Sci-Fi News and Reviews

What's Your Thing?

I was in an introspective mood this weekend (probably was the nasty hangover, but hey!). I got to thinking about things I like, or liked and what things that I really enjoy right now.

From a science fiction perspective, I was surprised how my tastes have changed over the years. For example, back in my college days, I was a pure space geek. "Star Trek", "Star Wars", "Babylon 5" - basically anything that had a spaceship was my thing.

That period faded and was soon superseded by a fascination with conspiracies. X-Files was the prototype, but anything that hinted at a government conspiracy or cover-up became my thing. This morphed into an 'End of the World' fixation (the too quickly cancelled "Miracles" comes to mind, but there were many others) - for which I figure I was about a couple of years too early for the trend. I expect a new onslaught of these type of shows in 2010-2011, when we get near that mystical date that indicates the end of the Mayan calender in 2012.

Then, a little show called Buffy The Vampire Slayer came along and rocked my world. Vampires became my thing. I watched "Kindred" for heavens sake! I still have a little of this, since I thought "Blade: The Series" was actually fairly decent and I am on the "Moonlight" bandwagon, even though I though it started slow.

For today, if I was pressed for it, I would have to say my thing is the supernatural. Demons, Nephalim (I wish "Fallen" would have satisfied me more with these stories), Vampires (still), Werewolves - anything with supernatural creatures gets an automatic TiVo slot. This fixation stems back to Buffy, but includes "Charmed" and my current favorite "Supernatural" really brought this to the forefront.

So, even though I have an appreciation for many types of Science Fiction, the supernatural themed shows are my favorite.

So, what's *your* thing?

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Posted by Fred on March 2, 2008 10:00 PM
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I never got over Buffy. Not sure whether that says more about me, or the state of "modern" television.

-- Posted by: vanekl at March 3, 2008 9:01 AM

Character and storytelling. Scifi settings can be a powerful aid to promote the impact of character and storytelling. Or they can be an awful distraction.

"Star Trek" works because they never forgot that. "X-Files" worked for a few years, until Chris Carter, distracted by his Byzantine cospiracy backstory, ruined his characters and stories in service of a conspiracy plot arc he could never sensibly explain, much less resolve.

Twenty-five years later, with the dated costuming and special effects having firmly crossed over into cheese, many people still consider "Blade Runner" the best scifi movie ever, and the principle reason is that twenty-five years later, people still care enough about Decker to debate his true character and motivations.

-- Posted by: Deep Cover at March 3, 2008 9:31 AM

Good points on Buffy and Blade Runner - I just happened to watch an episode of season 2 Buffy, and it holds up as well today as it did during it's original run.

As for Blade Runner, I'd be one of those that have it as the 'best ever'. I do care about Decker!

-- Posted by: Fred at March 4, 2008 1:24 AM

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