Give me my SF and Fantasy straight, man. Don't dilute it.

I want to like Doctor Who, really I do. I want to like Terry Pratchett, really I do. I want to like Douglas Adams, really I do.

It would make things so much easier.

The humor escapes me. I mean, I love the bon mots of Buffy and Firefly, the Marvel movies, and so on.

But when it comes to straight SF or Fantasy the quirkiness pulls me right out of the story.

Linda and I watched the first episode of the new Doctor Who. I noticed that Linda was chuckling throughout the show but it got nary a chuckle out of me. It seems very light, not much to invest in. I mean, I've seen snippets of Doctor Who, such as the Van Gogh story, that were powerful, but when I watch the show itself I'm just sort of not interested.

Linda has shows she watches, and I have shows I watch, and I have shows that she watches with me, and she has shows I watch with her, and then there are shows that we both love.

Lodge 49 was a show that Linda watched because I was watching it. But by the end, she was fully into it.

"How can you not be?" I said. "It's kind and gentle and down-to-earth, just like you are."

I mean, talk about quirky--but I loved it.

So I can't explain my resistance to humorous SF and Fantasy. I 'm not altogether consistent--I loved Good Omens, for instance, which is Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. But mostly, I'm turned off by it.

Give me my SF and Fantasy straight, man. Don't dilute it.