Sci-fi is all the rage these days. Made a sneaky comeback (or not) with Star Trek: NextGen and grew in popularity during the 90s until today. However, it is, by enlarge, on the soft side of the scale (downright mushy if you ask me). In the beginning (somewhere in the middle of of the 19th century) science fiction was truly speculative  fiction. New scientific discoveries accelerated the pace of technological advancement. They in turn opened up a universe of possibilities for adventure in far away places, like Venus, Mars, or the moons of Saturn. When man managed to reach earth orbit, hard science fiction became popular and distinct from the softer fluff of pulp fiction, which came to be known as space opera (as in soap opera).

The authors like Arthur C. Clarke took a hard look at the science in front of them and extrapolated entire universes bound by the laws of physics.  Overtime the science became a straight jacket to story telling and confined sci-fi to a sub-class of hardcore fans. Meanwhile franchises like Start Trek and Star Wars (who turned the concept of space opera upside down) went the other way and opened up the genre to millions of fans worldwide. Yet even after they encouraged a new generation of scientist and technologist to go farther in their fields, they still scratched their heads, “But that doesn’t work that way!“

Hollywood sci-fi has gotten so fluffy that all it takes to call something sci-fi is for the producers to declare,  “X IN SPACE” or “Y IN THE FUTURE“. Now not all shows or movies trend that way (recent SW and ST movies not withstanding). A few examples show that you can have a enough science to spice up your narrative without being strap down to a table for a extended session of electroshock therapy at the hands of astrophysicist screaming “THAT IS NOT POSSIBLE!”

Examples include: Firefly (no sound in space, not FTL), BSG/B5 (Newtonian Physics which makes for some cool space dogfights) and a few others (feel free to insert your own examples). By adding a few bits of real science you can break the mold and make your show cool again. Doesn’t mean you have to jettison all the softer parts (artificial gravity, FTL, space dogfights),  especially if you need them to make the story work for you. Just be careful that you keep it consistent and don’t abuse the applied phlebotinum.

In other words, you can still use science to wow your audience without pretending you care for the actual science.

By way of example, look at this short video. If that is not a gorgeous sight perfect for any sci-fi (or even fantasy) story, I don’t know what is:

I didn’t realize I hadn’t issued a final verdict on this show. I think it’s probably because I can’t quite decide whether this show is worth watching or not. I watch it with my husband who also enjoys scifi shows, but somehow it still hasn’t hooked me. I think it has to do with the fact that there is hardly ever any downtime on the show. It starts off at full speed and barely ever slows down. Flashforward, on the other hand, allows for touching more-important-for-character-development-than-plot scenes which makes it work better on the whole.

The other problem with this show (yes, I know it’s a remake) is that it doesn’t feel new. It doesn’t feel like it has come up with any innovative ideas. Where BSG was full of shockers, this one is well…not. Even the plot “twists” seem tired.

On the other hand, my husband and I feel like we need one more sci-fi-ish show to complete our lineup and Lost hasn’t started up yet.

Final Verdict: Mixed Bag. Once Lost starts again will be watched mainly by hardcore V fans.

Image from ABC via Geek Tonic / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Soy predecible, no? Pasó más de una semana de mi último post y no cambié mi rutina, ni fui al cine ni nada de nada. Well, gotta keep trying.

In other news, aumentó la entrada a la con (no, no me afecta, yo ya la compré), así que espero que eso signifique Eliza o Mr. Olmos. En ese orden, duh.

The Original BattleStar Galactica

Credits to OneMinuteGalactica, who is just brilliant!

Yeaah we were waiting for Battlestar Galactica The Plan for months. And yeaah we watched within a few days of its release.

It is so shockingly BAD that it has taken this long for us to have the stomach to write a review.

Battlestar Galactica deserves better than this kind of treatment. I don’t know if Ron Moore was smoking crack when he put this together or what was going on, but it’s totally wrong.

This isn’t a movie – it’s more like a disconnected collection of snippets that make little sense. Sure if watch the movie a few times and try and place each section in the Battlestar Galactica timeline it might start to make sense…eventually.

As a standalone movie this move does not stand at all and is not watchable. It’s that bad.

It could have been called “The Confession of the Ones” but overall it adds nothing to the BSG canon. I think this movie should be labeled by fandom as “The Mistake” and just forget about this frakking pile of bantha fodder.

