When Things Were Different
It's never easy, liking science fiction. Not only is the overwhelming majority of it not particularly good, but the overwhelming majority of fans don't seem to care. The reasons why are more complex than people sometimes think; a large contributing factor, oddly, is paranoia. Science fictions fans are regularly ridiculed for liking things that are 'silly', as a result of which they tend to latch on to anything that's Serious. Unfortunately, the sci-fi definition of "serious" usually means "grizzled Space Captains stomping up and down spaceships with electric-blue lighting, speaking in husky whispers about 'freedom', and solving all their problems by blowing shit up."
The latest example of this is Battlestar Galactica, which people still pretend was acceptable television. The problems with Battlestar Galactica were almost too numerous to list, but 'clunking adolescent macho garbage' is one way of summing it up, and 'horse-cum' is another. Many people, some of whom are actually writing professionally for newspapers, try and imply that its comparative unpopularity was because it's too dark and complex for the average viewer, but this is obviously bollocks: the average viewer can see that Battlestar Galactica tries to be political without understanding anything about politics; that it wants to be gritty but winds up being clichéd; that it attempts to tell a story of real people caught up in a war, but doesn't ever feature someone that behaves like a real person. It might seem laughable, but Christopher Eccleston's series of Doctor Who (certainly the greatest telefantasy series ever made, and right there in the mix with the greatest series ever) was compared unfavourably with Battlestar Galactica. The reasons are tediously reductive; because a future that's pastel-pink is less adult than one that's metallic and shadowy, and aliens farting is more childish than aliens having sex. While Eccleston's Who was like nothing an audience had ever seen, Battlestar Galactica was like everyone's idea of science fiction. It was also like Star Trek DS9 and Babylon 5, similarly acclaimed at the time, similarly consigned to dusty TV history in a way that Eccleston's season will never be.
The word I'm stretching for, at this point, is "cult". Programmes that deliberately set themselves up as being "cult" are ones that follow the rules of demographics rather than rules of drama. By any objective standards, Battlestar Galactica is unwatchable, but... Battlestar Galactica isn't judged by objective standards, it's judged by those that only operate within the general framework of sci-fi.
(What's disturbing - on a wider level - is how much television now operates by those standards, and how it is increasingly judged by the standards of what people think television should do. To point out that 24 / Lost / CSI are loud, derivative, moronic bilge misses the point; we have now arrived at a stage where the people who should be giveing us the best-educated viewpoint, i.e. reviewers, are so enswathed by the environment of showbizness that they think loud and derivative is just what television does.)
To switch medium; how else do you explain the near-hysteria behind Moon? To clarify my position, Moon is a perfectly solid film within the "cult" framework. It's very much a treatise on physical degradation and death, uses its central conceit to literally show us a man watching himself die, and features a very strong central performance. But... it's a long, long way from perfect, even if you ignore the fact that it's basically six classic SF movies jammed together. The score is overused badly, the central twist is revealed too early, the angle with the feeling computer isn't developed or foreshadowed like it should be, and the film doesn't run with its core idea as far as it might. Yes, it's a solid ninety minutes of cinema, but it doesn't deserve the near-euphoria that so many sci-fi fans are throwing its way.
The answer lies in one of the most common throwaway comments about Moon; "oh, if only we could have more science fiction films like this". Because Moon, like Sunshine before it, is a cult movie that is also a decent drama. Criticising Moon for being derivative misses the point entirely; Moon is the sort of environment in which a SF fan will be comfortable, and it tells a decent story without oncetaking the viewer out of that comfort zone. It's nice because it's an oddity, but the thought of more films like Moon, endlessly retreading the path of seventies sci-fi classics, is horrifying.
