Firefly and Dollhouse

          

                                          

            One of the most important parts of a well crafted Syfy show is an intelligent sense of humor. Just look at the old fashion Science Fiction nerds such Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. When I think about good sense of humor Syfy writers, Joss Whedon comes to mind. He may be most well known for his work in the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but in my opinion his more recent work in Syfy has more humor than his older work. My family and I were first exposed to Joss Whedon’s work through his movie, Serenity. It was made after the fans of the show Firefly campaigned for a movie to conclude the one season series.

Malcolm Reynolds is the captain of Serenity, the ship he uses to lead his crew in the black market business of deep space. Malcolm fought with Zoe, who is now his first mate, on the Independent side of the space war against the Alliance. A war the Independence lost. Now, forced to the edge of space to avoid the Alliance, he takes black market jobs to keep the old firefly ship in the air. From selling bobble head dolls to cattle, the crew travels from one end of their galaxy to the other.

My favorite part about this show is the characters. Malcolm, though not the brightest in most situations, is loyal and always looks out for his crew. Zoe, a strong warrior kind of woman is second in command, and Wash is her nerdy, genius pilot husband. Inara, a professional companion, is the only one on the ship who openly defies the captain. Kaylee, a young and gifted engineer has a quirky sense of humor. Then there is Jayne, an insecure gun for hire that we are never sure we can trust. Bishop, a wandering shepherd (the religious kind-not the sheep variety), holds the moral compass on the ship. Dr. Simon, serious and born under the Alliance’s rule, finds himself an outsider among the smugglers hiding out on Serenity in order to protect River, his younger sister, whose craziness is either insanity or misunderstood genius.

“I know something ain't right,” Zoe says, looking out the window of the cockpit.

“Sweetie, we're crooks. If everything were right, we'd be in jail,” Wash says from the pilot’s seat.

            Departing from the galaxies of space and into the galaxies of the human mind, we next found Joss Whedon’s most recent TV series, Dollhouse. Dollhouse explored the idea of completely creating a new person. They do this by wiping an individual’s brain and uploading a created personality onto it from a database of talents, knowledge, and abilities. Imprints.

            Fantasy is what the dollhouse deals with. Its job is to create the fantasy of their clients desire. Whether it be a past memory of a dead loved one to an imagined dominatrix to a hired assassin loaned out to an unknown client. Only a company that can run under the radar of legality and morality would be able to fulfill the many questionable requests. Their job is to cater to the very rich and very powerful.

            The ‘dolls’ of the Dollhouse are people who have had all of the memories of their old life completely wiped clean so that they can be made into whatever  the client’s wishes through personality imprints on the brain.

The main characters in this show include Echo, the main doll, Adel, the administrator of the dollhouse, Boyd, a caretaker who looks after care of the dolls, Paul Ballard, an FBI agent investigating the existence of the dollhouse, and Topher, the computer techie in charge of the personality imprints-the coolest nerd ever. The Dollhouse series begins with the break in by a former doll gone bad-Alpha.     

When asked about how he feels programming people, Topher responds, “You wear the tie because it never occurred to you not to. You eat eggs every morning but never at night. You feel excitement and companionship when rich men you've never met put a ball through a net. You feel guilty, maybe a little suspicious, every time you see that Salvation Army Santa. You look down for at least half a second if a woman leans forward. And your stomach rumbles every time you drive by a big golden arch even if you weren't hungry before. Everybody's programmed, Boyd.”

 Once the appointment with the client is over, the doll is brought back. Their memory is wiped clean. This leaves the person in a doll like state, wandering around the complex in a daze.

 “Did I fall asleep?” a doll asks, waking up after a wipe in the imprint chair.

“For a little while,” Topher says.

“Shall I go now?”

“If you like,” Topher says.

NEXT WEEK'S BLOG:

Lost

            Lost’s creators, JJ Abrams and Damon Lindelof, said that they wanted to create Lost with two purposes: to center a show around highly developed characters and to stimulate an intelligent audience who would stay engaged in their story. They wanted to create a show that would require the audience to think. They succeeded.

Scattered plane parts lay in the sand, crushed and smoking. People sit collapsed underneath the sun, clutching their bleeding limbs. Jack heaves in a breath. He’s a doctor. This is a disaster situation. He needs to take action, fast.         

Two Battlestar Galacticas

Two Battlestar Galacticas

After Star Trek Voyager returned to earth, ending both the series and the shows of Star Trek, (Star Trek Enterprise rose as a weak prequel to the original Star Trek series, but soon fell crashing down airing for only four seasons), my family and I earnestly scanned the new shows of science fiction. Nothing in the realm of quality science fiction seemed to show up and we feared that there wouldn’t be another Syfy series to get excited about, like we did with Star Trek. That we would end up watching reruns of its different series.

