For All Mankind: Following the reccommendations, I marathoned the first two seasons of For All Mankind, aka what Ron Moore (and friends) did next (after BSG), which is an AU starting from the premise that the Soviets get to the moon first, therefore the Space Race doesn't end, and history starts to alter in small and big ways from therel. (One of the big ways being that as part of catching up with Soviet progressiveness in that regard, women enter the US space programm far earlier.) naraht has said this is also a soap opera, which is true, in a good way; the relationships drama certainly forms a solid part of the narrative, but it's expertly done. (So far.) Non-romantic relationships are treated as important both on a Doylist and Watsonian level, and while space exploration continuing in this AU is clearly a good thing overall, the show doesn't use the premise to solve all the rl problems; as of the second season, which is set in 1983, acceptance of same sex relationships hasn't moved faster than it did in rl, for example.

You can tell that Moore and several of the other scriptwriters cut their teeth in Star Trek long before Danielle quotes the TOS episode A Taste of Armageddon in the s2 finale by despite things getting pretty dark at times, humanity's better instincts prevail. Also by Starfleet NASA, by and large, being an organisation where most people, be they astronauts or engineers, are brave, loyal, and devoted to each other, so you get why people would want to join even beyond the romance of visiting the moon. (Though I have to say, congrats to the GCI department, all those space shots are gorgeous.) When they do fail each other (think Margo re: Aleida in s1), there's usually a good explanation, and also fate gives them another chance. (They get called out on it, though.) And you get all the space tropes - difficult landings, losing contact, being thrown of course, having to do repairs on a moving vehicle, etc. - even the spoilery thing I last saw on The Expanse and before that read in Arthur C. Clarke. One sign of how well the show worked for me: I was never tempted to fast forward through the Earthbound centric episodes but found them just as gripping.

Another thing which impressed me: several examples of the "both sides have a point" trope, viscerally so when Danielle visited her sister-in-law in s2.

Sometimes I wasn't sure whether I read the episode right, but then subsequent events proved the creative time knew what it was doing. For example: ( Now it gets too spoilery to talk about without a cut. )

Lastly: talking about a non space related change to rl events in this AU: John Lennon survives. This isn't a plot point but something of a recurring gag since he keeps popping up on tv briefly when people switch channels. Apparantly in this AU, John in response to the escalating Cold War gets back into peace activisim and organizes a big concert as part of this. Here my suspension of disbelief broke down, not re: the surival or the return to peace activism but the concert organizing. Look, he'd be terrific at promoting something like that, if properly motivated. But organizational skills and the patience and discipline it takes to get a mega event like that together... nah. Of course, Yoko did and does have organizational skills, but a mega concert in 1983 would have required diplomacy and talking various other superstars with big egos into it and hm, I just don't see her as Bob Geldof, either, is what I'm saying.


I also read Fortune's Favor, the third volume of Jo Graham's ongoing space saga The Calpurnian Wars. Like the previous books, this one introduces us to another of those planets in uncomfortable coexistence with the expansion-hungry Calpurnia (aka, ever more apparant, Space Rome). Speaking of AUs, it strikes me that one way to describe this saga is "the story of the late Roman Republic, but a) from everyone else's pov, and b) everyone else wins". In the last volume, we basically got space!Gaul winning against Caesar, and now it's Space!Egypt's turn, confronted with two of the conspirators (space!Caesar still got assasinated in between books), Cassian and Junia. Cassian is this volume's main antagonist, but as ever in this series, the attraction and narrative interest lies in our heroes and the setting and not in the imperialist menace du jour. In this case, our main character is Caralys, a courtesan, allied to one of the main influential families on Menaechmi. This book is also where characters from the previous volumes start to interact, so Caralys teams up with Bister from Sounding Dark and Boral from War Lady in order to a) rescue her lover's kidnapped son, and b) ensure her world's freedom from blackmail by warlord. It's a very satisfying adventure, and I had a particular soft spot for the subplot involving Caralys' lover and Boral. As for Caralys, impressive as her weaving threads together to get the rescue going is, my favourite scene of hers involves something that I think is incredibly difficult to pull off both on a Doylist and Watsonian level: confront a character who has given our pov every reason to despise them so far when they are down on their luck and react with kindness and insight instead of crushing them. In a way that doesn't come across as naive or doormat-like but as going to the core of the problem in a way that can make an actual change for the better instead of continuing a vicious cycle. Perhaps because of all the rl viciousness right now, I treasure such scenes and characters all the more.

