A World Without End

Late 70s science fiction

Today’s sexy science fiction

I love stumbling across movies and television shows of which I may have some peripheral knowledge, but not enough interest to dive in head first. A recent example of this is the show Firefly. It was a late Autumn day, and I was surfing cable to find something to watch. I happened to catch Serenity on HBO’s HD channel. I had remembered seeing trailers for this movie, and recalled the humor, but not much else.

The movie amazed me. I immediately clicked with the characters, the style, and mythology. The turn of phrase was so unique to science fiction. They used words, phrases and cadence from old western movies, while peppering bits of Chinese througout. Of course, I went on to watch the series on DVD, thrilled that I didn’t have to wait a week to see the next episode.

Likewise, I remember when the Battlestar Galactica mini-series debuted. I had planned to watch it, expecting it to be a faithful, literal update to the original. I’m nostalgic for the series. I used to draw elevations of the Viper fighters on my notebooks in school, and loved the mythology of the show.  However, upon learning that they had transformed the character Starbuck (as a kid, I had no idea this name was lifted from Moby Dick) into a woman, and had made some of the Cylons take human form, I lost interest and never tuned in.

Fast forward to today. The spotlighted story on Salon.com is a long primer on the modern Battlestar Galactica show. The fourth season is debuting this week, and the author wants to help interested viewers get up to speed (it’s clear that the writer is a fanboy of the show). Reading through the summaries of the first three seasons, the story seems so rich and complex. Definitely worth exploring further.