(And am I really alone in thinking that, nice and all as it is, Moon isn't a patch on the latest Harry Potter film? Speaking as someone who would rather eat their own skin than read the book, there are a couple of narrative disconnects in Potter - notably that the Half-Blood Prince mythology completely fails to work - but it has a sense of scale, and gathering evil, and genuine humanity that Moon comes nowhere near achieving. I can't help but feel that the relative dismissal of Potter is due to the fact that it's unapologetically teenage, and the hormonal love-stories are somehow seen as diminishing it. When, in fact, they're by far the best thing about the whole movie.)
Let's try a compare-contrast for a moment. Torchwood: Children of Earth got a few plaudits, although the sort of SF fans who write on newsgroups were nowhere near complimentary enough about it. Nor indeed was anyone else. If you discount The Wire, because you always have to discount The Wire when talking about the quality of telly, Torchwood's latest mini-series was the best thing on television since... well... Eccleston's Doctor Who, really. This wasn't because of any ingenious plotting (even if the notion of the planet being held to ransom by a bunch of drug addicts running a protection racket has a reality, and a sense of scale, that shows up Battlestar Galactica as the tedious pish it so obviously is). Torchwood's brilliance lay in its dangerous, layered characterisation; the politicians' immediate acceptance of the murder of millions of children wasn't shocking because it didn't ring true, but just because it's the sort of thing we never see on television. The tramplike holy-fool is a homophobe; the man facilitating the alien invasion is a nervous civil servant; the hero of the piece is a shallow narcissist who murders his own grandson. People said it was bleak and dark - in fact it was just surprising, in a way television so rarely is. Torchwood, previously run by a man who wanted it to be a "cult" show, was suddenly run by Russell T. Davies instead. It recalled Davies' early days on Doctor Who, when he was quite prepared to tear up any sort of televisual rule-book and surprise his audience, but this time in the "adult" environment of Torchwood rather than Doctor Who's gentler world. Torchwood was uncertain, and dangerous, and a world where literally anything could happen; a world where Ianto could keel over and die without any ceremony at all, where the guy-who-saved-the-day just buggered off at the end, and where we were unflinchingly shown the death of an innocent as the only way to save the world. The conclusion of Torchwood is undoubtedly repellent, but it's repellent in the right way. If my TV is putting me somewhere uncomfortable, then it's doing what it's supposed to do.
Recently, the Black Guardian trilogy has been released on DVD; a slice of semi-successful Peter Davison Who, with a proportion of hits and misses that's broadly representative of the era. The most interesting thing they have done, by far, is release a "special edition" of Enlightenment (easily the best story of the three, and indeed one of the best of Davison's tenure). Cut down to three-quarters of its length, effects upgraded, editing tightened, the video picture given a filmic look and converted to 16:9 ratio and Dolby 5.1... suddenly, Enlightenment has the pace and appearance of contemporary television (the CGI is actually nowhere near as good as the original modelwork... but hey, there isn't much CGI that's as good as modelwork).
And yet... Enlightenment is still nothing like anything you'll see on contemporary television. Part of this is subtly technical, to do with the blocking of the shots (olde-worlde television, shot on multiple cameras, tended to line its cast up in a stagey way) and the staccato editing (videotape didn't offer the same flexibility in editing). And yet... that's not it, really.
Rather, it's that Enlightenment feels gloriously unpredictable, in a way contemporary television almost never is. It's a story in which the most powerful being in the universe deposits the Doctor on a sailing yacht, and he's mistaken for a ship's cook; where sea-vessels through the ages are sailing through the stars; where immortal elementals pass the time by having a glorified fancy-dress party, and where a creature describes the sensation of love without ever understanding what it is. A main character is threatened with perpetual imprisonment and attempts suicide, but minutes we're into a delightfully kiddish section of the story that basically says "wheeeee, look, pirates!" One moment we discuss the nature of eternity, the next we nearly crash into Venus, and then we're gazing at the wonders of the universe from the deck of a boat. And all in a format that's completely coherent, can be understood by just about anyone, and still makes time for a character to feel seasick.