BSG can do better. Razor was a decent standalone movie that added to the BSG universe in a really cool way. Perhaps after Ron Moore went nuts declaring Kara Thrace and Angel (wtf??!!) he’s no longer sane and isn’t capable of producing decent BSG stuff anymore.

by spacepug

Checked out another excellent article by Maureen Ryan over at the Chicago Tribune about the upcoming BSG prequel series, Caprica, and my jaw dropped open in shock.

If you thought going from SciFi to SyFy was a bad marketing move, get a load of the new poster for Caprica. Wow, not only have they produced a completely unoriginal image (echoes of Dollhouse, Terminator, how many others?), they’ve sexualized an underage girl and made a mockery of their own claim that the show will be serious drama. All with one poster. WTF were they thinking?

Honestly, now I’m worried. Not at all because they have cut the series order by one episode, but because the marketing department’s move is, in my opinion, a huge misstep. Caprica is going to be a tough sell, period. It’s a drama with just enough sci-fi to make mainstream viewers nervous, and probably not enough sci-fi to guarantee the dedicated geek following. Why shoot yourself in the foot so early? Perhaps they’ll come up with a better game plan before January 22nd.

Agree or disagree? Comment below.

Now I Lay Thee Down To Sleep:  Are We at the Dawn of the Downfall of Sci-Fi Television?

 With the recent cancellations of Joss Whedon’s “The Dollhouse” and ABC’s “Defying Gravity,” we are reminded yet again that television is not a gentle mistress for sci-fi television shows.

 In fact, this is a bad time to be a sci-fi show on television.  Television audiences just aren’t as forgiving and patient as they used to be.  They don’t want to wait for storylines to be slowly developed and then unpeeled layer after layer.  They just want to have the onion cracked right open and to see what’s inside.  Alas, the only thing inside is but a nugget of what the real story is about.  Just like a human life is not just about how a person died, a sci-fi story is not just about the last 15 minutes.  A life is a journey.  And that’s what makes a story interesting – getting there is not just half the fun, it is the fun. 

So when I hear people say that they couldn’t follow “Lost” or just want to know all the answers to the questions posed, I just want to smack them.  What good is it to list a set of answers to questions if it is not given some kind of framework to illustrate the importance or significance of the questions and the answers to each?  One of the biggest and best questions from “Lost” has been:  what is the monster?  One day they just may tell us and we’re going to be disappointed. 

 It’s like pulling back the curtain in the “Wizard of Oz” and finding there’s only an old man pulling all the levers.   The story was much more exciting when Dorothy thought there was this magnificent Wizard of Oz who was the most powerful and magical being in the realm.  And one day we will finally find out if Sylar is a good guy or bad guy on “Heroes” and we will feel just as unsatisfied with that answer as well.  For it has been a roller-coaster of a ride wondering what the hell Sylar would do next.  Was he going to help them or kill them in the end? 

 And one day Lex Luthor will rise up and be the notorious villain of comic-book lore.  But watching the past 9 seasons of “Smallville,” I am grateful for the chance to see how Lex and Clark may have once been friends and how that disintegrated as Lex became more and more greedy and suspicious of what Clark may be hiding.

 No, in sci-fi, it is the journey that is the most fascinating aspect of the story.  One cannot simply read a book’s introduction and the last two pages, and in television, one cannot just have the opening credits and the closing scene.  Nothing would make sense.  We would not have the privilege and joy of discovering each character, their backstory and their path of self-discovery and see the importance of how they relate to one another.  Life is not just about beginnings and endings.  It is all the stuff in between that counts. 

 Yet more and more, television audiences are refusing to be satisfied with anything more than just the beginning and end.  It is as if they were corrupted by the MTV-era and anything longer that 7 minutes is just too long and their inherent ADD demands that they turn the channel or move on to the next pretty, shiny toy.  However, seven minutes just isn’t enough to tell a story properly. 

 If you look back at any great television series (whether sci-fi or not), it was not just the first episode that was great or even the last episode.  Somewhere in between there were these moments of greatness that no one ever saw coming.  For “Heroes,” it was “Company Man.”  For “Lost” it was “Through the Looking Glass.”  For “BSG” it was “33.”  And for virtually every show there is, you could name the one stand-out episode that was somewhere in the middle of that show’s journey. 

