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.
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John Slattery reveals the face of the enemy in NeXt.
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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
