I know, "willful suspension of disbelief."

So, Sunday evening, back from the gym, perched on the couch with some dinner, fighting off Nigel the Cat's attempts to participate in said dinner and watching Stargate: Atlantis. In this evening's rerun, Colonel Sheppard, McKay, and the usual suspects go through the gate in order to ascertain the status of an exploratory team that's missed their contact deadline. Apparently the planet is uninhabited but McKay had gotten some unusual energy readings or some similar piece of plot advancement.

So, pop - or maybe whoosh - through the gate they go:


Gosh, guys, that's quite a clear piece of ground for an uninhabited planet, but maybe that's from the Gate bubble or whatever they call it. Oh well, moving on - the team heads off in search of their missing predecessors:

Hmmm....I grew up in deer country, and I have to say that's a pretty impressive game trail you have there, people.

And then they find some corpses, far too old to be the missing team, but obviously victims of foul play, right there beside that big flat stump.

I'm sorry, but forget the bodies, you need to find out what in hell is running around this planet that leaves a fifteen foot wide trail and can bite off a tree with a four-foot diameter leaving a completely flat stump!!!!

Okay, I realize full well that in actual terms, they bundled the crew onto a couple of trucks, drove over to Stanley Park, and set up some cameras, probably happier than hell that it wasn't raining. But really, what were they thinking? Their audience is made up of science fiction fans, the most detail-oriented nitpickers on the planet - could they not have driven someplace up the Fraser Valley and found a piece of ground that didn't look quite so lived in?

- Sid

P.S. What's really unbelievable about this is that there's a web site that has 992 screen grabs from this episode. In fact, it looks like they have about a thousand screen grabs per episode, or 20,000 images per season. Wow - see above re: detail oriented fans.

Part Two: The Dark Side

William Shatner: You know, before I answer any more questions there's something I wanted to say. Having received all your letters over the years, and I've spoken to many of you, and some of you have traveled... y'know... hundreds of miles to be here, I'd just like to say... GET A LIFE, will you people? I mean, for crying out loud, it's just a TV show! I mean, look at you, look at the way you're dressed! You've turned an enjoyable little job, that I did as a lark for a few years, into a COLOSSAL WASTE OF TIME! I mean, how old are you people? What have you done with yourselves? You, you must be almost 30... have you ever kissed a girl? I didn't think so! There's a whole world out there! When I was your age, I didn't watch television! I LIVED! So... move out of your parent's basements! And get your own apartments and GROW THE HELL UP! I mean, it's just a TV show dammit, IT'S JUST A TV SHOW!

Charlie: Are - are you saying then that we should pay more attention to the movies?

- Saturday Night Live, December 20, 1986

The infamous Saturday Night Live skit with William Shatner takes us to one of the curious aspects of science fiction that has almost defined the genre in the eyes of the public: the Star Trek Fan, or "Trekkie".

It is customary to blame Fandom on Star Trek, and let's be fair, if fingers have to be pointed, Gene Roddenberry's opus really does create the first really big (and slightly insane) fan community. Star Wars and Harry Potter have attracted more than their fair share of, ah, "overly-excited" followers, but I still think that Star Trek sets the standard. In fact, as a phenomenon, Star Trek fandom has probably garnered as much attention as the material that created it.

And let's be honest, some of the excesses of Star Trek fans would sound like jokes if they weren't true. In fact, they are true and they still sound like jokes. Bad enough that someone has translated Hamlet in Klingon, but who in their right mind would decide to raise their children bilingually in English and Klingon, for heaven's sake? Yes, fine, it's probably a bit marginal to admit to attending Star Trek conventions in costume, but several years ago I was sitting in a strip club in Toronto (I make no apologies) and someone walked in wearing a full Next Generation Star Fleet uniform. Hallowe'en? No, sorry, middle of summer. (I saw one of the dancers chatting with him, and later asked her if she'd gotten any explanation of his outfit. Apparently he just liked the attention that it brought - which was probably not intended to be funny, in spite of the fact that he was talking to someone who was wearing a g-string and fishnet stockings for similar reasons.) Plenty of fans write their own versions of the material: Star Trek fans build eerily accurate duplicates of the bridge of the Enterprise and hire Walter Koenig and George Takei so that they can shoot their own episodes. (Don't believe that one? http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/)

As Shatner's monologue points out, over the years Star Trek has replaced real life for innumerable geeks, losers, nerds and fanboys. And yet...and yet...time heals all wounds. Somehow the ongoing cultural penetration of Star Trek has given it an unexpected legitimacy, to the point where it's become (dare I say) almost respectable to display a comprehensive grasp of the history of the Federation charter when chatting over cocktails. And, if anyone wishes to join the select, enviable few that possess that kind of knowledge, just let me know. After all, I do own TWO copies of the original Starfleet Technical Manual...

