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by Rick Norwood
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SF on TV | |
The high point of my tv watching in September was a few seconds at the end of the
teaser for the season premiere of Smallville. I got goose bumps when I
saw Clark Kent in a black trench coat with a big black S on his chest. Sadly, it was
all downhill from there, with the symbol overused and the plot a hodgepodge of
ingredients that failed to make a stew. Only about two and a half million people were watching.
I gave FlashForward a try, but it has a problem and a meta-problem. The
problem is that if everyone sees what is going to happen on a particular day and time
six months in the future, they are not going to see themselves going about their daily
routine. They are going to see themselves gathered in churches, or with family or
close friends, waiting for the big moment to happen. The meta-problem is that anyone
who wants to know the secret behind FlashForward can just read
the book. FlashForward had good ratings for sf, but didn't break into the top twenty.
I enjoyed the premiere of Heroes. The carnival characters are fun. I wonder
if they have an invisible manager in a trailer. And in episode two, there was a beautiful
scene involving a deaf musician. But I'm tired of them using Hiro for comic relief. And
after you save the world, twice, what do you do for an encore.
My favorite show is Dollhouse, I guess. But even there I have trouble working
up much enthusiasm, because we know, from watching the first season DVD, what is going to
happen next. The Dollhouse madam is beginning to drink on the sly, the mad scientist is
getting madder every day, I have no idea what the ex-FBI agent thinks he's doing. But
even with charming actors and Joss Whedon at the helm, there doesn't seem to be much
fun to be found in watching the world slowly descend into chaos. Only about two and
a half million people watched, and what those who didn't buy the DVD made of it, I can't imagine.
The real trouble with all of these tv shows is that they are so complicated they'd
give A.E. Van Vogt nightmares. Even the shows where I've seen every previous episode
confuse me. There is no way a newbie can get anything out of them, so the already low
ratings can only go down. Also, all involve either time travel or parallel universes
or multiple personalities or all three, so anything we see may be written over at any
time. It makes it hard to care what happens.
SF on TV in October 2009
The remake of the series V, about the aliens with elevated pinky fingers,
will debut in November, but seems to have already been canceled before it even appears.
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Rick Norwood is a mathematician and writer whose small press publishing house, Manuscript Press, has published books by Hal Clement, R.A. Lafferty, and Hal Foster. He is also the editor of Comics Revue Monthly, which publishes such classic comic strips as Flash Gordon, Sky Masters, Modesty Blaise, Tarzan, Odd Bodkins, Casey Ruggles, The Phantom, Gasoline Alley, Krazy Kat, Alley Oop, Little Orphan Annie, Barnaby, Buz Sawyer, and Steve Canyon. |
Stargate Universe, debuts in October. I've never taken to Stargate,
but it must have something going for it, since it is the first sf series since
Star Trek to have such a long life, and so many different incarnations. The
number of people who watch Stargate is miniscule compared to the number who
watched Star Trek, but still I wish Stargate Universe
success, because the rest of the Fall shows have not been very good.
I watched the finale of last season's Fringe, mainly to see Leonard Nimoy, so
I though I would give the premiere of the new season a try, but after about fifteen minutes,
I said, "It's spinach and I say the hell with it." It got pretty good ratings, but lower
than last season.
Thursday, October 1
 
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