Sometimes I have to indulge my science fiction geek urges.

That’s why I wrote about the allure of fembots for Popular Science. Some feminists say the fembot is an old-fashioned male fantasy because she’s a completely programmable (and controllable) woman. But most movies portray female robots as strong, out of control, and extremely dangerous. Even the evil Maria cyborg from 1927 silent flick Metropolis is tough as nails. So too is the nuke-carrying robobabe from Eve of Destruction, Pris of Blade Runner, and of course the boob-morphing female terminator unit from Terminator 3. And don’t get me started on the cylons of Battlestar Galactica. The point is that the fembot is not exactly a dumb USB device. She’s fascinating because she should be controllable, but isn’t — and she’s a creature who looks delicate but is stronger than you. Read my article to find out more.

Of course, I also had to write about stupid science fiction to make up for my foray into the world of kickass female cyborgs. So I posted on MeeVee about the secret messages from the Church of Scientology in one of the all-time worst SF shows ever, The 4400. There are some seriously weird parallels between Scientology lore about Body Thetans and alien superpowers and the plot of this horrible show about humans who’ve been altered by possibly-alien, possibly-human people from the future who hand out superpowers as if they were copies of Dianetics. Also, the 4400 “gifted” people live in a giant “complex” that looks strangely similar to a Scientology building. Bad science fiction or bad religion? You be the judge.

My post on MeeVee will be the first of several I’m going to write for the site about science fiction television. I’ll keep posting them here as they roll out, or you can bop over to the MeeVee blog and catch them when they’re hot off the feed.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 20th, 2006 at 12:41 pm.
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