- Sid

"Tonight, when they asleep, I gonna escape..."

Donna: "And I tried, I did try. I went to Egypt - I was going to go barefoot and everything. And then it's all bus trips and guide books and don't drink the water and two weeks later you're back home. It's nothing like being with you. I must have been mad turning down that offer."

The Doctor: "What offer?"

Donna: "To come with you."

Doctor Who, Partners in Crime

"I never fully understood the label of "escapist" till my friend Professor Tolkien asked me the very simple question, 'What class of men would you expect to be most preoccupied with, and most hostile to, the idea of escape?' and gave the obvious answer: jailers."

C. S. Lewis, On Science Fiction

Thanks to the miracle of the internet, yesterday I was able to download the premier episode of the fourth season of Doctor Who, featuring the return of Catherine Tate as Donna Noble, the eponymous Runaway Bride from the second Christmas Special. I have to confess to mixed feelings about the new episode, but it does point out an interesting perspective on fans of science fiction and fantasy.

The new Doctor Who episode, Partners in Crime, ostensibly deals with yet another threat to Earth, this time in the form of diet pills that convert first fat and then the rest of the body into alien "children". As plots go, it certainly doesn't measure up to the standards set by previous episodes, but to be honest I don't think it's intended to. The alien Adipose are simply an excuse for the Doctor and Donna to reunite and strike sparks off each other. And there are definitely sparks, there's obviously a strong chemistry between the two actors that gives their scenes an over-the-top energy.

However, I'm a bit worried that this season will suffer because of that very energy. The scene where the two see each other for the first time is certainly funny, but again, it's an over-the-top funny, and I'd hate to see the writers get distracted by that aspect of the relationship.

My concerns may be premature, though. There are some very good (and completely serious) bits describing Donna's dull and meaningless life, and an excellent scene wherein she tries to explain that lack of adventure to the Doctor as being the reason why she's been looking for him in hopes of joining him on the TARDIS. (Which, by the way, the Doctor obviously views as a mixed blessing.)

One of the criticisms levied against science fiction and fantasy over the years has been that they are "escapist" genres, although why that would be a bad thing I have no idea. In this case, it is literally escapist, in that Donna has fixated on the idea of exchanging her boring life for one of adventures in time and space with the Doctor. In the context of the episode, her determination to find "the right man" is considered to be admirable by her grandfather*, and pointless by her mother.

However, in the context of the real world, everyone watching the show has made the same decision that Donna has, although hopefully not to the extent of being unemployed and living with their mother. On a weekly basis, we've decided that we would rather vicariously travel the universe with an alien than, oh, do dishes or watch a hockey game.

"Escape" - it's an interesting description of what we're doing, and as C. S. Lewis points out, strongly suggests imprisonment.

As I've mentioned in an earlier post, my family did not have a lot of money when I was growing up, and I have to wonder if that was in any way a factor in my interest in science fiction and fantasy. I wonder if there are any statistics connecting low income with a desire to escape into another world? The stereotype of the socially inept SF geek is firmly established in the cultural matrix now, but which comes first, the chicken or the egg? I think that it's perfectly logical for someone who is being beaten up at lunchtime on a daily basis to want to escape, to seek refuge in a completely different universe: The Lord of the Rings, where the hero is small and weak, Star Wars, with its boyish saviour of the day, and so on. Spiderman's alter ego, Peter Parker, is a science nerd, and Captain America was originally someone so weak and skinny that they couldn't get into the army. Harry Potter? Adopted kid who lives under the stairs.

Part of the reason for my childhood interest in science fiction was because my mother was a fan, although I doubt if she thought of it in exactly those terms - I think that my mother would have found the term "fan" to be an inappropriate designation. I suspect that for her, science fiction was most definitely an escape, a gateway to a more interesting place than the one where she'd ended up. Considering that she had relocated from England to Toronto, and then to Muskoka, I sometimes wonder if my mother had spent her whole life trying to escape.

Coincidentally, she used to say that if a UFO landed in the yard, she would jump on board. Mother, this posting is dedicated to you - hopefully you would have seen a kindred spirit in the Doctor's new companion.

- Sid

* Donna's Grandfather made an appearance in the 2007 Christmas Special as a news stand operator, but when I saw him again in Partners in Crime I thought to myself, "Wait, who is that?" The character of Wilfred Mott is played by Bernard Cribbins, who, in addition to his numerous other film, stage and television appearances, co-starred with Peter Cushing in the 1966 Doctor Who movie, Invasion Earth 2150 AD. I can only hope that they'll write in a reference to that- after all, Sarah Jane Smith made a guest appearance, why not police officer Tom Campbell?