Does the TV scifi paradigm need to change?

[John Crichton]

So, what do you, the fans of science fiction, think of this idea? Would you like to see this become the future or scifi TV, or would you rather cling to the one or two series that actually manage to survive from one year to the next?

Just as an aside, I think we can throw X-Files into the 90's sci-fi success stories.

Looking back at the history of sci-fi on TV, it simply seems that we are in another one of those lulls. It was bound to happen. As fans, the 90s spoiled us; there was always something to watch. You may not have been a big fan but there were always options to watch established shows. Come 2003 we are left with Enterprise, Stargate: SG-1 and Andromeda as the only sci-fi shows with at least 2 full seasons of running. 2002 saw the death of Firefly, Farscape, The Outer Limits, Dark Angel, Roswell and numerous other shows with smaller fan bases. The problem appears to be that nothing has stepped to replace them. The only new sci-fi show that has survived into 2004 has been Jake 2.0, which I cannot comment on the quality of.

1987-2002 was basically sci-fi TVs finest consistant run. I believe we are now currently in the domain of the fantasy/paranormal/superhero TV run. Shows like Buffy, Angel, Xena, Hercules, Smallville and Alias (not to mention others I am surely forgetting). There is no true leader or top dog for the sci-fi fan to look to like Star Trek was.

That said, I look at mini-series as something that could be an answer, but only a temporary solution. The sci-fi fan can only hold on to a mini-series for so long before he or she gets bored. Personally, I'd rather see a full-feature than a mini-series but I'll take a mini-series. Problem is that only one network (as someone mentioned) is even trying sci-fi minis. There are only so many times you can show it in reruns before the fans start looking for a new development.

Most networks get by on talk shows, reality TV, sitcoms and dramas most of which are relatively cheaper to produce. This hurts sci-fi as fans want to see a show that looks like the movies, or at least reasonably close. Some of the shows in the fantasy/paranormal/superhero category have strong ties to sci-fi but are more of a variant. Not to mention that they are cheaper to produce than, say, a space opera. I think we will see more of these shows pop up, especially superhero-type shows. With Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter being so big now I'm sure there are tons of people out there working on ideas for fantasy (medieval) shows. Some will fail and others will be embraced but these shows won't hit the air until late 2004.

Typical, space-based sci-fi as we know it will continue to be in a lull for a bit. It was bound to happen. I even remember a time, near the end of end of DS9's run where I commented to a friend that this (speaking of the "Golden Age" of sci-fi TV) couldn't last forever. There was just too much good stuff on the air.

But mini-series will continue to fill a stop-gap, IMO. If there were a proliferation of them, something like in the number of a half-dozen per year then maybe that would do the trick but networks like to make things like these events, rather than make them regular programming. The SFC has fallen in love with them, but they are the only ones.

It doesn't help that the big sci-fi movies of the last 5 years have been The Matrix which wouldn't translate in TV very well at all and Star Wars. There aren't many good role-models, so to speak. Not a high-time for sci-fi in my mind. I will just wait it out.

:: edited formatting ::

 

[Starman]

More TV series would be successful if they were given enough time to find an audience. Not everyone is glued to their TV 24 hours a day. Many shows need a least a full season to start generating buzz. Suits seem to think that if a show is not successful right away, it never will be, so they cancel it and try something else.

Starman

 

[Hypersmurf]

More TV series would be successful if they were given enough time to find an audience. Not everyone is glued to their TV 24 hours a day. Many shows need a least a full season to start generating buzz.

I think it was near the end of Season 1 or start of Season 2 we actually started watching SG-1.

Before that, we were thinking "A whole series based on that Kurt Russell movie? You gotta be kidding."

Now, of course, we have Seasons 1 through 4 on DVD, and are avidly watching Season 7...

-Hyp.

 

[takyris]

Heh. The vampire/witness-protection one is currently sitting in the slush pile in the magazines, so I'd rather not post a public link to it (on the off-chance that somebody decides to buy it). I'd be happy to e-mail to anybody, but I'll note that there is at least one other large plot element in there that I don't generally mention, and it could make the story odd for folks.

The "E" one was actually just a poem. Sorry if I misrepresented myself on that. I did write a murder mystery where, if you looked at the first letter of each sentence, it spelled out the clue that the detective overlooked and who the real killer was. Trying to come up with "E"-starting words for the beginning of each sentence was a pain in the ass. And I wrote a conversation between five guys, Al, Ed, Id, Ox, and Ur, who could not use the letter A, E, I, O, and U respectively. They were doing a modern interpretation of Plato's Symposium (trying to define love). Ox just said "It's beautiful," and all the others called him a moron.

(This was back in college in a class on writing with constraints. The "E" stuff, that is. The vampire thing got written back in October when I decided to write something funny.)

As for the actual main topic at hand -- I didn't realize that we were focusing exclusively on the Science-oriented Science Fiction -- SF as opposed to Fantasy. One aspect of that is that a lot of good, inventive ideas have been done to death. How many new energy fields can today's TV Space-Ships get caught in? How many times can they run out of air? How many times can they get blasted? Firefly looked poised to deliver some fun new twists by combining genres, and I for one loved that -- but evidently, the rest of the world did not agree with me (or us, rather). Lexx tried to combine space opera and sex opera, and produced garbage, from the few times I watched it.

