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've been reading a lot of the articles written by Todd Gilchrist. My question is: Do you guys at Science Fiction Weekly like anything?!
All I have read is how much you dislike something. Whereas I respect your opinion as a writer(s), I find it hard to believe that everything in the various science-fiction universes and franchises are all that bad. I especially took offense at Todd Gilchrist's unkind remarks about Spaceballs. In his estimation it [was] only "funny in an '80s kind of way." In many ways Todd Gilchrist didn't have anything positive to say on any one subject (not just Spaceballs); which leads me to believe that he doesn't know anything about any of the subject matters he was chosen to write about.
This is just my opinion as a displeased subscriber. I really doubt that Todd Gilchrist knows what he is talking [about] or that he even cares.
Tim Borkowski
pmcmsa02(at)cox.net
Reviewer Todd Gilchrist responds:
Thanks for writing. I find it a little ironic that you're complaining about me not liking anything because of a movie that I gave a positive rating to, especially since there has, in fact, been a glut of movies of late that I did flat-out dislike (House of Wax being a recent example). Spaceballs is good in "an '80s kind of way," but it's also more about Mel Brooks than actual science fiction, and, looking at the larger issue of whether it's worth buying over previous home video versions, it may not be entirely necessary.
But to answer your larger query, I do indeed love science fiction—my opinion of Episode III notwithstanding, the original Star Wars is the reason I love movies at all. That said, I have the luxury (or burden) of seeing most theatrical releases, and that tends to flatten out the playing field; fewer movies are truly worth celebrating, and many more are worth discouraging readers from watching, much less spending their money on them. But as a member of the writing staff at SCIFI.com, I don't always review the movies that I do like—I would have loved to sink my teeth into Hitchhiker's Guide, and was thrilled to be able to give Kung Fu Hustle an A—and for our site to have
credibility with readers, we can't, and shouldn't, like every release; if we did that, we wouldn't be a Web site, we would be a publicity machine for all science-fiction-oriented products.
Best,
Todd
t is a common theme. Another good show has been canceled. We are all too familiar with this tune, and it's difficult to care anymore. A sense of fatalism pervades the loss of genre shows, even those on the periphery of our genre. We are always the unappreciated underdog of television.
Still, I feel compelled to fight for this one show: Joan of Arcadia. It was scheduled in a bad timeslot for the audience desired by CBS, 8 p.m. on Friday night. They never tried it in another timeslot.
Joan was canceled after a ratings decline in its second season, yet its ratings would be considered excellent for most genre shows. Ratings declined when Dateline was moved to the same time. It was also not doing well with the coveted 18-to-35-year-old audience, so it was dropped along with four other shows with older audiences. Les Moonves is replacing it with a show called Ghost Whisperer because "ghosts skew younger than God." Huh? Try God in a timeslot [when] young people are home to watch!
The audience Joan did reach was remarkably broad in age range, political affiliation, religious persuasion and any other factor you could name. On our forums there are atheists, agnostics, Christians, Buddhists, young, old, middle-aged, liberal, conservative and even a Wiccan, like me. This was the first spiritually themed show I've seen that does more than repeat "God loves you and you should do what's right." It actually explored issues that are universal: mercy, forgiveness, judgment, free will, personal responsibility, compassion and being true to one's self—this explained its broad appeal. It was not sickly sweet and trite, and never dogmatic. It was fresh and compelling. Finally, a spiritual show that I wanted to watch!
The vision of God as someone who is right here, experiencing our day-to-day lives with us, was a very moving and clever concept and brought the spiritual values of the show home in a far more meaningful way than Touched by an Angel's references to a God we never saw. That Joan's God showed up as all kinds of people is again another inclusive message that drew people from all walks of life into the show.
I encourage other fans to join our campaign and to be sure to purchase the first-season DVD, because as we saw with Firefly, DVD sales get results! Maybe we'll at least get a TV movie for some sense of closure.
Here are two sites with links to petitions and addresses to write:
http://www.savejoanofarcadia.com/whatyoucando.html
http://www.joanofarcadia.com/opinion.html
And while I'm on the subject of canceled shows, the coldest thing I've ever seen a network do was Fox pulling the very last episode of Tru Calling from the schedule after announcing that they would air the rest of the episodes they had. Are they trying to make sure we'll buy the DVD when it comes out? But I'm not cynical or anything!
Tapati McDaniels
[address withheld by request]
was nothing short of stunned to hear that yet another of my favorite shows, Carnivàle, has been canceled! It was bad enough that the other networks canceled Tru Calling, Point Pleasant (not to mention without us even getting to see the season-finale episode!), as well as CBS's axing of Joan of Arcadia and Judging Amy. (Although Judging Amy is not sci-fi, it was still a great show, with a strong, positive role model for young women, as was Joan!)
I honestly don't know what I am going to watch now! Reruns of C.S.I. and Law & Order?
While Carnivàle was more for adults, it was very dramatic and entertaining, and both myself and my husband loved it!
