Sci-fi, move over; dramas honor real science
Television has graduated from stories about pseudo-science to a more grounded area of interest: hard science.
Unlike the profusion of shows steeped in out-ofbody, time-traveling, telepathic, parallel universe, cybernetic and robotic issues, today’s dramas are less concerned with the space-time continuum than the history of concrete medical knowledge.
This return to realism may be a reflection of a handful of current shows, or it may be a harbinger of a cultural shift in the new millennium. What if science is gaining traction?.
The physics of the atomic bomb in “Manhattan,” the development of early surgical techniques in “The Knick,” the exploration of sex and sexuality in “Masters of Sex,” the science of computer engi- neering in “Halt and Catch Fire,” and even the study of herbal medicine in “Outlander”— all are on display with no supernatural/ paranormal additives.
The moment is rife with respect for the experimenters who nudged science along. All this in the same year “Cosmos” got a prime-time revival and brought new attention to Carl Sagan’s TV heir, astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson. On TV, the scientific method is looking good.
This new wave of science-honoring shows goes deeper. Sure, the “CSI” shows honor the laboratory; “Numb3rs” dealt with math; “Cadfael” solved mysteries with botany; and “House” cracked cases with medical insights.
But this exploration of the history of scientific knowledge has taken a newturn.
Nobody expects viewers to actually learn chemistry or physics from John Benjamin Hickey on “Manhattan” or to glean the art of Caesarian sections from Clive Owen on “The Knick.” But viewers are being exposed to a reverence for the scientific mind across a variety of disciplines at once.
As these characters struggle, curse, self-medicate and scrawl formulas, determination and curiosity is honored.
Not a little ego is involved in their quests— Virginia Masters (played by Lizzie Caplan) wants her name on the study alongsideWilliam Masters (Michael Sheen) in “Masters of Sex.” She sees the possibilities for science to change attitudes and relationships, to enlighten and advance the culture.
FrankWinter (Hickey) wants his team in Los Alamos to beat the team across the hall, even though both are working for the same country during the ColdWar in “Manhattan.” He suffers from the knowledge of the potential of the bomb as a weapon, but understands its wider potential.
John Thackery (Clive Owen) is bent on working around the clock, fueled by cocaine and visits to a brothel, performing untried techniques before an audience of amazed surgeons in 1900 at “The Knick.” He is living at a time of great invention and realizes that new contraptions, like the vacuum, can be used in the surgical theater to save more lives.
Claire Randall (Caitriona Balfe) is an English nurse who has a way with plants. She also has a separate life in the future in the timetraveling sci-fi romance “Outlander.” If she can bring her 1940s knowledge to bear on 1740s Scotland, she can educate and save lives. In the meantime, she may teach the TV audience a thing or two about science versus superstition.
Similarly, the “Halt and Catch Fire” computer engineers may not have succeeded in beating the brilliant Macintosh to the market, but they shared insights into the science of computing, how the world looks to a visionary, the personal demands of innovation, and what it means to achieve a breakthrough.
They’re fighting different demons, mostly inter- nal, rather than the monsters, vampires and aliens dotting the small screen. In a refreshing switch, these characters pursue an even higher calling than cleaning up Gotham.
The alien hunters and vampire slayerswho have populatedTVfor years delivermonologues about the nature of evil and root out theworst of society. They do the dirtywork. The new protagonists and antiheroes, men andwomen of science, aremore inclined to muse on the great possibilities and lure of the future. They may be up to their elbows in blood or on the edge ofmadness, but they’rewaging battles of ideas.
They’re not solving a case for purely egotistical reasons, like “House,” but pushing the boundaries of their fields for all of science.
Despite the characters’ fear of slipping from sanity, a hopefulness infuses these stories. Even when the protagonists reveal their all-too-human flaws and endure scientific flops they convey a devotion to advancing knowledge, something TV isn’t regularly accused of promoting.