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have read all the letters but never written one myself, because I never felt compelled, even though I almost caved in when the X-Files ended. But now Buffy the Vampire Slayer is gone, and I am very sad. Something is missing from television today, and that something is Vision.
Buffy had it. So did the X-Files. These two shows, to name a few, took ideas that had no chance in heck of getting
the kind of notoriety that serious dramas like ER and CSI get, and cultivated a following that culminated into a cult phenomena.
I saw the final episode of Buffy last night and I was very sad to see it end, not only because it was a good show, but because television entertainment today is reduced to reality TV schlock and over-dramatized cop shows, and I feel that all of the fantasy is slowly dying out till one day there will be nothing left to watch at all.
Pashda Remenay
pashrem@yahoo.com
egarding Buffy the Vampire Slayer: I have not followed the series this past year because I was working nights.
As a viewer I had lost my interest in Buffy because of the adult (sex) behavior in the earlier season/year.
I saw the final two episodes. [Warning: Spoilers follow.] I liked how the series ended. The inclusion of the Slayer Scythe, which enables the conclusion, worked for me. While Buffy had gotten rather adult, sex and violence, I liked how the ending came about. The final two episodes focused on the characters in believably.
The finale shows how you can have an adult program that manages to avoid offending the sensibilities of viewers like myself (I am 45) who realize that Buffy the Vampire Slayer had always been an adult-themed program.
Long live the Slayer—Buffy!
Lawrence Apodaca
lawapo@yahoo.com
igh, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is over. [Warning: Spoilers ahead.] A long and spectacular roller-coaster ride. And then, this humdrum ending. Sure, Willow's spell opens up many possibilities for spinoffs, but there is a danger. How many newly empowered slayers, good or evil, are going to become the villain of the week on Angel? Rumors have it that Spike will show up, also on Angel. I love the character of Spike, but is the Buffyverse synonymous with the Marvel Comics Universe? "Well, he's dead—but not really dead, dead. Only mostly dead." How many more
Buffyverse resurrections will occur? One was pushing it. (OK, two, but the one in the final fight with the Master was plausible and didn't look like they were trying to find a way to let the character continue its existence.) *pant, pant* Sorry, raving is done now.
Haven't ranted this much since the time I heard about Lucas destroying the original Star Wars movies and changing them where they didn't need to be changed. Then he re-released his "perfected vision" as a cheesy ploy to manipulate the masses to give him money so he could start production on the high-glitz, low-story quality prequels. This shameless exploitation of fans put his finances back in the black instead of in the red zone that was created by costs of special-effects research. The least he could do is offer the audience the choice on the DVD, like Disney did with Beauty and the Beast (original release, story board version, or Enhance release, all on one disc) but that is another subject for another post.
Thanks Joss [Whedon] and all the cast and crew of Buffy—it's been fun.
Mike Hartman
fthrmink@frontiernet.net
udos, standing ovation and thank you to Joss Whedon for the wonderful, satisfying, unguessable
ending to Buffy the Vampire Slayer! Not only was it a great ending, it was a societal-level, psychological intervention for every young (and not so young) female viewer, empowering them. It was a rite of passage, permission giving, for any woman watching, delivered in a unforgettable emotional context. What a great byproduct of a fabulous story: Whedon probably helped more people in one fell swoop than I will in my whole career as a shrink.
This is my second satisfying ending in two weeks (other [one was] Star Hunter). Industry—take notes. I'm holding you to this standard.
Barbara Goldstein
psifidoll@attbi.com
'm writing in response to Joe Castleberry's letter ("Trek's Morals Died with Roddenberry", Issue #317). He claims that Enterprise stooped to using "soft porn" to gain ratings recently in the episode "Bounty."
First of all, the "porn" in question arose from an alien virus that caused T'Pol to go into a premature Pon Farr (the Vulcan time of mating). It also caused this false Pon Farr to develop at an accelerated rate, making her hornier than the average Vulcan would've been. So, at the worst, it was a sex farce.
What's really funny, however, is Mr. Castleberry's argument that Star Trek the original series or Star Trek: The Next Generation never used sex as a plot device! Are you for real?!?
