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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."
Uh... no.
The owls are not what they seem
American TV has become riddled with reality shows. It's quite discusting:
* Wife Swap - Who watches this!? Some sick, twisted indiciduals, that's who.
* Survivor - Isn't this like the 80th episode or something? How many different spins can they put on the challenges?
* Big Brother - People tune in to this waiting, just anticipating two of the people boarded to have sex.
* Extreme Makeover - The epitome of our obsession with aesthetic qualities.
* Much, much more crap...
Please, turn it off!
LOST, Adult Swim, and various Comedy Central programs are the only reason I watch TV anymore. They're the only reason I haven't lost all hope in American entertainment.
Real programmers can write assembly code in any language. -- Larry Wall
Well, anybody that refers to the X-Files as good non-space SF obviously has no clue anyway.
If you're an X-Files fan, wonderful. Love it to you heart's content. But, space aliens not withstanding, X-Files was not SF, good, bad or indifferent. It was fantasy.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
Thankfully, though, the WB has released the pilot back to the company that produced it instead of holding onto it like some networks to prevent it from ever being made.
Right now, Ellis and the folks are negotiating with other television stations with the pilot, which Ellis remarked as impressive. There's still hopes yet, folks. You might still be on the Global Frequency.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
Granted, it didn't happen IN outer space per se, but I'm pretty sure the entire plot revolved around the concept of aliens from outer space. I seem to remember several UFOs as well... ;)
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Perhaps you should read the comic book before you bash it instead of reading just the show summary.
Sure, the show summary sounds like more of the same, but the book dealt with issues like bioterror weapons in a large populated city, memetic viruses (ideas that reproduce and self propogate in a malignant way), and the terror organizations who carry out mass bombings.
But then again, you don't seem to be one of those people who'd actually read instead of reading a blurb.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
It also seems a quintessentially American trait to worry about what OTHER people are watching. Turn it off if you don't like it. You list 4 examples of American horror and 3 reasons to be proud. I agree with you on CC and AS, and I might add The Sopranos, Curb your enthusiasm, Nova and more reasons not to be worried as to the state of American entertainment. I even admit to being intrigued by the current Survivor. To each his own. One thing seems clear to me, on most nights of the week, something good can be found in American entertainment.
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Power to the Peaceful
ideas that reproduce and self propogate in a malignant way
Totally offtopic question. This idea, stated as such, seems really... really... off-putting. Who believes that there are ideas, ideas, that we mustn't be exposed to, because they'll do something evil. Sounds like a standard censorship argument, with a blank into which can be written "Porn", "Scientology" or "Jesus". Is this what memetics is about? What a disappointment, if it is.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
For what it's worth, the new Authority: The Revolution 12-issue series (the first issue just came out) is written by Ed Brubaker, which should at least mean we can hope for something better, as he seems to definitely appreciate the spirit of the title, and Brubaker has already done some brilliant work on Sleeper.
Not a bloody chance.
SF has *science* in it - one definition is that it must obey all known scientific laws, unless breaking one is required for the story, and then even the handwaving explantion must be reasonable.
Fantasy is *NOT* SF - the two are related, but not the same. However, as Lord Dunsay said, fantasy is *very* hard to do right: you have to make all the rules...and then *NEVER* break any of them, or the reader's suspenders of disbelief go "snap", and you've lost it.
X-Files was inconsistant conspiracy theory. This is about one step short of, say, Bush's energy policy, or his fight against accepting that global warming exists, and is human-caused - that is, the Hollywood idea that a "theory" is what you come up with in the nightmare after you've had too much bheer and pizza.
Non-space sf on tv? Max Headroom. Non-space fantasy on tv? The Chronicle.
None of the above? Cattlecar Galaxative (22 planets strafed to death, and a flamable covered wagon, er, spaceship in the hard vacuum of space).
mark "s'ppose a movie of Charles de Lint
would be too much to ask for"
I'm more a fan of "hard core" SF like Star Trek myself,
but X-files can be classified as SF I think.
It takes the scientific possibility that aliens could exist,
and explores some of the effects that could have. That's what SF is, extrapolation of known scientific facts, to see what effect they could have.
I did not watch the X-files often enough to elaborate further.
It most definately also falls into some other classifications as well,
but fantasy is more Charmed, Buffy, mutantX, Angel, not X-files AFAIK.
RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
Reading the show summary really doesn't give you much information. I suggest you actually read the comic book series before passing judgement.
That's just want they want you to think!
The X-Files was a documentary.
Dictionary.com states:
A literary or cinematic genre in which fantasy, typically based on speculative scientific discoveries or developments, environmental changes, space travel, or life on other planets, forms part of the plot or background.
I would say that the X-Files qualify as SF.
KARMA TAG! You're it.
Has anyone considered the possibility that the show was not picked up because the pilot sucked? I understand Slashdot's efforts to champion this kind of programming, but you know there is such a thing as shitty Sci Fi.
btw, what's with the extra backslashes? slashdot isn't doing an extra addslashes before inserting into the db. proxy munging? bad browser?
