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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oss Whedon, what have you done with Angel? What is this new, shiny version,
the one you've promised on the cover of not one, but two issues of TV Guide? The one that adorns the crowns of taxis downtown, the Angel who "live(s) fast, die(s) never?" The one with all the eye-candy sets and the ghost of Spike? What exactly am I to make of it? What happened to the little beauty of a drama about the family of outcasts that tried to take on evil one case at a time? Was it evicted? Did they give up? Did they lose the war? Or could it be they lost the one champion among them who kept her eye on the mission?
Your return to the helm of Angel was supposed to be just the ticket to rejuvenate the series. But after five hollow, stand-alone episodes in what appears to be a sort of hollow, stand-alone season, all I've seen are your clumsy thumbprints messing everything up. It's becoming increasingly obvious to me and a fair number of longtime fans that you have no real feel
or respect for this show, that you've never really thought of it as much more than Buffy's weakling stepchild. Instead of the mature and evolving characters we've grown to enjoy, we get jokes. Yes, you're very clever, but your forte, Mr. Whedon, is wearing me down. We're nearly one quarter into this season; at what point, I wonder, will your brilliant master-plan become
clear?
I keep waiting for that point at which I can reconnect with the show, where it sings with something resembling the old enthusiasm, the old moral weight, but sadly, this never happens. These are characters I've grown to love, and yet now I feel nothing for them. Why? Because nothing they do makes sense.
Nothing is grounded in the past. They've lost the sense of community—and, yes, family—which many of us found so endearing. They wander in the spacious eye-candy sets, bumping into each other almost at random, apparently unaware that their heart, their center, Angel's dearest friend and one of your most beloved creations, is absent. So, instead of Cordelia, a person of some hard-earned substance, we have Eve, a character you apparently created with an eye pencil—and Harmony, who is funny, but really nothing more a mouth for you to pack even more jokes into. I know there's still a lot more coming down the road, but I for one am ready to pull the plug. This is not a series created for the enjoyment of its loving fans—it is more like a service administered by a kind of entertainment HMO, some impersonal, wholly owned subsidiary of Wolfram & Hart. Am I correct? Is that the sort of clever metaphor for corruption you're going for here?
And why, when you've schooled us so well with your stories of loyalty, friendship, forgiveness and overall good behavior, did you choose to publicly and transparently mistreat the actress, Charisma Carpenter? Did you think we'd just let it go? Is it any surprise that we'd speak up, that we'd get angry, that maybe we would object to such callous treatment of a longtime employee, regardless of what the circumstances were that caused you to make your decision? Your failure to acknowledge Ms. Carpenter for her contribution to the show's success, or for that matter, the lack of a simple "Thank you" from you or any member of your company indicates an appalling ingratitude for Ms. Carpenter's many years of service. Regardless of the reasons for your individual or professional differences, your conduct and the conduct of certain of your writers (and we're talking conduct of the documented variety, not the unsubstantiated kind that's been aimed at the actress), is unforgivable.
It's the combination of all these "whys" that make this season so hard to watch, and so sad. It's not that you've lost your talent—you still are a very capable writer—but that you've lost my trust and respect.
Rick Scheuer
rscheuer(at)hotmail.com
nitially, I was not a fan of Tremors: The Series, but over time, I started to like it a bit. The cast was developing a chemistry, the show didn't take itself too seriously, and it was basically low-budget fun. Yes, the show had cheesy monsters and utterly gratuitous T&A, but it also had great character interactions and good humor. With Stargate SG-1 in production, and given the channel's current emphasis on miniseries instead of of traditional series, Tremors: The Series is probably about the highest quality B-series we can expect from the SCI FI Channel. If Tremors: The Series was still being produced, I'd make a point to watch it every week. No, it's not Emmy material, but at least it's not that execrable Scare Tactics. If there's any show that deserves to be canceled and every inch of film or tape burned, it's Scare Tactics.
No, 'Scapers, the SCI FI Channel's not going to bring back your Farscape (or my Crusade) as a B-series, and certainly not as their A-series. About the best we can expect from the SCI FI Channel is one good sci-fi series and one show like Tremors: The Series at any given time.
Mac Breck
macthevorlon(at)yahoo.com
have to say I was very dismayed by the new [Duck Dodgers] cartoon. I watched only part of one episode. It was an episode where Porky Pig turns into this giant superhero type. It was grotesque and Ren and Stimpy in look. Porky Pig had large nipples that were pierced!
I find this very inappropriate for Saturday-morning cartoons. If it was on late at night and touted for adults, it would be fine, maybe even funny. But the Warner Bros. cartoons have a long and treasured reputation for quality family cartoons. And this newest incarnation of Duck Dodgers is not for family viewing.
I'm not a prude nor against rude adult cartoons (I love South Park). But when a cartoon is shown during the daytime when children can view it, and particularly when it's from a franchise that has a long history of family programs, it seems like a betrayal.
This rude cartoon has sold out to pandering to the very lowest denominator and should at the very least be moved to a (much) later time slot.
Gerrie [last name withheld]
gerrie1020(at)yahoo.com
rom time to time, SFW publishes a letter which irritates more than a wasp up the trouser-leg, and the most recent addition to this is Mike Luoma's [letter] ("Enterprise Timeline Has Its Out"). In particular, I take issue with Mike's patronizing comment that Paramount have planned a final scene in Enterprise, using the original uniforms "just to make folks like you happy." Is he an Enterprise producer in disguise, or does he really think that longtime fans of Star Trek would forgive multiple series of twaddle on the basis of one scene? I know I'd rather have good quality all the way through, than the SF equivalent of Bobby Ewing in the shower!