If you really believe that, Mr. Castleberry, then you need to watch the original series and TNG again. Here are some examples of Sex on Star Trek:
1) I don't remember the name of the episode, but it entailed Kirk & Co. going to a planet with a gross overpopulation problem, caused by all the diseases in their world being cured and the fact that birth control was abhorrent to them. Their only course of action was to reintroduce disease to their world by kidnapping Kirk and placing him on a replica of Enterprise, with a female member of their society. So what does Kirk do? He gives up trying to figure out what's going on, falls in love (or lust) with the woman and has sex with her, all within a four hour period!
2) "The Gamesters of Triskelion"—Kirk nails a green-haired alien chick.
3) "Turnabout Intruder"—Kirk's body is taken over by the mind of Dr. Janice Lester, because she wants to be a captain but can't, because of Starfleet's oddly sexist regulation about women not being allowed to be captains. While being in his body, she makes a seemingly obvious, albeit symbolic, homosexual advance towards another man, by gently caressing his shoulders! After she gets captured and the process gets reversed, she goes insane, unintentionally proving that Starfleet's regulation was a good one.
4) "Wink of an Eye"—Aliens, which live in a faster temporal plane, hijack the Enterprise and sends it towards a neighboring galaxy. Kirk & Co. figure out how to make themselves "faster" and "speed up" Kirk, so he can stop them. What's one of the ways he does that? By having sex with one of the female aliens, even going as far as showing Kirk getting dressed
"afterward."
5) How many episodes of the original series showcased Kirk's bare chest? Or the fact that when Kirk's tunic was ripped, you could always manage to see at least one of Kirk's nipples?
6) As far as TNG is concerned, three words come to mind: Troi's catsuit, Imazdi.
7) "The Naked Now"—Tasha Yar contracts the mutated Psi 2000 virus. It makes her drunk and horny as hell. Ultimately, she uses Data as a giant vibrator!
Sex has been a staple in Star Trek since Day One, Mr. Castleberry. It's just that now you're old and experienced enough to recognize it.
Adam Boudreaux
TrekAdamG@webtv.net
n response to Joe Castleberry's threat ("Trek's Morals Died with Roddenberry") to not watch Enterprise, stating Paramount's use of "soft porn" and crying out that Star Trek's morality likely died out with Gene Roddenberry: Get a life and don't bother watching.
Roddenberry always complained about network censors interfering with his vision and that human sexuality was a part of his vision for the future, or have you forgotten those sexy uniforms the women wore on the original Star Trek?
I remember the furor caused a number of years ago by the screening of a bare butt on NYPD Blue, but to be honest, I think Roddenberry would have loved to have beaten the producers of Blue on something like that. I remember reading that he had wanted to put three-breasted women in the original series as well as species that needed three persons to make a sexual group.
Soft porn? Just turn on network TV any night of the week. ...
Keith Kitchen
BoyoKlaatu1@aol.com
'm sorry, but I think the letter "Trek's Morals Died with Roddenberry" is so laughable I could just scream! Um, hello? This 2003 not 1966! Of course Enterprise is racier than the original series. Roddenberry himself had said in numerous interviews that the censors drove him crazy during the original series. Episodes like "Mirror, Mirror" where Uhura wore a midriff top and everyone wore thigh-high boots was considered just as racy back then as last week's Enterprise episode is today.
And Roddenberry loved it! May I politely suggest that Mr. Castleberry look at the calendar and realize we have come a long way since the 1960s? Maybe not always in a good way, but last week's Enterprise episode was far from being immoral or something Roddenberry wouldn't have enjoyed or approved of. And besides ... nothing happened, for goodness sakes!
Cybele A. Baker
cybelebaker@dwt.com
here are certain works of science fiction that intrigue and entertain us, but are so subtlety ironic and prophetic that years might pass, even decades, before their true significance hits home.
And then—"Wow! So that's what it was really about!"
A telling example is "All Our Yesterdays," an original Star Trek episode first aired more than 35 years ago. When a planet faces total incineration from its imminently exploding sun, instead of venturing out into the cosmos to an uncharted future, the populace escapes into its own past via time travel.
In the New Millennium, science fiction itself is ending, not with a bang, but with a whimper, and instead of pushing the genre into the future, editors, publishers and fans, all in denial, are seeking false salvation in its past.
