Re: TV Science Shows

Me wrote:


On Wed, 21 Oct 2009, BMJ wrote:

In my opinion, science shows became glossier with a decreased emphasis on detailed content around the time when the series "Cosmos" was first broadcast nearly 30 years ago.

Although the shows were visually pleasing, I was quite disappointed with them. I had hoped to be intellectually challenged and that when the closing credits were shown, I had learned something new. I wasn't.

By comparison, the series "The Ascent of Man", produced in 1973 and hosted by Jacob Bronowski, was considerably different. I thought that there was enough detail presented that viewers with some scientific background could find it interesting, while those with less could understand what he was discussing. Even today, despite the fact that it was made over 35 years ago, it's still worth watching.




I've also noticed some of the cheap-crappy PBS stuff even re-uses the same "footage" sometimes two and even three times in the same program!!

I've noticed that as well. One of the advantages of computer graphics, I suppose.


Now, another aspect of all of this is the parallel with globalization and the draining of our industrial base. Just think of all the manufacturing tallent, knowledge, experience that is being replaced by "the 'let-the-Chinese' do all the dirty work" mindset. So, this is what is happening in the USA: all the techie, nuts-and-bolts capability is being replaced by the "Starbucks coffee clerk" mindset/jobtype, which is trivial.

Gawd. Barf.

We've had something similar up here. Just over 50 years ago, the Avro Arrow fighter interceptor program was suddenly cancelled. It was designed to be the best aircraft of its type in the world, though it apparently never flew with the engines it was designed to have. The result was that thousands of people, many of them scientific and engineering staff, found themselves out of work.

A number of them went south and found jobs in the American aerospace industry. Several of them had prominent positions inside NASA and made significant contributions to the space program. Others worked on other projects, such as Concorde.

The cancellation of the program and whether the plane would ever have met its design specs remains controversial in Canada to this day. Maybe the aircraft wasn't up to snuff, but one thing that is clear, though, is the loss of potential that happened that day. Most, if not all, that talent went elsewhere and much of it never came back. Many of us wonder what might have happened if the development of Arrow had been allowed to continue.


And, what, by the way, was the most recent good SF movie we had these days? I don't recall much coming out in the last few years. No more Star Treks, or are they doing re-runs from long ago?

Our "Space" channel shows all the ST shows as part of the daily schedule. I still like watching the original series. There's nobody like Mr. Spock.


They had Dr. Who and Torchwood on BBC, but it looked like also aimed at kids and fast-paced for the X and Y generation ADHD and Adult-ADHD mindsets (in other words, "speed" took priority over "substance").

I gave up on "Dr. Who" after Tom Baker left the series, though I did watch a few episodes with some of his successors. I quit watching entirely soon after David Tennant took over as I thought the plots were either completely silly or recycled from earlier episodes. I mean, how many times can one show the same Dalek story without changing it? (Daleks: the ultimate baddies. Accept no substitutes!)


I was looking for some good stuff on PBS and looked at "MI-5" and "New Tricks" and thought both were PoCs. Cheap, superficial, not credible.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks that "MI-5" (known as "Spooks" in the U. K.) is large on fluff and short on substance.

Unfortunately, that topic and style of presentation was copied by the series "NCIS", in which the only character remotely interesting is the coroner played by David McCallum. I fail to see why it's popular, as the plots are often hokey and most of the characters annoying and downright irritating. (I've worked in placed which would have fired that flaky lab tech. Her attitude, if nothing else, would merit a pink slip.)

Not to be outdone, we've got "The Border" here in Canada, which is an "MI-5"/"NCIS" clone. Again, I fail to see how come it's popular.

One problem with those shows is that they give the misleading impression that all the technology used to catch the baddies exists and, if it does, that it's in common use. Wall-size computer monitors? The power bill would be horrendous and chew up an agency's budget in short order. The RFI from such displays alone would make any radios completely unusable close by.

And, is it just me, or are those super-geeky characters completely unrealistic? No wonder a lot of my students were disappointed that understanding and using technology often involves thinking logically and that solutions sometimes take a long time to formulate, if they exist at all. Shows like the aforementioned convey a completely wrong impression.

Now if you want to watch a *good* spy-vs.-spy show, look up the British series "The Sandbaggers", which was produced about 30 years ago. It relies solely on plot and credible acting. In fact, I don't recall it ever having a musical score except for the opening and closing credits.


And, how about the Internet, itself? I've had the need to chase down some details on a number of subjects (scientific and technical) and find that if you do regular searches, you end up with quite a bit of trivial crap (and contradictory), too. So, instead of getting better-and-better, what were really getting is garbage-er-and-garbager-er-er.

Yup.








.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: "Starship Operators" disk 1: tech review
    ... My complaints are about how it looked. ... characters as cell animation and the spaceships as CGI. ... The battle scenes look lousy. ... Eh, this wasn't character design, it was costume design. ...
    (rec.arts.startrek.tech)
  • Re: OE v.6 - MIME/Quoted Printable?
    ... "MIME/Quoted Printable design issue". ... found "OE-QuoteFix", ... characters when I hit "Reply Group". ... The C++ author of OE-QF also says that the ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.inetexplorer.ie6_outlookexpress)
  • Re: OE v.6 - MIME/Quoted Printable?
    ... And I hope I haven't missed a FAQ somewhere ... "MIME/Quoted Printable design issue". ... characters when I hit "Reply Group". ... my OE news font set to 14 pt. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.inetexplorer.ie6_outlookexpress)
  • underground Dwarven city design
    ... The players have been playing other characters and races so far, and they have usually lived elsewhere in the world. ... Now I have the four players playing three dwarves and a hobbit, and they have decided to live in the main dwarven city on the continent. ... That's all fine and dandy, were it not that I have only designed the top level of the city, which the characters sometimes visited, making up the rest below as vague scenery, and never paid too much attention to little details, since the characters never went there. ... Now they would like to go live at the second level, and gave me a design of their new "house" and I'm suddenly being confronted with design questions and challenges I hadn't thought of before. ...
    (rec.games.frp.dnd)
  • Re: Soap Digest for RFC
    ... the players, characters, and plots for RFC? ... Perhaps one could take the time to just shortly outline the main characters ... Christy had many many friends on rfc. ...
    (rec.food.cooking)