Attn: JMS, Re: No Hugo for *SiL*
Von Bruno
With the Sci-Fi Channel website reporting that the 1999 Hugo award for *Best
Dramatic Presentation* went to "The Truman Show" do you feel this was a rebuke
of B5's fifth and final season (which many are saying has lead to a dramatic
softening of support for your sci-fi franchise)?
-Von Bruno-
Brian Watson
I can't speak for JMS, and wouldn't ever consider it, but the fact that the Hugo
went to such a wonderful movie is refreshing to me personally. If it had gone to
some drivel like ST: Insurrection instead of The Truman Show or B5, then I'd be
upset. But that it went to something deserving is a good thing.
Jms at B5
>Dramatic Presentation* went to "The Truman Show" do you feel this was a
>rebuke
>of B5's fifth and final season (which many are saying has lead to a dramatic
>softening of support for your sci-fi franchise)?
>
Not at all (and I still don't consider it a franchise; how can it be a
franchise if it's not continuing?).
What I was told by those involved is that SiL did not air in Australia during
or before the voting period; it did not, in fact, finally air until after the
WorldCon itself was over by three days. And the majority of folks coming to
WorldCon were, of course, Australians. So they didn't *see* the episode to
vote for it.
I would not expect, or want, anyone to vote for the episode sight-unseen. To
do so means you've missed the point of the show.
Truman Show (a damned good movie and well worth the award, btw) was written by
a New Zealander, and directed by an Australian, so was the next logical choice.
Once I knew that SiL wasn't going to air until after the Hugos, I pretty much
knew it wouldn't get the Hugo. (As it was, according to the site with all the
official numbers, SiL did get more raw numbers of votes than any other
nominee, but due to the Australian balloting system, which uses a weighted
scale, TS got the actual award.)
And I note that the question is phrased in your usual negative fashion, and
frankly, I heard from many folks who said that S5 was their favorite season,
and there's a great editorial in Frontier (the main SF magazine in Australia
and a fine publication) that sang the praises of S5 as necessary and right.
jms
(jms...@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
Maciek Dobrzanski
[MODERATOR'S NOTE: The person you are quoting is referring to the
actual Hugo award that was presented this past weekend at the World
Science Fiction Convention in Melbourne, Australia. You're confusing
the poll that sfc is running with the actual award CLM]
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> With the Sci-Fi Channel website reporting that the 1999 Hugo award for
> *Best Dramatic Presentation* went to "The Truman Show" do you feel
this
> was a rebuke of B5's fifth and final season (which many are saying has
> lead to a dramatic softening of support for your sci-fi franchise)?
I seem to have some dificulties with reading or maybe there is something
wrong with my eyes, because every time I look at (yet) *unofficial*
results I see "Sleeping in Light" on the first place with 465 votes.
That's far ahead of second place, "Dark City", with 151 votes.
--
Bye,
* Maciek Dobrzanski * ma...@scifi.pl * http://scifi.pl/
*
* "Their [Rangers] goal is to create the peace, not enforce the peace."
* -- Delenn in Babylon 5:"Rising Star"
Matthew Zenkar
<snip>
>And I note that the question is phrased in your usual negative fashion, and
>frankly, I heard from many folks who said that S5 was their favorite season,
>and there's a great editorial in Frontier (the main SF magazine in Australia
>and a fine publication) that sang the praises of S5 as necessary and right.
I second that motion completely. B5 S5 was superb!!!!
Tammy Smith
my disappointment.
Also, I did mostly like the 5th season (except for Byron & the
telepaths). I do think that people are too hard on it. I have seen
much worse in other series, so even when B5 is "weak", it is still good.
Tammy
Von Bruno
It is still being merchandised isn't it? It is, for now anyway, being used as a
basis for books and what not .. unless you are officially saying that the B5
universe is dead, buried, and otherwise totally defunct?
<<What I was told by those involved is that SiL did not air in Australia during
or before the voting period; it did not, in fact, finally air until after the
WorldCon itself was over by three days.>>
Someone e-mailed me the other day mentioning this fact, and it again leads me
to the conclusion that their entire balloting process needs to be revamped as
it, in my opinion, totally undermines and erodes the significance of the Hugo
award itself.
How something can get nominated for award consideration when the folks who are
going to make that determination aren't provided the opportunity to even see
the thing their judging. It is absolutely moronic.
Also, from what I understand, you have arranged for episode screenings at
conventions in the past ... was there any reason why no screening of *SiL* was
setup for the convention prior to voting?
<<I note that the question is phrased in your usual negative fashion, ...>>
I would say it was a hard question but not a necessarily negative one.
<<I heard from many folks who said that S5 was their favorite season ...>>
That is their opinion and that is fine, however, the fact is that, honestly
speaking, season five IS generally hailed as the weakest and least satisfying
of the shows run.
In my opinion, if Babylon-5 had ended after season four I would have given it
an overall grade of "B+," however, factoring in season five drops it down to a
rather generous "C."
-Von Bruno-
Jonathan Blum
Von Bruno <vonb...@aol.com> wrote:
><<What I was told by those involved is that SiL did not air in Australia during
>or before the voting period; it did not, in fact, finally air until after the
>WorldCon itself was over by three days.>>
>Someone e-mailed me the other day mentioning this fact, and it again leads me
>to the conclusion that their entire balloting process needs to be revamped as
>it, in my opinion, totally undermines and erodes the significance of the Hugo
>award itself.
>How something can get nominated for award consideration when the folks who are
>going to make that determination aren't provided the opportunity to even see
>the thing their judging. It is absolutely moronic.
How can this happen? Simple. Enough Hugo-voters (from the US, UK, etc)
had seen "Sleeping In Light", and thought it was worth nominating, to get
it onto the ballot. Not enough Hugo-voters had seen it, and thought it
worth voting for, to win. No miscarriage of justice necessary.
In terms of people not having the opportunity to see all the nominees --
that's about par for the course. The Hugos include categories for
fanzines, which are notoriously spotty in their availability, and short
stories, some of which are only available in obscure (to Australia) import
mags. You'd really have to go on a hunt to locate and study *everything*
that's been nominated for a Hugo.
>Also, from what I understand, you have arranged for episode screenings at
>conventions in the past ... was there any reason why no screening of *SiL* was
>setup for the convention prior to voting?
As I understand it -- originally SiL would have aired some time before the
convention, but Channel Nine pre-empted B5 repeatedly for sporting events,
pushing back the end of the season. I assume JMS didn't know about the
non-airing until late in the day -- I don't know whether he had enough
warning to ask for a screening beforehand.
(OTOH, for all I know, he *might* have scheduled a screening. When I got
there, the WorldCon staff was already in a state of scheduling chaos --
the printed program book was obsolete before the con started. The panel I
was on was listed in the program book, but wasn't in the database -- it
would have fallen through the cracks and been left off the schedule if I
hadn't kept noodging the poor volunteers.)
In any case, JMS *did* bring a copy of SiL to the con.
But the story goes on.
First, his arrival in Australia was delayed by a day, after the plane he
was supposed to fly in on sucked a bird into its jet engine and had to
return to LA. So the con started on Thursday, and JMS didn't arrive till
Friday.
When he got there, he tried to turn the first panel he was on into an
impromptu screening of SiL, but that didn't happen; then he tried to
schedule the screening for right after that first panel, but the theater
was booked. However, he *did* get a screening put into the daily schedule
updates for the next day.
They got it into the schedule for Saturday at 3:30 -- where it collided
with both the 3:00 and 4:00 panels.
The Hugos were given out Saturday at 8:00 PM.
I'm not sure what time balloting closed for the Hugos, but I can
understand why lots of people might have turned in their ballots before
then -- especially given that they didn't know about the screening before
the Saturday morning schedule update came out. Some friends I'd talked to
had dropped them off the day they arrived at the con, IIRC.
In any case, I think the last-minute screening probably did help SiL's
standings, but I can only wonder how it would have done if it had been
given exposure comparable to the other nominees...
Regards,
Jon Blum
Von Bruno
I disagree. It sounds to me like the whole Hugo award process is a prime
example of "miscarriage of justice."
Even though I would not have voted for the Babylon-5 episode "Sleeping in
Light" doesn't mean I would want it to lose "at all costs." I am of the opinion
that if a *dramatic presentation* is selected as a finalist in the award
determination than a system should be in place to provide a fair-as-possible
playing field.
People, here and elsewhere, like to point out that, in the past, B5 has beaten
out Trek for the Hugo. That is fine, but I would like to believe they won on a
level playing field and not by default based on the process being inheritly
flawed to the point of rendering the award meaningless.
-Von Bruno-
Alyson L. Abramowitz
Von Bruno wrote:
> <<What I was told by those involved is that SiL did not air in Australia during
> or before the voting period; it did not, in fact, finally air until after the
> WorldCon itself was over by three days.>>
>
> Someone e-mailed me the other day mentioning this fact, and it again leads me
> to the conclusion that their entire balloting process needs to be revamped as
> it, in my opinion, totally undermines and erodes the significance of the Hugo
> award itself.
Your choice of liking or disliking B5 or 5th season B5 is your own
(though if a show only got a C in my mind, I'd find another newsgroup to
haunt, myself).
I do feel a need to explain the Hugo process since there seems to be
some confusion here. Like most awards, there is a definition of
eligibility for Hugo Awards. The actual document which guides the
process can be found at: http://www.aussiecon3.wsfs.org/const.html.
The general process for eligibility is as follows: an item is eligible
if it is a work of science fiction or fantasy which appeared in English
and is "publicly presented" (if a dramatic work) or the publication or
cover date for a piece of written work during the previous calendar
year.
Realistically it is impossible to wait for distribution to all countries
of the world before voting on an item. This can sometimes mean that a
novel, magazine, or dramatic presentation published in English in a
smaller country may not get the exposure it deserves. This certainly
occurs in the fanzine and magazine categories. The Hugos do not make for
perfect results.
All members (Supporting or Attending) as of the point of the Hugo
Ballots can vote.
I have to disagree with jms about why SiL didn't win. An absolutely
valid complaint about the Hugo is that it is overwhelmingly dominated by
folks from the States. Most Worldcons are still in the States. So there
is a significant incentive for an American to join (if only to be a
Supporting member, get to vote on the Hugos and have a say in the
location of the worldcon 3 years from now... and cheaper rates).
Looking at the membership numbers, overwhelmingly more than 70% of the
members would have had an opportunity to see SiL before voting for the
Hugos. And at that I didn't count the folks in "Other", Japan, and New
Zealand, whose prospects for seeing SiL I didn't know. And, of course,
that doesn't count the folks who saw bootleg copies (which clearly had
made it to Australia). Probably more than 30% of the con didn't see/read
all the nominees in ANY category.
It might be interesting to see a breakdown by country but I don't think
results are published at that level (it is supposed to be a secret
ballot). The reality is all of the votes could have come from the States
to make any item on the ballot win (or not win).
> How something can get nominated for award consideration when the folks who are
> going to make that determination aren't provided the opportunity to even see
> the thing their judging. It is absolutely moronic.
If the Hugos were handled like the Oscars and lots of folks made copies
of their books, dramatic presentations, and magazines available for free
to the voting members, the issue wouldn't come up. The Hugos are a
popular award given by folks who, overwhelmingly, do not make their
living in sf/fantasy. The worldcon is run entirely by volunteers. No one
is paid unless services must be hired (e.g., a printer or a convention
center). No guests receive fees for coming (unlike media cons). There
just isn't the possibilities to get distribution to all the members of
all the nominees (no less the prospective nominees). In some cases, for
example fanzines, their print run is far less than the potential voting
members of the con! It is just a different scale than the Emmys or
Oscars.
>
> Also, from what I understand, you have arranged for episode screenings at
> conventions in the past ... was there any reason why no screening of *SiL* was
> setup for the convention prior to voting?
I don't understand how this could be done. The voting is done by mail
months before the con. The potential full voting membership never even
physically comes together since Supporting as well as Attending members
can, and generally do, vote. So I don't think anything was lacking that
is not "normal".
I doubt this will change Von Bruno's mind but it might help explain the
general process for folks unfamiliar.
Alyson
Jms at B5
>conventions in the past ... was there any reason why no screening of *SiL*
>was
>setup for the convention prior to voting?
Because the voting is done long before the convention, by mail. Clearly you do
not have any clear idea on the process.
>That is their opinion and that is fine, however, the fact is that, honestly
>speaking, season five IS generally hailed as the weakest and least satisfying
>of the shows run.
So if somebody else says something, that's their opinion, but if you say it,
it's a fact, is that it?
Jms at B5
To finish:
>That is their opinion and that is fine, however, the fact is that, honestly
>speaking, season five IS generally hailed as the weakest and least satisfying
>of the shows run.
To repeat...if someone else says they like it, then that's their opinion, but
when you say something, it's the facts, right? That's what you're saying here.
Please give me the facts and figures to back this up, because it ain't what I
hear at conventions, and it ain't reflected in the only -- ONLY -- objective
form of reportage on B5's history: the P5 poll.
In the P5 poll, in which 2,403 people voted on episodes over the 5 year history
of B5, the rankings are as follows, by season:
PILOT: 6.32
S1: 7.52
S2: 8.11
S3: 8.38
S4: 8.58
S5: 8.35
With a standard deviation of .61, which means that the S5 rating could be as
high as 9. The .23 difference between S4 and S5 is statistically insignificant
on every conceivable level, and even without that, the pilot, S1 and S2 ALL
rated below S5 in the poll and it's essentially identical to S3.
I've shown my homework, now you show yours. Some people take it as read,
because THEY didn't like it, that everybody else feels the same way (and I've
heard from a LOT of people who very much liked S5 but just got tired of being
shouted down by a few fanatics and stopped posting). Again, the facts do NOT
bear out your -- and I emphasize this word -- OPINION. Sorry, but you do not
have the key to unvarnished truth, only to your opinion, which is flatly and
provably WRONG.
So the facts definitely contradict you, as they tend to so often in your posts,
from your claim through a "friend" that Harlan drinks, to this, to not knowing
or understanding how the Hugo system works before criticizing it...it's a
definite pattern on your part.
Arwel Parry
<jb...@zipper.zip.com.au> writes
>In article <19990911164700...@ng-cg1.aol.com>,
>Von Bruno <vonb...@aol.com> wrote:
>><<What I was told by those involved is that SiL did not air in Australia during
>>or before the voting period; it did not, in fact, finally air until after the
>>WorldCon itself was over by three days.>>
>
>>Someone e-mailed me the other day mentioning this fact, and it again leads me
>>to the conclusion that their entire balloting process needs to be revamped as
>>it, in my opinion, totally undermines and erodes the significance of the Hugo
>>award itself.
