Saba Taru said:
Did anyone besides me watch this last night? If so, what did you guys think of it?
I saw a lot of potential, but the delivery of the pilot was a bit... off.. for my taste. Maybe it will get better. Next week's doesn't look too bad, but if they are all going to be as heavy handed as the pilot, I'm not sure how long I'll be tuning in.
I watched it and liked the actors ok, so I will probably give it a chance, but I don't have high hopes. Not neccassarily because of what I saw last night, but because I think the show is in an impossible bind politically.
let me explain - no, that will take too long, let me sum up.
1) imho, future based fiction, especially on TV tends to be future tech, future costumes and social mores a couple of years behind to play well in peroria. When they confront current social issues, they do it through analogy, letting us all know what they think about the world without actually pushing that world in our faces. A prime example could be the ST:NG episode with Rikers androgenous girlfriend, which played as a heavy handed morality play on accepting homosexuals, yet some writers who attempted to insert evidence of actual homosexuality existing into the series, even in the background, were rebuffed.
2) Law shows, especially those based around civil/defense practices (as this one is) tend to confront current social issues a fair amount. In soap opera types like the old LA Law or character light dramas like law & order* there are regular chances in discrimination cases, hate crimes, custody battles etc to look at the controversy of the day and either weigh in on it, or proudly refuse to judge while working on the letter of the law or the crime at hand.
3) in order to maintain this law show tradition (and I think they will have to to be a good law show), they will have to confront directly the future show comfort level. For the characters to confront "modern issues", they will have to make definitive statements about what the world has come to accept in the intervening 30 years - decide where the envelope now rests before showing the characters pushing it.
They did this to a certain extent in last night's show by making two solid statements on reproductive rights : first that human cloning is illegal in the US in the future, without exception and second, that abortion rights have remained fairly static or perhaps increased. The human cloning one wasn't serious, its the kind of issue they can safely work with in the show, but there's only so many of them. The abortion comments were another kettle of fish I think. If I were strongly pro life, I don't think the implication that 30 years from now it will be taken for granted that a woman can casually obtain an abortion "to avoid going up a dress size"** would sit well with me at all. I would consider that a strong political statement about the correct and inevitable course of a current controversy.
Similarly, it would be odd if the show never dealt with a complicated custody issue, or a non traditional family arrangement. Maybe the practice doesn't do any family law, but if it does, will they have a gay couple still with no legal relationship (making them possibly outdated in two months) or show two partners in a group marraige divorcing one of the others (again, making a strong positive statement about the future)? I think they will either play the future as today with no current controversies resolved, and only discuss the theoretical future ones (in which case it will fail as a future based show) never deal with any social controversies (in which case it will fail as a law show) or make clearly implied predictions about the face of the happy american future (in which case, sadly, it may well fail overall due to political backlash.)
this may seem overly negitive, but its been my train ofthought as I considered this show and compared it to the law based ones I enjoy, as well as sci fi I've enjoyed...
*by character light I mean that especially early on, L&O was all about the cases, with even the first names of the characters only leaked in passing, and personal info slowly scraped together. The characters are still very good, and I like the show, so I didn't want that to seem like an insult.
** the "carribian vacation" and "dress size" comments actually annoyed me as well, and I'm pro choice, so the whole scene just seemed designed to bother anyone with feelings on the issue. Not sure if that bodes well or ill.
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