Like the previous books, the novel does tell its own adventure, and you get the necessary information about Bister and Boral in it if you haven't read the two previous ones, but the narrative texture is much richer if you have. I really enjoyed it reading it, and am looking forward to the next story of the saga!

Lastly, a DS9 vid rec: The Wrong Side, a delightful and charming Garak/Bashir vid.

I blame naraht and some other people for this, I'll have you know. Also, the following is written with affection for all parties involved, so kindly avoid bashing any of the showrunners in question in your comments. (Making fun of same, otoh, is part of the purpose of this little exercise.)

So, recent conversations with naraht caused me me to wonder how various tv writers would handle biopics dealing with anyone from the i>Beatles and their circle - whom they'd pick, how they'd narrate the subject, what they would emphasize, and so forth. Here are my highly scientific conclusions.

1.) Russel T. Davies: writes the long overdue Brian Epstein biopic. In which there's unrequited and/or uneven m/m love several times over (Brian loves John Lennon more than John loves him, but on the other hand, Peter Brown loves Brian far more than Brian loves him), and various intense sex scenes, but the emotional core relationship is the platonic one between Brian Epstein and singer Alma Cogan. (Who also has a brief fling with John Lennon.) This causes part of the fandom to accuse RTD of selling out to the heteronormative majority and being a secret self loathing homophobe while also being a character torturing sadist, and that's before Brian actually dies in the third episode of the miniseries. To everyone's surprise, the breakout 'ship of the miniseries is neither Brian/John nor Brian/Alma, though both have their followers, but Brian/Peter.

2.) Stephen Moffat: writes The Ballad of Yoko and John, also a three parter, centered around Yoko Ono, narrated in a non-linear flashion with flashbacks and flash forwards. At first, there is much delight at his depiction of Yoko Ono as a strong, morally ambiguous (i.e. neither saint nor demon) and charismatic woman not taking crap from anyone (though this also causes hostility and accusations of smugness in another part of the fandom), but later on part of the initial hooray fades as accusations are raised that Yoko is just too obsessed with John and seems to have no life unrelated to him. Also, the fact that the subplot about the abduction of Yoko's daughter Kyoko by her second husband after a strong start has no emotional follow up whatsoever until Kyoko shows up again in the last flash forward after John's death comes in for strong criticism while the May Pang subplot (i.e. Yoko setting her up as a sexual babysitter John's mistress, then getting rid of her again) gets Moffat accused of vile sexism and the ruination of a strong female character.

3.) Joss Whedon: tackles the Beatles themselves. At first, there is much delight in fandom as it seems a perfect match - the one liners and quips fly, so do the puns, the somewhat dysfunctional family is formed, and as opposed to every other pic, this one actually uses the songs to convey something characterisation relevant. Then as relationships between our gang turn increasingly messed up, alienated and sour while romances end in tears and lovable sidekicks like Mal Evans are killed off, fandom concludes Joss is up to his old tricks. The man just can't stand permanent happiness, I tell you. The death of Brian Epstein in rude service of the plot to drive the Beatles apart loses him part of his following in the gay comunity, and the way he acts out his parent issues by not allowing anyone a complete set of nice parents (other than George, and his hardly show up!), even adding evil authority figures like manager Allen Klein (totally stereotype!) is seen as typical Whedonism.

4.) Ronald D. Moore: Ron Moore laughs at biopics or bio-miniseries and goes for a re-imagining of Yellow Submarine as a gritty war story tv series instead. The Blue Meanies are there. And they have a plan. As well as plenty of sex with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band while torching Pepperland. At first, this is greeted with much applause especially among people who considered the original film as way too cloying and cheesy, but they turn against Ron when it's increasingly obvious that the Walrus is behind everything and the Head!Eggmen are real.

