Friday, August 21, 2009

A New Golden Age of Sci-Fi?

A couple years back, there were a lot of think pieces on how we were entering a new golden age of television. That was fueled by a bumper crop of HBO programming (Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Curb Your Enthusiasm), as well as some interesting strides on the network side of life. Just having watched District 9, which I loved, I’m wondering (and hoping) that we’re entering a new golden age of sci-fi. Two of my fave pics of the year would be the new Star Trek and District 9. Battlestar Galactica was the best show on tv over the past several years, and for all its cheeseball madness, I’m sucked into Lost. The 70s offered up some great sci-fi (Demon Seed, Andromeda Strain), but with a handful of exceptions, as the 80s and 90s wore on, I kind of felt that sci-fi devolved into nothing more than action films in space. The content was sucked dry and there was very little reflection on modern day problems as seen through the lens of the future. District 9 firmly has it foot planted on this latter path and it’s the number one picture in America. It’s a strange film to be in that spot. And that makes me happy.

1 comment:

Jay H. said...

DP, I couldn't agree more. It makes me want to get more involved with the PREVIOUS golden age of sci-fi, because this stuff today is so much fun. We too saw District 9 last weekend and it was fantastic.