Preliminary Off-Planet Thoughts
Jun. 5th, 2019 08:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerSo far as the steady rollout of streaming video services and the production of exclusive series for them goes these days, when it came to the first reports of Apple setting up its own service my thoughts have pretty much amounted to “if they do make money that’s fine; if they don’t I hope this doesn’t get out of hand.” When the recent flurry of announcements about updated operating systems and pricy professional hardware happened to have a note mixed in about an “Apple Original,” though, that did get my attention.
A series involving “realistic space travel” would tie into my interests no matter what, building potential drama around something that can seem more positive than a lot of familiar story ideas. However, while the term wasn’t used in the official description, that description starting with “What if the space race had never ended?” had me thinking “alternative history.” I’ve certainly taken some of those in, but I do have to admit to wondering if this one would make the real world feel more depressing. “Since what happens in space these days doesn’t involve people in spacesuits making geological traverses on other worlds, none of it is worth anything” can feel a bit much when you haven’t been alive for what did get held up.
Watching the trailer itself did have me thinking there might be a bit more edge to things than just armchair quarterbacking, though, even if I’m left wondering how many accidents the series might throw in to drive its story without ending it. I do have to admit to Ronald D. Moore’s name being attached has me remembering how little I’ve thought of the revamped Battlestar Galactica he was also involved with since it ended, something that might have some bearing on a story that might even touch on “coexistence.” So far as “the real world story” goes, I am thinking back to a series now over twenty years old that had Tom Hanks as its front man, and how I went back to a bit of “From the Earth to the Moon” right when First Man was in theatres. (The older series wasn’t lit as dramatically as the movie, but I did think of a book on the subject I’d read to think it might have got one small detail about the Gemini capsule more accurate than the later production.) I had wondered about “a common title” too before remembering “For All Mankind” had been the name of a documentary about Apollo. In any case, this new series would seem to have to cover most of a decade of “alternative history” before there’s the risk of product placement in Apple II computers having a first chance to show up in it.
A series involving “realistic space travel” would tie into my interests no matter what, building potential drama around something that can seem more positive than a lot of familiar story ideas. However, while the term wasn’t used in the official description, that description starting with “What if the space race had never ended?” had me thinking “alternative history.” I’ve certainly taken some of those in, but I do have to admit to wondering if this one would make the real world feel more depressing. “Since what happens in space these days doesn’t involve people in spacesuits making geological traverses on other worlds, none of it is worth anything” can feel a bit much when you haven’t been alive for what did get held up.
Watching the trailer itself did have me thinking there might be a bit more edge to things than just armchair quarterbacking, though, even if I’m left wondering how many accidents the series might throw in to drive its story without ending it. I do have to admit to Ronald D. Moore’s name being attached has me remembering how little I’ve thought of the revamped Battlestar Galactica he was also involved with since it ended, something that might have some bearing on a story that might even touch on “coexistence.” So far as “the real world story” goes, I am thinking back to a series now over twenty years old that had Tom Hanks as its front man, and how I went back to a bit of “From the Earth to the Moon” right when First Man was in theatres. (The older series wasn’t lit as dramatically as the movie, but I did think of a book on the subject I’d read to think it might have got one small detail about the Gemini capsule more accurate than the later production.) I had wondered about “a common title” too before remembering “For All Mankind” had been the name of a documentary about Apollo. In any case, this new series would seem to have to cover most of a decade of “alternative history” before there’s the risk of product placement in Apple II computers having a first chance to show up in it.