            Then, the remake of Battlestar Galactica aired.

Remakes. We’ve all seen them. Whether we are cheering for the new version or walking out of the theater defending the original story. The premise between the two Battlestar Galacticas is the same. Following a brutal attack from the Cylons, a war is started between the humans and Cylons. Both series pushed the envelopes of special effects. How the two different writers dealt with this premise is what separates them. 

Created in 1978 by Gene Larson, the original series focused on the human relationships rather than the fight against the Cylons. The Cylons were two dimensional villains represented by lumbering robots called Centurions who were led by Gauis Baltar, a human traitor, and an emperor-like Cylon. The original never explained why Gauis Baltar sided with the Cylons and assisted in the complete destruction of the human race.

The original had few battles with the Cylons. The limited screen time spent on the Emperor and the Centurions presented as stale, robots without any inner conflict. The writers did not allow any development or growth for the characters or storyline. On the human side the story line was a direct reflection of the seventies culture. Instead of focusing on surviving attacks from the cylons the cast seemed to care more about who was dating who and the social structure of new planets. It seemed to me to be a mix of the evil emperor from Star Wars and the planet hopping taken from Star Trek. 

At first, I turned a blind eye to the complexities of the scene as Six (a tall blonde Cylon model) sauntered on screen followed by two sleek Centurions in the pilot of the remake of Battlestar Galactica. She leans back onto the desk, her tight red suit wrapped around her as she looks curiously at the human man sitting in the chair. Cylons haven’t been heard from in forty years. Having never met with a Cylon, let alone one that looks so human, he sits there bewildered.

“Are you human?” she asks, kissing him.

Too distracted by Smallville and other teenage shows, I wasn’t overly impressed. It wasn’t until the first season came out that I began fall in love with the society of the show. It is a society series with a multitude of in depth three-dimensional characters that reveal the motivation on both sides of the war. I have only recently watched the pilot episode of the original series. Although I was impressed by the special effects of the time I was disappointed by the simplicity of the screenplay. Whoever says that a genre can’t mature over time has never seen the drastic difference between these two Battlestar Galacticas.

“The Cylons were created by man.

They evolved.

They rebelled.

There are many copies.

And they have a plan.”

One main difference in the new series is that some of the Cylon models look like humans. By having skin jobs, (as the characters on the show called them), the new creator, Ronald D. Moore, of the new updated Battlestar Galactica were able to pose questions on the human condition. If the enemy looks like you, how do you tell who your enemy is and who your allies are? How do you not turn against each other under small suspicions? When people who you’ve known for years turn out to be another race working to drive humans to extinction, what do you do? How far will you go to protect the human race? And where do you draw the lines in order to say if we are going to survive, we have to remain human and not turn into the enemy? An enemy it turns out was created by humans.

The second major difference in the new Battlestar Galactica was that faith played a major role in the lives of the characters and the plot. Both the humans and Cylons have a structured religion. This may not seem like a big deal, but this is the first syfy series with a focus on religion in the storyline. Both Cylons and humans believe that God has chosen them to be the supreme race. There is a conflict of faiths. The twelve colonies of Cobalt (humans) believe in multiple Gods, similar to Greek Mythology, whereas the Cylons believe in the one true God. This idea of having faith is one of the many layers that this show offers in creating a complex society of survivors traveling through space.

Lastly, the human condition comes through as both species search for a home, a theme as old as Homer. As I watched these characters strive through their many trials and tests across the galaxy to find home, their good traits made me cheer for them and flaws made me angry at them, for struggling to survive. And that paradoxical pull made me appreciate the show even more.

“47,858 survivors

          In search of a home

   Called earth.”

NEXT WEEK'S BLOG:

Firefly and Dollhouse 

When people hear the name Joss Whedon, they think of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or The Avengers. They often miss the adventures of the crew of the Firefly ship and the inner workings of the Dollhouse corporation. Both only made it up to two seasons with Firefly running for fourteen episodes and Dollhouse making it to twenty-seven episodes. They may have had less running time, but they don’t lack in storyline or humor.

“I know something ain't right,” Zoe says, looking out the window of the cockpit.

“Sweetie, we're crooks. If everything were right, we'd be in jail,” Wash says from the pilot’s seat.

Star Trek vs. Star Wars

                                                 

                                                                           Star Trek vs. Star Wars
       

           It is a constant battle in our house. Who is better? Captain Kirk vs. Obi-Wan Kenobi. Spock vs. Yoda. Data vs. C3PO. Warp speed vs. Light speed. Whether the Hyper Drive is superior to the Warp Coil.