But really, the field needs to de-ghetto-ize itself. Buffy pulled in some of my literary friends when I made them sit down and watch an episode and showed them that yes, there were real writers working on the show. Babylon 5 did the same thing -- I converted multiple people just by showing them the last twenty minutes of "Whatever Happened to Mister Garibaldi" (Londo visiting G'Kar in his cell and showing him a way to free himself and his people, Lorien finally bringing Sheridan to the breaking point). If they made a space show that involved an interplanetary peacekeeping squad solving crimes in a small but combat-worthy ship and made it one part blowing-stuff-up-in-space, one part CSI, and one part Homicide, it might survive long enough for people to begin to take it seriously.

Or, hell, you know what I'd like to see? Another Alien Nation-type show. Take an interesting alien, flesh it all out beforehand, and then spend a season or two letting the human explorers contact the weird aliens and begin to figure them out, with all the backsteps and problems and miscommunications that stuff would really carry. Add in political tension to bring in the West Wing fans, and a known enemy to provide a ticking clock. Humanity needs to make these new aliens its friends, or at least needs to know that it can turn its back on them while it goes off to fight the Sk'paa. Yeah, in space. But not in the thing-to-blast of the week format. Another of those will pop up at some point anyway. Give me a plot. I'm 27, for crying out loud.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I did write a murder mystery where, if you looked at the first letter of each sentence, it spelled out the clue that the detective overlooked and who the real killer was. Trying to come up with "E"-starting words for the beginning of each sentence was a pain in the ass.

The clue the detective overlooked was "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee"?

-Hyp.

 

[Darrin Drader]

If they made a space show that involved an interplanetary peacekeeping squad solving crimes in a small but combat-worthy ship and made it one part blowing-stuff-up-in-space, one part CSI, and one part Homicide, it might survive long enough for people to begin to take it seriously.

Give me a plot. I'm 27, for crying out loud.

I agree with your assessment, though I'm not specifically just talking about science based sci-fi. At this point I would welcome a Lord of the Rings rip off series.

I'm a major B5 fan, and as far as I'm concerned it is the pinnacle (so far) of science fiction on TV. The one thing it offers above most other shows is the fact that it has distinct, well though out, and interesting characters. I've said this before and I'll say it again, Londo Mollari does so many politically despicable things that resulted in the deaths of so many narns (and others) that it would be easy to draw parallels between him and Hitler. Despite this, by the end of the series you actually like the guy and feel sorry for him. How many shows would actually be able to pull that off?

Anyway I agree that the whole science end of sci-fi has been done to death. The Star Trek style spacial anomaly of the week. Strong characters are the key to any successful series, which is why I hated Voyager. The characters were so shallow that I couldn't stand watching the show for more than 15 minutes at a time. Any time they tried to do character development, the acting was so bad that I just couldn't care less (of course if you've read my earlier rant about the bad acting cop-out excuse for not liking something then you know that I find this a very subjective topic and really something that really means you just don't like the character(s) or the actor(s) to begin with).

My hopes are still riding with Battlestar Galactica. Ronald Moore's vision of BSG did away with the cheese whiz of the original (even if some of us actually appreciated the cheeze whiz), and made the show dark, intelligent, and very human. He gave it a realistic feel and a tone that resonates with modern post 9/11 audiences. I think it will do well if Sci-fi can get their heads on straight and greenlight the series. If they can't do that, even after the excellent ratings it received, then it proves that they might as well not even bother with original programming at all since they refuse to do what is necessary to get them off the ground. The Sci-fi channel, on one hand, complains about bad ratings, and then turns around as soon as they get the chance and take active steps to undercut their own credibility. They could have taken the monetary setback to give us one last season of Farscape. They could have resurrected Crusade before it was too late. Did they? No. Instead they put all their eggs into one basket with Stargate SG1 - a series I have no appreciation for, and have given us nothing else of substance. Right now I'm giving a BSG series only a 35% chance of getting picked up, despite the ratings.

 

[takyris]

Hyp: Darnit. Not exactly what I meant. My darn murder clue message contained far too many E's.

Whisperfoot: Generally agree that SciFi is undercutting itself.

I personally like SG-1, however, and would hesitate to say that it has added nothing to the field. It made its focal choices, and it stuck to them -- the characters are relatively stock, and the emphasis is on problem-solving, for the most part. I'm fine with shows like that, as long as they accept what they are and go with it. I like CSI, for example, even though the characters don't change much, because they don't act like they're really deep and meaningful. They pretty much say, "Here's who we are, we're a set of archetypes, and now we're going to get to the story, okay?" It's not the way I tell a story, but I can enjoy it.

And as a successful show that wasn't a direct Star Trek knockoff, I'm happy to see it prosper. I also like the fact that they seem to have taken some pains to be consistent with their science (which is not to say that they are rigorously accurate scientifically -- just that they don't have things work one way one time and another way another time, generally speaking).

But mileage may vary. Vote with your remote. S'what I do.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Hyp: Darnit. Not exactly what I meant. My darn murder clue message contained far too many E's.

You should have learned more from the experience of writing your E-less poem, then

I also like the fact that they seem to have taken some pains to be consistent with their science (which is not to say that they are rigorously accurate scientifically -- just that they don't have things work one way one time and another way another time, generally speaking).

Well, except that if you believe the dialing computer footage, you can frequently reach new destinations by dialing Chulak or Abydos

-Hyp.

 

[frankthedm]

when the aliens stop being good looking bipeds and start being alien i will start watching sci-fi.

 

[Hypersmurf]

when the aliens stop being good looking bipeds and start being alien i will start watching sci-fi.

Someone has to do a series of telemovies for James White's Sector General Hospital.

-Hyp.