Good Sci-Fi is about people

I am a big fan of Star Trek. All my friends and family know (and sometimes shake their head in annoyment or puzzlement). And I have a friend who has the whole collection of ST Voyager DVDs, so I am screening right now through season 6.

Season 5 had a nice surprise for me. Episode 22 "Someone to watch over me" is a jewel and a shining example of what good Sci-Fi is all about. In this episode (spoiler alert!) Seven of Nine is encouraged by the Doctor to date and the whole episode is a delightful insight into what a normal human activity looks like to a human child raised by aliens. There is even a cliche right at the end where Seven finds out that the Doctor made a wager with Tom over her and she is infuriated, in typical movie female fashion, betraying her robotic Borg ways.

What this show had was a wonderful example of what good doctor Asimov indicated as the fascination of Sci-Fi. It is not the gadgets or the special effects; it is about people, only that we are seeing them in an extrapolation of our current life and we get to wonder how people will react when they are in this extraordinary environment. And not surprisingly, the extrapolation will tell us that people are people are people.

I remember that my father-in-law strongly criticized my liking Star Trek because "he wouldn't like to live in that world". Guess what: people would still be people. And a good science fiction story will always try to reach into the human side and indicate to the audience how human traits will remain, in spite of any technology you may care to throw upon us.

Picture above is, of course, Jeri Ryan in her Seven of Nine regalia. Talk about a good incentive to watch Voyager...