More science-fiction thoughts...

[capri0mni]

Audrey has moved on from binge-watching Deep Space 9 to binge-watching Babylon 5. *

Anyway, that's lead to the following thoughts:

1) My first impression, on hearing it for the first time in nearly 20 years, is that it's a lot less shouty than DS9. So:

2) I wonder what it would be like to critique audio-visual media (Movies, TV shows, radio dramas, and the like) by vocal inflections and music, alone, with all the plot details revealed through dialog 'blurred out'. How much of the show's general philosophy and tone could be deduced from the "musicality" (for want of a better word) of the actors' voices?

3) After hearing the following voice-over a dozen times over the past few days:

Quote:

It was the dawn of the third age of mankind, ten years after the Earth/Minbari war. The Babylon Project was a dream given form. Its goal: to prevent another war by creating a place where humans and aliens could work out their differences peacefully. It's a port of call, home away from home for diplomats, hustlers, entrepreneurs, and wanderers. Humans and aliens wrapped in two million, five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal, all alone in the night. It can be a dangerous place, but it's our last best hope for peace. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2258. The name of the place is Babylon 5.

Unquote.

I wonder: a) can there ever be a space-based sci-fi show that's a lighthearted sitcom, without dire threats like cybermen, daleks, Shadows, despair squid, et alia (Shows like Mork & Mindy and 3rd Rock From the Sun are lighthearted sitcoms, but their humor is based entirely on aliens trying to pass as human, Red Dwarf's a comedy, but it's built on the life-or-death trope), or does the vastness of the backdrop force the sense of lurking danger and doom? b) If lightheartedness is 'not allowed' in a deep space setting, is that because we started our exploration of space with a not-so "Cold War"?

4) (Back to that intro quote) a) Really? It's up to the humans to build the diplomatic/peace station in space -- when we're just toddling out to the edge of our star system, and all these far older, far more advanced space-faring civilizations accept it being under the control of a human commander? Again, I say: "We are such a Mary-Sue species!" b) "...All alone in the night..." Um. No. You're on an engineered, semi-terraformed space station in orbit around the Sun. You've got both day and night -- just like we do on Earth.

5) That said, I do love that the show is set within an O'Neill Cylander -- hooray for science fiction that's based, at least in part, on plausible, thought out science!

*School's been cancelled all last week, and nearly all this week, due to snow and ice. So Audrey's been camped out in her room "on vacation."

Comments

[gordon_r_d]

1. I meant to post when you mentioned DS9's shoutiness, it may have depended on which season Audrey was watching as at the start at least, half the ccharacters either didn't want to be there or didn't want the other characters there so there was a lot of antagonism, which if I recall did settle down as it went on but there was always a certain level of shoutiness.

Also the first season of Babylon 5 had a less shouty commander than the rest of the series.

3. Moft of the sci-fi comedies I can think of involve life or death situations, wether it's because they're poking fun at certain styles of series or because producers think if it's sci-fi it has to have aliens, explosions and action, I dunno.

All the sf comedy shows I can think of off the top of my head (REd Dwarf, Hyperspace, Galaxy Quest, Space Dandy, Spaceballs, Hitch-hiker's Guide To The Galaxy, The Middleman) have life or death situations all the way through them.

5. Most of the main continuity Gundam series use O'Neill Cylinders, very closely folowing the original designs and art for them. Mainline Gundam is actually surprisingly hard sci-fi for the most part.

[capri0mni]

1) Yeah, I think Audrey is watching both series chronologically, from the beginning, so I've been hearing the first few episodes of the first seasons of each, in heavy rotation.

3) That's what I thought. Kind of a shame, really. Because I figure situations that turn into Life And Death conflicts have got to be pretty rare, whether in "outer space"* or not. ...'Course, just going out beyond our planet's atmosphere is a risk of life or death for our current generation of astronauts, but that's because we're still figuring out how to do it.

producers think if it's sci-fi it has to have aliens

Well, I expect interstellar space sci-fi to have interstellar aliens. But those aliens don't have to be going to war all the time.

Now, I want to see a "Cheers" rip-off set in the Star Wars bar, without the anti-droid bigotry, of course -- Or a "Taxi" rip-off.

Wait... Does Clangers count? Let's say it does. :-)


*Though it's not so much 'outer' to the folks traveling through it, is it?)

[gordon_r_d]

The CLangers always counts. :)

Now, I want to see a "Cheers" rip-off set in the Star Wars bar, without the anti-droid bigotry, of course -- Or a "Taxi" rip-off.

That sort of thinking was part of what led me to start thinking sabout "Parts Unknown", part of it started as a sitcom set in a small diner in a small US town with quirky characters dropping by (with cut backs to the local one-man radio station whrre occasionally there'd just be a cat sitting in the chair), then that went into space and combined with an idea for a series about what the maintenance crew get up to in the Star Wars universe in between Death Star assault runs.

YOu get little bits of that sort of thing in Star Wars, Firefly, Cowboy Bebop and others but I reckon it could manage a whole series. Only wish I could sit down and actually write more of the thing. :)

I never really sdaw much of Taxi, it certainly got shown here, I did see a lot of Cheers though as it had a decent slot on Channel 4 next to some other good shows.

[capri0mni]

You told me about that idea, once. But you didn't tell me about the cat -- when folks tuned in, and heard nothing but the purr, did they just assume it was static? ;-) And I was actually thinking of it as I wrote my last reply. (BTW, I love the title you gave it).

[gordon_r_d]

The cat thing was whenever the station owner/runner was in the diner picking up some food someone would ask who he'd left in charge and in every case the station was left on automatic but you'd cut back to the cat batting at the microphone or sat on top of one of the spinning turntables or anything that was quite obviously not actually DJing the radio station. :)

(Another idea had been that a character who was very shy and usually only interacted with people using puppets, took over while the owner was on holiday and nobody had any idea who the voice actually belonged to)

[capri0mni]

X-D I actually love both those ideas.