Strange Somethings

Now that we have identified the only gay Star Wars character, I think it's time to move on to a broader discussion of gender in Star Wars.  According to the Wookiepedia, sentient life developed on approximately 20 million planets.  Let's be stingy, and say that each planet developed only one sentient biological life form.  (Earth, after all, has humans, chimpanzees, and dolphins.)  This means that the Star Wars universe consists of 20 million sentient species of biological life form.  

Naturally, only a small fraction of these have been explored in the Star Wars universe to date.  Many more will be explored and catalogued, as the reading public's appetite for endless spin-off trilogy novels shows no sign of being slaked.   Read more

You may have missed the dust-up last year when a Bioware forum mod announced (from an official position) that with regards to the words gay and lesbian, "These are terms that do not exist in Star WarsThis happened with regards to Bioware's upcoming release of Star Wars: The Old Republic, an MMORPG now due to be released in spring 2011.
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One Of Many Possible Commander ShepardsMuch has been made of the fact that you can customize the gender of your character Commander Shepard in the new game Mass Effect 2.  And if your Commander Shepard is female, then you have two choices: you can have a relationship with a male character, or a relationship with a female character.  However, male Commander Shepards can ONLY have relationships with female characters.  

Why would Bioware allow players to customize everything about their character except allowing for male homosexual relationships?  In a recent IGN review, creator Ray Muzyka explained that "it's not a wide-open choice matrix. It's more choice on a tactical level with a pre-defined character. So they're different types of narratives, and that's intentional."  

In other words, "because we said so, and we know best, that's why."
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As you may have heard, Asian-American actress Ming-Na (I guess she dropped the Wen at some point) is playing an openly out gay character on Syfy's latest attempt at a flagship science fiction show, Stargate Universe (better known as SG:U).  This is great news!  And I only wish it was happening on a less problematic show.

You can slice it down to the minutia, but suffice it to say that Ming-Na's Dr. Camille Wray is one of the most prominent lesbian characters in science fiction.  (Ming-Na is a sci fi fan herself, and I had to laugh when I saw her correcting her interviewer regarding the sexual orientation of the Kara Thrace Stabuck, who is in fact straight.)
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I had a really interesting conversation recently about the role of gender in Iain M. Banks' Culture novels.  (If you haven't read these novels, you really should.  Like, go read one right now.  They are that good.)  The Culture is a post-scarcity society, when you can be and do and have anything you want.  

One feature of the Culture is that you can remodel your body into anything you want.  Switching from male to female or from female to male is as you might imagine a rather pedestrian choice, given the options.  Wanna be a dolphin?  No problem.  Dolphin with gills?  Go for it.  Dolphin with gills and spikes and also feet for walking?  Okey dokey.
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Sly Like A...Rumor Has It that Fox is considering picking up and developing its own version of Torchwood for the US audience.  Why, that sounds like nearly as good an idea as a US version of Red Dwarf!  Wouldn't that be… oh wait, they did, and it was terrible TERRIBLE.

Torchwood fans are universally set against this move.  For one thing, we already have a perfectly good Torchwood, thank you very much.  For another thing, although Fox Network is only loosely tied to Fox News, a lot of people assume that a Fox created Torchwood would be a Torchwood without all the gay.  
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CHOOSE.Among the many (MANY) retrospectives over the last month or so, one in particular has taken the geek world by storm.  AfterElton.com, a website dedicated to "news, reviews & commentary on gay and bisexual men in entertainment and media" offered up its selection of possible candidates for "Gay or Bisexual Male Celebrity of the 2000s."  Unlike many other retrospectives, AfterElton.com decided to have its readers vote for their choice.

Among the possible selections, two celebrities soon appeared to be in a neck and neck race for the first place: Neil Patrick Harris and John Barrowman.  At one point, AfterElton.com announced that they were only 20 votes apart.
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WARNING, MANY SPOILERS

David Tennant has had a fabulous run as The Doctor, and now the series is winding towards his closing time.  Although "The Waters of Mars" doesn't directly lead into the last two Tennant episodes (aside from a tiny bit at the end) it represents a change in tone for the series, from "sprightly and fun" to "downright funereal."

The Doctor is travelling alone in "The Waters of Mars," and that never ends well for him.  There's a reason why The Doctor chooses a companion.  In this special, we get to see full well what happens when he goes banging about without an assistant to balance out the crazy and act as a moral compass.  Frankly, he goes completely off the rails.
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One thing you can definitely say about 2009 is that it was a crackerjack year for science fiction on the small screen!

Torchwood: Children of Earth

This was the third season (or "series three" in BBC parlance) of one of my personal favorite science fiction shows, and it did not disappoint.  It horrified, disturbed, and violated everything we had learned to feel for the show's various characters, but it did not disappoint.  I think I'm still a little wobbly from the finale.

Children of Earth was a super-short season of only five episodes due to the show's move to the higher profile channel BBC One.  This matters little to us here in the States, but the up shot is that future seasons will presumably be of normal length.

The End of Battlestar Galactica

I'll be honest with you, I had real trouble Read more

Christmas In BrazilOf all the genres, science fiction seems to be the most lacking in the holiday spirit.  In fact, there are precious few holiday references in science fiction at all.  Presumably in the future, we have all moved past primitive rites like "tinsel" and "good cheer" and "getting drunk and insulting your boss' wife at the company holiday party."

Unless you want to argue that Santa himself is a science fictional trope, requiring a transition in the space time continuum in order to deliver all of those presents, your options for a sci fi video marathon are limited.

1. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
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