More spinning
Dec. 4th, 2011 12:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vr_trakowskiA couple of days ago I rambled on about writing fanfic for Prey, and what it meant for me.
It was, I still maintain, a great show. It was canceled after a short season (thirteen episodes) and ends on the second-worst cliffhanger I've ever seen*, and like so many other gems almost no one's seen it, but it was good. The ideas it explored were innovative and intriguing; the core idea, that the next step in hominid evolution had just taken place, was fascinating (the show aired in 1998, before sci-fi really started expanding). It looked at questions of ethics and behavior, and--while the dichotomy was never vocalized--whether Darwinian evolution had to, or would, supersede the deliberate choices of sapience.
The science, especially now, works better if one regards it as a slightly different universe rather than our own. Even CSI never processed DNA that fast, and there was at least one blatant error used as a plot point. In addition, recent research on Neanderthals, particularly involving their interactions with anatomically modern humans^, throws into doubt some of the principles stated in the show. Also, the computers and cellphones are now painful to look at, though I can't speak for the lab equipment, and for some reason they always showed the lab monkeys living in completely bare cages, without so much as a water dish. The latter could have been for practical reasons, though; I imagine a bored macaque could create an awful lot of disruption with a prop.
But it's also a geek's paradise. There are five main characters, and three of them are scientists. Sloan Parker is a bioanthropologist, a female scientist who's confident and professional and knowledgeable. She uses her brains and her training and her expertise all along. She's the equal of the other two, scientifically speaking (Walter Attwood is her boss, but doesn't overrule her on science matters) and it's taken as a matter of course. Ed Tate's specialty is never stated, but he's not only brilliant and hardworking but a surfer dude. *grin* And hardcore fans of William Peterson might just recognize Walter, though this character is markedly different...
Ray Peterson is a standard-issue cop character, but Frankie Faison gives the role some weight and keeps it from becoming rote. James Morrison as the antagonist Lewis is the reason I started watching, whenjeanniemac pointed out to me that he was the guy from S:AAB, and oh he does it well.
But it's Tom Daniels I come for. *happy sigh* Mr. Storke handles a complex character with deliberately understated brilliance, balancing out the occasional bit of conflicting characterization and making the viewer feel all that Tom is going through with the most subtle of expressions. I really wish Mr. Storke had done more work, but oh well‡. Tom is, in a way, the pivot on whom the plot turns--a member of the new species who finds himself questioning everything he has been taught, and striking out for new answers. Yes, much of what he does is for Sloan, but it's also for himself and for his species--he's not giving everything up for love, he doesn't even know what love is for most of the series. He questions authority, destiny, and biology itself, and unfortunately due to the cancellation most of those questions aren't answered.
I haven't seen another show like it, though that doesn't mean there aren't similar ones out there. It touched on nanites before they were much more than theory, and imagined the digging up of the Spanish influenza virus years before it was actually done in real life. And, above all else...it's possible. Not that I think things will happen that way, but the fact is that while natural selection went out the window the moment humans started choosing mates based on categories other than fitness, Life continues to evolve. We're not the pinnacle or the end of anything☎, and sooner or later the next version is going to show up. Whether we recognize it--or how soon--and what we'll do, and what they will do, is an open question...
*Space: Above and Beyond had the worst, though it's close. Three characters MIA and one of them almost certainly dead, and a fourth gravely wounded and shipped back to Earth, leaving the last two alone and in shock; the lack of a second season was just about criminal.
^I saw an article just a few weeks ago that theorized extensive coexistence and interbreeding, rather than direct competition for the same resources. Which suggests to me at least that Neanderthals may not so much have been killed off as simply have petered out, diluting themselves into our ancestors until the originals were gone.
‡I recommend Lifepod very highly, though honestly it's Q-Three I like best in that one--not that Mr. Storke (and the others, including CCH Pounder) don't do a terrific job, but Q-Three goes straight to my heart...
☎I'm not touching on the whole evolution theory etc. Let's just say, while I'm not a crazy-eyed Creationist, I can hold several differing viewpoints in my head at the same time, and am content to let God worry about the facts.