It may be harsh, but after viewing a revamped Enlightenment, Moon just seems as dull, and predictable, and demographically-engineered as any Tony Scott explosion-fest. We've become too technical, grading television on how well it achieves what it sets out to do, rather than the invention to which it aspires. Enlightenment is fearless television in almost every way, but there's one thing it's magnificently terrified of; it shrinks away from the very idea of sameness.
The latest example of this is Battlestar Galactica, which people still pretend was acceptable television. The problems with Battlestar Galactica were almost too numerous to list, but 'clunking adolescent macho garbage' is one way of summing it up, and 'horse-cum' is another. Many people, some of whom are actually writing professionally for newspapers, try and imply that its comparative unpopularity was because it's too dark and complex for the average viewer, but this is obviously bollocks: the average viewer can see that Battlestar Galactica tries to be political without understanding anything about politics; that it wants to be gritty but winds up being clichéd; that it attempts to tell a story of real people caught up in a war, but doesn't ever feature someone that behaves like a real person. It might seem laughable, but Christopher Eccleston's series of Doctor Who (certainly the greatest telefantasy series ever made, and right there in the mix with the greatest series ever) was compared unfavourably with Battlestar Galactica. The reasons are tediously reductive; because a future that's pastel-pink is less adult than one that's metallic and shadowy, and aliens farting is more childish than aliens having sex. While Eccleston's Who was like nothing an audience had ever seen, Battlestar Galactica was like everyone's idea of science fiction. It was also like Star Trek DS9 and Babylon 5, similarly acclaimed at the time, similarly consigned to dusty TV history in a way that Eccleston's season will never be.
The word I'm stretching for, at this point, is "cult". Programmes that deliberately set themselves up as being "cult" are ones that follow the rules of demographics rather than rules of drama. By any objective standards, Battlestar Galactica is unwatchable, but... Battlestar Galactica isn't judged by objective standards, it's judged by those that only operate within the general framework of sci-fi.
(What's disturbing - on a wider level - is how much television now operates by those standards, and how it is increasingly judged by the standards of what people think television should do. To point out that 24 / Lost / CSI are loud, derivative, moronic bilge misses the point; we have now arrived at a stage where the people who should be giveing us the best-educated viewpoint, i.e. reviewers, are so enswathed by the environment of showbizness that they think loud and derivative is just what television does.)
To switch medium; how else do you explain the near-hysteria behind Moon? To clarify my position, Moon is a perfectly solid film within the "cult" framework. It's very much a treatise on physical degradation and death, uses its central conceit to literally show us a man watching himself die, and features a very strong central performance. But... it's a long, long way from perfect, even if you ignore the fact that it's basically six classic SF movies jammed together. The score is overused badly, the central twist is revealed too early, the angle with the feeling computer isn't developed or foreshadowed like it should be, and the film doesn't run with its core idea as far as it might. Yes, it's a solid ninety minutes of cinema, but it doesn't deserve the near-euphoria that so many sci-fi fans are throwing its way.
The answer lies in one of the most common throwaway comments about Moon; "oh, if only we could have more science fiction films like this". Because Moon, like Sunshine before it, is a cult movie that is also a decent drama. Criticising Moon for being derivative misses the point entirely; Moon is the sort of environment in which a SF fan will be comfortable, and it tells a decent story without oncetaking the viewer out of that comfort zone. It's nice because it's an oddity, but the thought of more films like Moon, endlessly retreading the path of seventies sci-fi classics, is horrifying.
(And am I really alone in thinking that, nice and all as it is, Moon isn't a patch on the latest Harry Potter film? Speaking as someone who would rather eat their own skin than read the book, there are a couple of narrative disconnects in Potter - notably that the Half-Blood Prince mythology completely fails to work - but it has a sense of scale, and gathering evil, and genuine humanity that Moon comes nowhere near achieving. I can't help but feel that the relative dismissal of Potter is due to the fact that it's unapologetically teenage, and the hormonal love-stories are somehow seen as diminishing it. When, in fact, they're by far the best thing about the whole movie.)
