Flow schedule posted

The schedule and presentation statements for the Flow conference (Austin, Texas, September 30–October 2, 2010) have been posted. I’m presenting at session 8, “Science Fiction: What Does the Future Hold?”

In my statement, which you can download as PDF here, I discuss SF franchises in TV. I suggest that it might be useful to read a franchise as though it were genre: as a way to shortcut complex ideas. I see franchise not as limiting, but (like fan fic) as generative.

You know me: my deal is British SF TV as well as American SF TV, so franchises I think have been interestingly updated include the Day of the Triffids remake, which is about Big Oil and a postapocalyptic eco crash; the remake of The Prisoner, which doesn’t comment on cold war politics but rather relies on individualistic generative reality (Heroes, anyone?); and even Spooks Code 9, which is a futuristic postapocalyptic youth-culture take on the Spooks spy franchise.

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