I am hoping that somewhere there is a network with guts that will pick up these shows, recognizing them for their great writing and strong, positive role models, as well as their great casts! We don't need more drivel like The O.C. on TV; today's young people already have enough negative influences in their lives!
Joan of Arcadia was a balance to The O.C., showing a teenage girl with firm moral and personal convictions, something you won't see on most shows! But I guess in the end, the barely dressed teen girls drinking booze, taking X and "hooking up" with a different person every week will always win out in the end! What a sad thought ...
Just know this: My loyalty will follow the network who picks up these shows, and so will my support for their advertisers, as we are launching a campaign to contact all advertisers in the former Joan of Arcadia and Judging Amy timeslots and let them know that we will no longer be watching CBS because they dropped those shows! The only time I will watch CBS is when C.S.I. is on, if then! Other networks carry the reruns, after all!
And I plan on letting both CBS and their advertisers know that! I won't be alone in this quest either; we are contacting churches, church youth groups, young women's civic organizations and any other youth or teen girls' groups we can find to get them involved in this campaign as well!
We need more positive role models for our kids, especially the young teenage girls, to combat all the negative ones they come into contact with daily! I may be over 40, but I too enjoyed those shows, just as I do Charmed (another show with strong female role models!) and just as I did Buffy and Angel before they ended their runs!
I sincerely hope the SCI FI Channel will pick up some of these shows, as they are right up its genre alley anyway, and it can help counteract some of the negative role models that teen girls and teenagers in general have to watch on TV. I will be more than happy to let any and all advertisers know what channel I will be watching these shows on as well!
It is time for some of the networks to step up and do what is right for a change! After all, you all bear some of the responsibility for shaping the lives of our youth today!
I truly hope SCI FI has what it takes to do the right thing for the viewers of these beloved shows!
I will be watching, to see what you decide ...
Carrie Brannon
MagickalScents(at)aol.com
ongratulations to the writers, director and producers for creating such a stellar final episode of Star Trek: Enterprise. This final episode will surely stand as one of Trek's all-time classic stories.
This episode will undoubtedly take its place next to other Star Trek giants such as "Spock's Brain" and Voyager's "Threshold."
The creativity and intelligence of the Enterprise script writers continues to astound me! For years, we (the fans) have wondered how Riker came to his decision of revealing the secret of the starship Pegasus to Picard. Now that burning question has finally been answered. And Trip's self-sacrifice—well, what can I say?—the killing off of a major character has never been done in a TV series. (Braga, you are breaking new ground.) I was totally floored by this surprising emotional scene. Finally, the ending where Riker and Troi simply turn off the holodeck: What a powerful, gut-wrenching climax! This is definitely what Trek is all about—I read the Trek producers message to the fans loud and clear: "Screw you ... we're out of here."
Thank you again, Enterprise creators, for your wonderful final episode. With this kind of quality television, your careers in TV are assured.
Joe Vance
joevance(at)yahoo.com
have wonder how Rick Berman and Brandon Braga can say "franchise fatigue" canceled final episode of Star Trek: Enterprise. It was more like producer apathy. Berman and Braga should have spent more time producing the show behind the scenes than writing it. I believe if Rick Berman had left the writing to Judith and Garfield Reeves Stevens the show might still be on the air.
They should have left the writing to those that could bring in the ratings numbers. But in the words of the late John Belushi: "but noooooo!" The producers felt they had to leave their mark on the Star Trek franchise.
If I had control over the franchise I would retain the show's name, Enterprise, only I would put the show in a timeframe where it belongs: the future. The prequel concept may have worked for Star Wars; however Star Trek is about the future.
R. Lloyd
[email withheld by request]
don't even understand the argument for a PG edit for Revenge of the Sith ("Star Wars Needs a PG Edit"). Some people say it is because of all of the marketing of toys to kids. Which doesn't hold much merit. I believe that all of the Spider-Man toys out there are targeted to kids. Yet I never heard an outcry for a PG edit there. Unless my copies are defective, both Spider-Man movies were rated PG-13. If you go back and watch Star Wars, Empire and Jedi they had plenty of violence; no doubt they would all probably get the PG-13 rating if released today. Yet neither Spider-Man movie is as violent.
It is a different world we live in now, and people expect someone else to be the censor for their kids. I think movies are too harshly rated, in some cases nowadays, to appease the parents.
Dewayne Matteson
heybert(at)webtv.net
o let me get this straight ("Star Wars Needs a PG Edit"): Your children have seen all five of the other Star Wars films—multiple times? They know beyond a shadow of a doubt who Darth Vader was and pretty much what is going to happen in this final installment? You are letting a PG-13 rating keep you from letting them watch the movie without ever seeing it yourself to find out whether or not they can handle how he got to be Darth Vader?
My understanding of the parental guidelines system is that it is there to let you know in advance that you may want to preview the movie and make your own judgment as to its fitness for your family when the rating is PG or PG-13. It is not there to automatically exclude children who are able to understand the difference between real life and a movie.
