TV: “Doctor Who” (Introduction)

I’m going to start out with a painful confession: I have never watched “Doctor Who” before starting on in the new series.

I’m sure this marks me as some of deprived child, and people are now wondering about what other hideous things my parents did to me, or in what cultural backwater I spent my misguided youth (Texas).

As I understand it, the various incarnations of “Doctor Who” all have the following characteristics: a charismatic, mysterious and somewhat prickly main character; time travel; obsessed robots with metallic voices; fanciful aliens; overarching plotlines; and “sidechicks”. Quite frankly, I should have been tracking this show down and watching it every chance I could get!

But I didn’t. I have vague recollections of it occasionally being on late at night on my local public television station, but it was very inconsistent and not something to which you could get attached. This was before there were things like a bazillion cable channels, including some devoted to science fiction. This was also before you could find old videotapes at the local video store.

However, things have changed. Now there’s Sci-Fi channel and Netflix and conventions and downloadable videos and website and flash-based previews and wikipedia episode guides and if you want to know anything about a show you can find it out in a second and have episodes at your door in a day.

So, it’s time for me to experience “Doctor Who”. What better way to start than with the latest series, especially since multiple episodes were nominated for the Hugo for best Short Form Dramatic Presentation. I’ve started in on the series, and am about five or six episodes into it. More thoughts later.

TV: “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip”

What’s this, you say? A review of a television show about the backstage goings-on at a television show? In a blog reviewing speculative fiction?

OK, you’re right. But I must ask the question: what could be more speculative than a television show where people are smart, funny, quick-witted, talk very fast and believe passionately that what they are doing is Terribly Important and they need to devote themselves fully to it?

I enjoy watching this show, as I’ve enjoyed watching virtually everything that Aaron Sorkin has created or had a major hand in. I read a review on salon.com by Heather Havrilesky (http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/iltw/2006/09/24/studio_60/) with which I agree tremendously. She talks about how all the Aaron Sorkin ventures have a strong sense of self-importance, and while it works in a show about politics and the president, it probably doesn’t work as well in a show about a late-night comedy show (or about a third-ranked sports network, see “Sports Night”).

But you know what, I still like it and I’ll definitely watch it until it ends up diminishing in the ratings and it gets taken off the air and ends up consigned to DVD box sets. While watching it, I’ll dream of a world where people are smart, funny, quick-witted, talk very fast and believe that what they are doing is Terribly Important and they should devote all their passion and energy to it. It will also be a world where late-night comedy skit shows are topical, pointed and marvelously funny. What could be more speculative than that?

As a last note, there are environments (beyond politics) where I think the self-important, fast talking, quick-witted style of drama can work. I'm betting there multiple science fiction premises where it would make sense, and I think it woud also make sense in the world of high-tech startups. Many years ago, when I lived in Silicon Valley, I had ideas for a television show set in the world of a startup. Now I realize it would be in the style of an Aaron Sorkin show. I've still got the concept, plotline and episode ideas sitting around - Aaron, why don't your people call my people (read: me) and we can do lunch?

Reboot

We're going to take a little reboot here. I've been bad about keeping up with my posting, and I've gotten behind on my magazine reading, so I'm going to restart with the recent magazines, television shows, movies, etc. I might catch up to the past work, I might not. We'll just see how it goes.