It was, I still maintain, a great show. It was canceled after a short season (thirteen episodes) and ends on the second-worst cliffhanger I've ever seen*, and like so many other gems almost no one's seen it, but it was good. The ideas it explored were innovative and intriguing; the core idea, that the next step in hominid evolution had just taken place, was fascinating (the show aired in 1998, before sci-fi really started expanding). It looked at questions of ethics and behavior, and--while the dichotomy was never vocalized--whether Darwinian evolution had to, or would, supersede the deliberate choices of sapience.
The science, especially now, works better if one regards it as a slightly different universe rather than our own. Even CSI never processed DNA that fast, and there was at least one blatant error used as a plot point. In addition, recent research on Neanderthals, particularly involving their interactions with anatomically modern humans^, throws into doubt some of the principles stated in the show. Also, the computers and cellphones are now painful to look at, though I can't speak for the lab equipment, and for some reason they always showed the lab monkeys living in completely bare cages, without so much as a water dish. The latter could have been for practical reasons, though; I imagine a bored macaque could create an awful lot of disruption with a prop.
But it's also a geek's paradise. There are five main characters, and three of them are scientists. Sloan Parker is a bioanthropologist, a female scientist who's confident and professional and knowledgeable. She uses her brains and her training and her expertise all along. She's the equal of the other two, scientifically speaking (Walter Attwood is her boss, but doesn't overrule her on science matters) and it's taken as a matter of course. Ed Tate's specialty is never stated, but he's not only brilliant and hardworking but a surfer dude. *grin* And hardcore fans of William Peterson might just recognize Walter, though this character is markedly different...
Ray Peterson is a standard-issue cop character, but Frankie Faison gives the role some weight and keeps it from becoming rote. James Morrison as the antagonist Lewis is the reason I started watching, when
jeanniemac pointed out to me that he was the guy from S:AAB, and oh he does it well. But it's Tom Daniels I come for. *happy sigh* Mr. Storke handles a complex character with deliberately understated brilliance, balancing out the occasional bit of conflicting characterization and making the viewer feel all that Tom is going through with the most subtle of expressions. I really wish Mr. Storke had done more work, but oh well‡. Tom is, in a way, the pivot on whom the plot turns--a member of the new species who finds himself questioning everything he has been taught, and striking out for new answers. Yes, much of what he does is for Sloan, but it's also for himself and for his species--he's not giving everything up for love, he doesn't even know what love is for most of the series. He questions authority, destiny, and biology itself, and unfortunately due to the cancellation most of those questions aren't answered.
I haven't seen another show like it, though that doesn't mean there aren't similar ones out there. It touched on nanites before they were much more than theory, and imagined the digging up of the Spanish influenza virus years before it was actually done in real life. And, above all else...it's possible. Not that I think things will happen that way, but the fact is that while natural selection went out the window the moment humans started choosing mates based on categories other than fitness, Life continues to evolve. We're not the pinnacle or the end of anything☎, and sooner or later the next version is going to show up. Whether we recognize it--or how soon--and what we'll do, and what they will do, is an open question...
*Space: Above and Beyond had the worst, though it's close. Three characters MIA and one of them almost certainly dead, and a fourth gravely wounded and shipped back to Earth, leaving the last two alone and in shock; the lack of a second season was just about criminal.
^I saw an article just a few weeks ago that theorized extensive coexistence and interbreeding, rather than direct competition for the same resources. Which suggests to me at least that Neanderthals may not so much have been killed off as simply have petered out, diluting themselves into our ancestors until the originals were gone.
‡I recommend Lifepod very highly, though honestly it's Q-Three I like best in that one--not that Mr. Storke (and the others, including CCH Pounder) don't do a terrific job, but Q-Three goes straight to my heart...
☎I'm not touching on the whole evolution theory etc. Let's just say, while I'm not a crazy-eyed Creationist, I can hold several differing viewpoints in my head at the same time, and am content to let God worry about the facts.