Slashdot Mirror
Warren Ellis's Global Frequency May Not Air
ajs writes "According to Ain't It Cool News, the WB network has cancelled Warren Ellis's Global Frequency, a wonderfully twisted modern-day SF TV series which may yet air, but the company that owns the series will now have to shop it around to other networks. If you're a fan of the comic series or you have just been starving for good non-space SF since the X-Files went away, you might want to send words of support to your favorite non-WB network. Slashdot has previously interviewed Ellis."
Who believes that there are ideas, ideas, that we mustn't be exposed to, because they'll do something evil.
I don't think anyone doubts that ideas can be dangerous to those exposed to them. On the simplest level, "eat arsenic and you'll be cured of all disease" is an idea with lethal potential.
The only question would be what steps you feel are acceptable in fighting ideas. Can you only combat them with alternative ideas "don't touch it!" or can other steps ever be acceptable?
Does the mental capacity of the audience make a difference? e.g. can it be appropriate to use force to prevent someone from communicating maliciously dangerous ideas to children? or to the mentally ill?
Is the likely outcome relevant? Is it ever acceptable to treat information/disinformation centres as military targets because they spread ideas dangerous to your cause? There's no point in us pretending our countries don't do this, we know they do. Is it wrong because all ideas are somehow sacrosanct?
That's not sci-fi, that's pseudo-scientific psychic crap
You may not like science fiction of the X-Files variety, but that's tough. It is, in fact, speculative fiction, though almost always very soft SF (the difference between hard and soft SF being the extent to which it is rooted in science, and no there's no absolute line between the two).
And what are the odds that this show gives legitmacy to The Department of Fath^H^H^H^H Homeland Security
Ha! You don't know Ellis very well do you? Read Transmetropolitan someday (essentially it comes down to a distopian near-future with our protagonist, a reporter modeled on Hunter S Thompson, attempting to expose the corruption of society to itself). Ellis is anything but the kind of status-quo apologist that you suggest, and I suspect that the fact that he was willing to be involved in this series indicates a) that it was of a quality we have rarely if ever seen on television and b) the very reason that the WB couldn't stomach it.
I'll be glad if it never airs. So much crap on TV. I've got a grand total of four shows I bother to watch: 1) Enterprise, 2) Stargate, 3) MythBusters, and 4) BattleStar Galactica
Ulch. You're worried about status-quo apologism, and you hail modern Star Trek? I mean, I'm a softy for Star Trek too because I grew up with it, but to put those two concepts in the same post, suggesting that they are not so mutually exclusive as to be dangerous together is rather striking.