 But that one episode would have been nothing but for the episodes leading up to it.  Each had carefully laid the foundation of the characters and how they related to one another that made those episodes all that much more climatic and amazing.  No, the art of storytelling, is laying the foundation.  Just like a house cannot exist with just a hanging chandelier; for it must have a solid foundation, sturdy walls, a weatherproof roof and a few glistening windows.  In sci-fi, a clever story has all the same elements.  It has a strong foundation (the initial premise of the show), sturdy walls (the bare bones or turning points of the story), a weatherproof roof (an overall arcing story of where it is going), glistening windows (an array of interesting characters) and a whole lot of nails, boards, drywall, and paint.  All these ingredients are necessary to build a home and all are just as equally necessary to build a sci-fi television series.  If you leave one out or skimp on the quality, all you have then is a shoddy home, or no home at all if the building inspectors deem it unfit for habitation.

 These days the viewing audience is simply too impatient to allow for proper “homebuilding” (e.g., storytelling).  We are the children of the “Me-generation” and the “I want it right now” generation.  No patience.  It’s all about instant gratification.  But nothing worthwhile can be achieved so quickly or by taking short-cuts.  Recent examples would be the new television shows “FlashForward” and “V.”  It is astounding how quickly viewers turned the channel once they realized they were not getting any fast answers.  They wanted it right now, or they just tuned out.  It is appalling. 

 One of the most highly regarded books of all time is Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.”  It is 1,475 pages long.  God forbid someone ever told Tolstoy that people simply never take the time to read a book that long and he needed to shorten it to an acceptable length – like maybe 200 pages. 

 I posit that science fiction storytelling requires the same patience.  It takes time to develop great stories and epic characters.  It is only by taking the long journey with them that we appreciate all the exquisite attributes and their contributions along the way.  It is also because we undertook the long arduous journey together that the pay off is that more rewarding.  There is simply no greater joy than when finally reaching the end after a momentous journey. 

 So for all the impatient “I’ve got to have it now” television viewers I say this:  you’re missing out on the greatest story(s) you’ll ever know simply because you had no patience to wait and discover where it went. 

 It is like opening your Christmas gifts the day after Thanksgiving.  There is no joy in rushing things.  Let the holidays unfold and wait patiently for Christmas morning.  Watching all those glittering packages sit under the tree just builds the anticipation.  And so it is with a sci-fi show, enjoy peeling back each exquisite layer. Cherish each and every character. Practice patience.  Only then will you reap the reward having  savored each and every moment of it.

 So as we continue to hold wakes for the shows of yester year, mourning the loss of beloved “friends” that brought joy to our lives, we sit at sci-fi’s deathbed.  For surely, shows like “Heroes,” “Fringe,” “V” and “FlashForward” will be next on the chopping block.  Viewer-erosion is a sure fire way to foretell imminent cancellation.  And with “Heroes” having fallen from a once regular viewership of 13 million to 5 million, “Fringe” from 12 million to 7 million, “V” from 14 million to 9 million and “FlashForward” from 11 million to 6 million, it is not hard to see the writing on the wall.  Say your prayers or send you last-ditch pleas to networks, as I can hear the sound of the death bells tolling.  Sci-fi television is surely at death’s door.

 It is too soon to tell for such series, like “Stargate Universe,” “Sanctuary,” “Smallville,” or “Supernatural.”  But, like “Lost” which closes the book on its 6 year journey next May, perhaps “Smallville” (which will be ending its 9^th season) and “Supernatural” (which will be ending its 6^th season) will also bow gracefully into the night.

 That leaves shows such as “Stargate Universe,” “Sanctuary,” “Doctor Who,” “Torchwood,” “Eureka,” and “Warehouse 13” being the last holdouts of the sci-fi television era.  We can only hope and pray that “Caprica” (the “Battlestar Galactica” prequel) captures enough of an audience to give it some legs.  There is a sci-fi legacy that needs to be upheld.  Let’s not have 2010 be the year that sci-fi television died.