Feel free to add your opinion on other showrunners and their Beatles related unfilmed oeuvres.

From elisi: How to help Japan. The news get worse and worse...

Being Human:

One of my favourite finale reviews, because of the emphasis on the female characters.

Mitchell-centric meta, also an excellent post.

Remix Ficathon: is back, and you can read all about it and sign up here.

BSG cast union: happens, for some of the actors at least, in Ron Moore's new series 17th Precinct which has started shooting and seems to be basically be a crossover between a police show and Harry Potter, i.e. a detective story set in a world where everyone has magic. Tricia Helfer posted a photo of herself, James Callis and Jamie Bamber in their new roles here. Am amused RDM cast her with black long hair this time but lets the boys basically remain as they were.

Oh, and of course: the Ides of March!

It occurs to me I haven't said anything re: World Cup yet. I'm not a football fan, but other people's fannishness is often endearing, especially if it's all over the world. Also, a few years ago I my surprise I found myself utterly charmed by a film in which football plays a crucial role, Das Wunder von Bern ("The Miracle of Bern"), which with its strong acting and excellent storytelling was utterly approachable for a football lay person such as myself. (For a review of why you should watch this film on dvd if you missed it in the cinema, see this post.) Since the film's background is the 1954 World Cup, a rewatching would be very timely indeed.

Meanwhile, yesterday in the train I browsed through the Summer2010 SFX, and found myself rolling my eyes and sniggering at the article about Blake's 7 a lot. Why? ( Spoilers for B7 aren't stupid and aren't going. )

The same issue of SFX has an interview with Ron Moore about what he's fannish about, and demonstrates again why despite certain aspects of BSG which infuriated me, I can't stay angry with the man. I mean, other than enduring affection for most of his TNG and DS9 episodes and the part of BSG I really love. You'll recall that for years the media, ESPECIALLY SFX, have been billing BSG as "the anti-Trek" and kept harping on Star Trek by comparison (conveniently ignoring much of ST, I might add), but RDM never played that game or renounced his Trekkish past, on the contrary. When it was 40th anniversary time, he wrote a glowing article for the New York Times, and now in the current Q & A about inspirations, he replies thusly: "(As a child) I sort of graduated from Lost in Space to Star Trek and Star Trek was very, very different. It took the genre seriously, it was what seemed like a real universe, everything fitted together and made sense, and it tackled interesting moral dilemmas every weekk. On top of that it had these fascinating characters at its core, so it was really unlike anything else I saw in television. I grew up fantasizing being on the Starship Enterprise, and then one day I got to walk on the Starship Enterprise, write the stories and sit in the captain's chair and do all sort of things that were childhood fantasies."

(Sidenote: has anyone ever done a study of the "fan-in-charge" phenomenon, because by now there are plenty of compare/contrast possibilities, between old Trekkers like RDM crucially shaping the later Trek shows like TNG and DS9, old Whovians like RTD and the Moff in charge of Doctor Who, and, for good measure, old X-Men fans like Joss Whedon writing Astonishing X-Men?)

He's equally fannish about space per se: "I got into science fiction because I was interested in the American space programme. I watched the Moon landings when I was very young and I was fascinated by space ships and space (...) For a long time as a child I wanted to be an astronaut. My fondest wish was to become a pilot and join the space programme. I was fascinated with all the trappings of NASA in the early '70s, watching the moon landings and the Moon rover, and the news coverage and the magazine articles. I remember writing letters to NASA and drawing pictures of spaceships and sending it to them, and they would send back full colour pictures of spacecraft and shots of the Moon. It was an amazing thing."

See, imagining young Ron drawing pictures of the moon and slightly older Ron, after joining the TNG writing team, using the first opportunity he gets to sit in the captain's chair reminds me of how much the current crop of showrunners are themselves the product of fandoms and "one of us" in both the good and the bad sense. No one is prone to get argumentative about fandom and into "I am right and you are wrong" mode more than another fan. And then there is the tendency to drawn-out WIPs where the plot isn't really mapped out... Still. Nobody said that when there geeks are in charge, this would result in fannish paradise.