Tag Archives: SF TV

Three-Body

Over the last few weeks, on Amazon Prime, I’ve watched all 30 episodes of the first season of Three-Body, the Chinese television adaptation of the 2006 science fiction novel The Three-Body Problem, by Liu Cixin.

That’s the first book of the Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy. The second and third books are The Dark Forest (2008) and Death’s End (2010). I haven’t (yet) read the novel, but the adaptation is said to be reasonably faithful to the text.

I enjoyed the TV adaptation but found certain aspects of it frustrating. I’m curious to see if my frustrations are due to the adaptation or inherent in the novel.

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TV Tuesday 8/16/22

Early last year I wrote about Cowboy Bebop, an award-winning Japanese anime classic from 1998. It’s on my list of favorite things ever. It’s so rich on so many levels that I’ve watched and enjoyed it at least half a dozen times. For me it’s an almost perfect combination of anime, hard SF, music, action, and humor.

Late last year Netflix released a live action version with John Cho, Mustafa Shakir, and Daniella Pineda, as Spike, Jet, and Faye, respectively. I watched three episodes and bailed. It wasn’t just me. Netflix cancelled the series only a few weeks after its release.

Ever since, I’ve wanted to give it another try, see if it really is that bad.

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Farscape (plus Bova and dreams)

For Sci-Fi Saturday I have to post about Farscape, a science fiction TV series from 1999-2003 that (on the advice of a friend) I just started watching. I’m only up to episode 18 of season one, but I’m enjoying the series so much I thought I’d post about it. There are four seasons comprising 88 episodes (22 per season), so my opinion could change, but so far, I’m totally loving it.

I also want to mention the third Ben Bova book I’ve read recently. Bottom line, I really enjoyed it. Definitely the best of the three. It restored my faith in Bova.

Lastly, this morning I had, what even for me was, a particularly weird dream experience. Our subconscious minds are quite surprising and just plain bizarre sometimes!

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Whither Doctor Who?

Almost three years ago I asked Whither Science Fiction? That post pondered the state and future of what I see as a platform more than a genre and found both were probably doing okay. Authors still find new territory in a populated landscape (although much of it is well-explored by now).

Today’s question isn’t as deep or important, and my answer is much less positive. It regards a TV series I largely ignored in classic form but came to love as a modern reboot. For a while it was my favorite TV science fiction series. Even when it declined a bit in latter seasons, it still was some of the best SF on TV.

But I think Chris Chibnall’s Doctor Who is an unmitigated disaster.

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Season 1 of U___

This post’s fill-in-the-blank title (given the “season” clue that we’re talking about television shows) might refer to any of at least three series, all coincidentally from Amazon Prime studios. In fact it refers to all three, although this post is only about two because I already wrote about Upload. As it turns out, I liked it best of the three U___ shows.

The other two are Undone and Utopia (the new one). I’d tried the former last year but wasn’t grabbed. This time I liked it better and binge-watched the whole season. The latter was dark and very murder-y. Both of them were… okay. I don’t quite recommend either, though.

What I do recommend (highly!) is the anime movie, Penguin Highway.

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