…and all of it will happen again, possibly. A little clarification on what I was referring to in the previous post, when I wrote “They were there in the past – they could come back again”. Windmills were on the heath from the 1600s:

The book that nobody in Blackheath should be without “Blackheath Village and Environs” by Neil Rhind, Volume 1 page 178 (emphasis is mine):

There were at least two windmills on or close to the Heath in the late 17th century: one close to the fence of Hollyheadge House, on the Heath towards Dartmouth Place, and another on Morden Hill.

Windmills were big business in the 18th century. A mill owner needed to be a rich man because the cost of construction was considerable. But once the investment was made the potential earning power was equally considerable. The owner might live well but the operator would have been a relatively menial character, suffering the dust and dangers that milling created, especially at the peak milling period after harvest. By 1770 Hollyhedge House, in the Dartmouth freehold, had been re-leased to Charles Newton and by then the mill had been pulled down. But there was still enough work for more than one windmill. The river Ravensbourne had sufficient speed of current to drive a number of grinding wheels but the farms of Kidbrooke and Lee, as well as the local demand for cattle and horse feed, would have been more than sufficient to keep a host of millers busy. Further, the Heath was an ideal site for a windmill, with wide sweeps of high open land which would allow the mill sails to catch even a slight breeze.

If it were possible to design a modern wind turbine that had all the rustic charm that we now associate with windmills (even though at the time, they were just another piece of agricultural machinery), perhaps it would be possible to harness the considerable might of the “heritage” mentality into the green cause. Unfortunately, mills require high torque, low power, which means lots of sails, whereas electricity generation requires high power low torque (three fins).

Battlestar Galactica ist eine preisgekrönte Neuauflage des Science-Fiction-Klassikers Kampfstern Galactica von 1978, die seit 2003 im Auftrag des amerikanischen SciFi-Channels produziert und ausgestrahlt wird und seit 2005 im deutschen Fernsehen zu sehen ist. weiter

John & Cavil – Battlestar Galactica: The Plan

Very clever, V, casting one of the Cylon Final Five as a member of the V Task Force within the FBI.  I only wish I were a little more geeky.  My brain is telling my mouth to water over this bit of casting, but my mouth’s just not that into it.

Also, nice touch giving Erica nee Juliet’s partner’s widow a V-shaped necklace.

But on the whole, V, I think, as they used to say in the mental patient’s writing group: “You’re taking too long to get into it.” 

I want to be in pain that I have to wait a whole week to find out what happens next.  You know what show has good cliffhanger endings?  Look at early seasons of Alias.  Look at True Blood.  Yes, I’ll say it: look at BSG.

I wanna be a rabid fan.  Trust me, it’s either that or find something else to do to amuse myself during your timeslot.  And I am lazy.  But picky.  And with more channels than there are flavors of Fancy Feast, why shouldn’t I be?

Reviewed by Alicia Glass

Website: http://www.battlestargalacticadvd.com/

Age: 14+

Review Rating: 8

 Experience most of the story of Battlestar Galactica all over again: humanity’s struggle for survival and the Cylon battle for existence, but this time from the Cylon point of view.

First off, if you’re not a fan of BSG, there really is absolutely no point in trying to watch this straight-to-DVD movie release. Without having watched the four amazing seasons of the remade Battlestar Galactica, that won numerous awards, a legion of die-hard fans and a huge amount of criticism, you won’t be able to enjoy this movie to it’s fullest. That being said, and as I am huge fan of BSG, on with the review!

 Yes, it’s from the Cylon point of view, sure. Dean Stockwell stars as Brother Cavil, also known as Number One. And while he certainly does an adequate job at trying to get his Cylon brethren to do their fraking job already and kill a bunch of pivotal humans, I just can’t get around remembering him as Al in Quantum Leap. Certainly both Sci-fi series, but they’re very very different from eachother. We have a pair of Sixes running around, the one that seduces Gaius and the one that, well, is generally a whore who likes killing people and telling Number One how he keeps messing things up. Boomer, also known as Sharon, or Number Eight if you like, is here too, and boy is she angsting about lying to the humans (and herself) and shooting the Admiral. There is actually rather little about Starbuck and her being…well, we honestly couldn’t tell from those last few episodes of BSG what the frak she’s supposed to be, a Cylon or an “Angel” or whatever else. Leobon, the Cylon who tortured Starbuck, is in there, but he seems to take a distinctly protective turn towards Starbuck, at least when talking to Number One.

