The Essential Science Fiction Television Reader

The Essential Science Fiction Television Reader. J. P. Telotte, ed. Lexington, KY: UP of Kentucky, 2008.

Reviewed by Jason West, "Star Tech: SF Television's Pleasures and Perils," 'Extrapolation' 54.1 (Spring 2013): pp. 105-112, upon which we depend.

Anthology of critical essays edited by a major scholar and critic in the field and including Susan A. George's "Fraking Machines: Desire, Gender, and the (Post)Human Condition in Battlestar Galactica." West very much likes George's essay — she is a heavy hitter in the field — and its re-evaluation, downward, of the 2004-09 Battlestar Galactica. In West's words with an important embedded quote, George argues that the series "problematically represents women by establishing complex connections 'between the dangers of technology and the feminine' (163) that may typify American culture before, during and after BG's production but that remain less revolutionary advances in female SFTV characterization than" the show's creator "production team, and his most ardent fans proclaim" (Extrapolation p. 108). Note that "frak" in the world of Battlestar Galactica does not refer to a technique to increase production of oil and natural gas but is a slang expression for "fuck."[1] The problematic nexus among machines, sex, and women (or the feminine) is an SF motif of importance from at least METROPOLIS on.

RDE, Initial Compiler, 30Aug18