Before my sister’s obsession began with Star Wars, our house was united underneath Star Trek’s many voyages. We knew when the new shows of Star Trek Deep Space Nine and Star Trek Voyager were on (Wednesday nights) and sought out the reruns of Star Trek: The Next Generation. When the intros played, we hummed along with the melodies. We said the famous lines along with Captain Jean-Luc Picard as the camera panned across the stars:

“Space, the final frontier. These are the voyagers of the Star Ship Enterprise. Its’ continuing mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.”

My mother and father are Star Trek fans. They spent many dates in front of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Both were in the Air Force, but had opposite work hours so on Wednesday nights at seven they would meet. My dad rushed over from work and my mom woke up early before her night shift. They would watch with anticipation as Jean-Luc became Locutus and Data discovered emotions.

My sister, though raised by my parents with the best of intentions, strayed to the dark side in first grade. Although Star Trek reigns supreme, my parents believed it would be fun, but not harmful, for the whole family to see the original Star Wars films in the theatres for their thirty year anniversary. Interest slowly turned to obsession. Now, her room explodes as a Star Wars memorabilia gift shop.

Bright light saber green walls blind you as you enter. Covered in wall to wall posters, several full casts’ prints smile at you. Yoda jumps off of the door, ready to fight. From Young Anakin and Chancellor Palpatine striking a pose to Darth Vader and the Emperor; mentor and student stand menacingly glinting back and forth as you cross the room. A glass cabinet overflowing with collectibles is locked against invasion. An exact replica of Luke Skywalker’s light saber from the ‘The Return of the Jedi’ hangs on the wall.

A true fan. She once won a Star Wars game of trivia four to one with the question:

What is the name of the droid who leads Qui-Gon and Obi Wan Kenobi into the meeting room of Star Wars: Episode One?

For all those who aren’t fanatics, the droid’s name is: TC-14.

(I only know that because I asked her again, five minutes ago.)

Me? I can sit through Star Wars. Yes. I will willingly admit that I like it, but I prefer Star Trek. Thanks to Rick Berman, I grew up underneath the command of Captain Kathryn Janway. For three Halloweens, I dressed up as Seven of Nine. Sticking silver band aids across my left eyebrow and right hand and repeating, “We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile,” to those lost in space.

A saga of six movies vs. six series lasting over four decades. The fanatics on both sides continually go head to head. Star Wars fans dressed as Darth Vader and Jedi Knights make fun of the Trekkies in their Star Fleet uniforms and Klingon’s cranial ridges. My mom continually teases my sister whenever she watches Star Wars, nicknaming Anakin “Whine-a-kin” and Padme “Pet-me” making her squirm. Now, there is a momentary truce as we explore other sides of the Syfy galaxy.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion (no matter how misled they may be).

They know whether they prefer light sabers to hand phasers. The Borg to the clone armies.

            I will say this. Star Trek came first. Dominating the galaxy ten years before George Lucas wrote Star Wars. Ten full years. With a total of six shows, twenty-nine seasons, and eleven movies, Star Trek is the longest Syfy series. Without Star Trek, Syfy would not be where it is today. Gene Roddenberry and Rick Berman created not only a western take on exploring space, but a take on the human condition. So, if it weren’t for Star Trek, then there probably wouldn’t be a Star Wars.

            Just don’t tell that to George Lucas…or my sister.

NEXT WEEK'S BLOG:

Two Battlestar Galacticas

Remakes. We’ve all seen them. Whether we are cheering for the new version or walking out of the theater defending the original story. The premise between the two Battlestar Galacticas is the same. Following a brutal attack from the Cylons, a war is started between humans and Cylons. Both series pushed the envelopes of special effects. How the two different writers dealt with this premise is what separates them. 

Welcome.

   

Science Fiction.

It takes you to far off galaxies and explores the complexities of the human mind. Whenever I talk about Science Fiction, most people shake their head and state that they don’t watch Science Fiction. They give you the raised eyebrows and the ‘are you insane’ look as they say, no, I don’t think that's for me. People are afraid of science fiction. They think it’s all aliens on rocket ships with big fish bowls as oxygen masks.

It’s not.

Okay, some science fiction B-movies are like that. Well, alright, all science fiction B-movies are exactly like that with the awful special effects and the overly dramatic story lines. And those are so much fun to watch - in the right mood. But quality science fiction isn’t like that. Shows like Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica and Lost provoke us to contemplate circumstances and human relationships around us. They entice us to explore possibilities not only in technology, but in human relationships.

This is why I want to write a weekly blog about science fiction. There is a whole world of stories that have a great sense of humor, intelligence, life, and plot turns that keep you on the edge of your seat.  

They allow us to imagine greater. I think all of us need that in our lives. I know I do. In the words of Robert Browning, "Ah, but a man's grasp should exceed his reach, or what's a heaven for?”