Paradigm shifts and B5/Trek

[B5JMS Poster]

Subject: Paradigm shifts and B5/Trek
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 No. | DATE        |  FROM
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s  1: Nov 26, 1996: cortese at netcom.com (Janis Maria C. C. Cortese)
*  2: Nov 28, 1996: jmsatb5 at aol.com

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From: cortese at netcom.com (Janis Maria C. C. Cortese)
Lines: 60

Just read one of the jms post amalgams that get posted here every now
and again and in it, he discusses the paradigm shift that has taken
place for a lot of people viz. Trek and B5.  It's interesting to see it
happen, because I've been feeling the same thing happen to myself at
*precisely* the same time, and only became really strongly aware of
it after digging out a tape of "Night Terrors" to watch after throwing
"The Fall of Night" and "Parliament of Dreams" into the VCR.  (What can
I say -- I'm a dyed-in-the-wool fan of John Vickery.  Leave it to
the Trek franchise to have a pertinent scene with Troi and Worf, for
christ's sake, the two biggest wastes of airtime in the history of
American broadcasting, and leave AKTOR MAN[tm] comatose in the next
room. *patient sigh*)

Anyhow, it was *fascinating* to watch B5 so damned much and then back up
and watch TNG.  I had forgotten how *sterile* looking that show was --
the smooth and untextured walls, unornamented.  The Jack Webb/Dragnet
school of emoting wherein a character communicates the fact that they
are emotionally troubled by saying, "I am emotionally troubled."

The fact that they slapped their chests to talk to one another and not
their hands.

The transporters.

Turbolifts instead of transport tubes.  And why the hell don't the doors
rotate out of the way?  When you actively, consciously *catch* yourself
thinking, "Hey, he slapped his chest to talk to someone -- is that . . .
oh, that's right," it's a *damned* weird feeling.

Huge, one spaces and brightly lit everything.

The lack of humor.

Uniforms from the Colorforms School of textile design instead of those
nice dark blue Eisenhower jackets.

I felt as if I had been *deprogrammed,* and stopped thinking of the
future in terms of that one vision of it, and being a hard scientist,
that's a pretty embarrassing admission to make.  But it was stunning to
*feel* it happen to myself.  After a lifetime of watching Trek as the
*only* vision of the future that most people were aware of, it's amazing
to become fully aware of the depth of the belief suspension, until it
seems like the "real" future is the one with the Crayola uniforms and
the communicators on the chest.  It's really amazing, and irritating as
it may be, it's an absolutely *fascinating* thing to realize about
oneself, the depths to which you can learn to take things for granted
that are *entirely* constructed.  It's pretty sobering, actually.

Take care,
Janis
cortese at netcom.com                        http://www.io.com/~cortese/
Homepage includes Feminism, Lefthanders, and Handgun Education Links!
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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com
Lines: 32

"I felt as if I had been *deprogrammed,* and stopped thinking of the
future in terms of that one vision of it, and being a hard scientist,
that's a pretty embarrassing admission to make.  But it was stunning
to*feel* it happen to myself.  After a lifetime of watching Trek as the
*only* vision of the future that most people were aware of, it's amazing
to become fully aware of the depth of the belief suspension, until it
seems like the "real" future is the one with the Crayola uniforms and the
communicators on the chest."

This was something I began to really understand during the first season,
and was something I hadn't anticipated going in.  Some of the reaction
against B5 was so strong from some groups of ST fans...it wasn't just one
show vs. another, there was a vehemence in it that was coming from
something deeper.  

Eventually I began to figure it out, that it was also two competing
visions of the future.  I've mentioned before the angry letter I got that,
among other things, said that the person was thrown every time one of our
characters used a hand link when "everyone *knows* that by then we'll be
using chest communicators."  It was a vision thing (to use a fairly recent
campaign slogan).  The problem then becomes, for lack of a better term, a
religious problem...competing ideologies, notions to which one has
committed oneself.  And the most heated wars are always religious wars.

It's been...interesting.


 jms




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