SF Tidbits Part XXX
By John DeNardo |
Friday, November 11th, 2005 at
7:42 am
- James Patrick Kelly’s latest On The Net column searches the web for sites dedicated to Grand Master Award Winners.
- New fiction at SciFiction: “The Horse of a Different Color (That You Rode in On)” by Howard Waldrop and “Man for the Job” by Robert Reed
- Classic fiction at SciFiction: “The Beautiful People” by Robert Bloch
- Does Babylon 5 suck?
- Hellboy gets tooned! [via Mumpsimus]
Filed under: Tidbits
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I was reading the Alas, Babylon post and I just don’t agree with him. I watched this show and still believe it stands above and beyond much of the current crap that is on TV. I mean he uses this quote:
“Come back to the show ten years later, however, with a bit more experience under your belt and with the genre television landscape having undergone a profound change (one that Babylon 5 was at least partly responsible for) and the whole thing looks rather pathetic.”
What part of the genre television landscape? For the most part, average shows have not done anything to improve the experience. From a Science Fiction perspective, B5 offered a real story arc with some consistency from beginning to end. It is a Space Opera with an almost epic struggle, and at the time was revolutionary. Compared to shows like BSG, which is far more gritty and realistic is not fair since they are really done with different goals.
Maybe his problem was that he suffers from what we all do when we reminisce about shows and experiences from our youth. I mean honestly, I grew up watching shows like BSG (the first iteration) and Buck Rogers (yes I know I should not admit that) and they are crap. Writing, special effects, and stories – almost in every case just total crap. Yet, we try to feel some attachment to them.
Notice Mr. Kelly’s list does not include Anne McCaffrey (2005).