So The Peacekeeper Wars was pretty awesome. They're showing it in its entirety on Sunday, which would be nice to see, if time-consuming (Carolyn reminded me of details from the first part that I had forgotten, as she had taped it to watch today). I think one can see how they crammed a season or two of episodes into four hours, but they did a nice job all in all, with cameos and new concepts and loose ends tied galore. And a bloody happy ending. Bastards. I'll never forgive them for the way they pulled an Alias on the series finale.
      Wyatt also noted the re-occurrence of a certain theme in skiffy (and I'm sure elsewhere as well, just don't feel like looking at it yet) lines. That is, the golden age collapsing and thus setting up the contemporary-to-characters setting. What I thought was especially interesting is the variance in that theme. In Farscape, after the collapse those who maintained the peace attempt to maintain it in the only way they know how - by force, which leads to them being reviled as warmongers. In Battletech, the golden age collapses because of a corrupt government and dictator, and the peacekeeping armies exile themselves - only to return and attempt to impose a whole new peace and culture on what is almost a new golden age. In Warhammer 40,000, the golden age is created by force, and destroyed because of a civil war (of the Lucifer+angels archetype), leaving an endless slow decline into chaos.
      The idea I'm mulling is that these were successful because they use the golden-age-collapse archetype with quality writing, and also because they tend to avoid overt idealism. That is, they don't quite recognize anyone as outright "good," and if they do, those people tend to get screwed over a lot (re: the Caballeros and Grey Death Legion in Battletech, the main characters of Farscape, and everyone and their mother's left nut in 40k). Andromeda attempted to work with a pretty good collapsed-golden-age motif, but didn't go anywhere because of its writing and actors and unremittant idealism. And Firefly? Sorry, people who liked that, but I think it deserved what it got (I really did try to like it, too, I just couldn't). Besides it getting hung up on some of the same things as Andromeda, they started out with a kind of original, kind of old-school Star Wars archetype (failed/failing rebellion), and then mixed that with a limp interpretation of the Western genre. I think some expansion and deepening of their science-fiction setting might have helped, and a closer reading of Westerns and their cynical romanticism (both to avoid or possibly work with ingrained stereotypes and to draw out post-colonial and frontier themes).

-unfortunate name, and interesting looking, but what is it?

-best shirt in the entire world (if you're not one of the two people who might get the reference, feel free to ask and be regaled)