Sci-Fi series mini reviews, part one

We got Apple TV, so suddenly we have access to way more shows. I’ve written up reviews of the ones we’ve watched recently—but I’ve divided them into two entries, as it gets long. Here’s part one.

Fringe (2008–2013)

A US show. We saw all but the final two-thirds of the final (fifth) season, when the show seriously went off the rails.

I really loved this series, which starts out as sort of an updating of the X-Files concept and then goes off in its own direction. Every episode does have some sticky, body-horror-type aspect, which is not my thing, but those were very eye-closable and ear-pluggable, and meanwhile, the characters and stories were fabulous. I loved King Learianly emotional mad-scientist Walter, played by John Noble of Denethor fame. This guy has apparently gotten typecast as someone who is either going to have son issues (Fringe, LOTR) or father issues (Sleepy Hollow). The other characters (capable, reserved FBI agent Olivia Dunham, Walter’s genius-but-ne’er-do-well son Peter Bishop, sweet FBI agent Astrid Farnsworth; inscrutible boss of the Fringe division Philip Broyles) start out as familiar types but grow in depth within just a few episodes. In addition to having exciting episodic adventures, the show deals sensitively with family, loss, grief, trust, selfishness, wrongdoing, guilt, and redemption, along with identity and what makes us who we are. An alternate universe and, later, an alternate timeline give the writers a chance to explore who characters might be if things had gone differently. And with the exception of a couple of cartoonish bad guys, everyone has a chance to be forgiven and to make better choices.

Dark Matter (2015)

A Canadian show. A bunch of characters wake from stasis on an interstellar freighter with no memory of who they are. Someone among them erased all their memories—but it went wrong, and whoever did it lost their own memories, too. Instant mistrust. And they’re not happy about what they find, when they are able to discover who they were.

The premise was fun, and I liked the android character. However there is an Asian character whose storyline is so screamingly orientalist that pretty much every time he hit the screen, I had to scream. I'm talking painfully, cringeingly orientalist. Additionally, because the ship basically runs itself, the characters have nothing much to do all day except … hang out. So of course all the Asian character does all day is practice martial arts. Yeeeeaaaaah. Apparently a second season will air in 2017.

Outcasts (2011)

A British show that was cancelled after one season.

Refugees from a very near-future earth have settled the planet of Carpathia, which is earthlike except that it appears to have no megafauna or even medium-sized fauna, and is prone to violent sandstorm-like storms.

We watched this after Dark Matter, and it was a relief to have characters who weren’t simply cartoons or adolescent in their motivation and action (with the exception of the Evil American—who made a fun change of pace from the Evil Brit that you get in American shows, but who was pretty transparent in his deviousness). However, the pace was **really** slow. Also, I wanted the weird alien stuff that I knew would come to come quicker, be more present, and to be … slightly different from what it was. (Could we please do away with the trope of aliens just wanting to understand that thing we hooomans call luuurve?) Still, it was an okay way to chill out of an evening. Warning, though: it ends without resolving any of the plot developments, though some things are made clear.

Sci Fi series mini reviews, part two

This is a continuation of last entry. I wrote it all as one entry, but it was a lot of text, so I split it up. These last two shows are new.

Stranger Things (2016)

A US show. How can I put this. I enjoyed the show, but it incited great rage in me as well. It is so Steven Spielberg that I really was trying to make “Duffer brothers” (actual creators) be an anagram of “Steven Spielberg.” ( a rant ensues, with spoilers )

So yeah, given that rant, it would be understandable if you thought I hated the show. The story was exciting, though, and a lot of the details were great. If I pretend that men and boys are the only real humans, it's a cracking yarn.

Cleverman (2016)

An Australian show. I’d learned about it from heliopausa, and littlemoremasks recommended it, so we watched it. The premise is that a whole other humanoid species (referred to most neutrally as “the hairy people” but also as “hairies” or “subhumans”) has existed alongside Homo sapiens I guess in the outback of Australia (because an Aboriginal character mentions having lived in tacit mutual accepance since forever) but only revealed themselves in the past six months--whereupon they’ve been rounded up and forced to live in a containment zone and subjected to terrible abuses, with worse just around the corner.

First two episodes were unpleasantly torturific, and the young man who becomes the new cleverman (a master of powers in this world and the dreaming) starts out as a pretty major jerk, but as it was only six episodes long, we stuck with it. The mythic elements were excellent, and the young man comes round in the end, but perhaps because the premise made me uncomfortable, I kept on focusing on problems with it. From a meta perspective, by making the story about hairies, the creators are able to address issues like Australia’s treatment of Aboriginal peoples, its offshore detention centers for asylum seekers, etc. without talking about them directly--but that’s a very tricky tactic to use. Plus, while it’s great to have Aboriginal traditions and culture valorized, within the story, the characters who carry those traditions end up acting as the protectors and champions of the hairies: we’ve traded in white saviors for Aboriginal saviors. We get to hear dialogue in an Aboriginal language (which is very cool), but we get no sense at all of hairy language, culture, history, or anything. What’s been going on with them for all these millennia? This season ends with a cliffhanger. Despite qualms, I’m curious to see what happens next, and I’ll watch another season if they make one.