language whether in testimony or in fiction, to help us grapple with the enormity of our glory and catastrophe. “Milton does more than drunk God can,” Ray Bradbury wrote, “To justify Man’s way toward Man.”
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