Originally this blog was going to be called 'How cute is Katee Sackhoff?' after Pema and I exchanged emails upon seeing this photo. As we're both Battlestar Galactica (2000s version) geeks, our fondness for Starbuck and the woman who plays her is boundless. (Simply put, Katee rocks.) Many is the discussion we've had about BSG, about Starbuck, about, about, about ...
We're also both very fond of Nathan Fillion because - you guessed it - we love the Joss Whedonverse even more than we love BSG. As the inhabitor of Mal Reynolds and Captain Hammer - not to mention a very entertaining Tweeter - Nathan has his own pedestal. He's also very entertaining in Castle. In the end, that's what did it: we wanted to be able to discuss mainly sci-fi TV shows but also branch out into other things. Nathan's 'crossover' into mainstream TV made him the perfect candidate to have this blog named after him, even if it's his Tweeting and general Nathan-ness that makes him our Imaginary Best Friend.
So on this blog we plan to not discuss the minutiae of Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Serenity, Dollhouse, Battlestar Galactica or any of the Star Trek franchise. There will be no talk about that-line-Andrew-said-in-season-seven-ep-whatever. But there may be an analysis of whether or not Cordelia Chase exists in a moral vacuum. We plan to talk about the themes, the storytelling and what it means to us, on trivial and not-trivial levels. Because stories are what drive both of us in our work and non-work lives. Talking about story makes us go misty-eyed and weak-kneed and all that good stuff.
As Spike said to Buffy in the season six episode After Life: 'Every night I save you.' Story saves me every night and day. And I'll always want Joss Whedon's girls with superpowers to rescue me too. So that's it for now. No doubt Pema will have something to say too.
- Sophie
The other half of the blog clocking in here - Pema.
ReplyDeleteDespite the popularity of Sci-Fi more than once I've been with a group of friends of the writerly persuasion and had conversations that go like this:
Me: "Oh, are you watching Being Human? It's marvellous. Funny, sad, and really touching, all about the struggle to be human, to remain human, about what it takes to live in this world."
Enthusiastic Reply: "No, sounds great, what's it about?"
Me: "Well, it's about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost. And they live together in this house in Bristol and ..."
And I've lost them .... for some people the leap into the form is just a bridge, a gulf, a valley, a galaxy too far.
Which is such a shame, because there are worlds, universes, dimensions filled with stories that resonate with the human experience, with characters who are as complex, ambiguous and tragic as any you may find in Tolstoy, and with ideas that provoke and challenge, that reflect society today and foreshadow societies that are yet to come.
Thing is, of course, that once you do connect with people who are out and proud about their passion for storytelling in alternate spaces, you discover a conversation that feels like it's been going on since we bipedal-ugly-bags-of-mostly-water first hunkered down around a campfire in a dark cave and listened to someone tells us a great yarn.
Pema