Dept. of Media Skiffy

[kaffy_r]

Good, 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 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?)

Comments

[kerravonsen]

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!)

I think the round patch of light worked better than the pillow, IMHO.
But yes, S&S was awesome. I think they cranked up the Atmospheric to eleven. Have you listened to the Big Finish audioplays? They are really really good.

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.

Yes, it does require a rethink, doesn't it? Perhaps they think that The Future Must Be Shiny. I wonder how the person would react to the DW episode "Gridlock", especially if seen back-to-back with "New Earth".

[shanghaied]

I think one of the awesomest things about Firefly was the message that we went to the stars, (realistically) didn't get very far, and hey presto, the only alien monsters out there were us - a message gorgeously reinforced in Serenity.

My own favourite science fiction films tend to the more scientifically plausible-ish ones, e.g. Strange Days or I Am Legend or 28 Days Later. But I am willing to put up with bad science - sometimes ridiculously bad science - for the sake of beautifully made, beautifully acted films such as Sunshine. In films and telly, I do, however, unreservedly love a lot of sci-fi, science fantasy, and plain old space opera. And come on, Firefly IS space opera. Or more precisely, horse opera set in space :D

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

YAY!!! S&S collection of one's own!! Seriously need to see that sometime...

*Grins* Glad they enjoyed DW and OMWF from BtVS...but...insulted over Firefly?

Oh!! I know what it was! The realism. Everyone likes their scifi startrekky and FF definitely is...not. The ships are functional and homey and...not pretty. And the worlds are poineer worlds. I can understand her 'Bzuh?!' though I adore Firefly like burning! OMFG...

World never stops turning Badger.

That only matters to the people on the Rim.

*SQUISHES*

[flowsoffire.livejournal.com]

Yay for the collection! Sounds brilliant :D

Converting people to shows you love is so much fun! :) But indeed, sometimes they don't react at all as expected. And I guess the realism could really make some people feel weird, to the point of not being able to get into the story… We all react differently, indeed…

[thisbluespirit]

Oh, how lovely! *\0/* Enjoy your new-found ownership of S&S! Just watch out for clocks doing weird things and stuff vanishing inexplicably. (This happened to me. Although actually, I blame my parents. They watched some of it with me and then found temporal problems all over my house.)

Introducing people to new shows is always fun yet nervewracking - there's no guarantees for what people might like, only educated guesses. (About the preferences - both Rose and Buffy have real world/contemporary settings adn I've often found that of the people I know who dislike sf/fantasy, it's things that are a completely imagined worlds that are often the biggest problems for them - it's not real, therefore it doesn't matter, they can't suspend their disbelief or it's just 'silly'. But if you have relatable characters on a recognisable backdrop, sometimes they're won over.) It's always interesting, though: we each bring a unique reading to a text and that can be frustrating, baffling and saddening, but it's also really exciting, too. :-)

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

(*laugh*)
I certainly have every hope of continuing the remedial media class, but you seem very substantially less science/tech oriented than me. Firefly is science fantasy, a la Star Wars, not science fiction. There are too many things which are physically nonsensical.
ymmv, ianal, park and lock it, LS/MFT

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

I saw a bit of it and didn't understand a word... one of these days I'll get to see more :)

[clocketpatch]

After being won over to Blake's 7 (I will insist on the apostrophe) by lost_spook last fall I decided to go for broke and watch the OTHER show she's been steadfasting making positive noises of the "you should really watch this" variety about for the past several years.

While I didn't fall into a lovely New Fandom like with B7 (partially because... I'm not sure that fandom exists like that for S&S?), I did very much enjoy it and was happily scared out of my wits by the Train episode. Good stuff that I plan on re-watching at some point in the future.

Your friend's dislike of the first episode of Firefly confuses me. I recall not being especially fond of the first episode myself (I haven't seen it for ages so I couldn't tell you specifically what it was I didn't like) but I did like the rest of the show just fine. And the gritty juxtaposition of ordinary, just-a-bit-battered objects making do next to flashy future space tech was one of the things that sold it to me.