No, it is not Firefly or Battlestar Galactica. But maybe you, like I, are starved for good science fiction, yet feel that almost everything out there is rot, whether written or on the screen. For eleven episodes — until cancellation of course — you can pretend that the rest of the world is more like you than it really is. The premise is that aliens have sent a pulsating fractal signal which is transforming human DNA and turning some of us into evil replicators. Only a crackerjack team of beautiful women, nerds, bald black career bureaucrats, and midgets can stop them. The philosophical content is to query whether evolution isn’t repugnant by its very nature, and why we think we are so special. Don’t expect the sky, but if you are at all tempted, try it, more info here.
I used to watch it for the impossibly cute Carla Gugino.
The state of cinematic scifi is a disaster. Space. Fighting. What could be more obvious?
On the print front, today’s FT has a long review of some of the best new books in the genre:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/55eb958c-b67c-11db-8bc2-0000779e2340.html
try Octavia Butler. my favorite sci fi novelist.
Neal Stephenson’s baroque cycle (while admittedly a little… baroque) should be fun to read for an economist, especially if you like economic history. I’ve been breaking my brain for some time over what it was that got me interested in economics, what it was that disabused me of (the vestiges of) my democratic socialist illusions, and whether it was the same thing, but probably it was the baroque cycle more than anything scholarly.
Threshold was not cancelled due to its intelligence. The first episode was cool, but it turns out to be one of those “brink of disaster” shows and not really noteworthy. Good idea, doesn’t go anywhere.
Some good recent science fiction movies, last couple of years: Children of Men, Idiocracy, V for Vendetta, A Scanner Darkly, War of the Worlds. Superman Returns and Spiderman 2, if you count comic books.
Science fiction television that is somewhat recent and might be somewhat interesting. Not too embarrassing to admit watching: Lost and Heroes, obviously. The 4400. Third Rock from the Sun, especially if you loved and remember Doctor Lizardo (“laugh while you can, monkey boy”). Futurama. Red Dwarf (if they even know what it is, they’re probably a fan too). Keep it to yourselves and your fellow sci fi geeks if you watch: Stargate, Farscape, Japanese anime (various), Lexx, Doctor Who, Tripping the Rift. Tell absolutely no one if you enjoy…on second thought, never mind.
bhauth: when I say they’re good movies what I mean is that I’ve excluded from the list Ultraviolet, Aeon Flux, and Doom.
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