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

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

;)