As mentioned in my previous post, I wrote something on Tor.com about Lost and BSG. Not coincidentally, those two television series are my favorite shows right now. But both have fallen prey to the same sad trend – the loss of the black characters on the show.

Both series started out as examples of diversity, I think it’s fair to say. Intentionally so. And that was something that mattered to me. Lost even went so far as to have one character (Jin) who spoke only in Korean. Both shows also featured black characters. Yet in both cases, those characters have either died, or become marginalized.

Click through for more (with spoilers for both shows):

Read more »

I thought I would mention that I posted another in my post-apocalyptic series of posts on Tor.com. Unfortunately this one didn’t get any comments so I was hoping that maybe a little pointer might help. I’m writing these posts hopefully as a start to a conversation about what people like about post-apocalyptic fiction, what makes it up, what kind of things work and don’t work and what it says about us as the audience.

Please check it out if you feel so inclined.

While I don’t take back my previous statement about a lot of Star Trek being shit, I will admit to being a fan of The Next Generation and DS9 in the day. It’s just that in retrospect, after watching BSG, I am a bit spoiled. The way I see it, Star Trek (at least the series I mentioned), was good SF television. BSG is good (actually great) television period.

But on to the Star Trek. There was another Voyager episode on the other day and it dealt with the burgeoning Seven of Nine/Chakotay relationship. I think it was the finale.

That made me think of the various inter-crew relationships on the various series.

So, I pose to you, the readers, what was the best, most believable relationship on the various Trek shows? And what was the worst, most clumsy, ridiculous relationship?

Here are the ones I remember:

1. Ryker/Troi

2. Worf/Troi

3. Picard/Crusher

4. Data/Yar (maybe not a real relationship, but I thought it deserved mention)

5. Kira/Odo

6. Worf/Dax

7. Bashir/Ezri Dax

8. Neelix/Kes

9. Paris/Torres

10. Chakotay/Seven of Nine

11. T’pol/Trip

Those are the only relationships between main crew members that I can remember (I’m not counting relationships like O’Brien and Keiko since she was a secondary character – though I did like the way that relationship progressed over the two series).  I also didn’t watch Enterprise much, but I read about the T’pol/Trip thing recently.

So, I open it up to you – which was the best? Which was the worst?

…can be such a load of shit.

My god, I’m sitting here watching a Voyager episode (don’t ask) and it’s appallingly bad.

BSG has spoiled me for a lot of other shows.

Watching Battlestar Galactica this season, I have been struck, particularly recently, by similarities to movies. War movies.

Two episodes ago, I was getting a strong Private Pyle vibe from the Chief. This week, I was getting a strong Apocalypse Now thing from Starbuck’s crew. Not quite a river, but similar. The further they go, the stranger things get, and the more tense.

I’m wondering what next week will bring.