Dept. of Media Skiffy
Sunday, 3 August 2014 09:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaffy_rGood, Challenging, and Confusing
It's about time, and inhuman personages of great but fluctuating powers, battling against incomprehensible dangers that are, again, largely time-connected, and about the results on humans caught in the wash of the battles, even when they are sometimes the cause of the battles.
Nope. Not Doctor Who.
It's "Sapphire and Steel." Which is why I titled this post as I did. Because that's what I think anyone could reasonably call "Sapphire and Steel", the British ITV show from the 1970s to which the redoubtablethisbluespirit introduced me a couple of years ago.
It's mysterious, incomprehensible, funny, brilliant, ridiculous (a deadly pillow! An evil round patch of light!) and unexpectedly terrifying (you'll believe a pillow is deadly! And that a round patch of light is evil!) It's got Joanna Lumley and David McCallum and, from time to time (see whut I did thar), the wonderful David Collings. It's very slow, but it's slow for a reason. And so many of its shots are beautifully composed to take advantage of the slowness ....
... ahem. Yes. I rather like it.
And you should watch it. Or at least I think you should give it try.
And why do I bring this up? Because today, at the end of an afternoon spent attempting to introduce a fannish friend who is not into televised skiffy to some various aspects of same (it's a long-term project spearheaded by another friend, and entered into willingly but bemusedly by the first person), as we were clearing up, the spear-header and I were talking about favorite series, and I happened to mention S&S. Oh, the friend says, I have that collection. It turns out she was less impressed by it than I was, and she handed the entire collection to me.
*cue pictures ofkaffy_r dancing quietly in her head*
Having seen S&S only on YouTube, to be able to have my own actual collection? Well, the whole "dancing in her head bit" is quite true.
As for the rest of the afternoon, well it was good, challenging and confusing as well. The person to whom we were introducing skiffical television liked, as far as I could see, the first episode of the revived DW, "Rose" or at least was positively amused and curious about it. The person was, again as far as I could see, equally amused by "Once More With Feeling" from Buffy.
But, in what came as a surprise to me, the person seemed to be almost insulted by the first episode of Firefly, for reasons that I truly, deeply disagree with, and which appear to point to a them having a sincerely different way of viewing skiffy, SF/fantasy, or indeed the world, than I have. I shall have to think on that deeply, because I'd personally predicted that the person would like Firefly and be completely contemptuous of DW. And thus do humans continue to confound, confuse and challenge me.
Still, the person did not immediately declare that the crash course in introduction to TV skiffy was over and done with. More afternoons are therefore possible in future. I look forward to it.
(Still. Rearing back because Firefly has wooden kitchen tables on space ships, or because shipping containers in the far future look like ... shipping containers ... well, as I said, I must think on that deeply.) And you know I still love you, right?)
It's about time, and inhuman personages of great but fluctuating powers, battling against incomprehensible dangers that are, again, largely time-connected, and about the results on humans caught in the wash of the battles, even when they are sometimes the cause of the battles.
Nope. Not Doctor Who.
It's "Sapphire and Steel." Which is why I titled this post as I did. Because that's what I think anyone could reasonably call "Sapphire and Steel", the British ITV show from the 1970s to which the redoubtable
thisbluespirit introduced me a couple of years ago. It's mysterious, incomprehensible, funny, brilliant, ridiculous (a deadly pillow! An evil round patch of light!) and unexpectedly terrifying (you'll believe a pillow is deadly! And that a round patch of light is evil!) It's got Joanna Lumley and David McCallum and, from time to time (see whut I did thar), the wonderful David Collings. It's very slow, but it's slow for a reason. And so many of its shots are beautifully composed to take advantage of the slowness ....
... ahem. Yes. I rather like it.
And you should watch it. Or at least I think you should give it try.
And why do I bring this up? Because today, at the end of an afternoon spent attempting to introduce a fannish friend who is not into televised skiffy to some various aspects of same (it's a long-term project spearheaded by another friend, and entered into willingly but bemusedly by the first person), as we were clearing up, the spear-header and I were talking about favorite series, and I happened to mention S&S. Oh, the friend says, I have that collection. It turns out she was less impressed by it than I was, and she handed the entire collection to me.
*cue pictures of
kaffy_r dancing quietly in her head*Having seen S&S only on YouTube, to be able to have my own actual collection? Well, the whole "dancing in her head bit" is quite true.
As for the rest of the afternoon, well it was good, challenging and confusing as well. The person to whom we were introducing skiffical television liked, as far as I could see, the first episode of the revived DW, "Rose" or at least was positively amused and curious about it. The person was, again as far as I could see, equally amused by "Once More With Feeling" from Buffy.
But, in what came as a surprise to me, the person seemed to be almost insulted by the first episode of Firefly, for reasons that I truly, deeply disagree with, and which appear to point to a them having a sincerely different way of viewing skiffy, SF/fantasy, or indeed the world, than I have. I shall have to think on that deeply, because I'd personally predicted that the person would like Firefly and be completely contemptuous of DW. And thus do humans continue to confound, confuse and challenge me.
Still, the person did not immediately declare that the crash course in introduction to TV skiffy was over and done with. More afternoons are therefore possible in future. I look forward to it.
(Still. Rearing back because Firefly has wooden kitchen tables on space ships, or because shipping containers in the far future look like ... shipping containers ... well, as I said, I must think on that deeply.) And you know I still love you, right?)
oh, for crying out loud
Date: Tuesday, 5 August 2014 01:52 pm (UTC)Firefly's physics is completely bogus.
Firefly's engineering is completely bogus.
Firefly's biology is completely bogus.
Firefly's economics is completely bogus.
Firefly's psychology and social dynamics are completely bogus.
etc.
It's really cheesy pre-Stanley Weinbaum 1930's space opera.
I'm interested in science fiction, not stuff with a thin coat of science fiction paint.
Re: oh, for crying out loud
Date: Tuesday, 5 August 2014 03:08 pm (UTC)Heh. Well, if it is you - I'm impressed that you decided all that, on the strength of one episode, whilst deciding that Doctor Who - whose first modern episode featured living plastic turned on by a radio-ey signal bounced off a Ferris Wheel by a lump of sentient something, defeated by a humanoid alien who breaks the laws of physics to travel in time in a box that's bigger on the inside fit your definition of science fiction at least enough to enjoy.
I'm interested in science fiction, not stuff with a thin coat of science fiction paint.
I don't think there's much out there in live media that fits your rather stringent bill. And, when you think about it, the percentage of written skiffy that fits your parameters is small as well, although there may well be numerous titles.
Anything that takes us out in space with drive of any sort that gets us between stars within one human lifetime is out because the physics are iffy.
Anything that does it on a space ship with gravity is out because artificial gravity is largely impossible, without faking it via centripetal force.
Any aliens may well be out because how can we realistically predict what we don't know exists. We'll have to "make it up" and that's not scientific.
Economy? Well, for heavens sake, economy is bogus going in, and going out, so that parameter is either irrelevant from the git-go or all imagined economies have at least enough going for them to work. So let's just back away from economic claims.
Psychology and social dynamics? Again ... back away slowly. Or acknowledge that things you read and maybe loved or respected, (I'm thinking "Left Hand of Darkness" for one) were unscientific and therefore unworthy of having the designation of science fiction.
It was Damon Knight, I think - please correct me if I'm wrong on this one - that said "science fiction is what I point to when I say 'science fiction.'"