>
>>going to make that determination aren't provided the opportunity to even see
>>the thing their judging. It is absolutely moronic.
>
>had seen "Sleeping In Light", and thought it was worth nominating, to get
>worth voting for, to win. No miscarriage of justice necessary.
>
>that's about par for the course. The Hugos include categories for
>fanzines, which are notoriously spotty in their availability, and short
>stories, some of which are only available in obscure (to Australia) import
>mags. You'd really have to go on a hunt to locate and study *everything*
>that's been nominated for a Hugo.
Very true, which is why I leave a lot of the categories blank when I
send my vote in. In the "Dramatic Presentation" category B5 has been
very much the exception to the usual practice in that we had usually
seen most of the same episodes in the US and UK (even if not in
Australia!) by the time the Hugo nomination and voting papers come out.
Usually, we haven't even seen most of the nominated movies in the UK
until around voting time (if then).
>>Also, from what I understand, you have arranged for episode screenings at
>>conventions in the past ... was there any reason why no screening of *SiL* was
>>setup for the convention prior to voting?
This would have had no effect on the outcome anyway, as the voting
deadline for the Hugos is several weeks before the convention -- the
votes have to be mailed from all over the world, and it takes _time_ to
count up all those preferential ballots.
>I'm not sure what time balloting closed for the Hugos, but I can
>understand why lots of people might have turned in their ballots before
>then -- especially given that they didn't know about the screening before
>the Saturday morning schedule update came out. Some friends I'd talked to
>had dropped them off the day they arrived at the con, IIRC.
I think you'll find those would have been site-selection ballots for the
2002 Worldcon, a different vote altogether!
--
Arwel Parry
http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/
Fight Spam! Join EuroCAUCE: http://www.euro.cauce.org/
John Lorentz
wrote:
>They got it into the schedule for Saturday at 3:30 -- where it collided
>with both the 3:00 and 4:00 panels.
>
>The Hugos were given out Saturday at 8:00 PM.
>
>I'm not sure what time balloting closed for the Hugos, but I can
>understand why lots of people might have turned in their ballots before
>then -- especially given that they didn't know about the screening before
>the Saturday morning schedule update came out. Some friends I'd talked to
>had dropped them off the day they arrived at the con, IIRC.
>
>In any case, I think the last-minute screening probably did help SiL's
>standings, but I can only wonder how it would have done if it had been
>given exposure comparable to the other nominees...
If friends had dropped the ballots off the day they arrived, someone
must have cheerfully tossed them in the trash--since the deadline for
voting was a month earlier. (Balloting does _not_ take place at the
con.)
It takes several days to count the ballots (took us about a week
last year, including recounting a particularly close category), and
several more days to have the plaques engraved for the trophies.
If indeed most of the attendees at Aussiecon 3 were Australians,
this was a change from the previous Australian worldcon in 1985, when
there were more attendees from the US than from Australia. (I'd be
interested to see the geographic breakdown--but I'd be astonished if
the majority of the Hugo voters were Aussies, since it only takes a
stamp to vote for the Hugos and the usual pattern is that more of the
votes will come from prople in the US and the UK. Being several
thousand miles away--and not attending Aussiecon 3--didn't stop us
from voting.)
--
John (Bucky Hugo Counter, retired)
Alyson L. Abramowitz
Balloting Process and the SiL showing at AussieCon. As the person who
was representing Program Operations when we tried to show SiL the first
time, I can tell you exactly what happened there. Let me also try to
explain the Hugo balloting process for those unfamiliar.
The timing or availability of SiL at AussieCon for screening was fun but
in no way affected the balloting process. I hope JMS understands (yes?)
that the Hugo awards were voted on by all members of the World SF
Convention who returned a ballot by August 13, 1999 to the convention.
Just like the Oscars, the Worldcon is the place where the awards are
*presented* not the place where they are *voted on*. So anyone who
dropped off a ballot at the beginning of worldcon had no affect on the
balloting process. Nor did any showing during the con. The awards were
already counted long before.
This is why I disagree with jms about the affect of SiL not being shown
in Australia before the Hugo balloting process making a significant
affect on the voting outcome. All you need is a Supporting membership to
vote. There is no requirement to attend the con or the Hugo Awards
ceremony.
Naturally, there is some addition of local fans who might not normally
make it to a worldcon but who join and attend because it is in their
backyard. A huge percentage of worldcon attendees are normally folks who
come back year after year (our retention rate is very high).
Although I've never seen a statistic on the topic, I suspect there is a
greater tendency for those who have never voted before to vote (it was a
lot more special to vote on the Hugos my first few times than my 10th).
So there is some tipping in the general direction of local folks.
The fundamental thing to realize in this case is that of the potential
voters, over 70% of them would have had an easy opportunity to see SiL
before the voting took place. That is more than can be said for some of
the fanzines or magazines. It was a fair vote and SiL just didn't get
enough second and third place votes to win.
Jonathan Blum wrote:
> (OTOH, for all I know, he *might* have scheduled a screening. When I got
> there, the WorldCon staff was already in a state of scheduling chaos --
> the printed program book was obsolete before the con started. The panel I
> was on was listed in the program book, but wasn't in the database -- it
> would have fallen through the cracks and been left off the schedule if I
> hadn't kept noodging the poor volunteers.)
What you didn't see was what was happening behind the scenes. The head
of programming up until about the Monday before AussieCon was removed
and programming was handed to Programming Operations on Tuesday. The
con started on Thursday with the vast majority of folks already around
on Tuesday or Wednesday. Although the program panels were fairly well
conceived (minus some confusion on last minute panels which always seems
to go on), the organization of panels was done on a spreadsheet and was
perceived to have some problems such an non-containment of audio-visual
equipment.
The panels were also organized on a spreadsheet. This works great for a
200 person con. For a worldcon-sized program, it makes it difficult to
find folks who are accidentally scheduled for two items at the same
time. For those who have never been to a worldcon, you need to realize
the size of this problem. Worldcon's typically run 6-9 tracks of
programming (many of whom have 2-5 people on them) simultaneously. It is
easy to double book someone or run them ragged under the circumstances!
Everything was manually transferred to a database application, written
on the day. The result was that while the general timing of panels was
mostly right, their location was altered. I don't think I spoke to you,
Johnathan, but I'm not surprised if your panel got lost in the manual
and frantic transcription from spreadsheet to database. It was
particularly difficult if you asked for something beyond the current day
at the beginning (gave a whole new meaning to One Day At A Time :-))
>
> In any case, JMS *did* bring a copy of SiL to the con.
>
> But the story goes on.
>
>
> When he got there, he tried to turn the first panel he was on into an
> impromptu screening of SiL, but that didn't happen; then he tried to
> schedule the screening for right after that first panel, but the theater
> was booked. However, he *did* get a screening put into the daily schedule
> updates for the next day.
And here was another set of ummm, challenges? I was doing Room Managing
for that first panel (while also trying to watch it!). I knew we didn't
have anything in the room afterwards. If you work program ops and you
also watch a panel you have to do the room set up for the next set of
panels in the room. There were no panels to be set according to our
master schedule.
When JMS mentioned bringing a copy of SiL along to be shown, I was the
one who suggested that we could probably append it to the panel he was
already doing in the same room. I confirmed with the master schedule
what I already knew and we put SiL on in the room according to our
database. Since Program Ops was also Programming, that should have been
the end of things.
What we didn't know was that the person who had done programming up till
the Monday (remember her?) was apparently still organizing some panels
too. So a panel appeared (actually a tv premiere presentation for Damon
Dark) right at the time when SiL was officially scheduled. JMS was
gracious and just let them go on (technically the Damon Dark panel
should not have been there). We finally sorted out what was happening
behind the scenes, and JMS got a new time for SiL.
> They got it into the schedule for Saturday at 3:30 -- where it collided
> with both the 3:00 and 4:00 panels.
Given the huge amount of programming, collisions are eniviatable. I
regularly wanted to be in 3 places or no where. And working program ops
I got to see the last 10 minutes of some panels which sounded
entertaining enough I'd wished I'd seen the rest. There is no way to
win with that many tracks of programming unless you have perfected human
cloning.
So think what you will of some of the challenging areas of running a
worldcon or the Hugo process. Each could certainly use improvements.
If you care about it enough, volunteer to help at the next one. Or
come to the Business Meetings and help to form the policies for Hugo
process selection or the other items which Worldcons do. We always need
the constructive help.
Best,
Alyson
Alyson L. Abramowitz
John Lorentz wrote:
>
> If indeed most of the attendees at Aussiecon 3 were Australians,
> this was a change from the previous Australian worldcon in 1985, when
> there were more attendees from the US than from Australia. (I'd be
> interested to see the geographic breakdown--but I'd be astonished if
Overwhelmingly the biggest number of attendees at AussieCon were from
the States. I'll see if folks have a geographic breakdown for
attendees. Do you normally do a geographic breakdown of Hugo voters?
I've never seen one.
Best,
Alyson
Sergey Bukhman
Jms at B5 wrote:
>
> My prior message was cut off before I finished...wonky computer today....
>
> To finish:
>
> >That is their opinion and that is fine, however, the fact is that, honestly
> >speaking, season five IS generally hailed as the weakest and least satisfying
> >of the shows run.
>
> To repeat...if someone else says they like it, then that's their opinion, but
> when you say something, it's the facts, right? That's what you're saying here.
>
Hey JMS... Do you think Season 5 was as good as 4, 3 and 2? You make
referrals to numbers and statistics (which on other occasions you deem
worse than damn lies :-) ) but, really, did you like it? Was it up to
par with the rest of the show? Manypeople on the nets have deemed most
of season 5 boring and overdone, mostly because of the telepath arc.
Many people just felt like they don't care about the telepaths, mostly
because they were nothing like real people. Remember the telepaths back
in a Season 1 or 2 episode (the one when talya helped them to stand up
to bester)? They were real. They were imperfect, flawed. They were not a
bunch of overacting models in goth clothing. Almost everything to do
with the telepath arc was sub par. The speeches, the singing (oh god,
the singing) the over dramatization. It was cardboard, all of it. And
people didn't care. In fact, some cheered when Jesu.. uh, Byron torched
himself.
A common theory is that if you had been sure of a fifth season, the
Earth Civil war would have been stretched into it, taking the spotlight
off the civil war. I do not know whether it's true, but it does make
some sence,coupled with your promise that season 5 will be 100% "oomph",
which it clearly wasn't.
Personally, I find the telepath episodes forgettable and forgotten. When
I think of Season 5, I usually think of the final 10 or so, which were
quite good. SiL was a bit over emotional and very week on the story. Was
the reason for blowing up B5 not the mother of all anti-climaxes? It
didn't even have a logical reason (the danger of B5 being taken over by
raiders makes much more sense).
> Please give me the facts and figures to back this up, because it ain't what I
> hear at conventions, and it ain't reflected in the only -- ONLY -- objective
> form of reportage on B5's history: the P5 poll.
>
> In the P5 poll, in which 2,403 people voted on episodes over the 5 year history
> of B5, the rankings are as follows, by season:
>
> PILOT: 6.32
> S1: 7.52
> S2: 8.11
> S3: 8.38
> S4: 8.58
> S5: 8.35
>
Of course, mostly, only people who would call themselves fans would vote
on that poll. Most people who watch the show don't even know it exists.
I doubt that someone who is not satisfied with the show would spend his
time voting on relatively obscure internet polls. I know I liked most of
the show and I never bothered to vote. But I may be wrong.
> With a standard deviation of .61, which means that the S5 rating could be as
> high as 9.
Or as low as 7.74 :-)
> The .23 difference between S4 and S5 is statistically insignificant
> on every conceivable level, and even without that, the pilot, S1 and S2 ALL
> rated below S5 in the poll and it's essentially identical to S3.
>
> I've shown my homework, now you show yours. Some people take it as read,
> because THEY didn't like it, that everybody else feels the same way (and I've
> heard from a LOT of people who very much liked S5 but just got tired of being
> shouted down by a few fanatics and stopped posting). Again, the facts do NOT
> bear out your -- and I emphasize this word -- OPINION. Sorry, but you do not
> have the key to unvarnished truth, only to your opinion, which is flatly and
> provably WRONG.
>
Oh, Season 5 is not hailed as generally the least satisfying of all the
seasons?
JM, I assume you read this NG. If you did, you'd surely have noticed a
rising number of negative posts regarding Season 5. Were they all
fanatics?
Yes, in my opinion Season 5 was the worst. You disagree? Then which
season is worse than Season 5, by you?
--
Sergey
--
KPS, PUNK (Paramilitary Undercover Nuclear Kamikaze)
Farrell McGovern
> We seem to have two topics confused in with each other: the Hugo
> Balloting Process and the SiL showing at AussieCon. As the person who
> was representing Program Operations when we tried to show SiL the first
> time, I can tell you exactly what happened there. Let me also try to
> explain the Hugo balloting process for those unfamiliar.
I would listen to Alyson, she knows her stuff here, and is a
decent person besides.
> This is why I disagree with jms about the affect of SiL not being shown
> in Australia before the Hugo balloting process making a significant
> affect on the voting outcome. All you need is a Supporting membership to
> vote. There is no requirement to attend the con or the Hugo Awards
> ceremony.
Very true. I don't have the Hugo Stats, but it would take a large
number of local fen to sway the vote. Lots of people vote for the Hugos,
and unless it is in a very large city, local votes don't mean much. I
mean, how many members were from Oz this year?
ttyl
Farrell
no one of consequence
Jms at B5 <jms...@aol.com> wrote:
]>With the Sci-Fi Channel website reporting that the 1999 Hugo award for *Best
]>Dramatic Presentation* went to "The Truman Show" do you feel this was a
]>rebuke
]>of B5's fifth and final season (which many are saying has lead to a dramatic
]>softening of support for your sci-fi franchise)?
]
]Not at all (and I still don't consider it a franchise; how can it be a
]franchise if it's not continuing?).
So no LEGO Earth Alliance Starfury sets in the future? ;_;
Darn.
--
|Patrick Chester (aka: claypigeon, Sinapus) wol...@io.com |
|"Anything I can do to help?" "Um. Short of dying? No, can't think of a |
| thing." -Morden, Vir. 'Interludes and Examinations' -Babylon 5 |
|Wittier remarks always come to mind just after sending your article.... |
Mark Cashman (TeamB BCB)
entire series (movies, too) from end to end at a pretty even pace (2-3
eps per day, sometimes as high as 6) this year - even those who thought
S5 was weaker might change their mind if they watched it in that
context.
It's pretty tough to consider S5 as intense as S3 and S4 when you are
watching S3-S4 eps every day (with all the action and climax involved)
and S5 one ep a week (which is the resolution end of the arc), as
happened on TNT. But the truth is, in terms of quality storytelling and
importance to the completion of the arc, IMO, S5 is just as interesting
and powerful as any of the others.
