The Letters to the Editor department is intended to be a forum for our readers to express their own opinions and ideas. While we appreciate the many complimentary letters we receive each day, you won't find them on this page. Instead, you will find letters that go beyond or even contradict what we have written, letters that offer a different perspective and provide a different view of science fiction.
— Scott Edelman, Editor-in-Chief
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just read a letter on your Web site from Doug Dale entitled, "Cordelia Must Look Homeward to Angel." I just wanted to say how much I agreed with Mr. Dale and his take on the show as a whole. I miss the character of Cordelia, she was the heart of the show.
I do not understand Mr. Whedon's decision and I hope they can convince Ms. Carpenter to come back to Angel where she belongs.
Thanks for your time.
M.L. Angelini
Lina.Angelini(at)sunlife.com
read the recently published letter of Doug Dale ("Cordelia Must Look Homeward to Angel.") While his letter was intelligently written and obviously heartfelt, I hold an opinion which differs drastically.
I feel Angel, in dropping the character of Cordelia, is finally coming home.
I have watched the compelling journey of Angel for over seven years. His search for redemption and peace, as well as David Boreanaz's excellent, understated portrayal of the character has kept me riveted to the screen.
Unfortunately, as the character of Cordelia Chase became more central to Angel's story, Angel the series lost the thread of Angel's redemption.
Season after season, we have seen Angel involved in saving or finding Cordelia. We have watched awkward character mechanizations that have included Cordelia receiving visions from the Powers That Be, Cordelia as princess, Cordelia as selfless conscience of the group, Cordelia as Earth mother to the gang, Cordelia as surrogate mother to Connor, Cordelia as higher being, Cordelia impregnated by a demon and Cordelia giving birth to a rogue Power. Did I mention Cordelia as big bad? Or Cordelia as the only person Angel would listen to?
On occasion, I've wondered if Cordelia didn't accept the offers of the Powers to have her own show because I've felt like I've been watching The Cordy Show! for over two years now.
No supporting player should be given this kind of screentime. Angel spent so much time rescuing, worrying about, protecting and pining for Cordelia that he seemed to forget he had over a century of mayhem to atone for.
He became childish in his need for Cordelia's approval. Somehow the self-centered girl from Sunnydale became the voice of reason and experience within two short years. Our beloved vampire no longer traveled his own path, secure in his mission with over two centuries of knowledge and experience at his fingertips.
Angel will never find redemption while leaning so heavily on another character. He has sought redemption in the forms of Buffy, Darla and Cordelia. He must find this redemption for himself.
Equally unfortunate, for fans, has been Charisma Carpenter's lack of ability to convincingly portray the various emotions involved in her character's transformations.
While the actress' comedic timing is impeccable and her delivery of a snarky insult is unsurpassed, she lacks the broader range required to sell us on the idea she was such a sterling, selfless character or (especially glaring) an evil being.
In Cordelia's absence, we see Fred begin to shine. Other characters are allowed to show their own strengths. We discover that all the gang represent "the heart" of the group. And [this season] we gain the energy of James Marsters and his excellent portrayal of Spike.
I feel engaged by the show in a way I haven't felt in years. I [have] an interest in what will unfold and [have] true hope that Angel will finally come to peace with his past and himself.
Janet Heater
jandeams(at)lycos.com
just finished reading the letter from Doug Dale ("Cordelia Must Look Homeward to Angel"), and I totally agree. Cordelia is missing from Angel and to barely mention her at all in the present is very noticeable. You would think one of their first priorities with the resources they have now, would be to find a cure for Cordelia and it hasn't even been mentioned!
Yes, the fans of Angel not only want Cordelia's storyline to have a closure but we want her back permanently!
Also, the addition of Spike is good, but please—make him corporeal, already. I know they tried, but let's get back to fighting the bad guys with Spike as one of the team, since Buffy made lots of slayers in the [series] finale [of Buffy the Vampire Slayer], they probably can do without him in Sunnydale! Adding Harmony brings some comic relief, but if we have to choose between characters (if there can be only so many characters) we will choose Cordelia over Harmony!
Please reconsider the cast. Remember, the fans are the ones who watch, and if they are not watching, the show does not go on.
Denna Adams
vampda(at)msn.com
would really like to see a second season of Tremors: The Series. I enjoyed the first season very much. I loved all of the episodes and I don't know why it was canceled. It was awesome. It was one of the five shows that I actually thought was worth watching on TV. I really like it because of its B-movie cheesiness and—it's one of my favorite monster flicks of all times. [Tremors] combines many variables of good movies into a small package of superiority. I feel the series has real potential, please bring it back.
Ward Ackerman
lazerus250(at)gmx.net
fter reading a couple letters recently that praised the series Tremors ("Tremor Continues to Shake Up Viewers"), I just have to ask the question: What the heck are you people thinking?!
Tremors was a horrible, horrible show. It deserved to be canceled. And I'm not just saying this because I am a Farscape fan.
I tried, I really did. I gave the show a chance. I watched a few episodes. And it just did not deliver.
The jokes were not funny, the monsters were not original at all, and despite all their talk about how important it was to stay where they were, I couldn't help but wonder why they didn't just move out of that town. I mean, living in the middle of the desert is bad enough, add to that having to evade giant sandworms and I'd say goodbye!
They could have saved the show by at least having interesting characters, but they failed there, too. Burt Gummer was just too over the top, and everyone else was just too uninteresting.
So, in the end, SCI FI, for once, did make the right decision. Now, if they could just get rid of Scare Tactics and bring back Farscape, I'd be happy.
On a different note, thanks for showing Final Fantasy [recently]. Now I can see if it sucks as bad as all my friends say it does without having to waste money on renting it. I'm pretty sure it's not that bad, but it's probably just too different from the game.
