Strange Somethings

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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What.First of all, we have to dispel the myth that the Mayans predicted apocalypse for December 2012.  There is absolutely nothing correct about this statement.  The Mayans had a cyclical concept of time, and at the end of their Long Count calendar, the count of days would be reset - just like an odometer rolling over to all zeroes.  An interesting event, and presumably something of a paperwork hassle, but not the END OF DAYS.

In fact, the ancient Mayans themselves were not in agreement about what the end of their Long Count calendar meant.  The general consensus among archaeologists was that it would be a big party.  The concept of "apocalypse" was not spoken or alluded to.  And in fact the Long Count is only one of several calendar systems that the Mayans used.  
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Being a child of the 80s, I was mildly excited to see the "V" remake.  "V" was a seminal television series when I was a kid, we talked about it all the time at school after it aired in 1983.  Plus I had pet hamsters, so after "V" aired, pretty much everyone who picked up one of my hamsters pretended to eat it.  (Yes, hilarious.  Just as funny the 10,000th time as the first.  Honest.)

I re-watched the original "V" a few years ago and… I did not feel that it had held up.  Some things play better to a ten year old audience than a thirty year old audience, you know?  In some ways, the original series was still as powerful, but in other ways (particularly the special effects and costumes) it just seemed campy.

Presumably the remake of "V" would have better special effects, but would it be less campy?  The answer is "No, but in a really weird way."
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We often hear about how poor and destitute yet brilliant people were given meager funerals, barely recognized for their genius during their time. While many of these accounts may not be true (such as in the case of Christopher Columbus), others have been proven to be quite accurate.

One such funeral was that of gifted master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe. His funeral, only three minutes in length, was so short, with almost no one in attendance, that he wasn’t even given a sermon. He wasn’t given a headstone, either. Though he was exhumed and reburied in 1875, and several poets were invited to attend, only Walt Whitman came to the reburial. Read more