SCANT SF OFFERINGS IN NEW SEASON

Despite everything it does look like we’ll have a new fall season of television, with new episodes of returning shows and even some new shows to keep us all from going stir-crazy as cooler weather descends and we’re still stuck at home with COVID. It doesn’t look like a big season for SF, but there are a couple of shows worth trying.

NeXt for example, a cyber-science fiction outing on Fox Network, was developed by creator Manny Coto (executive producer on Star Trek: Enterprise’s last season). The show follows the efforts of an FBI agent (Fernanda Andrade) and a tech genius (Mad Men’s John Slattery) to stop a self-aware artificial intelligence from taking over the world.

John Slattery reveals the face of the enemy in NeXt.

The first episode begins with a few harrowing scenes as a scientist carrying vital information attempts to escape someone (or something). We later find out he’s figured out the AI program he’s been working on has passed the “singularity,” that is, it has become self-aware, and is reprogramming itself—gaining new knowledge—at an alarming rate. The program is supposed to be isolated from the Internet, but, of course, it’s somehow found a way to link up to the web, and can hack into anyone’s phone, laptop, car computer systems, hospital life support, etc. So, the scientist trying to warn others about this is toast.

And so will we be if our good guys can’t figure out how to pull the plug. There are complications, of course. Our tech genius is suffering from a rare, fatal, neurological disease that makes him hallucinate (so he’s a little, um, unreliable). And the FBI agent’s young son, being bullied at school, has turned to his home computer assistant “Iliza” for comfort. Guess who has hacked that technical marvel?

None of this is new, naturally. And we’ve seen it done better before on television, too—take Person of Interest, for example. Still, while we are all chained to our phones and computers and Alexas and what-not—not to mention all the computer-assisted steering and braking in our cars that could be hacked—it is worth thinking about the implications of the computer that starts thinking for itself. That super-cyber-intelligence won’t have humanity’s best interest at heart, you can be sure. So, one more television show about this subject, with decent acting and a believable premise, can’t hurt.

After all, almost everyone working in the field, and the greatest minds of our generation—including Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates—have warned us that we will not win a fight against computers that can learn to think for themselves. NeXt gives you a good sense of that central technological issue without a lot of jargon-laced info-dumping on the screen.

On the other hand, sometimes context is necessary to understand what is going on with the science. The latest import for Masterpiece on PBS, a British politico-SF drama called COBRA, could really use some of that explanatory background. Not a lot. Just a few lines of dialogue here and there, or a sexy professor or something.

Otherwise this story of Britain’s Prime Minister, his Cabinet and government science wonks trying to cope with the impact of a massive solar storm may lose much of its audience before it has a chance. Science fiction is not the usual subject for a Masterpiece series in the first place, so I suppose the writers for UK Comcast production company Sky Television just thought to focus on the political intrigue and personal problems of PM Robert Sutherland (Robert Carlyle of Once Upon a Time), his assistant Anna Marshall (Victoria Hamilton of The Crown), his nemesis, Home Secretary Archie Glover-Morgan (veteran actor David Haig) and others. They all do seem to have their challenges, aside from the big one they are trying to face together in Cabinet Office Briefing Room (A), which is where the series gets its name.

The problem here is that it’s not crystal-clear what kind of disaster a solar storm can cause. Yes, we know solar flares can wreak havoc with communications and computer programs. And, without the shielding provided by the Earth’s atmosphere, those problems can be severe. (Solar flares caused some of the problems in GRAVITY, if I remember correctly.) But usually the atmosphere protects us, and the disruptions are minor.

In COBRA, we are led to believe the storms on the sun are so massive as to pose a dire threat not only to computer systems—avionics, medical technology, navigational systems, communications, etc. But they also knock out power all over Britain (and presumably large parts of the world) for a long period of time. Mind you, the show does not propose the storm is producing an electromagnetic pulse of some kind. That I could understand. Instead, how and why the power goes out is not explained—something about voltages and transformers. No one ever mentions why backup generators won’t work, in hospitals or crucial facilities, for example. I’m not suggesting we have fifteen minutes of whiteboard work and talking heads to explain it all, but a few lines to address these questions would be helpful.

But that’s the problem with science fiction. As writers we walk a narrow line between the science—which requires enough detail to build the world your characters live in, but not enough to put your readers to sleep—and the characters’ relationship to the science, that is, the emotional impact the scientific situation has on them. The best science fiction illuminates the situation the characters face and then focuses on their all-too-human reaction, while not wasting time with unnecessary and lengthy explanations. Readers (or viewers) shouldn’t need a degree in physics to understand the plot; neither should they feel they need to turn off their brains when the book (or show) begins.

After one episode, I’m not sure where COBRA will fall on this scale, but, so far, it’s not too promising. At least the acting is superior (in the style of almost all British imports) and the political intrigue is interesting. We’ll see where it goes.

(Hear all my complete TV and movie reviews on my podcast My Moviehouse My Rules. New episodes every Wednesday.)

Cheers, Donna