I enjoyed S1 a lot, too. There were some fine epsiodes there.
The perspective offered by time and review helps generate a sense of
proportion in this as in everything else.
------
Mark Cashman, creator of The Temporal Doorway at
http://www.temporaldoorway.com
- Original digital art, writing, music and more -
Author of on-line science-fiction at...
http://www.temporaldoorway.com/library/index.htm
------
Tamara Metz
> referrals to numbers and statistics (which on other occasions you deem
> worse than damn lies :-) ) but, really, did you like it? Was it up to
> par with the rest of the show? Manypeople on the nets have deemed most
> of season 5 boring and overdone, mostly because of the telepath arc.
> Many people just felt like they don't care about the telepaths, mostly
> because they were nothing like real people. Remember the telepaths back
> in a Season 1 or 2 episode (the one when talya helped them to stand up
> to bester)? They were real. They were imperfect, flawed.
That's *exactly* what bothered me about the telepaths, and I didn't
realize it until you said it. They weren't real.
> They were not a
> bunch of overacting models in goth clothing.
ROFL!
> In fact, some cheered when Jesu.. uh, Byron torched
> himself.
I have to admit, I though it was sad. I don't like people dying, no
matter what. And yes, I know that isn't the best opinion to have; sue me.
> Personally, I find the telepath episodes forgettable and forgotten. When
> I think of Season 5, I usually think of the final 10 or so, which were
> quite good. SiL was a bit over emotional and very week on the story.
That's okay, I still liked it. Still cry about every other time I watch
it.
But everyone's entitled to their own opinion, that's what makes life
interesting. Personallly, when I see the lower score that season 2 got, I
wonder why? That was one of my favorite seasons. But I would say that
for me, S3 was indisputably the best.
Tamara Metz
> watching S3-S4 eps every day (with all the action and climax involved)
> and S5 one ep a week (which is the resolution end of the arc), as
> happened on TNT. But the truth is, in terms of quality storytelling and
> importance to the completion of the arc, IMO, S5 is just as interesting
> and powerful as any of the others.
That's if you see the show on TNT. As someone who watched the show from
S3 as it originally aired (and got tapes of S1 and S2 from someone on this
newsgroup!), my experience with S5 was much the same as the other seasons.
I would have to say S5 was about on an even par with S4, neither of which
I liked very much, but *some episodes did stand out*. Some of my favorite
episodes were in S4 and S5.
Anyway, my point is that since I now have most of the tapes, and also saw
B5 not every day but every week for all of the original airing that I was
aware of the show, I don't feel I'm biased in any temporal way.
> I enjoyed S1 a lot, too. There were some fine epsiodes there.
Yup.
Gary Farber
: <<Not enough Hugo-voters had seen it, and thought it worth voting for, to win.
: No miscarriage of justice necessary.>> jb...@zipper.zip.com.au
: I disagree. It sounds to me like the whole Hugo award process is a prime
: example of "miscarriage of justice."
That might be because you haven't a single clue as to what you are talking
about. Try using real "facts" next time, rather than false rumors from "a
friend."
[. . . .]
--
Copyright 1999 by Gary Farber; For Hire as: Web Researcher; Nonfiction
Writer, Fiction and Nonfiction Editor; gfa...@panix.com; Northeast US
Von Bruno
So, it WAS a level playing field, therefore, the failure of *Sleeping in Light*
to garner a Hugo award had nothing to with the excuses you listed. It was just
simply deemed unworthy by the eligible voters.
<<Clearly you do not have any clear idea on the process.>>
I did not claim to be an authority on the Hugo award process (why you choose to
misrepresent my posts is amazing to me), and it was you who said, "Once I knew
that SiL wasn't going to air until after the Hugos, I pretty much knew it
wouldn't get the Hugo. (As it was, according to the site with all the official
numbers, SiL did get more raw numbers of votes than any other
nominee, but due to the Australian balloting system, which uses a weighted
scale, TS got the actual award.)" So is the Hugo award process "fair" in your
opinion or not? It is, in my opinion, your posts on this matter are not only
confusing but duplicitous as well.
-Von Bruno-
Alyson L. Abramowitz
>
> I would listen to Alyson, she knows her stuff here, and is a
> decent person besides.
>
Thank you, Farrell. It is amazing what people from my past appear on
line.
The kind AussieCon Hugo Administrator did me a favor and spent a couple
of hours breaking down the Hugo voting by country. So folks, here are
the actual facts.
Items to remember in this process. Not everyone who can vote for the
Hugos will vote. Not everyone that votes will vote in every category.
341 people voted for the Novel category. The biggest vote getter was
the Dramatic Presentation with 378 votes.
438 people voted for at least one category of the Hugos this year. By
far the biggest number of them had Supporting memberships from the USA
(outnumbering even those with Attending memberships from the USA). The
statistics go like this:
HUGO VOTERS IN COUNTRIES WHERE SiL WAS SHOWN BEFORE HUGO BALLOTING
USA (Attending) 134
USA (Supporting) 164
UK+Canada 46 = 344 people
HUGO VOTERS IN COUNTRIES WHERE SiL WAS SHOWN AFTER HUGO
BALLOTING
Australia 84
NZ, Sweden, Germany,
Netherlands 10
I'm not sure the status of B5's completion in NZ, Sweden, Germany or the
Netherlands so I assumed they hadn't seen SiL yet. Have any of these
countries gotten SiL yet, JMS?
In either case, it isn't statistically significant. At least 344 of the
438 people, or about 79% of the voters (at least), would have had the
ability to see SiL before filling out the Hugo ballot.
So now you have the facts (I actually have breakdown by attending and
supporting for each country if folks are interested).
Enjoy.
Best,
Alyson
PS Some local Aussie fan should consider buying the Hugo Administrator a
drink or three for all the work he did specially for us. My drink is
going to have to wait a few years to catch up to him.--ala
Justin Bacon
(Von Bruno) writes:
>In my opinion, if Babylon-5 had ended after season four I would have given it
>an overall grade of "B+," however, factoring in season five drops it down to
>a rather generous "C."
It must be asked:
1. What are your grading standards?
2. What shows got A's in your book?
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Gary Farber
: Not at all (and I still don't consider it a franchise; how can it be a
: franchise if it's not continuing?).
: What I was told by those involved is that SiL did not air in Australia during
: or before the voting period; it did not, in fact, finally air until after the
: WorldCon itself was over by three days. And the majority of folks coming to
: WorldCon were, of course, Australians. So they didn't *see* the episode to
: vote for it.
Er, the majority of folks coming to Worldcon were, of course, American.
And since that's completely irrelevant, because the attendees are not the
voters, and the vote has been over long before the con, the overwhelming
majority of people voting for the Hugos were American, and an even greater
majority is formed when you add in the Brits.
So, um, the idea that the voters didn't have opportunity to see SiL is
entirely specious and false as a reason for SiL not winning a Hugo, I'm
afraid.
[. . .]
: Once I knew that SiL wasn't going to air until after the Hugos, I pretty much
: knew it wouldn't get the Hugo. (As it was, according to the site with all the
: official numbers, SiL did get more raw numbers of votes than any other
: nominee, but due to the Australian balloting system, which uses a weighted
: scale, TS got the actual award.)
No, it didn't get more "raw numbers of votes." That would be THE TRUMAN
SHOW, which is why it won. SiL got more first preference votes on the
first count, but that support rapidly diminished as the preferences were
further counted, and THE TRUMAN SHOW pulled ahead and won, based on the
raw numbers of votes. The scale is not "weighted" by any definition of
that term I'm familiar with.
Mark Maher
[ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ]
Sergey Bukhman wrote in message <37DC8DC8...@netropolis.net>...
>
>
>
>Hey JMS... Do you think Season 5 was as good as 4, 3 and 2? You make
>referrals to numbers and statistics (which on other occasions you deem
>worse than damn lies :-) ) but, really, did you like it? Was it up to
>par with the rest of the show? Manypeople on the nets have deemed most
>of season 5 boring and overdone, mostly because of the telepath arc.
>Many people just felt like they don't care about the telepaths, mostly
>because they were nothing like real people. Remember the telepaths back
>in a Season 1 or 2 episode (the one when talya helped them to stand up
>to bester)? They were real. They were imperfect, flawed. They were not a
>bunch of overacting models in goth clothing. Almost everything to do
>with the telepath arc was sub par. The speeches, the singing (oh god,
>the singing) the over dramatization. It was cardboard, all of it. And
>people didn't care. In fact, some cheered when Jesu.. uh, Byron torched
>himself.
>
>A common theory is that if you had been sure of a fifth season, the
>Earth Civil war would have been stretched into it, taking the spotlight
>off the civil war. I do not know whether it's true, but it does make
>some sence,coupled with your promise that season 5 will be 100% "oomph",
>which it clearly wasn't.
>
>Personally, I find the telepath episodes forgettable and forgotten. When
>I think of Season 5, I usually think of the final 10 or so, which were
>quite good. SiL was a bit over emotional and very week on the story. Was
>the reason for blowing up B5 not the mother of all anti-climaxes? It
>didn't even have a logical reason (the danger of B5 being taken over by
>raiders makes much more sense).
>
>Of course, mostly, only people who would call themselves fans would vote
>on that poll. Most people who watch the show don't even know it exists.
>I doubt that someone who is not satisfied with the show would spend his
>time voting on relatively obscure internet polls. I know I liked most of
>the show and I never bothered to vote. But I may be wrong.
>
The point that was made (in case the big words got away from you) was the P5
poll was the ONLY poll of any size that ranked each and every episode and
movie of the Babylon 5 series.
>
>Oh, Season 5 is not hailed as generally the least satisfying of all the
>seasons?
>JM, I assume you read this NG. If you did, you'd surely have noticed a
>rising number of negative posts regarding Season 5. Were they all
>fanatics?
Several people didn't like Season Five for a lot of reasons that had
nothing to do with the episodes. Some didn't like it because Claudia wasn't
there. Because she wasn't there, some folks immediately and unconditionally
hated the CAPT Lockley character. Some folks didn't like it because they had
gotten so used the the main story arc high energy episodes that finished off
season four. The off-arc character episodes at the beginning of season five
just turned them off. Some folks didn't like the pace of the telepath thread
(or the story itself). A lot of these folks argued their disdain with a
passion and piety normally preserved for that of a minister's pulpit. It
turned a lot of others AWAY from the newsgroup who got tired of dealing with
this.
And it's JMS, not JM. If you're going to attempt to get into a written
fencing match with someone, at least have the courtesy (not to mention
intellect) to spell his signoff correctly
>Yes, in my opinion Season 5 was the worst. You disagree? Then which
>season is worse than Season 5, by you?
>
At the end of the day, that's what we're talking about. Each individual has
an opinion. They believe that their opinion is right. But when it comes to
judging a television show, it's up to each individual to decide if they
liked it or not. Once it's done, you can debate your opinions with other
individuals until you're blue in the face if you like it. It DOES NOT make
your opinion fact. So you had some problems with season five; that's your
opinion.
Unfortunately, everybody's entitled to one.
__!_!__
Gizmo
Rich K. (netaxs staff)
picked up on it, but since nobody seems to have read the voting
analysis...
SIL had the most 1st place votes on the first ballot. Unfortunately, it
didn't have much support from everybody else. Here is the breakdown as
reported:
Ranking First Place Votes:
The Truman Show 1 89 90 99 125 187
Sleeping in Light-Babylon 5 2 104 104 112 115 138
Dark City 3 85 85 85 100
Pleasantville 4 53 54 56
Star Trek: Insurrection 5 27 27
No Award 20
The first column of numbers is the actual count of those who voted their
particular choice as #1. If no nominee has a majority (50%+1) of the
votes cast after a round, the lowest place is dropped, and the #2 choices
for that group of voters is added in. In this case, of the 27 who chose
"No Award" as 1st choice, 1 picked Truman as #2, 1 picked Pleasantville,
and the rest had no other nominations. Of the 27 surviving voters who
picked Insurrection #1, 9 picked Truman, 8 picked SIL, and 2 picked
Pleasantville their #2. The reason SIL lost? No support from those who
preferred Pleasantville or Dark City. Of the 56 Pleasantville voters, 26
preferred Truman Show, 15 liked Dark City, and only 3 chose SIL as their
#2 choice. And of the 100 who picked Dark City as #1 or #2, 62% preferred
Truman Show, 23% SIL.
SIL didn't lose because of lack of exposure. It lost because movie voters
preferred movies.
Justin Bacon
at B5) writes:
>
>In the P5 poll, in which 2,403 people voted on episodes over the 5 year
>history
>of B5, the rankings are as follows, by season:
>
>PILOT: 6.32
>S1: 7.52
>S2: 8.11
>S3: 8.38
>S4: 8.58
>S5: 8.35
>
This is *impossible*. How could the conviction of the majority be different
than the loud vocalizations of a minority?
;)
S5 was not my favorite season, but then I have problems trying to assign a
"favorite". In my mind the series breaks down nicely into either:
THREE ACTS
Season 1
Seasons 2-4
Season 5
Or:
FIVE ACTS
Season 1
Prelude to Shadows
Shadow War
Civil War
Epilogue (end of S4, S5))
Season 1 and Season 5 are *very* different than Seasons 2-3, which is
unsurprising considering that they are serving very different roles in terms of
the overall story being told.
[ This structure is very similar to most Shakespearean plays -- except in those
cases where the modern editors have screwed up and put the act divisions in the
wrong place. For example, Midsummer Night's Dream:
Act 1: Set-Up
Act 2: Into the Woods
Act 3: Mischief in the Woods
Act 4: Out of the Woods
Act 5: Epilogue
Or:
Act 1: Set-Up
Act 2: The Woods
Act 3: Epilogue
Hamlet lines up very nicely, once you fix the scene divisions in Act I and
readjust the act breaks from the faulty modern rendition:
Act 1: Set-Up (Ends with the Ghost's Revelation)
Act 2: Method (Ends with "Rogue" monologue)
Act 3: Proof (Ends with Claudius' life being spared)
Act 4: Exile (Ends with "All Occasions" monologue)
Act 5: Resolution (Ends the play)
Or:
Act 1: Set-Up
Act 2: Proof
Act 3: Resolution
But I have wandered rather far afield now. ]
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
A. Safron
Sergey Bukhman <ser...@netropolis.net> wrote in article
<37DC8DC8...@netropolis.net>...
>
>
> Jms at B5 wrote:
> >
> > My prior message was cut off before I finished...wonky computer
today....
> >
> > To finish:
> >
> > >That is their opinion and that is fine, however, the fact is that,
honestly
> > >speaking, season five IS generally hailed as the weakest and least
satisfying
> > >of the shows run.