Let's try a compare-contrast for a moment. Torchwood: Children of Earth got a few plaudits, although the sort of SF fans who write on newsgroups were nowhere near complimentary enough about it. Nor indeed was anyone else. If you discount The Wire, because you always have to discount The Wire when talking about the quality of telly, Torchwood's latest mini-series was the best thing on television since... well... Eccleston's Doctor Who, really. This wasn't because of any ingenious plotting (even if the notion of the planet being held to ransom by a bunch of drug addicts running a protection racket has a reality, and a sense of scale, that shows up Battlestar Galactica as the tedious pish it so obviously is). Torchwood's brilliance lay in its dangerous, layered characterisation; the politicians' immediate acceptance of the murder of millions of children wasn't shocking because it didn't ring true, but just because it's the sort of thing we never see on television. The tramplike holy-fool is a homophobe; the man facilitating the alien invasion is a nervous civil servant; the hero of the piece is a shallow narcissist who murders his own grandson. People said it was bleak and dark - in fact it was just surprising, in a way television so rarely is. Torchwood, previously run by a man who wanted it to be a "cult" show, was suddenly run by Russell T. Davies instead. It recalled Davies' early days on Doctor Who, when he was quite prepared to tear up any sort of televisual rule-book and surprise his audience, but this time in the "adult" environment of Torchwood rather than Doctor Who's gentler world. Torchwood was uncertain, and dangerous, and a world where literally anything could happen; a world where Ianto could keel over and die without any ceremony at all, where the guy-who-saved-the-day just buggered off at the end, and where we were unflinchingly shown the death of an innocent as the only way to save the world. The conclusion of Torchwood is undoubtedly repellent, but it's repellent in the right way. If my TV is putting me somewhere uncomfortable, then it's doing what it's supposed to do.
Recently, the Black Guardian trilogy has been released on DVD; a slice of semi-successful Peter Davison Who, with a proportion of hits and misses that's broadly representative of the era. The most interesting thing they have done, by far, is release a "special edition" of Enlightenment (easily the best story of the three, and indeed one of the best of Davison's tenure). Cut down to three-quarters of its length, effects upgraded, editing tightened, the video picture given a filmic look and converted to 16:9 ratio and Dolby 5.1... suddenly, Enlightenment has the pace and appearance of contemporary television (the CGI is actually nowhere near as good as the original modelwork... but hey, there isn't much CGI that's as good as modelwork).
And yet... Enlightenment is still nothing like anything you'll see on contemporary television. Part of this is subtly technical, to do with the blocking of the shots (olde-worlde television, shot on multiple cameras, tended to line its cast up in a stagey way) and the staccato editing (videotape didn't offer the same flexibility in editing). And yet... that's not it, really.
Rather, it's that Enlightenment feels gloriously unpredictable, in a way contemporary television almost never is. It's a story in which the most powerful being in the universe deposits the Doctor on a sailing yacht, and he's mistaken for a ship's cook; where sea-vessels through the ages are sailing through the stars; where immortal elementals pass the time by having a glorified fancy-dress party, and where a creature describes the sensation of love without ever understanding what it is. A main character is threatened with perpetual imprisonment and attempts suicide, but minutes we're into a delightfully kiddish section of the story that basically says "wheeeee, look, pirates!" One moment we discuss the nature of eternity, the next we nearly crash into Venus, and then we're gazing at the wonders of the universe from the deck of a boat. And all in a format that's completely coherent, can be understood by just about anyone, and still makes time for a character to feel seasick.
It may be harsh, but after viewing a revamped Enlightenment, Moon just seems as dull, and predictable, and demographically-engineered as any Tony Scott explosion-fest. We've become too technical, grading television on how well it achieves what it sets out to do, rather than the invention to which it aspires. Enlightenment is fearless television in almost every way, but there's one thing it's magnificently terrified of; it shrinks away from the very idea of sameness.
posted by Nyder O'Leary at
22:59
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