Monday, November 25, 2002

Eitak Nos Nhoj?

I've just watched the first episode on my first Alien Nation DVD, and I must say, I'm impressed all over again by how well this show managed to use its science-fictional premise to address the real-life issues of racism, immigration, and cultural assimilation without ever making the oh-so-common TV mistake of oversimplifying a complex issue for the sake of making a tidy moral point. They also get major points for avoiding a pitfall nearly every other SF TV show has fallen into, that of characterizing alien species with simple stereotypes. Vulcans are logical, Klingons are aggressive, etc., etc., but the Tenctonese are just people, as diverse and unpredictable as we humans. Which is, of course, a large part of the point.

Unfortunately, as happy as I am to have the series on DVD (or at least, to have made a start at collecting the series on DVD), there is one annoying side effect: I've now got the theme song firmly stuck in my head. It's either very impressive or else slightly disturbing -- I can't quite decide which -- that I actually know all the lyrics to the theme song, considering that they're in a completely alien language. But having them looping over and over in my head without even knowing what they mean is driving me crazy! I did some looking around on the web to see if I could find a translation, but as far as I can tell, such a thing doesn't actually exist. I did discover a FAQ on the show that informs me that the person who wrote the lyrics generated them by spelling the names of his wife and daughter backwards. Gee, you really do learn something new every day...

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