Beautiful, Blue and Bald

That was Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan. Or just plain Zhaan, as she was know to her friends on the hit Sci-Fi channel series Farscape. Science Fiction television began to break out of the Star Trek formula somewhere midway though DS-9. Characters began to die, people didn't always do the right thing, and humanity lost a bit of it's Gene Roddenberry perfection.

Then came Space: Above and Beyond. Produced by Glenn Wong and James Morgan, it brought a gritty sense of realism to the genre. Gone was the comfy bridge, the safe turbo-lifts, and clean-vaporizing phasers. These were United States Marines in the future:

"The show, set in the years 2063–2064, focuses on a group of United States Marines, members of the United States Marine Corps Space Aviator Cavalry, 58th Squadron, or the "Wildcards"). They are based out of the spacecraft carrier USS Saratoga, and act as infantry."

For me, it didn't get any cooler. The Wildcards were a tough bunch of kick-ass kids who did the job that no other squad had the grit to do. Face first into the trenches with the alien chigs. And people died. Main characters, friends, relatives, you name it. And there was racism, sexism, senseless acts of evil (and benevolence). And moments of pure insanity. Overall, the series did a great job of portraying how war challenges an entire society, and not just the soldiers. Alas, Fox was not ready this kind of series, and it was cancelled after a season.

But it had paved the way for something greater. Fans appetites had been whetted for more realism. We didn't want a starship that never really took a beating. We didn't want the main characters sound like the Cleavers. We didn't want "the use of force only when necessary." What we wanted was Farscape.

My obsession with this series is difficult to explain. Most normal people would see an episode and say, "This is weird. Is that thing a muppet? Oh, hell no! Did the muppet just puke?!" I, however, saw a TV series that took the sci-fi genre in a WHOLE NEW DIRECTION. I remember seeing the first episode during a winter repeat fest LONG after the series debuted. I was sick in bed and watching a bunch of aliens with dodgy makeup argue about the human in their midst. And then I saw the muppet. A fairly well-done goblin-looking thing, but a muppet nonetheless. As I reached for the remote to change the channel, the muppet sprang out of it's seat and bit off the finger of one of the other characters, as she screamed and spurted blood everywhere. "Whoa," I thought, putting down the remote. "This could get good." And indeed it did. The budget was horrible at first, but what I liked was that they hired GREAT writers, and they used models and animatronics in the place of CGI characters. Don't get me wrong, CGI is awesome. But I still prefer the old muppet Yoda to the new CGI Yoda any day. Picture this:

"My name is John Crichton, an astronaut. A radiation wave hit and I got shot through a wormhole. Lost in some distant part of the universe on a ship, a living ship, full of strange alien life forms. Help me. Listen, please. Is there anybody out there who can hear me? Being hunted … by an insane military commander. Doing everything I can. I'm just looking for a way home."

Last transmission of John Crichton, an IASA astronaut. When he arrives on the far side of the galaxy, he quickly discovers that those that look human are actually his enemy, and the aliens are his friends. Guys that look human and call themselves Peacekeepers are the ENEMY! How cool is that? Anyway, he progresses through four awesome seasons of adventures culminating in a new transmission where he's no longer so eager to get home:

"My name is John Crichton, an astronaut. Three years ago I got shot through a wormhole. I’m in a different part of the universe aboard this living ship of escaped prisoners … my friends. I’ve made enemies … powerful, dangerous. Now all I want is to find a way home to warn Earth. Look upward and share the wonders I’ve seen."

The world of Farscape is dangerous and dirty. And the characters are real as they are alien. They screw, fart, piss, puke, curse, and brawl. On the subject of farting, one character actually has helium flatulence. Tell me the writers were not smoking a fattie when they came up with that one! But underneath all the alien bravado, the characterizations were some of the best done ever on television. And that all brings me to Zhaan.

The blue high priestess was actually a plant-based life-form given to intense "photogasms" when exposed to excessive natural sunlight. She was mysterious, sensuous, generous, forgiving, but also powerful and riteous in her fury if angered. The actress, Viginia Hey, actually shaved her head and eyebrows for the role, and personally identified with the character! But as years of the semi-toxic makeup took it's toll on her skin, she asked to take a few steps back form her workload. Sci-fi responded by killing her off. Workload lightened, they said. And although the death of such a major character was an outrage to fans, driven purely for business reasons by Universal/Sci-Fi, it was an important milestone in our development. When Zhaan died, we all grew up a bit. Good characters won't last forever. In fact, it's not even healthy when they do. You end up with Maddie and Dave from Moonlighting yelling at each other after five years, and people wondering, "What happened to the show I liked." Or the Fonz when he jumped the shark on Happy Days. Remember that? Change is good, and that's what sci-fi needed. Shows that shook things up and challenged the status quo. It was too bad that Zhaan had to be the sacrificial lamb, but c'est la vie.

