Sense of wonder

[hmpf]

Are there any sf shows (beside Farscape and Doctor Who, that is) that actually excel at evoking a sense of wonder? Because for all of Who's defects, that *is* something it does very well indeed. And so did Farscape, though the wonder was tinged a darker shade there fairly consistently (instead of just occasionally, as it is in Who).

It happens to be one of the main reasons why I like sf. It's sad it's so rare in the tv incarnations of the genre.

Comments

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

You're right and it's sad that it's so rare. We don't really live in an optimistic age, which means that wonder isn't high on the list of attributes for a scifi show. For all Farscape's darkness, the wonder in it was, essentially, optimistic, or at the very least humanistic.

I think the increased popularity of scifi as a visual genre (where movies are flat out mainstream and tv is no longer in a ghetto), as opposed to in books where it's still very much in a ghetto, is a two-edged sword. We get more of it, but it's also under pressure to "prove" that it's not an embarrassment. Whenever a scifi show is popular, it's never "this is really good scifi," it's "even though this is scifi, we promise, it's actually good!"

So things are self-conscious, ironic, sarcastic, nihilistic, gritty. And sometimes that even works spectacularly well. Early BSG, for instance, rocked the gritty realism boat.

But it doesn't leave a lot of space for wonder which is inherently unironic, and uncool because it can never have the detachment "cool" requires.

It's kinda sad, really, because like you, I love it. I think it's a real point of common ground we have in our love of stories.

It's probably also why I'm one of the few people who loved Superman Returns and is horribly sad that it got slated by the world. While I'm not sure I'd exactly put it in that category of wonder, it had a basic quiet optimism and humanism.

Humanistic stories don't always end happily or optimistically, but they almost always have a sense of optimism in their acceptance of possibility: that people are basically good and the universe is basically amazing. If John, for instance, had died at the end of PKW, the story itself would still be one of wonder - it would still be humanistic.

But I think the current trend is to ironically flirt with nihilism, but not enough for it to actually qualify as nihilism; just enough to make yourself look cool.

Hm, I didn't see Superman Returns.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

Maybe I should have.

I'm actually not sure how much I agree with your point about the relation between wonder and humanism and optimism here, but, sadly, I don't have time to ponder this now. (I'm squeezing my DW watching into the cracks of a schedule full of SRS BZNZ at the moment, *sigh*)

But I should have added Star Wars, in my original post, I think. Don't know how I could forget it! I'm rather embarrassed... ;-)

Your proposed SW fan-edit sounded awesome, btw. I'd totally watch that.

Re: Hm, I didn't see Superman Returns.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Well, it's only a movie, you can always catch up on it sometime. It's not the awesomest thing ever, but I did like it.

I didn't include Star Wars because I thought you were looking for TV shows more than movies, but yes, the original trilogy does count.

I'll let you know if I ever get around to doing more work on that fan edit. ;)

I'd be interested to hear your points about wonder and humanism. I certainly don't think they line up perfectly, but I do think that to be a humanist, you have to have an amount of optimism about the nature of humanity, or it just doesn't work, and that optimism combined with humanism's philosophical tendency to go, "omfg, aren't people AMAZING?!", like, to wonder at our own existence, lends itself well to the type of wonder you're talking about, even when going to darker places.

Certainly I'd class both Farscape and S5 Doctor Who as essentially humanist. In fact most of DW is. Perhaps it's the fact that I find (atheist) RTD's Who so overtly moralistic and western-religious in its symbology, that's part of why I'm put off by it? *ponders*

Have some mashup autotuned music about Science & Wonder: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk

;)