Meta-ambivalence
Creating a sense of ambivalence within a show is generally a quality of a good show, with good writing, good acting, etc. But what about meta-ambivalence? In “The Walking Dead,”…
Tag: television
Thank you, Mr. Abercrombie
It is a late notice, I know, but I wanted to mention my sadness at the passing of Ian Abercrombie, who died on January 26, 2012. He was sublime as…
Douse your Pizza with Pepper Spray
Fox’s Megyn Kelly classifies pepper spray as a food product. So how long before we start putting it in school lunches?
The Living Structure Meme
If you want to prepare for a new and illustrious career for future, I would recommend bioengineering, since future ships and buildings will be living things. Paolo Bacigalupi’s “A Pocketful for…
It All Starts with Sturgeon, sort of…
Science fiction took a big step toward modernity (actually postmodernity) with Theodore Sturgeon’s “Unite and Conquer,” which I read recently in the collection A Way Home. Within that story, the…
We are all Morton Downey Jr.
Remember that girl, during the 2008 presidential election, who faked an attack from an ardent Obama supporter? She scratched a backward B on her cheek, as one might do if…
Welcome to the New Apocalypse – Same as the Old Apocalypse
Would anyone be surprised to wake up in the midst of a zombie apocalypse? Or are our minds conditioned to expect any deep sleep, any extended hospital stay, carries at…
Breaking Bad is our Greek Tragedy
It is natural and inevitable that a contemporary audience deems all those that preceded it to be unsophisticated. Therefore, I can say with some degree of certainty that future human…
The Mundane
We have lost our sense of the mundane. That was one of the great things about Philip K. Dick. He didn’t make science fiction about the Space Prince or the…
The Death of Skynet’s old, alcoholic uncle… or What will the aliens do?
Some channels quietly switched off their analog signals last month. Maybe one day we will be all digital – but it looks like we will have to wait a little…