> >
> > To repeat...if someone else says they like it, then that's their
opinion, but
> > when you say something, it's the facts, right? That's what you're
saying here.
B5 was created and ran as an arc. What does an arc do? It rises to a
peak,
then slows down, gradually to a point of rest. That is what the Babylon 5
TV series did. The highest point of arc (for me) was the Shadow War.
After
the good guys won, it was mostly down hill with some interesting writing on
the side. To say that the 5th season was weak is to simply to say that it
fulfulled
its entertainment and enlightenment value as the season that was meant to
slow down and come to a complete stop.
I thought I had left the telepath criticism behind me, but here it is
again: I
loved that part of the show and have it emblazoned in my memory.
(No flames, please.) This kind of psychic stuff is right up my alley.
Thank you, JMS,
-Ann Safron
Daryl Nash
>
> At the end of the day, that's what we're talking about. Each individual has
> an opinion. They believe that their opinion is right. But when it comes to
> judging a television show, it's up to each individual to decide if they
> liked it or not. Once it's done, you can debate your opinions with other
> individuals until you're blue in the face if you like it. It DOES NOT make
> your opinion fact. So you had some problems with season five; that's your
> opinion.
> Unfortunately, everybody's entitled to one.
>
> __!_!__
> Gizmo
As Harlan Ellison says, "No, everybody's entitled to an _informed_ opinion."
Most everyone on this ng knows the details of Babylon 5, both on- and
off-screen, so that's less of a problem here.
I've got an informed opinion of season five, but I'd rather address this idea
that everything's relative and that "it's up to each individual to decide if
they liked it or not." Are you trying to tell me that there is no qualitative
difference between Baywatch and Babylon 5? Or Silk Stalkings and NYPD Blue? Or
Suddenly Susan and Seinfeld?
I'm not exactly a fan of any of those teevee shows other than B5, but there are
very evident ways in which one is better than the other. It has to do with the
plot, the characterization, the dialogue, and drama. You may not be able to
quantify these things the way you could a chemical reaction, but some teevee
shows are undeniably better than others, just as some books and films are better
than others.
But then is it "fact" or "opinion" whether one book/film/teevee show is better
than another? It's neither. It's something in between. Life is not so simple
that you can break it down into either/or, tastes great/less filling,
fact/opinion.
I'll get down off my soapbox now, since everyone probably tuned out around the
second paragraph.
For anyone still reading, are you curious about my thoughts on season five? <g>
Daryl
Alyson L. Abramowitz
"Rich K. (netaxs staff)" wrote:
>
> SIL didn't lose because of lack of exposure. It lost because movie voters
> preferred movies.
Thanks for the wonderful analysis. I agree with your statement. If
Australians had made up the vast majority of voters (which was JMS'
initial assumption), the lack of exposure might have contributed
significantly to the voting. Since Aussie votes were a minority (see my
previous post on the national breakdown), the lack of exposure was
negligible.
If you have never participated in a Worldcon, there are many things
about it which are not obvious. There are fundamental differences
between sf fandom, worldcons, and any fandom or convention I've ever
experienced (including B5 conventions). If you play in each fandom with
the other's assumptions (e.g., equality and accessibility of Membership
versus Guest/Attendee) you tend to confuse the members of the other
culture.
One of worldcon's quirks is the continued domination by folks from the
States in voting and attendance. The worldcons have been getting more
and more international over their existence. Unfortunately their
American roots still very much show.
We won't even go into corner cases like sf comics (which have no good
place on the ballot at all). Those kind of cases confuse even the
initiated. It's not surprising that jms or anyone else not actively part
of the culture would understand that which we never write down. Though I
suppose it wouldn't be all that unreasonable to be sure the Hugo
nominees have an understanding of the implicit as well as explicit
process. Perhaps Chicon will take note.
Best,
Alyson
Sergey Bukhman
"A. Safron" wrote:
>
> Sergey Bukhman <ser...@netropolis.net> wrote in article
> <37DC8DC8...@netropolis.net>...
> >
> >
> > Jms at B5 wrote:
> > >
> > > My prior message was cut off before I finished...wonky computer
> today....
> > >
> > > To finish:
> > >
> > > >That is their opinion and that is fine, however, the fact is that,
> honestly
> > > >speaking, season five IS generally hailed as the weakest and least
> satisfying
> > > >of the shows run.
> > >
> > > To repeat...if someone else says they like it, then that's their
> opinion, but
> > > when you say something, it's the facts, right? That's what you're
> saying here.
>
I wrote none of that. Please quote properly.
--
Sergey
Sergey Bukhman
And my point is that it means pretty much zilch in the grad scheme of
things. It does not represent all the fans and is inherently more likely
to be swayed in favor of the show.
> >
> >Oh, Season 5 is not hailed as generally the least satisfying of all the
> >seasons?
> >JM, I assume you read this NG. If you did, you'd surely have noticed a
> >rising number of negative posts regarding Season 5. Were they all
> >fanatics?
>
> Several people didn't like Season Five for a lot of reasons that had
> nothing to do with the episodes. Some didn't like it because Claudia wasn't
> there. Because she wasn't there, some folks immediately and unconditionally
> hated the CAPT Lockley character. Some folks didn't like it because they had
> gotten so used the the main story arc high energy episodes that finished off
> season four. The off-arc character episodes at the beginning of season five
> just turned them off.
Maybe because they had expected JMS to live up to his promise that
Season 5 will be all "oomph", high arc, high impact episodes.
Some folks didn't like the pace of the telepath thread
> (or the story itself). A lot of these folks argued their disdain with a
> passion and piety normally preserved for that of a minister's pulpit. It
> turned a lot of others AWAY from the newsgroup who got tired of dealing with
> this.
>
So?
> And it's JMS, not JM. If you're going to attempt to get into a written
> fencing match with someone, at least have the courtesy (not to mention
> intellect) to spell his signoff correctly
>
Dear god, is that all you have to go on? A mis type?
> >Yes, in my opinion Season 5 was the worst. You disagree? Then which
> >season is worse than Season 5, by you?
> >
>
> At the end of the day, that's what we're talking about. Each individual has
> an opinion. They believe that their opinion is right. But when it comes to
> judging a television show, it's up to each individual to decide if they
> liked it or not. Once it's done, you can debate your opinions with other
> individuals until you're blue in the face if you like it. It DOES NOT make
> your opinion fact. So you had some problems with season five; that's your
> opinion.
And that's what I just said... Thank you for restating it in 4 times the
space.
> Unfortunately, everybody's entitled to one.
>
I'd say fortunately. But then again, I am not threatened by other
people's opinions. Even when they contradict mine.
Lars Haugseth
* jms...@aol.com (Jms at B5)
|
| >That is their opinion and that is fine, however, the fact is that, honestly
| >speaking, season five IS generally hailed as the weakest and least satisfying
| >of the shows run.
|
| To repeat...if someone else says they like it, then that's their opinion, but
| when you say something, it's the facts, right? That's what you're saying here.
|
| hear at conventions, and it ain't reflected in the only -- ONLY -- objective
| form of reportage on B5's history: the P5 poll.
Actually it's not the only one. It's not even the largest one.
Check out GEOS (The Global Episode Opinion Survey):
<URL: http://www.swd.net.au/cgi-bin/geos/results.cgi/season/bab/summary>
| In the P5 poll, in which 2,403 people voted on episodes over the 5 year history
| of B5, the rankings are as follows, by season:
|
| PILOT: 6.32
| S1: 7.52
| S2: 8.11
| S3: 8.38
| S4: 8.58
| S5: 8.35
The results for Babylon 5 from GEOS looks like this
(as of Sept. 16 1999):
S1: 7.39 (7669 votes cast)
S2: 7.95 (7256 votes cast)
S3: 8.18 (8003 votes cast)
S4: 8.37 (6859 votes cast)
S5: 8.15 (4775 votes cast)
To me it looks like the fifth season is NOT generally
considered to be the worst.
Regards,
--
Lars Haugseth
Joe Othello
>In the P5 poll, in which 2,403 people voted on episodes over the 5 year history
>of B5, the rankings are as follows, by season:
>
>PILOT: 6.32
>S1: 7.52
>S2: 8.11
>S3: 8.38
>S4: 8.58
>S5: 8.35
>
>With a standard deviation of .61, which means that the S5 rating could be as
>high as 9. The .23 difference between S4 and S5 is statistically insignificant
>on every conceivable level, and even without that, the pilot, S1 and S2 ALL
>rated below S5 in the poll and it's essentially identical to S3.
> jms
There are three kind of lies. Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Yes,
but there is an error in the logic JMS. You have more viewers towards
the end of the poll then you did at the begining. (Season 1 had fewer
people then season two and so on and so forth). Not to mention that
ease of internet access has also changed. In other words the poll
isn't offical nor controled means for gathering data, a fan of the
show put it together to rank the episodes. For a good look at episode
performance, one has to look at nelson's which is also has it's flaws.
Some of the long haulers found Season 5 bland and tasteless, much like
voyager.
Joe
Roanna
Joe Othello wrote:
And some of us thought, with a couple of missteps, it was a brilliant cap to the
series. So often, the stories we are told crescendo at the end, and that's it.
What happens after you've slain the dragon, married the prince/princess, and made
your corner of the galaxy safe from shadows? And do you get fries with that?
Instead of a freezeframe, JMS took the risk of spinning the single, though complex,
story of the shadow war into the separate stories of the "fellowship" after their
quest is completed.
If I never hear the telepath's hymn again, or hear the Willow Tree speech, that will
be fine by me, but by and large, I think the 5th season was successful from the
standpoint of a denoument for the series.
That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.
Roanna
Jms at B5
>> but there is an error in the logic JMS. You have more viewers towards
>> the end of the poll then you did at the begining. (Season 1 had fewer
>> people then season two and so on and so forth).
I'm sorry it's taken me this long to reply to this, but every time I see the
quote preceding, I fall down laughing and I get bumped offline.
Talking about errors in logic...once again, Von Bruno, you demonstrate your
own, in the most glaring way imaginable. It's the ultimate topper to your
preceding inaccuracies. This one is so massive and expansive that it's just
breathtaking.
Do you know *anything* about polling or public opinion measurement? Before you
answer, let me save you the time: no. I do. I have a degree in clinical
psychology and a second degree in sociology, and as part of that had to take
any number of specialized courses in polling and public opinion measurement.
And here's where your logic falls down utterly. Let me requote the above:
>> There are three kind of lies. Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Yes,
>> but there is an error in the logic JMS. You have more viewers towards
>> the end of the poll then you did at the begining. (Season 1 had fewer
>> people then season two and so on and so forth).
The more people you have in a poll, THE MORE ACCURATE IT IS. The fewer people,
the less accurate. That utterly incontestable fact is at the core of every
poll ever taken. That's why they usually show you the raw numbers ("In a poll
of two thousand people, ten percent thought Mars was not a planet but a candy
bar").
So the very element you claim made it LESS accurate in fact made it
statistically MORE accurate.
Just once, could you try to actually *know* something about what we're
discussing here? Do just a *little* homework from time to time? Because right
now, you're 0 for 5 on basic facts, just in the last round.
And by the way, this is probably the last time I'm going to respond to you. I
can't lose that much work time laughing anymore.
jms
(jms...@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
Sergey Bukhman
Mark Maher wrote:
>
> >> Unfortunately, everybody's entitled to one.
>
> >I'd say fortunately. But then again, I am not threatened by other
> >people's opinions. Even when they contradict mine.
> >
> I suppose that you would also say that fortunately Milosevic has an opinion,
> too.
Yes I would. Nice straw man attempt there, but not nice enough.
> Thanks for playing the role of troll out looking for a fight.
Funny, coz I never attacked anyone. All I did was reply to JMS, stating
what I loved about the show, but also stating what I didn't like. I
guess that constitutes a troll?
I don't
> have the time or energy to waste on it. I personally liked and enjoyed
> season five as much as any of the other seasons.
Good for you.
For someone to continously
> harrass the newsgroup about why they *hated* it a year after the thing aired
> is swinging after the bell.
Tell me, are you confusing me with someone else?
I think my last post to this group before I entered this thread was
"Thanks, Joe" in which I thanked JMS for B5.
--
Sergey
Iain Rae
> On 16 Sep 1999 21:30:28 -0600, Lars Haugseth <lar...@trym.candleweb.no>
> wrote:
>>
>>Actually it's not the only one. It's not even the largest one.
>>Check out GEOS (The Global Episode Opinion Survey):
>>
>> <URL: http://www.swd.net.au/cgi-bin/geos/results.cgi/season/bab/summary>
>>
> This poll, like the others online, gathers its results from a group of
> self-selected people.
Not exactly, this is the folks that during seasons 4 and 5 regularly
posted to the umstb5 groups after each episode so it's probably as
valid a poll as those that are done on the streets.
Brad Templeton
Lars Haugseth <lar...@trym.candleweb.no> wrote:
>
> S1: 7.39 (7669 votes cast)
> S2: 7.95 (7256 votes cast)
> S3: 8.18 (8003 votes cast)
> S4: 8.37 (6859 votes cast)
> S5: 8.15 (4775 votes cast)
>
>To me it looks like the fifth season is NOT generally
>considered to be the worst.
There are both positive and negative aspects to the fact that this
poll was taken, self-selected, as each episode was broadcast. On the
one hand it is good to get the first impression, but there is also value
in the impression upon reflection.
In season one, many viewers were confused by details they did not yet
know. They could not fully appreciate the episodes -- but at the same
time this is not unfair.
For season 5, voting took place in a hot climate of debate as to whether
the series was going downhill, and I expect this modified the voting as
well.
And presumably there were more fans voting near the end then at the
start.
A more interesting test would be to measure which episodes and seasons
people would like to watch again? I would definitely go in order
3-2-1-4-5.
--
Brad Templeton http://www.templetons.com/brad/
Brad Templeton
Rich K. (netaxs staff) <r...@netaxs.com> wrote:
>I wasn't going to jump in here, because I figured someone else would have
>picked up on it, but since nobody seems to have read the voting
>analysis...
>
>SIL had the most 1st place votes on the first ballot. Unfortunately, it
>didn't have much support from everybody else. Here is the breakdown as
>reported:
>
> Ranking First Place Votes:
>The Truman Show 1 89 90 99 125 187
>Sleeping in Light-Babylon 5 2 104 104 112 115 138
>Dark City 3 85 85 85 100
>Pleasantville 4 53 54 56
>Star Trek: Insurrection 5 27 27
>No Award 20
Note, you are only showing the 1st round here, which determines the
winner. For those who care, there are further rounds for other places,
and Sleeping in Light placed 4th, ahead of only Star Trek.