Don't get me wrong. One of the greatest joys of science fiction is experiencing its masterpieces as they were originally created. (You have read Frankenstein, right?) But Questor? Battlestar Galaxative? Blake's 7? The list of escape avenues goes on and on, putting a new spin on an old adage: Those incapable of imagining the future are doomed to repeat it.
Which reminds me—
"Yo, Zara-Beth! Don't leave a torch lit for me tonight. I'm going out with the boys. Captain Video and his Video Rangers forever!"
Kevin Ahearn
KEVTOMA@aol.com
evin Ahearn asks, "Where's the new science fiction?" ("Science Fiction Has No Future") I would answer that it's at your local bookstore. Sure, there's a lot of Star Wars/Trek/Babylon/Buffy crap, but this is hardly a new phenomenon. There was just as much bad science fiction when I started reading it 30 years ago, only the covers have changed. As SF writer Theodore Sturgeon said, "90 percent of everything is crap," you just have to look a little deeper for the good stuff.
I read two or three novels a week, mostly SF, so I am constantly searching for new authors. There seemed to be lull in the late '80s and early '90s, but for the last 10 years, the influx of good new SF writers has been incredible. A brief list would include: Iain Banks, Paul McAuley, Greg Egan, Alistair Reynolds, Ian McDonald, Robert Charles Wilson and China
Miéville. I would even go so far as to say that we are in another "Golden Age" of written science fiction.
As for Harry Potter, those read like the hand-me-down Boy's Own books I had as a kid. For a fresh take on fantasy, try Tim Powers or Neil Gaiman.
Dave Campanas
d.campanas@shaw.ca
wo strands, the size of hawsers, have passed my eyes the last two Science Fiction Weekly postings.
First, regarding the death of Science Fiction ("Science Fiction Has No Future"): I'm not going to offer a critique of M. Ahearn's reading habits, but only to agree with others such as M. Redding ("SF's Future Remains Rich") that; 1) Science fiction, regardless of length, has never been "popular," and 2) Perhaps M. Ahearn should have a look at other lists, bookstores, etc. There are novels by Brin, Bear, Benford, Bova, Moon, Resnick, Robinson (Kim Stanley specifically), Steele, Turtledove; and these favorites, none of which
ascended from TV or motion picture, are just from a brief look at my bookcase. Perhaps the reason there are so few Wells, Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein break-the-mold type stories is that we have a better grasp of science than we did. Geography? No comment.
Second, Battlestar Galactica: Battlestar Galactica is an example of the absolute worst televised sci-fi (I won't even expect it to reach the level of science fiction) ever created: The effects were weak, even for the time, the dialogue was flaccid and the cultural differences were like those between Peoria and Aurora, Illinois! Now I understand the attachment one might have to a childhood safety blanket, but pardon me, that baby couldn't dance 20+ years ago, and no amount of robot-with-breasts implants are going to earn it an Astaire Award. I'll wait to see it when it's on TLC's World's Worst Televised Programs.
And now you'll excuse me, I need to sleep and Sliders is on.
Daniel Willits
astraphobe@astraphobic.com
ive it a rest, OK? ("Sexy Cylons Ruin Battlestar Remake", "Original Galactica Was Cheap Sci-Fi", " Bad Adaptations Should Be Boycotted") Yes, there are a lot of us still out there that remember the original [Battlestar Galactica] series... the bad acting, the shock footage effects etc. But there are new comers to the genre that have no idea about the "way things were." The new treatment for the show may be fine for them. I, personally, don't like the way a lot of the new "popular" shows are done or redone—Enterprise, X-Men Evolution, all of the hacked-up anime. But they all have elements that make them interesting despite what I know about the "true" origins or backgrounds. Even the lauded X2 changed a lot of the history I know of the X-Men and I've been reading the comic books since they began. Heck, the movie is even different from Marvel's Ultimate X-Men.
Not everyone will be disappointed with the reworked Battlestar. Remember what they're watching now—Survivor, Bachelor & Bachlorette, Fear Factor, American Idol, more reality-based junk than I care to even begin to look up in the guide. The sci-fi [options are] very limited to a few shows on either WB or Fox. Let the show air first, then trash it after a few episodes.
Sash Scott
cptsscott@aol.com
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