REAL HISTORY OF SCIENCE FICTION Really Needs More
Part One: “Robots”
In the first installment of this four-part series, which could easily have been ten parts, the focus narrows to robots and cyborgs. And in the overall scheme of things, it’s interesting that they start here instead of something like space exploration. But it may be that robots and artificial intelligence gives a general audience more of an entry point into science fiction, since in our everyday lives we deal with computers, smart mobile devices, artificial limbs, and the like.
Or it could be that robots are cool. It could go either way.
In either case, the episode condenses a lot of history into one hour, and the time constraint doesn’t do the show any favors. The concentration is on more recent creations in film and TV — the Terminator, C-3PO and R2-D2, RoboCop, HAL9000 — at the expense of their predecessors. Maria from Metropolis gets a mention only as a reference for Star Wars, and Robbie the Robot gets some time, but mainly to set up the later need for robots to look more like people.
No mention at all is given to the Robot from Lost In Space, or to the original Cylons of Battlestar Galactica Prime, or Max Headroom, Data, V.I.N.CENT and B.O.B., the Cybermen, Daleks, or the robots of Westworld. In a show that is supposed to be presenting the “real” history of science fiction, the focus should probably go back a little more in depth than the 80s.
Yes, Frankenstein is here, along with Silent Running, Blade Runner, and 2001: A Space Odyssey, but science fiction is so much more than what we got in this hour. Especially when it comes to robots. Isaac Asimov features heavily in archive interviews, and even quotes his three laws, but where was I, Robot? How about a mention of “The Sentinel”, which led to 2001? How about the confessional robots from Sleeper? What about Bender? The Six Million Dollar Man made the cut, but not The Bionic Woman? Not to mention the various robots and cyborgs that have shown up in novels, comic books, and video games over the years.
Honestly, I felt a little cheated.
Having been on the other end of the production pipeline, I can fully understand the necessity of cutting to fit a time limit. And I’m sure that there’s plenty of material that the producers would have loved to include, but couldn’t because of the one-hour time constraint. But this could easily have been two hours on robots alone. One can only hope that everything on the cutting room floor would be saved for the very much longer version that would go on home video. Because this hour was anything but comprehensive.
Preach, brother.
I agree it’s surprising how much was left out. I hoped there would be another episode on this one topic. I’m still looking forward to the other episodes. I’m hoping for more in them than is probably possible.
Actually I was fine with it, as I don’t think they were trying to make a laundry list of all the sci fi that had robots and cyborgs. To me, they seemed to be focusing on a theme for each segment (our creations become our masters, using tech to improve ourselves, genetic engineering, etc) and focused on the sci fi that supported that theme. To me, it seems the series is not about trying to acknowledge every series-movie-book that fits the topic but more how sci fi has these themes and how they are personified in specific projects. A laundry list would be boring and wouldn’t delve into the themes, and I think they are going for the themes that personify sci fi more than a compendium.