While it seems above that SiL placed 2nd (it did in the 1st round) the
second place round is conducted by assuming The Truman Show was not on
the ballot, and then seeing how it would pan out. Turns out most Truman
Show fans moved to other elements for their later choices.
>
>SIL didn't lose because of lack of exposure. It lost because movie voters
>preferred movies.
Actually, the Hugo voting fans are probalby not best characterized as
movie voters. They are in fact primarily fans of written SF. You probably
won't find a subset with more written SF fans so to call them movie voters
would be incorrect. Indeed, twice they voted Hugos to Babylon 5 episodes
over movies, something that has not happened in a very long time.
And for this particular con, a very large chunk of the voters were people
who didn't attend the con but paid a fee primarily just to vote on the Hugos
and site selection. A much larger percentage than normal because the
con was far away from them.
Those fans might, I suspect, follow the rules more religiously, and
when asked to compare "Sleeping in Light" on its own, rather than as the
capstone of a series, to Truman Show, it's not hard to see how they might
vote for Truman Show or any other of the candidates. Sleeping in Light
only had meaning as the conclusion to B5. Its nomination was really
not even appropriate, in the context of the intent of the rules.
Brad Templeton
>the less accurate. That utterly incontestable fact is at the core of every
>poll ever taken. That's why they usually show you the raw numbers ("In a poll
>of two thousand people, ten percent thought Mars was not a planet but a candy
>bar").
If you are going to cite authority to correct somebody, take care. The
truth is that self-selected polls can be incorrect in a wide variety of
ways, and it's enirely possible for a self selected poll to become
less accurate as the sample grows rather than more accurate.
A larger sample gives a more _precise_ measurement of whatever the
self selected poll is ending up measuring, but that thing may or may
not be an accurate representation of the truth.
A random sampling of 1000 people cab be -- and often is -- more accurate than
a phone-in 900 number vote of a million people.
The P5 polls measures the opinions of the sort of people who E-mail in votes
to such polls, nothing more, nothing less.
In addition, if you examine those results, you find that
there were 6100 votes cast for season 1 and only 3635 cast for
season 5. So in spite of the show gaining more viewers, the actual
sample size is lowest in season 5 and largest in season 3.
(Clearly the longer amount of time to vote for earlier episodes contributes
to this, but not entirely, otherwise one would not have more votes for
season 3 than 2 and more for 2 than 4, and more for 4 than 1 -- and all
more than 5) Indeed a whopping 113 expressed opinion on the highly
watched Sleeping in Light vs. 549 on Z'ha'dum.
Anybody with training in these areas will know the many flaws that
can occur in a self-selected poll like this. Those flaws are even more
dramatic when the voters are able to see the intermediate results, and
thus may try to influence them.
You can get some data out of it, but it's simply not an "utterly
uncontestable fact" that a greater sample size confers more accuracy
on a self-selected survey.
Jms at B5
>uncontestable fact" that a greater sample size confers more accuracy
>on a self-selected survey.
What I was responding to was the statement that more responses made a survey
*less* accurate. Surely you're not saying that that's the case? And yes, a
larger sampling universe *does* make a survey more accurate within that
preselected universe. As long as the sampling within that universe is random
-- and there's a wide range of diversity withih that preselected universe --
the survey is accurate.
For instance, phone surveys preselect anyone who has a phone. At one point,
there were still not a lot of phones in common use in the hinterlands, but that
doesn't disqualify the poll. A street corner poll preselects those who happen
to be walking by the street corner.
Now, if you're going to preselect for some particular specific variable -- all
asians, for instance, or only people under 25 -- then you start to skew the
data and thus the results, making it inapplicable to the greater, non-sampled
universe.
Point is, insisting that more numbers make a sample *less* accurate -- as VB
was doing -- is utterly and totally inaccurate.
Brad Templeton
>>uncontestable fact" that a greater sample size confers more accuracy
>>on a self-selected survey.
>
>What I was responding to was the statement that more responses made a survey
>*less* accurate. Surely you're not saying that that's the case? And yes, a
>larger sampling universe *does* make a survey more accurate within that
>preselected universe. As long as the sampling within that universe is random
>-- and there's a wide range of diversity withih that preselected universe --
>the survey is accurate.
But random surveys are not the subject under discussion. And while he
may not realize why, he's right. Accuracy is a measure of the difference
between your measurement and the true value of what you are trying to
measure -- in this case viewer opinion of a TV show. Precision, on the
other hand, is the degree of detail you believe you have in your measurement.
Precision without accuracy is meaningless.
A large, but badly selected, sample gives you a more and more precise
measurement of an inaccurate value. So it is not correct to say that the
accuracy of the measurement increases with the size of the sample . As
the sample size increases you will converge precisely on the inaccurate
value this particular sample represents.
Though with a self selected survey even this may not be true. A self
selected survey that attracts 50 people probably samples a much different
class of respondents than one that attracts 100,000 people. So it is
entirely possible that the larger sample will provide a less accurate
result. It is not the size of the sample which matters, but how accurately
or inaccurately the particular sample matches the total space of all viewers.
100 randomly selected viewers normally provides a far more accurate result
than 10,000 self-selected viewers.
And as you point out, even the best techniques for random selection have
their flaws. The most common techniques today only sample the opinions
of those who have phones, are home to answer them when pollsters call,
don't screen calls, don't hang up immediately on somebody saying they are
doing a poll and who are willing to participate in a poll.
Nothing shows that more clealy than the polls they release the day before
an election with claimed 5% error that are in fact wildly off the next
day. Only random exit polling seems to have any decent accuracy.
>
>Point is, insisting that more numbers make a sample *less* accurate -- as VB
>was doing -- is utterly and totally inaccurate.
No it isn't. The truth is the accuracy is unrelated to the size of the
sample. It is the precision -- represented in statistical terms by the
confidence interval, which varies with the size of the sample. The accuracy
is determined by the quality of the sample.
This is however a fine point. Any claim that the P5 polls have any
statistical validity in either direction is questionable. They are at
most a guide to what some fans thought. Their worst flaw is that the
voters get to see the intermediate results, so they can say, "That fine
episode has a low rating. I will mail in a 10 on that one to bump it up.
That crap has an 8? I will mail in a 1."
In addition, self selected surveys are not always wrong -- far from it. It
can often be the case that the sample turns out good anyway. The problem
is that you don't *know*, in a rigourous mathematical sense, whether they
are right or wrong.
Thomas Bagwell
>
> In article <19990919030229...@ng-cm1.aol.com>,
> Jms at B5 <jms...@aol.com> wrote:
> >>You can get some data out of it, but it's simply not an "utterly
> >>uncontestable fact" that a greater sample size confers more accuracy
> >>on a self-selected survey.
> >
> >What I was responding to was the statement that more responses made a survey
> >*less* accurate. Surely you're not saying that that's the case? And yes, a
> >larger sampling universe *does* make a survey more accurate within that
> >preselected universe. As long as the sampling within that universe is random
> >-- and there's a wide range of diversity withih that preselected universe --
> >the survey is accurate.
>
> But random surveys are not the subject under discussion. And while he
> may not realize why, he's right. Accuracy is a measure of the difference
> between your measurement and the true value of what you are trying to
> measure -- in this case viewer opinion of a TV show. Precision, on the
> other hand, is the degree of detail you believe you have in your measurement.
> Precision without accuracy is meaningless.
But, JMS was responding to the assertion that larger samples are less
accurate than smaller samples, whish is incorrect. The other material
you add may be true, but was irrelevant to what JMS was responding to.
Now, if you wish to begin a separate debate, that's fine.
> Though with a self selected survey even this may not be true. A self
> selected survey that attracts 50 people probably samples a much different
> class of respondents than one that attracts 100,000 people. So it is
> entirely possible that the larger sample will provide a less accurate
> result. It is not the size of the sample which matters, but how accurately
> or inaccurately the particular sample matches the total space of all viewers.
>
> 100 randomly selected viewers normally provides a far more accurate result
> than 10,000 self-selected viewers.
The problem there is that about 80% of the respondants would reply
"Babylon 5? What's that?"
If you're going for feedback on the relative merit of each episode, then
you have to sample from B5 viewers. Thus, you're left with determining
whether self selection from B5 viewers is more or less accurate for
larger samples, which is an entirely different prospect from what I
understood to be the thrust of your assertion.
In a sense, the Usenet groups are also self-selected samples, and people
seem more likely to go to an effort to criticise a show than to praise
it. I don't know if this carries through to self-selected polls, or
not.
In any case, though, I would think that whatever the inherent bias of a
self-selected set of B5 viewers is, it would remain more or less
consistent for larger and larger samples. I'm not sure why a differing
bias would emerge for more respondents.
I don't suppose there's been any studies of this, though. Anyone know
of any?
Tom B.
> This is however a fine point. Any claim that the P5 polls have any
> statistical validity in either direction is questionable. They are at
> most a guide to what some fans thought. Their worst flaw is that the
> voters get to see the intermediate results, so they can say, "That fine
> episode has a low rating. I will mail in a 10 on that one to bump it up.
> That crap has an 8? I will mail in a 1."
This is certainly true, but I'm not sure why the results would change
with larger sample sizes.
> In addition, self selected surveys are not always wrong -- far from it. It
> can often be the case that the sample turns out good anyway. The problem
> is that you don't *know*, in a rigourous mathematical sense, whether they
> are right or wrong.
I agree. As a general guide to fan reaction, though, they should
suffice.
Tom B.
Von Bruno
Joe, the post you quoted and apparantly were responding to was not authored by
me. If you go back and check you'll see it was written by
*joth...@ix.netcom.com (Joe Othello).*
-Von Bruno-
Von Bruno
Joe, I don't know why you are trying to attribute other peoples posts to me or
what you hope to achieve by doing it, however, I wish you would stop as it is
dishonest.
-Von Bruno-
Von Bruno
about. Try using real "facts" next time, rather than false rumors from "a
friend.">> Gary Farber gfa...@panix.com
Well, my initial *clue* was based on the lame excuses offered up by some here
as to why "SiL" didn't win the Hugo. It seems Joe's *explaination* doesn't fit
the facts of the voting situation.
-Von Bruno-
Joe Othello
>>> There are three kind of lies. Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Yes,
>>> but there is an error in the logic JMS. You have more viewers towards
>>> the end of the poll then you did at the begining. (Season 1 had fewer
>>> people then season two and so on and so forth).
>
>I'm sorry it's taken me this long to reply to this, but every time I see the
>quote preceding, I fall down laughing and I get bumped offline.
I like that quote. I glad you had a laugh, regardless of the reason.
It's good to laugh and apparently you need one more then I do.
>Talking about errors in logic...once again, Von Bruno, you demonstrate your
>own, in the most glaring way imaginable. It's the ultimate topper to your
>preceding inaccuracies. This one is so massive and expansive that it's just
>breathtaking.
Von Bruno? Names Othello, Joe Othello. I'm not married to Desdemona. I
like my name, it's a good name, so get it right. I find it very
insulting that I've been posting on this message board for the past
four years and yet even with my address in full view you refer to me
as someone else. You've even spoken to me on the phone.
>Do you know *anything* about polling or public opinion measurement? Before you
>answer, let me save you the time: no. I do. I have a degree in clinical
>psychology and a second degree in sociology, and as part of that had to take
>any number of specialized courses in polling and public opinion measurement.
No, I'm a college drop out. Funny I thought you minored in political
science... Color me surprised.
>And here's where your logic falls down utterly. Let me requote the above:
>
>>> There are three kind of lies. Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Yes,
>>> but there is an error in the logic JMS. You have more viewers towards
>>> the end of the poll then you did at the begining. (Season 1 had fewer
>>> people then season two and so on and so forth).
>
>The more people you have in a poll, THE MORE ACCURATE IT IS. The fewer people,
>the less accurate. That utterly incontestable fact is at the core of every
>poll ever taken. That's why they usually show you the raw numbers ("In a poll
>of two thousand people, ten percent thought Mars was not a planet but a candy
>bar").
It's called a control eniviroment, the results are skewed by the
number of people voting, it doesn't make it more accurate it just
means more people voted. While Mr. Brad Templeton pointed out that
people could see the results of the poll and still cast a vote (adding
in more inaccuries) based on their opinion to bring it up or down. It
wasn't the same people voting through out the five years without
seeing the results until the poll closed.
>So the very element you claim made it LESS accurate in fact made it
>statistically MORE accurate.
Polls and Statistics are about maintaining controled balance.
Consistancy is important, if the same 500 people vote on every episode
it will be more accurate then if random numbers of people vote on the
same episode. Surely you know this.
>Just once, could you try to actually *know* something about what we're
>discussing here? Do just a *little* homework from time to time? Because right
>now, you're 0 for 5 on basic facts, just in the last round.
Facts? You called me someone else, even though I've been here for
almost four years (pre-mod) My own reason may be flawed, but to some
degree my assumption is correct. So lets whip out some facts...
Ratings from the "GEOS Babylon Statistics"
Season Mean Votes Cast
Season One 7.41 7908
Season Two 7.98 7476
Season Three 8.20 8223
Season Four 8.41 7080
Season Five 8.20 5002
Rating from the "P5 Rating (JMS Quoted these)"
Season 1 7.52 6156
Season 2 8.11 6593
Season 3 8.38 8901
Season 4 8.58 6304
Season 5 8.35 3635
Well my oh my, what a difference a day makes. What is this? A DECREASE
in active votes? Well JMS your right, stand by those figures you
quoted because now it's time for some MATH. You see I assumed more
people were partipating in the voting as it grew. Which adds it's own
error especially if you can see the results and then vote. Look at
those numbers of particpants just drop, even lower then season 1. The
Geo statistics indicate a vote drop of 40% compared to season 3 (the
highest) the rating you quoted show a 60% drop in voters (comparing
season 5 to season 3). I mean Season 1 had more people voting then
season 5 in both polls. You tell me how those 60% of missing voters
could of changed the results had they voted in season 5? Then I
looked at the figures from Season 5 the number of voters dropped from
296 to 166, excluding Sleeping in the Light and a dip during
Meditations. So you lost voters, a lot of voters.
You know JMS had you not said something about how the more people
participating in the Poll I would of never looked to see how many
people voted. You corrected my error, thank you. Yes, I'm laughing,
feels great. Not at you, but more how you knocked me on to the right
track.
>And by the way, this is probably the last time I'm going to respond to you. I
>can't lose that much work time laughing anymore.
>
> jms
>
>(jms...@aol.com)
>B5 Official Fan Club at:
>http://www.thestation.com
You've never responded to me in the first place. You just did a dog
and pony show thinking I was an easy mark. I may of been barking up
the wrong tree, but I found you out on a limb (and I can climb too).
Here comes the climbing part...
You insulted me, you were responding to me in a very demeaning manor.