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Power to the Peaceful
... good 'in space' series? The New Star Trek sucks, stopped watching it after episode 2. Stargate Atlantis isn't too bad, but it really doesn't count as 'in space' it's really just 'vampires in space'.
Specifically, the grandparent is a cut-and-paste of MY post, and the context has been sadly removed.
Actually, I thought Millar did a fairly good job when he took over the series after Ellis, their styles (at least on the Authority) were pretty similar IMO. After that though, it just become another superhero book and I no longer buy it.
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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.
I went into the X-Files as SF earlier, but let me tackle it this way.
What if I told you that an episode of the X-Files was about monks who were bringing about the end of the world by calculating the permutations of the name of God on a computer. Sounds like a fairly plausible episode to me, and would not stick out from other X-Files episodes.... It also happens to be the plot of The Nine Billion Names of God, which won the World Science Fiction Convention's Retrospective Hugo for 1953.
Science fiction is about the nature of science and discovery and our relationship to them, not just the technology and aparatus of science. When we question what the nature of belief and skeptecism are in fiction, we are very much engaging in science fiction just as the great short story authors of the 30s-60s did and just as Twilight Zone did.
The presence of space ships and ray guns is not reasonable benchmark for the genre.
if wb doesn't want it they need just add rediculous amounts of profanity to the pilot and run it over to hbo
All the torrents you could want.
The WB has passed on the pilot. However, they've also been real gentlemen and released it back to the studio to be taken elsewhere. Many networks hold onto pilots out of spite, fearing that if it succeeds elsewhere, they'll look bad.
This sounds disturbingly like what happened in The Making of 'And God Spoke' -- a mockumentary about two eternally optimistic indie filmmakers shooting a cheesy biblical epic. "Very unusual!" they gloat, when the big studio drops the project but lets them keep it. As if this is a good sign.
"I'm more a fan of "hard core" SF like Star Trek myself..."
Heh. A lot of people would object to calling Trek "hard core SF". The term "hard SF" is usually used to describe stuff that's heavily based on real-world modern-day science knowledge and theory. Larry Niven's "Neutron Star" is a good example.
The one thing that appears to be universally true about these genres is that if you ask X different people what the definition of "SF" is, you will get at least X different answers.
That's not a bug, it's a feature.
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The distinctin between SF and fantasy has nothing to do with ray guns or space ships. There are lots of nuances and the question not only can be but acutally has been debated in volumes. There's no way that it can be given even reasonably fair or comprehensive treatment in a format like this.
That being said, one of the distinctions is that SF makes a good faith effort to comply with the known laws of physics (at the time of writing), to postulate new laws or modifications of the existing laws of physics which are inherently consistent or to establish a universe with an alternate but internally consistent set of laws of physics. Put another way, SF should be possible. Fantasy is generally impossible.
Many of the golden age SF classics would not be considered SF if published today. They're generally grandfathered in to the genre.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
I don't buy your definition. I've heard many an author try to define his own genre, and with absolutely no exception they've all been fairly obvious attempts to retrofit the genre to fit their work.
The definition of science fiction is, quite simply, that which a majority of the public calls science fiction.
Yes, this means the definition changes over time. It also means that your definition and mine might not agree and we can both be right or both wrong.
Personally, I'm in the camp of intent. If you intend to write science fiction, then that's what you're writing. This means that no matter how science fiction-like the magical realism stuff may look, it's not because that's not what the author is writing.
Why do I hold to this definition? Because it's the only one that removes the reader's bias for what is and is not valid science and is immutable over time. It also favors the current trend of authors who are good enough to have a shot at being noticed in the literary world, bailing from the SF ghetto while continuing to write speculative works (e.g. magical realism).
If you prefer a different definition, have at it, but mine works for me.
sorry, I goofed. I meant to make it clear that those two definitions are mutually exclusive, and instead I made it sound like I was stating them both as THE definition. Sorry.
You make two different claims. First, you say SF is whatever the "majority of the public" says it is, and that the defintion is fluid over time. Second, you say it's whatever the author says it is and that it's immutable over time. Those two are incompatible.
In general, a word or phrase which means whatever you say it means is effectively meaningless. If you describe a story (whether written or film, of whatever length) as SF, that should tell me something about the work. If there aren't at least some aspects or characteristics that are widely agreed on, then the phrase tells me nothing. If the only characteristic that a work of SF has is that the author says it's SF, then the phrase is useless because it communicates no information.
Of course, that doesn't prevent you from using the word any way you like. To quote Lewis Carol, "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less.
But neither does it mean that there isn't a widely accepted meaning of the genre. Writers, editors and others who make their living working within the genre have invested a great deal of time and effort into defining it. They don't always agree on the details, but the aspects I pointed out aren't considered controversial. They're pretty widely accepted.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
you missed my followup, where I make exactly this point. It was a typo.