 And unfortunately that’s pretty much it. The Cylons have their plan and as we all know, it didn’t work. The movie runs through the pivotal moments of the show: the destruction of Caprica, the shooting of Adama, the death of Boomer, and a bunch of other things. And yes, you do see bits of the Cylon POV interlaced with those scenes, Edward James Olmos, who directed this film, did a very seamless job. The film is rather abruptly ended with the capture and subsequent deaths of the two Number One copies aboard Galactica. There is a memorable scene, for those of us BSG fanatics towards the beginning of the film, where the Hybrid informs the Cylons of this gem of storytelling:

 “Progress reports arriving. The farms of Aerilon are burning. The beaches of Canceron are burning. The plains of Leonis are burning. The jungles of Scorpia are burning. The pastures of Tauron are burning. The harbors of Picon are burning. The cities of Caprica are burning. The oceans of Aquaria are burning. The courthouses of Libran are burning. The forests of Virgon are burning. The Colonies of Man lie trampled at our feet.”

True BSG fan-atics will most likely greatly enjoy this little-known slice of fun.

We’re still a few months away until the Battlestar Galactica prequel Caprica – the series gets going on SyFy (Jan 22).

But that’s not stopping SyFy from promoting the show. The latest trailer gives us some interesting insight into the themes for the first season and show us the key terrorist leader Barnabus Greeley

Back in July, when I was all atwitter with excitement the week before Comic-Con, I posted a quickie on NBC’s exclusive BSG toaster that would be on display at the Con. Admitting, of course, that I am in no way the world’s biggest Battlestar fan, I nonetheless appreciate both the geek appeal and humour of such a spectacular piece of merchandise… Cylons = toasters, tee hee.

Anywho, this afternoon I am sitting here all tucked up in my blankies – still feeling a little fluish, sad face – catching up on last night’s Big Bang Theory, when, lo! What’s this?! Sheldon is making himself a stack of Cylon toast with a fancy Battlestar Galactica toaster! Just like the one I told you about!!

Of course, the second thing that comes to mind, after *gasp!* “I blogged about something Sheldon now has in his kitchen!”, was, “How did he get one if he was at the North Pole during Comic-Con?”

No, seriously. How?

The sad, sad, sad, sad, sad state of Science Fiction Television.

Most of us think of the scifi channel (SyFy, why try? or is it YyTry) until we find they are showing monster films. Really, more monster films? Announcer voice This week, Attack of the Killer Platypus. Those are not real science fiction, just horror B movie wannabes. BattleStar Galactica was a great miniseries being made into a regular 5 season series and I was hoping going to be a standard in what was to become the future of the scifi channel. Maybe every 5 years would be a new series whether original or a reborn property of some kind.

BSG was a series of stories with an overarching storyline for the series…until that fateful moment about 2+ seasons into a 5 season plan when it became about the characters and not the story.

It seems story is missing from most shows these days but most significantly from science fiction shows. To find some good tv series let’s go back in the way back machine of my youth. Several shows were written in an episodic mode to tell a story and entertain. Shows such as Buck Rogers, any incarnation of star trek, or Babylon 5, and of course Firefly of recent years was another example but was killed too soon to prove it.

Babylon 5 was successful because of the story. Yes like all series there were a few episodes a year that were filler, or character development as they uncovered one character’s past; they didn’t move any plot lines forward but could still be entertaining. After all isn’t it about the entertainment of the viewer and not the single facet of a character.

TV shows which are “about the characters” are soap operas. Not the little story and who cares about the story anyway. Anyone discussing the show which consistently says “and then such-and-such said this or such-and-such did that is telling you about characters (soap opera). If they tell you about something that happened then they are telling you about the story. If I wanted to watch soap operas I could watch something like 90210 (old or apparently new, eww) or the last 3 seasons of BSG (ugh).

And gee I wonder what happened to the other 2 series proposed by the BSG peeps and were even advertised during the last season. They never came to fruition fully. One went straight to video and was the better looking of the two. And where is the other one??? Hopefully roasting in TV hell.