Yes, I was on the wrong track for critisizing your quoted staticsm but
they are not acurate nor do they have any real value. I find your
responce comtemptable and shows how little integrity you have.
Speaking of which, how is laughing a waste of time? I mean as our
country (U.S.) heads towards friendly facism, who would turn their
back on a good laugh? What kind of person are you? Oh yeah, just
another hollywood producer.
Have a nice day,
Joe Othello (Meow...)
(Poster now begins to pray for his message to be ok'ed by the
moderators)
Tmhodge
>when asked to compare "Sleeping in Light" on its own, rather than as the
>capstone of a series, to Truman Show, it's not hard to see how they might
>vote for Truman Show or any other of the candidates. Sleeping in Light
>only had meaning as the conclusion to B5. Its nomination was really
>not even appropriate, in the context of the intent of the rules.
Your point is well taken, but what I don't understand is why any literate SF
fan would vote for the Truman Show at all. It was a good movie (not great, but
good) but it was hardly SF, more social satire w/o any real SF elements. Of
the shows listed I'd probably have to vote either Dark City or No Award, for
the simple fact that two of the four movies listed weren't even really SF,
Insurrection sucked, and SiL doesn't really hold its own for the reasons you
stated.
Now, if I could vote for Season 5, or B5 as a whole, that would be an entirely
different story.
John Lorentz
>
>Your point is well taken, but what I don't understand is why any literate SF
>fan would vote for the Truman Show at all. It was a good movie (not great, but
>good) but it was hardly SF...
I'm sorry, i must have missed it.
When did someone develop the capabilities of a dome large enough to
cover the city of Los Angeles, with pinpout--instant--weather control?
I'm sure something like that would have made all the papers...
Or was it not science fiction because it happened to be _good_?
--
John
Lars Haugseth
* b...@templetons.com (Brad Templeton)
|
| In article <x39066g...@trym.candleweb.no>,
| Lars Haugseth <lar...@trym.candleweb.no> wrote:
| >
| > S1: 7.39 (7669 votes cast)
| > S2: 7.95 (7256 votes cast)
| > S3: 8.18 (8003 votes cast)
| > S4: 8.37 (6859 votes cast)
| > S5: 8.15 (4775 votes cast)
| >
| >To me it looks like the fifth season is NOT generally
| >considered to be the worst.
|
| There are both positive and negative aspects to the fact that this
| poll was taken, self-selected, as each episode was broadcast. On the
| one hand it is good to get the first impression, but there is also value
| in the impression upon reflection.
I don't know about others, but speaking for myself, I entered
my scores into this poll all at once, after having seen all 110
episodes.
| In season one, many viewers were confused by details they did not yet
| know. They could not fully appreciate the episodes -- but at the same
| time this is not unfair.
Agreed, to me S1 definitely got better in retrospect.
| For season 5, voting took place in a hot climate of debate as to whether
| the series was going downhill, and I expect this modified the voting as
| well.
Hmm, in what direction, I wonder.
| And presumably there were more fans voting near the end then at the
| start.
I would think you're probably a fan if you vote for specific episodes
of a TV-series in the first place.
| A more interesting test would be to measure which episodes and seasons
| people would like to watch again? I would definitely go in order
| 3-2-1-4-5.
Interesting perhaps, but fair? Wouldn't people tend to choose
episodes/seasons they haven't seen for a long time?
--
Lars Haugseth
Martin Hardgrave
>
>Point is, insisting that more numbers make a sample *less* accurate -- as VB
>was doing -- is utterly and totally inaccurate.
In this instance it isn't. The sample for series 5 is not the same as
the sample for series 1. The large series 5 sample doesn't mean that
the result is a better reflection of opinion than the series one sample
and result. If the large sample had rated all five series I would agree
with you.
--
Martin Hardgrave
Mark D. McKean
In article <19990920205903...@ng-fo1.aol.com>, Tmhodge
<tmh...@aol.com> wrote:
> Your point is well taken, but what I don't understand is why any literate SF
> fan would vote for the Truman Show at all. It was a good movie (not great,
> but
> good) but it was hardly SF, more social satire w/o any real SF elements.
That limited view of what constitutes SF is *exactly* why there's so
little quality SF on TV.
If "The Truman Show" were a novel, would you still have difficulty
calling it SF? The premise is certainly speculative, not realistic: a
man is raised from birth in an artificial environment, under TV
cameras, without his knowledge. Sounds speculative to me. Imagination,
not technology or magic, defines SF.
While I disagree with SiL not receiving the Hugo, "The Truman Show"
would have been my second choice (had I bothered to pony up the dough
to be a WorldCon member this year).
--
Mark D. McKean - The Quantum Panda - qpa...@iwaynet.net
Gary Farber
: On 21 Sep 1999 16:22:23 -0600, tmh...@aol.com (Tmhodge) wrote:
:>Your point is well taken, but what I don't understand is why any literate SF
:>fan would vote for the Truman Show at all. It was a good movie (not great, but
:>good) but it was hardly SF...
: I'm sorry, i must have missed it.
: When did someone develop the capabilities of a dome large enough to
: cover the city of Los Angeles, with pinpout--instant--weather control?
: I'm sure something like that would have made all the papers...
: Or was it not science fiction because it happened to be _good_?
Moreover, the idea that science fiction must have technology at its heart
is entirely wrong, of course, and would rule out much of the sf created
particularly since the inception of GALAXY in the Fifties, on through the
present day. Speculation about alternative societies is a core element of
sf.
--
Copyright 1999 by Gary Farber; For Hire as: Web Researcher; Nonfiction
Writer, Fiction and Nonfiction Editor; gfa...@panix.com; Northeast US
Justin Bacon
Othello) writes:
>You know JMS had you not said something about how the more people
>participating in the Poll I would of never looked to see how many
>people voted. You corrected my error, thank you. Yes, I'm laughing,
>feels great. Not at you, but more how you knocked me on to the right
>track.
A far more logical interpretation would realize that the drop-off occurred when
the move to TNT did.
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Justin Bacon
Othello) writes:
>There are three kind of lies. Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Yes,
>but there is an error in the logic JMS. You have more viewers towards
>the end of the poll then you did at the begining. (Season 1 had fewer
>people then season two and so on and so forth).
A good point... except that the poll in question had more voters for Season 1
than Season 5.
> For a good look at episode
>performance, one has to look at nelson's which is also has it's flaws.
And worthless for determining which season people liked *more*. Number of
viewers, as you already pointed out, has no correlation to the actual quality
or opinion of the episodes being watched.
>Some of the long haulers found Season 5 bland and tasteless, much like
>voyager.
And some didn't. Some didn't like the Shadows. Some didn't like the Civil War.
Some didn't like Sheridan. Some didn't like Sinclair. Some didn't like Zathras.
Is there some point?
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Justin Bacon
<ser...@netropolis.net> writes:
>> The point that was made (in case the big words got away from you) was the
>P5
>> poll was the ONLY poll of any size that ranked each and every episode and
>> movie of the Babylon 5 series.
>>
>
>And my point is that it means pretty much zilch in the grad scheme of
>things. It does not represent all the fans and is inherently more likely
>to be swayed in favor of the show.
Then how do you explain the low ranking of S1 (comparative to the others)?
The contention was that people who *liked* the first four seasons did *not*
like the fifth season. The poll was of "fans of B5", not "fans who like S5 of
B5". And yet the poll shows that the fans of B5 liked S5 more than some of the
other seasons.
Unless you have some other data point with which to refute this one, the
assertion must be deemed false based on the available information.
>> And it's JMS, not JM. If you're going to attempt to get into a written
>> fencing match with someone, at least have the courtesy (not to mention
>> intellect) to spell his signoff correctly
>
>Dear god, is that all you have to go on? A mis type?
His complain against your abysmal grasp of JMS' sign-off has absolutely nothing
to do with the debate. Other than the fact that you either have (a) no respect;
or (b) no typing ability.
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Rob Perkins
news:7sa1hm$eoj$5...@news.panix.com...
Speculation about alternative societies is a core element of
> sf.
By this definition, Ayn Rand's _Atlas Shrugged_ is SF. I happen to agree
with that idea.
Rob
Tmhodge
>
aw, now who wouldn't like Zathras??
Jaimie Winn
dependent upon it's science fictional elements is indeed science
fiction. If you take out the SF elements from the Truman Show you
wouldn't be able to tell this story. Atlas Shrugged uses elements of SF
(holograms, self-perpetuating motors, etc...), but they are not
essential to the basic structure of the story. I would say that by this
definition The Truman Show would easily fall into the category of SF.
Although Atlas has a lot of SF elements in it I would say it is a
borderline SF novel. Anthem would definitely fit the SF bill though.
I'm not making any statements about the quality of any of tthe above.
That is for a different post entirely.
I don't think that social comentary is a defining characteristic of SF.
There is plenty of SF without it and plenty of non-SF with it. SF may
be particularly suited to it, but it is not essential.
Tmhodge
>is entirely wrong, of course, and would rule out much of the sf created
>particularly since the inception of GALAXY in the Fifties, on through the
>sf.
>
>--
>Copyright 1999 by Gary Farber; For Hire as: Web Researcher; Nonfiction
>Writer, Fiction and Nonfiction Editor; gfa...@panix.com; Northeast US
>
Well, being a big fan of Octavia Butler, I'd have to agree with that, since
she's hardly known for writing about hardware.
But I'd disagree that The Truman Show was about an alternative society. There
wasn't enough *different* about the society that *everyone* except Truman was
living in, especially since the viewer was let in on the secret from the
beginning. All of the actors in the dome, all of the people shown watching the
show, were pretty typical late 20th-century Americans. To me, the movie was a
satire about a) how obsessed we can become with our TV characters, treating
them as if they were as real as our neighbors down the street, and b) how
obsessed network execs can become with power. I don't happen to think that
social satire is necessarily science fiction, even when there may be some
elements of technology involved.
And if you set the Truman Show on an island in the Pugent Sound instead of in a
dome outside LA, it loses even that.
Justin Bacon
(Tmhodge) writes:
>Your point is well taken, but what I don't understand is why any literate SF
>fan would vote for the Truman Show at all. It was a good movie (not great,
>but good) but it was hardly SF, more social satire w/o any real SF elements.
THE TRUMAN SHOW is SF in the most classic sense of the word. It takes a single
speculative premise ("What if someone lived their entire life in a television
show?"), explores it, and (through that exploration) reveal something eternal
about the human condition.
If you read Asimov, ACC, Heinlein(!), or Ellison(!) you'll see plenty of
stories which follow a similar pattern -- and many of them could *easily* be
described as "social satire".
But I would definitely give my votes to SiL and DARK CITY.
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Tmhodge
>single
>speculative premise ("What if someone lived their entire life in a television
>show?"), explores it, and (through that exploration) reveal something eternal
>about the human condition.
So, do you consider NBC's Pretender to be SF ("What if someone lived his entire
life in a controlled environment... ")? I don't.
>If you read Asimov, ACC, Heinlein(!), or Ellison(!) you'll see plenty of
>stories which follow a similar pattern -- and many of them could *easily* be
>described as "social satire".
>
I've read Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Ellison, Herbert, Bradbury, Sturgeon,
Butler, Tepper, Bester, LeGuin,... in short, everything I could get my hands on
since about the age of 12.
I won't try to compose a definitive, rigid definition of SF (and I wouldn't
exclude social satire per se even if I did). I just know it when I see it, and
IMHO, The Truman Show ain't it.
Diane K De
>I've read Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Ellison, Herbert, Bradbury, Sturgeon,
>Butler, Tepper, Bester, LeGuin,... in short, everything I could get my hands
>on
>since about the age of 12.
>
>I won't try to compose a definitive, rigid definition of SF (and I wouldn't
>exclude social satire per se even if I did). I just know it when I see it,
>and
>IMHO, The Truman Show ain't it.
>
Nobody tells the membership of Worldcon what and what not to consider "science
fiction". It's a choice of each individual member. That "The Truman Show"
was nominated to begin with by enough members indicates enough people thought
it was science fiction.
Perhaps there were members who didn't think "The Truman Show" it was just as
you did, but enough did to get it on the nomination and win.
DD
Brandon Alspaugh
category you seem to be describing, concerning the "let's see what happens when I
put these two elements together", is more appropriately called "speculative
fiction". Azimov and Ellison, in particular, seem to be rather pointed in making
the distinction between the two.
Tmhodge wrote:
> >THE TRUMAN SHOW is SF in the most classic sense of the word. It takes a
> >single
> >speculative premise ("What if someone lived their entire life in a television
> >show?"), explores it, and (through that exploration) reveal something eternal
> >about the human condition.
>
> So, do you consider NBC's Pretender to be SF ("What if someone lived his entire
> life in a controlled environment... ")? I don't.
>
> >If you read Asimov, ACC, Heinlein(!), or Ellison(!) you'll see plenty of
> >stories which follow a similar pattern -- and many of them could *easily* be
> >described as "social satire".
> >
>
Gary Farber
[. . .]
: I won't try to compose a definitive, rigid definition of SF (and I wouldn't
: exclude social satire per se even if I did). I just know it when I see it, and
: IMHO, The Truman Show ain't it.
That's fine. No one compels you to think otherwise, nor does anything
compel others to agree with you.
I've posted this here before, but I think it's been well more than a year,
so herewith an sf definition post again.
Steven Azar (vap...@prism.gatech.edu) wrote:
[. . .]
: 2) What is the _real_ (from Webster's or from an Industry Expert
: (i.e. not from _you_)) definition of:
: Science Fiction
: Fantasy
: Speculative Fiction
: SF
: Sci-Fi
[. . .]
The newsgroup to discuss this on is rec.arts.sf.written, where this is in
the FAQ, of course. And I am a small-name "industry expert," thanks.
There is no "real" definition; there are only those that different people
prefer. To be sure, certain basic ideas have wide acceptance in the
field, the most basic having the widest acceptance, but there's no
definition which you can't find some writer taking exception to.
Dictionaries, of course, are merely descriptive.
Damon Knight's definition, incidentally, is *not* "science fiction is what
I point to when I say 'science fiction.'" It is "science fiction is what
*we* point to when *we* say "science fiction."
This makes all the difference.
I lost the entire library I had in my apartment in 1991, thanks to a fire
and aftermath, and the rest of my references are currently in storage, so
I can't whip out any of the classic references to give you definitions,
but I'll give a few that are handy from online resources, so you can see
some range. The point is that none are definitive; it's up to you to
choose which definition you wish to use.
