:: a toe in the water... ::

:: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 ::

...waving from the left coast...

I'm on the road for the next few weeks, so pardon the lack of updates. And since I keep urging people to send their blog entries to The Wormhole , I'm going to do things arse-drawkcab and copy one of my Wormhole posts to my blog.

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The article discussed below is "Is Farscape Good SciFi?" by Tom Francis, which can be found at Farscape Weekly


Hmm. I've just read this, and I guess I should preface my reply with the admission that I have a knee-jerk prejudice against published writers who do not know the difference between "it's" and "its". And, as a recovering actor, I also wonder about the statement that an actor plays his role with "just the right amount of skill". Obviously it is possible not to be skilled enough, but
can an actor play a role with too much skill? The statement is nonsense.

More than that, however, I'm stunned by Francis' assessment that it was immediately apparent "we aren't going to have much continuity here" so TPTB had to shoehorn something in.

No *continuity*? Are we watching the same show?

He also seems to be making several unjustified metatextual assumptions -- the most obvious being that the sole purpose of the end-of-S1 arc was to deliver a "viable scenario" for seasons 2 and 3 while somehow fooling the audience into believing we were still watching the Alien-of-the-Week. First, according to various easily accessible interviews, right up until the last shot of Family Ties, TPTB did not know if there *would* be a season 2. Second, and more surprising, is the implicit assumption that continuity is something that must be slipped to the audience for its own good, rather like hiding cod liver oil in chocolate pudding. That it is not something we would recognise and -- heavens! -- actually want.

I have no problem with using metatext to inform artistic critique, but in that case the metatextual situation must be thoroughly researched. Francis apparently did not do his homework. And while it's nice that he's able to admit he does not understand the actual extent of directorial influence on final product, I'm wondering why he then bothers to offer his opinion on a subject he's just told us he knows nothing about.

More important, none of his assertions about acting skill, musical score or writing lead toward answering the stated question. Ragging on the actors or the production team does not give us a definition of "science fiction" to hold the show up against to see if it fits and whether it is good.

So for my tuppence, or two cents or pfennigs or Europennies (or wherever I happen to be these days) I'd define science fiction as a fiction based on a scientific premise that is not *yet* part of our everyday world. (that's a grossly simplified and highly debatable definition, I'm sure, but it will do for the purpose of this post.) For me that definition includes space opera as
well as the old-fashioned 'hardware' stories of the thirties and forties, and books like Doris Lessing's Shikasta or Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time. A fairly broad spectrum.

So is Farscape good science fiction? Well, the science is somewhat questionable -- there is a lot of frooming going on. But it is based on a scientific premise (that a multi-species interplanetary society where everyone is injected with translator microbes at birth and learns to drive a transport pod at age sixteen exists) and it is certainly fiction in the sense of being an invented
narrative.

I guess the answer to whether it is good or not depends on which has more weight with the devotee of "science fiction" as a genre -- the science or the fiction. For me, without a doubt, it's the fiction -- the characters and the story being told within the 'not yet realistic' context. While I love the context because it enlarges the scope of the canvas on which the story can be told (um, okay, pardon the mixed metaphor, it's 6am back home), I'm less bothered by froomium or out and out scientific inaccuracy (unless it's a major element of the story) than I am by emotional dishonesty or just plain bad writing.

On those counts -- emotional truth and good, solid writing -- Farscape delivers amazingly well, far better than any other science fiction or space operatic series I've seen. It's not without its flaws and clunkers (Jeremiah Crichton, anyone?) but it has also managed to tell a deeply emotional story about a host of vivid characters, all the while appropriating a good many science fiction
tropes and cliches and putting them to excellent (and sometimes wonderfully subversive) use.

Oh yeah, and there's continuity too.

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:: fialka 8:10 AM [+] ::

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