So in the final part of my trifecta eulogy, raise a glass with me to toast the curviest, bluest boobs in the galaxy. Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan. And go grab Season 1 of Farscape on DVD. The stuff's like crack!

Librarians gone WILD!

Every time I read my sister's blog, a little more of my librarian stereotypes are utterly erased. She recently made the trek to Austin, and then New Orleans for some library conferences. My favorite quote is from her drunken friend while in New Orleans:

"It's DANGEROUS here...you can drink on the STREET!"

And in response to her comment about breast implants feeling like crap, I whole-heartedly agree. It's like someone over-filled a balloon with water and jammed it under the skin. I know there are some string implants around that are reportedly more natural feeling, but I think that's a crock. There's nothing like warm, flesh and blood natural boobs. Although I hear that silicone was the bomb back in the 80's...

Anyway, here is the link to her eloquently written blog entry, as well as some cool pics...

The blackest of the black

So, I'm black. My ethnicity AND my skin color. African-Americans are actually various shades of brown, not black. But I am the darkest of the dark. It is a little known fact outside of the black community, that darker-skinned black people are at the bottom of an unspoken caste system. This situation exists in many other countries where colonialism was present (i.e. Mexico, Brazil, Australia, etc.) Much of it relates to the pursuit of a particular standard of beauty that we don't always conform to. Light skin, straight hair, etc.

But times changed in late 20th Century black America. The caste system suffered a severe fracture. Sometime in the late 60's as the volume on the black power movement reached a crescendo, we began to openly embrace ourselves, in all of our diversity, as beautiful. Remember the afro? It was born from "Black is beautiful!" But old habits die hard, and even in the 80's when I was growing up, I was on the receiving end of relentless teasing about my skin color. I heard every joke, was called every name, and was taunted in every way. Remember the Chappelle "Rick James" skit? "Darkness is upon us!" he chants when Charlie and Eddie Murphy appear. That was every day in my junior high orchestra class. I was a self-confident 13-year-old, but I had my limits. I never thought I was male-model material, but over the years the taunting made me believe that I was elephant-man deformed. As I crossed into my teenage years and into high school, my self-confidence was at an all-time low, at a time when potential dating was HIGH on the priority list. And, as many women will recall, the last thing you're interested in is a guy with no self-confidence. So, I created a self-fulfilling prophecy. I thought it was my skin color that got me shot-down, but it was really my own head-hanging. All of this changed with two events. The first was my first girlfriend ever. She was not black. And she thought I was hot. (She told me so.)

The second was Mo' Better Blues (1990). This was a Spike Lee flick featuring Wesley Snipes. I remember seeing it on video and being shocked at how every woman in this movie was ALL OVER Wesley. Every subsequent movie I saw him in, he was always a proto-typical leading man, usually with a couple of love interests. And then, when I heard other black women talk about him, it was usually with a lot of praise for his appearance. They thought he was good-looking! (Except my wife. She thinks Wesley Snipes is a toad, although it has nothing to do with his skin color.) As we pushed further into the 90's, I saw popular dark-skinned guys EVERYWHERE! Morris Chestnut, Richard T. Jones, Omar Eps, Djimon Hounsou, Mekhi Phifer, and even Chris Tucker.


These guys got to be the leading men and the women loved them! Dark-skinned male models even gained popularity, like that Tyson whateverhisnameis. By the time I got to college, we were well into what I affectionately refer to as the Decade of the Dark-skinned Black Man, and I had sooooooo gotten over the junior-high teasing. I was finally able to spread my social wings, so to speak. I was always proud to be African-American, but for the first time in my life I was proud of my actual skin color. Sad to think that it took a bunch of Hollywood movies to convince me of this, but such is life.

However, as the pendulum swings one direction, it must ultimately swing back. And so, as the second part of my trifecta of eulogies (Trek, dark-skin, and Farscape), I raise a glass to my dark-skinned heros of old. Today, our presence is all but absent from the movies and TV. The Will Smiths, Terrence Howards, and Jamie Foxx's now fill our screens. And I like those guys. A lot. But for a while, it was cool to see an action hero or a romatic lead, and see something of myself reflected back...


P.S. Is that Scarlett Johannsen sandwiched between Michael Duncan Clark and Djimon Hounsou??? Right on!

Where no man has gone...UPDATED!!!

When I was a little squirt living in L.A., I was not really allowed to watch television. My mother thought it would rot my brain and such. But as I got older, she made certain allowances. One of those was a certain syndicated show that aired on Channel 13 at 6pm during the summers. A show that had been cancelled for over 15 years, but to me it was new and wondrous. That show was Star Trek, and out of all things television, it was to have the most profound impact in my life.