My daughter is 9 and has very sophisticated tastes in movies, but I preview any movie that I feel may not be appropriate. I decide whether or not she should see it. Not the parental guidelines. If you are worried about Episode III, watch it first, just you and your significant other. Decide between the two of you if your children can handle whatever violence and dark emotions led Anakin to the Dark Side so completely. Your children already know it happened. Decide for yourselves if they can handle the details before they are 13. Don't let someone else decide for you.
I have heard about CleanFlicks ("BSG Doesn't Need to Be Kid-Friendly") and have very mixed feelings about them. I appreciate what they are trying to do, but on the other hand, it is censorship. It is someone I don't know, telling me what they think I should see, and I resent it. If I see the CleanFlicks logo on a film at the store, I have one of two reactions: 1) It isn't a movie I want to see anyway, for any reason. 2) If I want to see it, I preview a non-censored version of it before I let my daughter near it. And sometimes, she just doesn't get to watch it.
Diane Catanzaro
Diane.Catanzaro.ext(at)siemens.com
lot has been said on the subject of content ("Rights Are Worth Standing Up For", "Kids' Programming Is Out There", "BSG Discussion Misses the Point", etc.), perhaps it is too
mature for the intended audience, etc. Well, if you must blame someone, don't blame the writers or the networks. Blame all of those around you, blame society as a whole.
TV shows have two purposes. One is to entertain, the other is to keep us interested between commercials. If a show is seen as bland or boring, people won't stay tuned long enough to see the commercials, and selling commercials is what keeps all but the "premium channels" going. In order
to keep people interested, there must be something to keep us interested. Why is Desperate Housewives so popular? It is shocking and startling, the nerve of those people to live like that! I try to avoid it, but it isn't always possible. The same can be said of many other shows. They are what they are because America wants this kind of entertainment. Not all Americans, of course, but enough of them to keep the networks pumping out episode after episode of increasingly shocking programming.
Are we headed for a future similar to Brave New World, where we must actually feel the emotions, the pleasure and, yes, even the pain exactly as portrayed on the screen? Quite possibly, if technology achieves it, it will likely become available. Will it be a good thing? If the masses think so, it will be as popular as all of today's programming is now.
It doesn't have to be approved by everyone, just enough to make it profitable. I'm not saying what is right or wrong, that's just the way it is, and in a free society, it is a choice we all must make.
Bill Olenick
wirloe(at)cox.net
n response to Matt Seibert's letter "BSG Discussion Misses the Point,"
I have one thing to say: sex sells.
Like it or not, hard core-SF fans don't make up big-enough ratings for a show of the quality and a budget requirements of Battlestar Galatica. While it's true that I would still watch the show if the sex and language were less overt, my brother and dad who often tune into sci-fi shows for just those elements would not.
To sum it up:
Sex = ratings
Ratings = money
More money = bigger budget
Bigger budget = better show (usually)
So the next time you're watching the Cylon temptress and Dr. Baltar get it on, just remember that that scene is paying for the rest of the episode.
Eric Vogel
gtg259g(at)mail.gatech.edu
'd like to make a comment on all these letters flying back and forth on the content of the shows and movies coming out.
We have the Battlestar Galatica issue, where some are upset at the smoking, sexuality, adult themes, etc. ...
Others are asking for a re-edit to Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith to make it PG.
The common thread seems to be the letter writer's rights to watch what is being presented.
What about a creator's rights? The creators of Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars have their own visions. They, like us, have been raised on a steady diet of science fiction and fantasy and now they have their chance at bat.
What an exciting opportunity! They have something to say. They want to add to the history of science fiction in the media. But they want to put their own twist on it. They want to add something unique that they feel has never been presented before. They want to take some "standard" plots and freshen them up. They have stories to tell in their own voices.
Let's just sit back and enjoy them ... or not. This isn't a question of rights and choices. This has nothing to do with if you have children or not, or how much you pay for your cable service.
We are paying to watch these creators create something for us. If it's not appealing, believe me, it'll die fast. In today's environment it can be a critical success and still die.
If you feel the need to protest or want to force a change, nothing can stop you. But from what I've seen, if a show is a success, you are not going to make a change occur. They have the viewers and ratings, and they won't change for you. If a show is dying, then maybe the creators will listen in an attempt to save their creation.
It seems that fan involvement to save a show is more successful (original Star Trek, Family Guy, Firefly, etc. ...). But attempts to kill a show or force it to change doesn't. (Battlestar Galactica so far, NYPD Blue, and others.) It just brings more viewers in to see what all the fuss is about.
I know this letter won't make a difference. Those that are upset at these presentations will continue to bang against the "walls" to attempt a change. All I can say is good luck, call home once in a while, don't run with scissors and wear clean underwear.
Oh and one other thing, thanks for giving me a chance to share my opinion. I appreciate it.
Louis Sivo
scifi_reader(at)yahoo.com
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