If I want to watch a story, I watch any star trek series, or babylon 5, but is there anything current? Most anything you would point at, Fringe, Heroes, Dollhouse, etc is sci-fi in the minimalist sense in that there is some sci-fi gimmick in the show but the setting is still in the current here-and-now looking world with here-and-now things. Admittedly it is to keep costs down (and yes there may be an allegorical reason too but lets face it lower costs and maximum profit keep the settings very 2009, even Humvees appeared in BSG but could be overlooked given the rest of the settings). Granted Fringe, Dollhouse, and Heroes have good stories in them with the characters being revealed over time through their actions; Very interesting, very entertaining.

The new TV series V is coming out (TONIGHT!). I hope it is good. As a child I enjoyed the original series. It was the only time I ever viewed the series too and while predictable in some spots to a child, it was entertaining for a couple of seasons.

Unfortunately with V we are still in our 2009 world but they do bring alien ships to us and some other things as seen in the previews. The setting will still not be scifi but if they focus on the characters I will not be watching it. This has me a little worried too as one of the actors in an interview said it was “character driven”. I hope that doesn’t translate into the later half of BSG’s “it’s all about the characters”. I want, no demand, to be entertained. Write a good story, get a good cast (there is plenty of talent our there) and throw me a piece of hard (scifi) candy every so often and it will be great series people want to see. If not, then V will be like the rest and jump the shark early.

When it comes to science fiction television for 2009 V is our last best hope.

The Cylons have a plan… We’d heard and seen that concept a lot through the run of the spectacular TV series Battlestar Galactica. We didn’t know what the plan was, really, beyond nuking the Colonies and eventually destroying humanity, but we assumed it was a pretty darn interesting plan!

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, the latest direct-to-DVD release from the SyFy Channel, shows us exactly what the plan was, and, as it turns out, it was… er… basically to nuke the Colonies and wipe out humanity. Everything else that happend was largely them reacting to the fact that there were still human remnants out there.

The movie tells the story of the Cylon attack on the Colonies (and shows it in loving detail), and also tells us some of exactly what the Cylons were doing within the Fleet and on Caprica back during the early days of the series. You see how Cavil controlled Boomer, what Simon was up to both in the Fleet and on Caprica, you see how Anders and his crew ended up fighting as a resistance group and you really get an idea of how much of a puppet-master Cavil was.

You’ll see all the main characters on the show, though many of them just through re-used footage. You won’t see Lucy Lawless’ Cylon character, but you do see all the others, including a wonderful shot with two Cavils seeing the Final Five all standing together.

You’ll also see a lot more nudity than you might expect, including at least one gratuitious penis shot, and several breasts. You’ll also see Edward James Olmos’ wife in the all-together and you’ll even see the upper half of the face of the long-missing Boxey.

Extras on the DVD include deleted scenes, some behind the scenes stuff, a trailer for Caprica (which if you haven’t yet seen, why not?), and a commentary by Edward James Olmos (who directed the movie), and Jane Espenson (who wrote it).

Ultimately this is an excellent, if somewhat lacking, movie. I would’ve liked to have seen them do this as a four-hour film rather than two, because it would’ve been nice to carry it all the way to the end of the series. But that’s ok. For what is likely to be the last of the re-imagined BSG, it’s pretty good and I’m happy with it!

FRAK’N EH! We’ve got 5 FRAK’N copies of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: THE PLAN on DVD to giveaway. Want one!? Like scavenger hunts? sort of?  Too Bad…  here’s what you have to do.  Plus, I will stop saying FRAK.

One of our awesome Console Creatures gaming videos has a RED banner saying “BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: THE PLAN GIVEAWAY IS LIVE“  -FIND IT and name the video  for your shot at winning the DVD.  HINT,  HINT…It’s in the X’09 Canada section -you’re welcome!

Enter by emailing us the correct answer to contest@consolecreatures.com with your info (Full Name, Address, City and Age) and  BSG: THE PLAN giveaway in the subject bar.  CHECK CONTEST DETAILS BELOW.

Contest Details:

- Contest is open to all Canadian residents(unless specified otherwise) age 16 years old or older.

- Contest ends at midnight, NOVEMBER  6th, 2009.

- The winner will be randomly selected from all CORRECT entrants.

- The winner will be notified via email and has 24 hours to respond.

- If the winner doesn’t respond within 24 hours, we will select another one.

- Entrants are automatically added (if not already) as a subscriber to the Console Creatures Newsletter.

- Contest winners names MAY be use in promotional purposes, including an announcement on the blog and newsletter.