During my preteen years, I was a self-professed Trekkie. Not Trekker or Trekkor or any of the other attempts to masculinize a word that never had a gender in the first place. I was a Trekkie. I had seen every episode multiple times, I could recite dialogue, and more importantly, I believed in the ethos. Even through Shatner's over-acting, the cheesy special effects, and heavy-handed preachy plots, I saw something special that shaped Little Akshun J's worldview. Kirk always gave the aliens a shot before he phasered the crap out of them. He surrounded himself with people who were at least as smart as himself (if not smarter), yet he was never threatened. He always had a special place in his heart for the nerdy girls (The only chick he had a baby with was a genetics scientist. Go figure...)

Anyways, the experience also made me a complete sci-fi junkie. Sure I had seen Galactica and Buck Rogers years before. But Trek was something a little different. And as much as their creators are loathe to admit it, those shows really drew heavily from Trek. However, the eighties was a dark time for sci-fi. Budgets were tight, the public was not very receptive, and nothing really lasted for more that a season. Remember The Powers of Matthew Starr, Otherworld, The Misfits of Science, Automan, Manimal et al? I enjoyed them all as a kid, but c'mon guys. Where was the writing??? It wasn't until Star Trek returned with a new crew, new ship, and new ideas that good sci-fi returned to television...

It was 1987, and I was in my final year of junior high. I had recently attended my first Star Trek convention and I was EAGERLY awaiting the debut of The Next Generation. (No, I am not ashamed to admit that I went to a convention. No, I did not dress up, but I don't have a problem with those who choose to do this. And for those of you who think that guys who dress in costume and celebrate their favorite thing together are weird, check out a Packer or a Viking game.) You see, I was growing out of old Trek. Kirk was now cliche, and their black and white plots no longer appealed to my angsty teenage persona. The new Trek promised meaty plots and big production values. I could hardly wait! So, the big night comes, and the world was introduced to a.......bald Frenchman with a British accent, an android with heavy gold makeup and bad contacts, the kid from Stand By Me, a blind navigator with a banana clip over his face, and a Klingon.

Let's just say that I was underwhelmed. In fact, the whole first season, with a couple of exceptions, was rotten. It was my opinion that Gene Roddenberry had run amuck. If I wanted overacting and bad special effects, I would watch old episodes of the original series! But something happened over Season 2 when Gene Roddenberry's health began to decline. New blood like Rick Berman (more on him later), Michael Pillar, and Ira Steven Behr began to take Trek in new directions. They broke Roddenberry's formula of a neat and clean universe, bringing us enemies like The Borg and episodes exploring the very nature of humanity and consciousness. The actors were surprisingly capable once they were given good material. And when the fourth season hit, I was hooked. Once again I was a Trekkie. And in that year, Trek showed Hollywood that sci-fi could be both entertaining AND smart. Thus began the renaissance. The Sci-fi Renaissance.

Quantum Leap, Babylon 5, X-Files, Time Traxx, American Gothic and Nowhere Man marked the beginnings. Then came Buffy, Dark Angel, Millenium, Stargate, and Farscape. All on the heels of an entire cable network devoted to sci-fi. And Star Trek was the show that paved the way. It enjoyed wild success in it's final season, spawning an arguably MORE successful spin-off (DS-9),

and then taking off on the big screen.

The franchise was a money MONSTER and Trek was transcending pop-culture and taking root in American culture. Until Voyager.

Star Trek died on the day some genius (Rick Berman) thought it would be a good idea to set Gilligan's Island in space. And better yet, to put a Borg chick in a skin-tight cat-suit and six-inch heels.

That's network sci-fi for ya. You see, UPN is what killed Trek. Voyager was the first time Star Trek was network produced and aired (as opposed to syndication), and it needed network prime-time ratings to stay alive. So, in typical network style, they broke out the boobs and bad writing. (No, I don't have a problem with boobs. Quite the opposite, in fact. But exploitive characters tend to go hand-in-hand with shitty writing. Unfortunate, but true.) That's when the good writers ran for the hills, and the Golden Age (2002-present) of Sci-fi began. 4400, Galactica, Dead Zone, Lost, and others were borne out of Voyager's ashes. Enterprise was the final nail in the coffin.

As an adult who is no longer a Trekkie, I want to take a moment and express my love for the phenomenon that was Star Trek. It entertained me, educated me, motivated me, and even gave me some darn good advice. Hell, Star Trek sort of introduced me to my wife! But that's another story. It was in pain, so I'm glad we've put it to rest, but in it's prime, there was nothing better. My memories of Kirk, Picard, Sisko, and their crews serve as constant reminders of the debt that current genre-fiction owes them. Please, join me in raising a glass to...