“Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.”
– William Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet,” Prologue
“Star-Crossed” (a.k.a. “Romeo and Juliet meet Alien Nation”) is a science fiction romance created by Meredith Averill which premiered on The CW last month.
It’s a great pleasure to write this review, because after it’s filed I’ll never have to watch another episode of this dreck again.
In case you missed the “star-crossed lovers” reference, it’s yet another iteration of “Romeo and Juliet,” by… oh heck you know who it’s by.
It’s not that it’s unoriginal, Shakespeare wasn’t original. “Romeo and Juliet” was based on “The Tragicall History of Romeus and Juliet” (1562) by Arthur Brooke, and many earlier works.
“Romeo and Juliet has been done as a ballet by by Sergei Prokofiev (1935), no less than 27 operas, uncounted popular song references, and movies.
“West Side Story” (1961) made it into a musical with an ethnic gang theme. “China Girl” (1987) did the same but grittier with a mafia versus triads theme.
“Star-Crossed” is an attempt to do it as science fiction.
There are good reasons to try it as SF. Most Americans don’t believe in ghosts, destiny in the stars, or the fact that our families might detest each other as an insurmountable barrier to True Love.
When I was doing my anthropology masters fieldwork among immigrant Filipinos one of my informants told me how meaningful “Romeo and Juliet” is for them.
“In the Philippines if a couple’s families are against each other, they have no chance,” he said. “In America kids just say, ‘Oh they’ll come around when we have children.’”
Not even different races provide enough tension anymore.
But aliens… now that might present some problems.
The first “Alien Nation” film (1988) made alien refugees the ultimate immigrant story. The spin-off series added the subtext of an inter-species romance. “Star-Crossed” tries to take it from there.
In brief, later this year aliens called Atrians arrive on Earth and are immediately attacked, because they are different I guess. Six-year-old Emery Whitehill (Aimee Teegarden) finds an Atrian boy Roman (Matt Lanter) in a shed and protects him.
The Atrians are rounded up and kept in a detention camp for ten years until the government decides to integrate them into our society by sending a group including Roman and his sister to high school in a move reminiscent of Little Rock 1957.
There Roman and Emily reconnect but of course the path of true love never runs smooth, particularly after Emily’s father accidentally shoots Roman’s father dead.
It could have been good. It’s difficult to see why they didn’t choose to make it good, considering that Averill has some solid writing credits in SF (“Life on Mars”) and fantasy (“Happy Town”).
One, the Atrians look like Anglo-Saxons with some tattoos. Could they have considered making them look well, alien? Could they have spent as much as Star Trek used to on makeup, or been daring enough to find some exotic-looking mixed-race actors?
Two, there is nothing convincing about the Atrians’ culture presented so far. Just some tacked-together customs with nothing to indicate a coherent whole. And by the way do you think it likely technologically advanced aliens would have a basically tribal political structure?
Three, there isn’t even a hint of a backstory. How come these aliens from another world seem to be human enough to be sexually attractive – and can we interbreed. And if so why? Are we long-lost kin?
But what really grates is the offensive way we, as in 21st century Americans are portrayed. As if there has been no social progress since Little Rock. Except now the bigotry is a charmingly multi-racial us against the new minority.
Why does the series assume we’d immediately attack aliens who had not attacked first, rather than react with awe and wonder?
Why do they assume our alien classmates would be pariahs rather than rock stars?
Why would the government be so stupid as not to check the local community for organized and dangerous bigots? Even I don’t buy that.
Why do they dismiss legitimate fears we might have as racism?
Are the Atrians the vanguard of an invasion force? Might they carry alien pathogens like those European diseases that decimated native populations? Would contact with a superior civilization destroy or damage ours even without any ill will on their part?
And most offensive is the stereotypical pickup-driving, tobacco-chewing redneck using phrases like “race traitor.”
Go back and try again Averill.
Note: This appeared in the print-only TV Guide of the Marshall Independent.
A collection of Steve Browne’s essays and newspaper columns, “The View from Flyover Country: A Rural Columnist Looks at Life in the 21st Century” is available on Amazon Kindle.