The Oncoming Storm

Since Stargate Atlantis finished its fourth season at the beginning of March, I've been waiting for some excellent new science fiction to air. I chose my tense very carefully in that last sentence: progressive perfect. Even though Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica returned to airing two weekends ago, I have not yet seen anything worth the reputations previously earned by these shows.

As Lila noted, Doctor Who is back on the zombie bandwagon. Yes, the Vesuvius episode was filler. The litmus test for these is easy in Doctor Who: was it written by Russell T Davies? Yes equals a sweet show; no, a weak filler episode. The dilemmata of being a Time Lord are a constant theme in the show, but the Doctor doesn't normally have a problem with doing what has to get done. There is no pressing need to remind us of this every season, and even Donna said that she "knew all this" in the first episode. I haven't watched the third episode of the season yet, but I trust we will see improvement soon.

Back to zombies for a minute. Upon reflection, it strikes me that zombies are an extremely prevalent theme in science fiction. In the original sense, a zombie is a body that has been taken control of. Supposedly there were some sort of hallucinogenic drugs from Africa that were used to convert people to zombies. Who knows. Regardless, the brain-thirsty college kid in this picture is not the only embodiment of the zombie. Do note, though, that this zombie has torn his jacket in his madness, but hasn't untied his nicely-dimpled tie. There's a reason for that. His tie is serving the functional purpose of holding his head on. Think about it.

Almost every science fiction source I have recently been entertaining myself with is full of zombies. Hell, all the robots I can think of (save Marvin the Paranoid Android) are very much zombies. Mass Effect, for those who've played it, was all about zombies, from the robotic, hive-minded geth, to those enthralled by either Sovereign or the Thorian. Pretty repetitive game, once you realize that. Of course, what I am segueing to is Battlestar Galactica.

Think about it (think, think about it). The seven cylons that are publicly known all don't understand why they do what they must do. They were "programmed" by whomever created them to avoid thinking about the final five. Pretty silly, huh? They just act according to their programming (so it is argued) and as such are no more than zombies. The cylon centurians (until the second episode of this season) were mindless killing machines. And the human-form cylons exist by downloading into inactive spare bodies. For them, the mind–body debate is solved: the body exists only as a tool for the mind, and can be discarded at will.

The "sleeper agents" (although there can only be at most one remaining---and there is only one true god! Coincidence?) are the most zombie-like (zombiesque, zombimbic, zombic? Zombied and zombified, which the OED provides, just don't suit my need). They are certainly programmed and behave accordingly. They can be made to do things that they would not choose to do (shoot Adama, blow up the water supply, cf. season one for more examples) and have no control over it. A good question is, will the baby cylons be programmable (cry now!) or does that require a spare body? More generally, can the cylons actually reprogram each other?

Zombies, zombies every where,
And oh the plot did thick;
Zombies, zombies every where,
And many turns to trick.