Offhand, I'd highly recommend Damon Knight's IN SEARCH OF WONDER and
everything else he's written about sf. Then I recommend James Blish's THE
ISSUES AT HAND and MORE ISSUES AT HAND. You could read the original
fanzines both their work appeared in, but the ADVENT:PUBLISHERS books are
easier to find. Then I'd suggest TRILLION YEAR SPREE, though I wildly
disagree with some of Aldiss and Wingrove's opinions. After that, the
deluge. :-) There have been dozens, even hundreds, of nonfiction books
on sf in the last twenty years, let alone the jillions of essays annd
fanzines.
I'm fairly liberal myself, though I will be picky about distinguishing
between fantasy and sf.
Some of the following I don't agree with at all, but the point is that
valid contributors to the sf community do. We sf folk have always had a
splendid time disagreeing. :-)
[2] "SF is, then, a literary genre whose necessary and sufficient
conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and
cognition, and whose main formal device is an imaginative framework
alternative to the author's empirical environment." (Suvin, Darko,
Metamorphoses of Science Fiction , 7-8.)
"speculative extrapolation about the effect of science and technology on
society".
-- uknown
John Kessel:
"Silverberg's proffered definition of science
fiction shows the gooeyness immediately. The
definition is rather long, and comes in four points:
[quoting Robert Silverberg]
1. An underlying speculative concept,
systematically developed in a way that amounts to an
exploration of the consequences of allowing such a
departure from known reality to impinge on the
universe as we know it.
2. An awareness by the writer of the structural underpinnings
(the "body of scientific knowledge") of
our known reality, as it is currently understood, so
that the speculative aspects of the story are founded
on conscious and thoughtful departures from those
underpinnings rather than on blithe ignorance.
3. Imposition by the writer of a sense of
limitations somewhere in the assumptions of the story
. . .
4. A subliminal knowledge of the feel and
texture of true science fiction, as defined in a
circular and subjective way from long acquaintance
with it."
-- Robert Silverberg
John Kessel, suffering the ideological itch,
Eighties version, in _SF Eye_ #1:
"Plot, character and style are not mere icing .
. . Any fiction that conceives of itself as a vehicle
for something called `ideas' that can be inserted into
and taken out of the story like a passenger in a
Toyota is doomed, in my perhaps staid and outmoded
opinion, to a very low level of achievement."
John Kessel again:
"In her broad ranging and intelligent introduction, Le Guin's argues that
science fiction is fiction deriving from or employing "assumptions basic
to science, scientific technology, and scientism. . . . The content may
be not scientific but scientistic, when science and technology are
presented as deity (or negatively as demon)." This definition has the
virtue of cutting through all the false distinctions between "optimism"
and "pessimism," between "New Wave" (she never uses the word) and "Old
Wave" sf. By including "scientism" as well as science as the background
against which sf is written, she broadens her definition greatly. Le Guin
points out that much sf uses robots, spaceships, aliens, etc. as icons
more than as productions of real science. This leads her to include as
true sf such stories as Eleanor Arnason's "The Warlords of Saturn's Moons"
that redeploy the furniture of the genre to examine issues such as
feminism more than projecting scientific extrapolations or social
speculations."
--John Kessel, writing about
THE NORTON BOOK OF SCIENCE FICTION
ed. Ursula K. Le Guin and Brian Attebery
Norton, 1993. $27.95 cloth
"Science fiction must involve itself with science and technology at least
tangentially. It must deal with a society noticeably different from the
real one of its time, and this difference must involve some change in the
level of science and technology (...)"
-- Isaac Asimov, "Science Fiction Finds Its Voice"
Gregory Benford:
"SF is a controlled way to think and dream about the future. An
integration of the mood and attitude of science (the objective
universe) with the fears and hopes that spring from the unconscious.
Anything that turns you and your social context, the social you,
inside out. Nightmares and visions, always outlined by the barely
possible."
Maureen McHugh says:
"Michael Swanwick, after writing the IRON DRAGON'S DAUGHTER said
that the difference he found between sf and fantasy was that
fantasy was a normative kind of fiction and sf was a
transformational kind of fiction.
Which means that fantasy often ends with the restablishment of
order, with evil conquered and good on the throne. Sf often ends
with the establishment of a new order, a new way of doing things,
with the evolution to a higher order.
Like any definition of fantasy and science fiction, I can find a
huge number of exceptions to this rule. My own fiction is more
about establishing a separate peace (where is the place of the
individual in a universe that doesn't care) but I find the
definition really very interesting."
Damien Broderick once described sf as:
"a kind of narrative native to a culture undergoing the epistemic
changes implicated in the rise and supersession of
technical-industrial modes of production, distribution, consumption
and disposal: a world of culture which has virtually replaced
nature, remade it, and stands at the edge of destroying it."
Miriam Allen deFord is quoted (by Aldiss and Wingrove, TRILLION YEAR
SPREE) as saying, roughly, "Science fiction consists of improbable
possibilities, fantasy of plausible impossibilities."
Brian W. Aldiss:
"Science fiction is the search for definition of man and his status in
the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of
knowledge (science), and is characteristically cast in the Gothic or
post-Gothic mould."
Isaac Asimov:
"Modern science fiction is the only form of literature that
consistently considers the nature of the changes that face us, the
possible consequences, and the possible solutions."
John Brunner:
"As its best, SF is the medium in which our miserable certainty that
tomorrow will be different from today in ways we cant predict, can be
transmuted to a sense of excitement and anticipation, occasionally
evolving into awe. Poised between intransigent scepticism and
uncritical credulity, it is _par_excellence_ the literature of the
open mind."
Groff Conklin:
"The best definition of science fiction is that it consists of stories
in which one or more definitely scientific notion or theory or actual
discovery is extrapolated, played with, embroided on, in a
non-logical, or fictional sense, and thus carried beyond the realm of
the immediately possible in an effort to see how much fun the author
and reader can have exploring the imaginary outer reaches of a given
idea's potentialities."
Robert A. Heinlein:
"A handy short definition of almost all science fiction might read:
realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on
adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a
thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the
scientific method."
"To make this definition cover all science fiction (instead of 'almost
all') it is necessary only to strike out the word 'future.'"
Sam Moskowitz:
"Science fiction is a branch of fantasy identifiable by the fact that
it eases the "willing suspension of disbelief" on the part of its
readers by utilizing an atmosphere of scientific credibility for its
imaginative speculations in physical science, space, time, social
science, and philosophy."
Alexei Panshin:
"Facts and a concern with change are the stuff that science fiction is
made of; science fiction that ignores facts and change can be made less
frightening and more popular, but inasmuch as it is superficial, stupid,
false-to-fact, timid foolish or dull, it is minor in another and more
important way, and it is certainly bad as science fiction."
"... its [science fiction's] attraction lies ... in the unique opportunity
it offers for placing familiar things in unfamiliar contexts, and
unfamiliar things in familiar contexts, thereby yielding fresh insights
and perspective."
Jack Williamson:
"'Hard' science fiction ... probes alternative possible futures
by means of reasoned extrapolations in much the same way that good
historical fiction reconstructs the probable past. Even far-out
fantasy can present a significant test of human values exposed to a new
environment. Deriving its most cogent ideas from the tension between
permanence and change, science fiction combines the diversions of
novelty with its pertinent kind of realism."
Sam J. Lundwall:
"A simplified definition would be that the author of a "straight"
science fiction story proceeds from (or alleges to proceed from)
known facts, developed in a credible way...."
David Ketterer:
"If, at its most exalted level, apocalyptic literature is religious,
the concerns of such a literature, at its most popular level, find
expression in the gothic mode and especially in science fiction.
Clearly, the introduction of the other, the _outri_, whether in
terms of supernatural manifestations or creatures from outer space, is
going to upset man's conception of his own situation and prompt him to
relate his existence to a broader framework. It is the particular
function of all worthwhile science fiction to explore the philosophic
consequences of any radical disorientation."
Ray Bradbury:
"Science fiction is really sociological studies of the future, things
that the writer believes are going to happen by putting two and two
together."
Reginald Bretnor:
"Science Fiction: fiction based on rational speculation regarding the
human experience of science and its resultant technologies."
Bruce H. Franklin:
"In fact, one good working definition of science fiction may
be the literature which, growing with science and technology,
evaluates it and relates it meaningfully to the rest of human
existence."
James Gunn:
"In science fiction a fantastic event or development is considered
rationally."
Gary K. Wolfe:
"... the intellectual basis of much science fiction---this kind of
dialectical extrapolation---is more closely related to the emotional
basis (the "sense of wonder") than is generally suspected. The
process may be summarized somewhat as follows: the known exists in
opposition to the unknown, with a barrier of some sort separating
them. The barrier is crossed, and the unknown creates the known. But
the crossing of the barrier reveals new problems, and this sets the
stage for a further opposition of known and unknown. This barrier is
crossed, yet another opposition is set up, and so on. The "sense of
wonder" grows in part out of the tension generated by awareness of
this opposition, and the images of the sense of wonder are those which
most strongly reinforce this tension, images that stand at the
barrier. The transformation continue until an opposition is arrived
at that requires no further transformation or resolution."
John Boyd:
"Science fiction is story-telling, usually imaginative as distinct from
realistic fiction, which poses the effects of current or extrapolated
scientific discoveries, or a single discovery, on the behavior of
individuals of society.
"Mainstream fiction gives imaginative reality to probable events within a
framework of the historical past or present; science fiction gives reality
to possible events, usually in the future, extrapolated from present
scientific knowledge or existing cultural and social trends. Both genres
ordinarily observe the unities and adhere to a cause-and-effect schema."
Hope this helps. :-)
Brad Templeton
Tmhodge <tmh...@aol.com> wrote:
>>THE TRUMAN SHOW is SF in the most classic sense of the word. It takes a
>>single
>>speculative premise ("What if someone lived their entire life in a television
>>show?"), explores it, and (through that exploration) reveal something eternal
>>about the human condition.
>
>So, do you consider NBC's Pretender to be SF ("What if someone lived his entire
>life in a controlled environment... ")? I don't.
>
The Pretender is SF because it's character is superhuman, and it involves
the use of fantastic technologies which play a role in the plot.
However, the Truman Show is very much SF, I am amazed you can even
question it. It fits almost all the usual definitions. It is set
in teh future. A massive chunk of LA has been domed over to create
an artificial city. It involves all sorts of invented near future
technologies, mini cameras etc. And more to the point it deals with
questions like the invasiveness of technology like TV and surveilance,
and essential questions about privacy and identity as they are changed
by technology and the wll of a wielder of that technology.
Just what *is* SF to you? DOes it have to have rocketships to the moon?
Gary Farber
Brad Templeton <b...@templetons.com> wrote:
[. . .]
: The Pretender is SF because it's character is superhuman, and it involves
: the use of fantastic technologies which play a role in the plot.
: However, the Truman Show is very much SF, I am amazed you can even
: question it. It fits almost all the usual definitions. It is set
: in teh future. A massive chunk of LA has been domed over to create
: an artificial city. It involves all sorts of invented near future
: technologies, mini cameras etc. And more to the point it deals with
: questions like the invasiveness of technology like TV and surveilance,
: and essential questions about privacy and identity as they are changed
: by technology and the wll of a wielder of that technology.
: Just what *is* SF to you? DOes it have to have rocketships to the moon?
Also, blasters. And aliens.
If it's got spaceships, and blasters, it's sf. If not, not.
Giant Robots are an especially nice touch, but are not, strictly speaking,
required. The spaceships should swoop and go "swoosh," but don't have to.
Gary "you'll never see it in Galaxy" Farber
Gharlane of Eddore
tmh...@aol.com (Tmhodge) writes:
>
> So, do you consider NBC's Pretender to be SF ("What if someone lived
> his entire life in a controlled environment... ")? I don't.
>
It's "Speculative Fiction."
The "science" is mostly hand-waves.
>
> I've read Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Ellison, Herbert, Bradbury,
> Sturgeon, Butler, Tepper, Bester, LeGuin,... in short, everything
> I could get my hands on since about the age of 12.
>
In that list there are *TWO* Science Fiction writers; and they often
strayed over the line into Speculative Fiction or outright Fantasy
when they had a good story to tell in those regimes. The rest are
primarily Speculative Fiction people.
>
> I won't try to compose a definitive, rigid definition of SF (and I
> wouldn't exclude social satire per se even if I did).
> I just know it when I see it, and IMHO, The Truman Show ain't it.
>
You don't need to. The first appearance of the term "Science Fiction"
in print that we can document was in an editorial by Hugo Gernsback
in 1929. It appeared without a proper definition.
The first "formal" definition appeared in print about eight years
later, after John W. Campbell Jr. had become the editor of "ASTOUNDING."
That definition is:
====================================================================
|| ||
|| "It's Science Fiction if, presuming technical competence on ||
|| the part of the writer, he genuinely believes it could ||
|| happen. Otherwise, it's Fantasy." ||
|| --- John W. Campbell, Jr. <1937> ||
|| ||
====================================================================
He always added that he regarded "technical competence" as a four-year
degree in physics, engineering, chemistry, medicine, or any other
formal discipline involving legitimate science and technology; or
equivalent experience.
"Speculative Fiction" is the entire field containing Fantasy,
Science Fiction, "Sci-Fi," and "technothrillers."
The most commonly accepted definition of "Sci-Fi" is that it is
*Fantasy* which uses superficially Science Fictional props.
Note that "Science Fiction" is nearly nonexistent on television,
and that most of what you encounter on the tube that calls itself
"Science Fiction" is normally "Skiffy," although it's often just
putrid "Fantasy." ( And this comment is by no means a denigration
of "Fantasy;" it's just that the average TV writer knows no more
about the construction of decent Fantasy than he does about
Science Fiction. )
Real Science Fiction is harder to write, since it requires a somewhat
greater breadth of education and experience, which is why decent
Science Fiction is so rare, particularly in venues such as TV,
where there is a notable dearth of genre-competent writers.
It is a truism, with some degree of validity, that no great Science
Fiction writer ever really set out to be a Science Fiction writer;
most have degrees or considerable experience in technical areas.
There are, of course, a great many superb Speculative Fiction writers
who are so technically challenged that their work is full of howlers,
but still worth reading for the story and the writing.
( JMS the Great Maker is an example of this latter group. )
====================================================================
|| ||
|| "I am concerned that we are not shooting enough professors." ||
|| -- V.I. Lenin ||
|| ||
====================================================================
The Reverend Jacob Corbin
Gary Farber wrote:
> In <7so5kt$e...@chronicle.concentric.net>
> Brad Templeton <b...@templetons.com> wrote:
>
> : Just what *is* SF to you? DOes it have to have rocketships to the moon?
>
> Also, blasters. And aliens.
>
> If it's got spaceships, and blasters, it's sf. If not, not.
>
> Giant Robots are an especially nice touch, but are not, strictly speaking,
> required. The spaceships should swoop and go "swoosh," but don't have to.
