VOY: Mortal Coil Review

[Jonathan101]

Yes, but I'm not sure if you think that Fuller created THAT Hannibal.

He made the other one.

So you're either making a pun or you are mixing the two up.

And my compulsive need for things to be orderly and correct MUST KNOW WHAT IT IS!

[Yukaphile]

Which Hannibal are you talking about? I'm thinking about the one with Siddig in it. Are you talking about the one with the serial killer? If so, my bad.

[Jonathan101]

Yes, that's what I meant.

Siddig played Hannibal Barca.

Fuller created the Hannibal Lecter TV show.

(I've got both on DVD )

[FaxModem1]

One of the reasons I like Bryan Fuller is that he likes investigating the idea of the afterlife, and the implications thereof. That's what Mortal Coil does, only in an alien context.

He's pretty much doing what he did with Dead Like Me, a show about people forced into becoming Grim Reapers, and how reaping souls is pretty much just a job for them, and they have to deal, usually humorously, with the newly departed.

Not always though, sometimes they treated it very seriously. Note this scene, in which a Male to Female pre-op person is angry at God for making them what they are, and they're reaped while still biologically male. If God is real, what kind of deity makes people who have to go through such suffering?

With Neelix, if the afterlife isn't real, what is the cornerstone of his life? Where is his family? Is he the last one left? Does he have nothing to look forward to aside from cooking people meals day in, day out for the rest of his life? Shame that Voyager doesn't develop this, but this episode is scarily beautiful in how being confronted in how your whole life is a lie can be terrifying:

NEELIX: The lights. It's beautiful.
ALIXIA: Yes. It's just like you always imagined it would be. The trees, the sunlight, and everyone who ever loved you.
NEELIX: When I died, I looked for you, but you weren't there. Why weren't you there?
ALIXIA: Because it's all a lie.
NEELIX: What do you mean?
ALIXIA: You've wasted your entire life believing lies. The Great Forest? The afterlife? It's all created out of your fear of death. None of it's real.
NEELIX: If that's true, what's the point of living?
ALIXIA: There isn't any. That's what you're finally starting to realise. (Naomi's voice) I'm afraid to go to sleep. tell me about the Great Forest, Neelix. Tell me about the trees, and the grass, and all the people who loved you!
NEELIX: Why are you saying these things?
ALIXIA [Naomi's voice]: Scared you!
(Alixia crumbles to dust. The sky darkens. Neelix walks to a stone slab and pulls the sheet back to reveal his dead self.)
NEELIX [as corpse]: You died on that shuttlecraft, Neelix. They never should have brought you back. It was a mistake, and you know it. Now accept it. You know what you have to do.
NEELIX: No.

[Yukaphile]

On the flip side, now that I know he worked on "Empok Nor" and "The Darkness and the Light" I can safely say something felt... off about them compared to the rest of DS9. No wonder early STD sucked.

[Beastro]

If God is real, what kind of deity makes people who have to go through such suffering?

That question seems predicated upon the assumption that suffer has no worth and cannot be something from which someone can learn and grow from.

An issue that comes from that is that the common view of what is good isn't what God would hold, which has more to do with nothing bad happening to people, no suffering and everyone getting what they want than it does with the Biblical thread of equilibrium that factors in misfortune and is opposed to malevolence (The former being the example you link compared to a mass shooting where deliberate harm is intended).

[Deledrius]

If God is real, what kind of deity makes people who have to go through such suffering?

That question seems predicated upon the assumption that suffer has no worth and cannot be something from which someone can learn and grow from.

If you want to posit a world where suffering is a requirement in any way, then we just move the argument up to the construction of such a universe, and where the blame for that is placed.

[Yukaphile]

According to Bible, we lived in a world of eternal bliss and innocence, until humans fucked it up. What a surprise.

[clearspira]

According to Bible, we lived in a world of eternal bliss and innocence, until humans fucked it up. What a surprise.

Let's be more accurate about that: God, who can see everything remember, decided to do bugger all about the talking snake. As In, he would have been sitting on his ass watching that happen and then got pissy about it. I dont see how its on us. But then sitting on his ass as bad things happen is kind of what he does so at least there is consistency.

[Yukaphile]

That's also true. XD