Devouring the Planet

So the world's resources will be depleted by the year 2050. Doesn't surprise me that it would happen, but it does surprise me that it would happen so soon. I knew there was a reason I bought a hybrid car. By that time I'll be 70+ years old, and my kids will be geezers, too. What scares the crap out of me is that the grandkids are screwed.

But how is this possible? And why is it happening? Simple. The answer is greed.

Humans, as a species, are greedy. Since the dawn of man, the individual has been striving for...the individual. It's all about mememememe. Of course not every single person who was ever born is like this; there are selfless people out there but those people usually get walked on by everyone else whose sole thought is "mememememe". For tens of thousands of years, man has been trying to get ahead, making life better for himself regardless of the cost to the environment or his fellow neighbor. The result is the world as it is today.

Again, it's not surprising. Maybe it's even a blessing to all the wildlife and ecosystems on the planet that people destroy themselves after ravaging the Earth for the past 400 years.

Geek 'til the Very End

I've always been a huge sci-fi fan ever since....well, my earliest memories of sci-fi were when Gah and Kathleen took Q and I to watch movies like Star Wars (I honestly don't remember seeing that one) and Battlestar Galactica in Toronto. And of course there was always Star Trek: TOS on syndication. Needless to say I had no clue what was going on in terms of story or plot, but did it matter? These shows had enough eye candy special effects to keep any 4 year-old quiet for an hour.

Fast forward 10 years. In the mid and late 80's, there was a resurrection for sci-fi. Specifically for all things Star Trek. Not only were the effects great but the story and content and underlying meaning behind the movies were deeper than any 14 year-old could imagine in a sci-fi series. Now compare that to Star Wars: Good guy vs. bad guy. Kill bad guy.

And on Star Trek:TNG went, exploring strange new worlds and new social concepts and social controversies for the next 9 years. Was it good? Without a doubt, Star Trek put social issues on the table that many people weren't willing to talk about (I wonder how many Religous Right Star Trek fans are out there...). But, as Star Trek: TNG's last episode was so named, All Good Things...(really do come to an end). Not only did the series finale mark the end of a Star Trek series, but it really marked the end of a whole genre. Never would there be a interesting, intellectually stimulating, quality sci-fi series that explored humanity as much as it did outer space. Of course there were off-shoot series of DS-9, Voyager, Enterprise, Farscape, Twilight Zone, and Outer Limits but none of them ever came close to the quality of TOS or TNG.

Years later, nostalgia came knocking on the door. A movie and TV series that I haven't seen since age 5 years old was playing, again. Battlestar Galactica. I heard about it through a fellow resident back in 2003 when the mini-series first premiered, but I paid little attention to it. I had bigger and more important things on my mind.

Then came 2006. There I was at Best Buy with coupons for $40 off anything in the store. I didn't really need any electronic devices at the time. If anything, I would probably buy some DVD videos, being that I don't get cable. The choices among the new releases were: Desperate Housewives, Battlestar Galactica, Gray's Anatomy, Lost, and a bunch of movies I never heard of. So let's examine the choices:

Desperate Housewives - The first season was actually pretty funny, but I heard some bad things about season 2. Maybe.
Battlestar Galactica - I knew nothing about it, but I heard great things about it on the internet reviews.
Gray's Anatomy - No way am I spending money to watch a show about doctors! I can go to work and do that.
Lost - Giligan's Island on a larger scale. No thanks.

Decisions, decisions. As usual, in my time of strife and indecision I called the one person I knew I could count on in these matters for good advice: Q. His answer? BSG: Good show. Sold. I bought season 1.0, 2.0, and 2.5. I planned to watch it as I watched the X-files series on DVD, which was one episode per day. As I learned the hard way, there's no way to do that with BSG because the show was absolutely riveting and the end of each episode always left me at the edge of my seat wondering what would happen next. It was quite an emotionally draining experience.

Once again, I stumbled in to a sci-fi series that was done with absolute perfection. It was more about a story of people with sci-fi eye candy as a plus and not vice versa. Not only that, but BSG was DARK! I love that deep, dark, brooding/controversial disturbing stuff. By that, I don't mean that BSG is along the lines of some creepy slasher show or the Ring or some creepy nauseating crap like that. But if I were to make comparisons:

BSG compared to all (yes, ALL, including Star Trek which I love) preceding sci-fi series is like

Gladiator compared to Sparticus, or

Miami Vice 2006 compared to CHIP's from the 80's, or

Lord of the Rings compared to A Knight's Tale.

BSG had realistic people with real emotions in realistic situations and realistic behaviours. Which I love (unfortunately, most of those situations have dark or sad themes). For example, when was the last time Riker got punched by an ensign because of the ensign's temper problem? You never saw Worf struggle with drug addiction, or saw Deanna shag people indiscriminately (actually, that was Riker's job - strike that last). The closest I've ever seen anything like that was Star Trek: First Contact where Picard wants revenge on the Borg.

In any case, I can't wait for season 3.0 on DVD.