Which brings me to the point that really raised my hackles. Mike said, "create something yourself, instead of just pulling apart the work of others. Everyone's a critic, but few truly create." Clearly, he has absolutely no idea how the system works, including the way it is set
up to crush talent and originality. This is true all over the world, but particularly in the U.S., where how good a writer is matters not a jot. Getting a chance in U.S. TV depends entirely on who you know. Even those lauded for their brilliance did not achieve success simply on the basis of a great idea or great SF writing. Joss Whedon, for example, was already well connected, and J. Michael Straczynski spent years penning stuff like Murder, She Wrote. So, while outsiders can and do create excellent SF, the possibility of this material ever reaching U.S. screens is microscopic. The audience is there, and crying out for it, but the system isn't interested.
Nathan Brazil
nathanbrazilREMOVETHIS(at)freeuk.com
here are more than a thousand Internet websites and chat rooms featuring Star Trek data and discussion. With the barrage of Enterprise rants dominating SFW's Letters column, has the weekly sci-fi online magazine evolved into yet another Star Trek site? Or is it something else? Could SFW have fallen victim to the irrepressible and as yet incurable condition ... the Star Trek "Syndrome?"
The ST Syndrome did not begin with the "Big Bang," the network television premiere nearly 35 years ago. It was when the show was canceled after only three seasons, that the symptoms of the Syndrome took root. They began to flower when the show returned in rerun syndication. With the release of The Motion Picture with the original classic cast, the ST Syndrome began to spread.
The Next Generation, additional classic cast films, Deep Space Nine and Voyager plus Next Generation movies and now Enterprise have created a combined mass of sci-fi entertainment unequaled anywhere in the science-fiction universe. In its wake came the ST Syndrome which centers on the hypothesis that Star Trek is science fiction. Therefore, the more one knows about Star Trek, the better one knows science fiction. Those fully entrenched in Star Trek have to come to believe that all science fiction from the last 35 years is derived from either a Star Trek movie or a Star Trek episode. The more seriously afflicted are convinced that Star Trek is the science fiction universe.
In its severest, fullblown stage, Trekkies, Trekkers and Trekfans see Star Trek as life itself and its every image and utterance as the only reality worth experiencing.
Of course, there are those very few science-fiction fans who see Star Trek as "only a TV show" boldly going nowhere any more except to the bank for ever diminishing returns.
This science fiction conflict is not unlike the classic episode, "The Return of the Archons," in which the USS Enterprise is investigating Beta III, where the USS Archon disappeared over 100 years before, and find a culture controlled by a computer built by a scientist who had died 6,000 years ago. The free-thinking crew of the Enterprise is viewed as a menace "Not of the Body."
How long ago was it that Roddenberry passed on? Yet his creation still holds sway over so many blinded to the rest of science fiction. Wait! I'm using a Star Trek episode as if ... Oh, no! I've been infected by the Syndrome. I am "Of the Body." Have I been all along? Haven't we all?
Fascinating.
Kevin Ahearn
KEVTOMA@AOL.COM
Editor Scott Edelman responds:
Science Fiction Weekly hasn't fallen prey to any Star Trek syndrome. The only thing we fall prey to each week is the letter-writing habits of our readers. We try to keep the Letters column representative of reader opinion, so if Star Trek is what's on people's minds, that's what you'll find here.
So the only ones who can change the tenor of the Letters column ... are the readers themselves.
Best,
Scott
hat is a very intriguing and important question you asked, Donald ("Matrix Reloaded Easy to Understand"). And I think it deserves an equally significant answer. Exactly where is the real world, if there is one, in The Matrix trilogy? Ever since the mind-trips originated in The Twilight Zone and The Prisoner (as well as Deep Space Nine's "Far Beyond The Stars," Dr. Who's "Castrovalva," Red Dwarf's "Back To Reality" and most thought-provoking episodes of The X-Files), science fiction has proven to be the most inspirational genre for twist endings. The Sixth Sense could be the last classic example of the past millennium. And Identity is perhaps one of the first of this one. And we can agree that The Matrix would be a splendid home for a twist ending, as was hinted in The Matxix Reloaded, that would make this wonderfully inventive trilogy one of the most hauntingly memorable in human history.
Just what is reality? Or at least reality as we know it? I am curious mostly to learn exactly what the Oracle's (Gloria Foster) place is supposed to be within this technical underworld. The Matrix Revolutions shall definitely one of this decade's most anticipated trilogy conclusions alongside Star Wars: Episode III, X3, Terminator III and The Lord of the Rings: The Return Of The King. I am so looking forward to it. Soon we will all learn the impending answer to the question: "What is the Matrix?" in the course of the science fiction universe.
Michael Anthony Basil
mike.basil(at)sympatico.ca
arner Brothers' Entertainment is searching for the perfect girl to portray Wonder Woman in the upcoming film based upon the sensational comic book-series of the same name. The perfect girl portrayed Sarah Hicks on the short lived television series Hyperion Bay, which was produced by The WB. She is Carmen Electra: the busty, independent and athletic actress is perfect for the part in many ways. She has the dark hair and the beautiful blue eyes along with her exotic and mystifying look. She has played a super-heroine and saved lives in a skimpy swimsuit once before. Not only does Carmen bring the necessary sex appeal, but she has the talent to carry the movie quite well.
Alex [last name withheld]
alex219(at)bellsouth.net
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