Shane Stephenson
datadog84(at)yahoo.com
hat's this? Duck Dodgers isn't funny? What are you smoking? It's the most hilarious cartoon I've seen in a long time (and believe me, I've been around long enough to have seen a lot of cartoons). The voice characterizations are so close to Mel Blanc I only have to close my eyes to imagine he's still with us. The animation is done simulating different "camera angles" for crying out loud.
Please don't tell me Hanna Barbera ever did that! And when Duck Dodgers tells Agent Roboto that he's "done something awful" and Roboto responds, "Roboto will help Friend bury body"—I have to say the writing is top drawer!
Duck Dodgers isn't funny? Oh puh-leeze!
Laura [last name withheld]
LDCraig(at)aol.com
his letter is writing in response to Michael Cassutt's article, "A Cold, Dry Season."
While I would love to see more science-fiction television, I cannot blame anyone for taking the survivalist's route in writing for the mainstream. Nay. I encourage it. One should have as many eggs in as many baskets as one possibly can. Certain genres have fluctuations in popularity and one can not afford to limit one's skill, or the result could be one does not simply make a living. The fact that creators proved or even had to prove themselves in the mainstream before being given a chance to bring their science-fiction television to light is fine by me. Who among us has not paid his or her dues, one way or the other? Besides, who says that sci-fi writers cannot write any other kind of fiction? Chris Carter, Gene Roddenberry and others prove otherwise.
I think that it will take quite a long while before science fiction attains the same amount of respect that is given for works in the mainstream. Would I live to see the day that a genre film accrues the awards given for it, outside of special-effects, if the story et al were stronger than what was offered by the mainstream? The SCI FI Channel's Taken has won the award for best mini-series, so one can say "Never say never."
Julian Gift
lira-b(at)tstt.net.tt
egarding the show on Kecksburg, this is what I expect from the SCI FI Channel. This was a well-done program, focusing on a very mysterious event which may prove to be important to us and our future generations. The program was fascinating and well-developed rather than being jammed into a small segment of a show and just briefly gone over. I was not aware of the many details pointed out. I was impressed by the research done. This is the type of program that may actually get something done. I hope to see more programs like this in the future. Well done!
Denny Goodwill
dgoodwill(at)neo.rr.com
any reliable sources have cited that Universal Studios' SCI FI Channel would take extraordinary measures to get to the bottom of a 1965 Pennsylvania "incident." The best information I've ever heard about this was this was an unannounced experimental launch failure from Vandenberg (Polar Orbit) of the prototype of the X-23 PRIME Lifting Body program run by the USAF. While the program itself was not announced until long after at least two more successful flights were conducted a few months later (1966), NASA's only involvement would be in their partnership with the follow-on manned version, the X-24A. Such a vehicle would have unknown dangers, and such an unplanned landing in Pennsylvania would no doubt be seen as The Andromeda Strain by the local emergency services and law enforcement agencies, especially when a bunch of Federal vans would show up in space suits to recover the toxic and hazardous debris.
Well, [the SCI FI Channel] has now shaken down NASA, that much is in the news. Was it worth it? And nonetheless, we're very interested in what [SCI FI's] highly publicized shakedown revealed.
John Sullivan
producer(at)spexproductions.com
fter reading [Science Fiction Weekly's] review of The Matxix Reloaded, I wanted to send a few comments. I'll try to keep it simple, since [the reviewer] did indicate that [he doesn't] like to have to think too hard. Don't take that as a cutdown, because it's not. Each of us has our likes and dislikes.
I, personally, found The Matrix Reloaded very easy to follow. Before I went to see it, I commented to a friend of mine that there were only three ways I could anticipate the movie handling the way the original Matrix movie had left things. Well, of the three, it turned out to be the one I was hoping it would be. It also appears to have revealed the answer to a
question I had after watching The Matrix about whether the "real world" part of the movie was, in fact, meant to be yet another part of the matrix being passed off to those who are in it, as an escape from the world they had come to realize was computer generated.
For anyone who likes action films, I would highly recommend The Matrix Reloaded, because it's basically one, long, intense action scene from beginning to end with breaks for dialogue. But I would also recommend it for people who tend to find themselves wishing that someone would write a movie for people who really enjoy deep thinking.
It will be interesting to see how the third installment goes.
Donald A. Kronos
TechnoZeus(at)Techie.com
here have been several letters discussing the so-called timeline "inaccuracies" that are "plaguing" Enterprise ("Enterprise Is In Alternate Reality", "Enterprise Looks Better Than Original"). Every time I read one of these, I have to shake my head. People. Please. You love science fiction. There's a conceit out there that [says] those of us who love SF are somehow smarter than the average bear. You are putting the lie to that conceit through your unbelievable density. From the first night it aired, from the very moment they engaged in the idea of a "temporal cold war," the producers of Enterprise have had their "out."
When the very basis of your series is that people are messing with the timeline, any "inaccuracies" become, instead, evidence of alteration of the time line by (so far) unidentified "agents" of a side in the temporal war. The ability to explain away any apparent inaccuracies was
built in to the very premise of the show, don't you see?
Let me be very clear about one thing: I thought it was a pretty cheap plot "device" then, and I still do. But, geesh, stop whining about the timeline disruptions.
I'm sure the producers have a final scene in mind when the Enterprise puts the temporal cold war to an end and they're suddenly dressed in the old gold, blue and red Trek uniforms, surrounded by the original series' tech, saying something like, "What just happened?" just to make folks like you happy. So, stop complaining about the timeline stuff. Go back to whining about how they should have made the series about Sulu or Capt. Pike. Or create something yourself, instead of just pulling apart the work of others. Everyone's a critic, but few truly create.
Whew! Just had to get that off my chest.
Mike Luoma
glowindark(at)adelphia.net
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