>
I'm disappointed, Mr. Farber--you completely left out the obligatory Frank
Frazetta illustration. :) Good to see you back here.
Jacob
Tmhodge
Noooo.... a lot of the authors I like the most won't have anything to do with
spaceships, Octavia Butler, being one example. And Kurt Vonnegut writes a lot
of SF even if he won't admit it.
Ok, I'll take one last stab at explaining why I think The Truman Show *isn't*
SF (its a lot easier to negate something, anyway).
The society in which the Truman Show takes place is too *normal*. The *only*
thing different about it is this one guy who is being raised in a controlled
environment. Yeah, all of his neighbors are a bit goofy by our standards, but
they are also all actors, and the audience is let in on this secret *from the
beginning*. Outside the dome it is business as usual in late 20th century
America, even *after* the great escape. Yes the people outside get hooked on
the drama, but any more so than on "who shot JR", or Luke & Laura's wedding??
The Truman Show didn't *affect* that society any more than a normal TV show
would have.
And yes, there is a bit of technology involved in the dome and cameras, et al.
But again, you don't see *any* effect that technology has on the rest of
society. I think this, to me, is the crux of the matter--that the Show affects
little or no change on the society as a whole, and that that society is
virtually identical to our own to begin with, *including* its technological
state.
And yes, Truman himself does undergo a journey of discovery, about courage,
endurance, and truth. But I don't see anyting within that journey that you can
call SF per se. I'm NOT saying that SF CAN'T involve such journeys, I'm just
saying that The Truman Show doesn't do it within a SF ethos.
Brad Templeton
Tmhodge <tmh...@aol.com> wrote:
>The society in which the Truman Show takes place is too *normal*. The *only*
>thing different about it is this one guy who is being raised in a controlled
First of all, you know almost nothing about the outside society of this
film. The inside society is very definitely not normal! The outside
society is capable of building that giant artificial domed world, so it's
presumably early 21st century, not 20th.
But more to the point, even if it is, there is a huge sub-genre of SF that
invovles contemporary settings or very-near-future settings. It's been
a very long time since people commonly said SF can't be set in contemporary
society or very near future. Indeed, sometimes I wonder if it isn't a majority
of the SF in Asimov's and F&SF that is set there. Some writers want to
make statements about the current world, twisted a bit, and it's a common
device to do so.
>And yes, there is a bit of technology involved in the dome and cameras, et al.
>But again, you don't see *any* effect that technology has on the rest of
>society. I think this, to me, is the crux of the matter--that the Show affects
But you do. The Truman Show is all about identity, reality, privacy and
independence in the face of surveilance and an artificial world. Truman
is the focus of this, of course. It's not intended that the others be
under this surveilance, nor required that they be to address the issues
that it does. That it happens for Truman is sufficient.
>But I don't see anyting within that journey that you can
>call SF per se.
Truman's journey is extremely distant from those of non-genre stories.
Truman wakes up one day and discovers his entire world is artificial,
contrived just for him, and that he's been watched all his life. That
theme has appeared in several other SF stories, I can't think of a non-SF
story to examine this sort of character.
Now the debate over what SF is does get a bit pointless after a while. It's
an ancient one and people can go on and on about the fine points. I would
not normally want to get into it too deeply. But in this case, I don't
think The Truman Show was even close to the line. Usually the debates are
over things that are close to the line.
(Of course the most recent debate was over Apollo XIII, which was a rocketship
to the moon movie -- the best ever made -- but not strictly fiction. That
was a different debate.)
Wayne Throop
:: I've read Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Ellison, Herbert, Bradbury,
:: Sturgeon, Butler, Tepper, Bester, LeGuin,... in short, everything I
:: could get my hands on since about the age of 12.
: ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu (Gharlane of Eddore)
: In that list there are *TWO* Science Fiction writers; and they often
: strayed over the line into Speculative Fiction or outright Fantasy
: when they had a good story to tell in those regimes. The rest are
: primarily Speculative Fiction people.
Hrm? Of (asimov,clarke,heinlein), which is not primarily known for SF?
You might exclude asimov based on the quantity of non-genre works, but
that seems awfully thin; especially given clarke's essays, or
heinlein's various excursions outside the scientifictionghetto.
Or do you mean to exclude heinlein on the bases of, eg, Gulf, or
The Unpleasant Profession of Johnathan Hoague or Glory Road or
Stranger in a Strange Land or whatnot? That's pretty arbitrary to
say he's "primarily" speculative fiction, given the bulk of his works.
Or so it seems to me.
Hence: please name the two you claim are left. It isn't at all clear,
even when one accepts a Campbellian definition of science fiction.
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Justin Bacon
<ava...@sprynet.com> writes:
>I would not necessarily agree that the Truman Show was science fiction
>either. The
>category you seem to be describing, concerning the "let's see what happens
>when I
>put these two elements together", is more appropriately called "speculative
>fiction". Azimov and Ellison, in particular, seem to be rather pointed in
>making
>the distinction between the two.
>
Speculative fiction... which science fiction would be a sub-section of. When
the speculation deals with science then you have science fiction. THE TRUMAN
SHOW has several such premises, upon which the entire concept and plot rests.
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Justin Bacon
(Tmhodge) writes:
>So, do you consider NBC's Pretender to be SF ("What if someone lived his
>entire life in a controlled environment... ")? I don't.
I'm not sure what the basic premise of the Pretender is -- isn't it about some
guy on the run from a gov't agency who assumes a unique identity in every
episode? Sort of a retake on the Fugitive concept?
Probably not science fiction then, since there's no speculative component. If
there's more to it than that, with speculations based in/around/upon science,
then you have science fiction.
>I've read Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Ellison, Herbert, Bradbury, Sturgeon,
>Butler, Tepper, Bester, LeGuin,... in short, everything I could get my hands
on
>since about the age of 12.
>
>I won't try to compose a definitive, rigid definition of SF (and I wouldn't
>exclude social satire per se even if I did). I just know it when I see it,
and
>IMHO, The Truman Show ain't it.
If the TRUMAN SHOW isn't, then large swaths of the supposedly SF works written
by the authors you mention isn't either.
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Justin Bacon
of Eddore) writes:
>> I've read Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Ellison, Herbert, Bradbury,
>> Sturgeon, Butler, Tepper, Bester, LeGuin,... in short, everything
>> I could get my hands on since about the age of 12.
>>
>
>In that list there are *TWO* Science Fiction writers; and they often
>strayed over the line into Speculative Fiction or outright Fantasy
>when they had a good story to tell in those regimes. The rest are
>primarily Speculative Fiction people.
Asimov. Clarke. Heinlein. Ellison. Bradbury. Sturgeon.
Admittedly, *all* of these authors have also written non-science fiction (often
of a speculative nature, nonetheless). You might be able to get rid of Ellison
for not being consistently sciffy, but any attempt to eliminate the others as
"science fiction writers" is bordering on the absurd. Scratch that, it *is*
absurd.
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Justin Bacon
(Tmhodge) writes:
>And yes, there is a bit of technology involved in the dome and cameras, et al.
>But again, you don't see *any* effect that technology has on the rest of
>society. I think this, to me, is the crux of the matter--that the Show
affects
>little or no change on the society as a whole, and that that society is
>virtually identical to our own to begin with, *including* its technological
>state.
By this limiting definition of SF Silverberg's FLIES (a story from the
Dangerous Visions anthology) would not qualify as SF if it were placed in the
modern era -- the person has telepathy, but that's it. The recent story in,
IIRC, Asimov's where aliens actually crash on Earth but this affects no one but
the people who directly interact with them is not SF. And on and on and on.
Where does the "impact on society" suddenly become sufficient enough for you to
consider it SF?
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Gharlane of Eddore
ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu (Gharlane of Eddore) writes:
>
> > I've read Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Ellison, Herbert, Bradbury,
> > Sturgeon, Butler, Tepper, Bester, LeGuin,... in short, everything
> > I could get my hands on since about the age of 12.
> >
>
> In that list there are *TWO* Science Fiction writers; and they often
> strayed over the line into Speculative Fiction or outright Fantasy
> when they had a good story to tell in those regimes. The rest are
> primarily Speculative Fiction people.
>
In <19991003183836...@ngol06.aol.com> tria...@aol.com (Justin Bacon) writes:
>
> Asimov. Clarke. Heinlein. Ellison. Bradbury. Sturgeon.
>
> Admittedly, *all* of these authors have also written non-science fiction
> (often of a speculative nature, nonetheless). You might be able to get
> rid of Ellison for not being consistently sciffy, but any attempt to
> eliminate the others as "science fiction writers" is bordering on the
> absurd. Scratch that, it *is* absurd.
>
Feel free to explain to Mr. Ellison at any time, preferably in person,
that he is a "Science Fiction Writer." ( nota bene: make sure your
health insurance is paid up to date. )
Bradbury wrote *ONE* SF novel, and a couple of SF short stories; the
rest of the work is fantasy or "Sci-Fi."
Sturgeon was first and foremost, a *writer*, and preferred the
"Speculative Fiction" label; which, note, Heinlein was touting
as *his* preferred term half a century ago.
Asimov wrote *SPECULATIVE* fiction, filled with "Sci-Fi" hand-waves;
some of his work was unutterably brilliant, particularly my favorite
of his books, "THE END OF ETERNITY," which stood unmatched by the
rest of his work until his renaissance twenty years later.
Please don't use the term "Science Fiction" when what you mean is
"Speculative Fiction."
Steve Brinich
> Feel free to explain to Mr. Ellison at any time, preferably in person,
> that he is a "Science Fiction Writer." ( nota bene: make sure your
> health insurance is paid up to date. )
>
> [snip]
>
> Asimov wrote *SPECULATIVE* fiction, filled with "Sci-Fi" hand-waves;
> some of his work was unutterably brilliant, particularly my favorite
> of his books, "THE END OF ETERNITY," which stood unmatched by the
> rest of his work until his renaissance twenty years later.
Having read the essays in "Asimov on Science Fiction", I am quite
confident that Asimov's reaction to someone explaining to him that
he was a "Speculative Fiction Writer" (as opposed to a "Science
Fiction Writer") would have been no less annoyed (albeit expressed
in a purely verbal manner).
Either the writer's own definition of what he's writing is the
standard, or it isn't. I tend to lean toward "isn't" -- after all,
anyone can *say* that he's a science ficiton writer, just as anyone can
*say* (to pick a random example) that "Followup-To: alt.dev.null" is
clever.
--
Steve Brinich <ste...@Radix.Net> If the government wants us
http://www.Radix.Net/~steveb to respect the law
89B992BBE67F7B2F64FDF2EA14374C3E it should set a better example
Justin Bacon
of Eddore) writes:
>Feel free to explain to Mr. Ellison at any time, preferably in person,
>that he is a "Science Fiction Writer." ( nota bene: make sure your
>health insurance is paid up to date. )
Ah, yes. The insanity of "please don't call me that if I do other things, too".
I'm not a playwright if I also write novels (but don't call me a novelist,
because I also write plays). I'm not an author, because I also breathe air.
Admittedly, Ellison had good cause considering that he was consistently being
pigeon-holed as *only* a science fiction writer.
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Gharlane of Eddore
of Eddore) writes:
>
> Feel free to explain to Mr. Ellison at any time, preferably in person,
> that he is a "Science Fiction Writer." ( nota bene: make sure your
> health insurance is paid up to date. )
>
In <19991012224257...@ngol05.aol.com>
tria...@aol.com (Justin Bacon) writes:
>
> Ah, yes. The insanity of "please don't call me that if I do other things,
> too".
>
Hardly "insanity" to refuse to be labelled something you're not.
>
> I'm not a playwright if I also write novels (but don't call me a
> novelist, because I also write plays). I'm not an author, because
> I also breathe air.
>
Give it a rest; Ellison is a *WRITER*. He's also an entertainer.
He's not a "science fiction writer," and adamantly refuses to
be so referenced, because he sees no reason to be limited, constrained,
or vilified in the petty minds of literati who give a writer a bad
name and then shoot him down......
>
> Admittedly, Ellison had good cause considering that he was
> consistently being pigeon-holed as *only* a science fiction writer.
>
Actually, he was on the verge of quitting writing forever when a
lady named Dorothy Parker reviewed a collection of his stories
( *non*-SF ) positively. He was tired of eking out a rather
precarious living desperately trying to prove that he was a
capital-"W" "Writer," rather than a kid selling silly SkiFfy
stories. Ms. Parker's review gave him the positive feedback
he needed to believe that he *was* a Writer, not a genre-confined
hack.
Note, incidentally, that Ellison is math-illiterate, technically
incompetent, and *not* capable of writing Real Actual SF unless
he busts his tail tooling up for it. ( Something he has done,
well and credibly, on more than one occasion. He calls up
technically competent people, grills them, gets the concepts
straight, and goes from there... the same way he writes in
*any* genre or medium. )
Justin Bacon
of Eddore) writes:
>> Ah, yes. The insanity of "please don't call me that if I do other things,
>> too".
>>
>
>Hardly "insanity" to refuse to be labelled something you're not.
>
Please. If you write science fiction you're a science fiction writer.
Is Elizabeth Peters not a mystery author because she also writes romance
novels? Was Shakespeare not a playwright because he also wrote poetry?
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
DelennJohn
Please. If you write science fiction you're a science fiction writer.
Is Elizabeth Peters not a mystery author because she also writes romance
novels? Was Shakespeare not a playwright because he also wrote poetry?
>>>
Correction, you are not simply a science fiction writer, you are a writer. You
really don't need to be split into groups, do you? That's for books, not for
those of whom who write them. Shakespeare was a *writer* so is Peters. Why do
you need to catagorize them? I could see if that is the only think they write;
yeah. But, if they write other things, why contain them with one name?
drago
Matthew B. Vincent
>Please. If you write science fiction you're a science fiction writer.
>Is Elizabeth Peters not a mystery author because she also writes romance
>novels? Was Shakespeare not a playwright because he also wrote poetry?
Harlan Ellison's reason for being uncomfortable with being called a "science
fiction writer" may be because the SF part implies specialisation. He probably
thinks of himself as being a writer in general, rather than specifically an SF
writer.
Suppose that a doctor is proficient in surgery and anaesthetics, and
sometimes practises these abilities when required (for example, the doctor may
work in a remote country town where a specialist isn't usually available
immediately when an emergency happens). This doctor would probably object to
being called a "surgeon" or "anaesthetist", on the grounds that s/he works
primarily as a general practitioner. The broader term of "doctor" would be
more appropriate to describe this person's job.
Ditto for Harlan Ellison being best described as a "writer". Plus there is the
fact that a person's choice regarding self-identification should be respected.
Since he isn't unambiguously a specialist SF writer, it would seem most
sensible to accept his claim of being a "writer" in general, and not a SF
writer.
Matthew