A lot of really good points in this thread, except for Hypersmurf and his "I should be used to writing without "E", darnit" stuff. 
Wizardru, I'm gonna harp on one thing you said, though. Maybe it's because I write stuff that doesn't fit neatly into one genre or another, and thus haven't sold as much as I could have. (This is not an "I would totally be a bestseller if not for gablah" pity-fest. Multiple agents have independently told me, "This novel was written in a professional, polished style, and it was an enjoyable read, but I don't know that there's a market for something that crosses genres like this. I wouldn't know how to sell it." And of course, if it had truly blown their socks off, they'd have taken it anyway.) Whatever the reason, I really get annoyed wtih genre snobbery -- and I'm not saying that Dru was being a genre snob, but I disagree that SF stuff "isn't SF". It's not hard SF, certainly, but neither was Babylon 5. Babylon 5 could have been a fantasy epic with no real difficulty, with people flying around on dragons through magical portals between worlds. It could even have been a weird and interesting political espionage show with generous tweaking. A tiny American embassy in the middle of Europe that has a small city and a really big airport. The Vorlons and Shadows are ancient secret orders that have manipulated history over the centuries. The Minbari are the British, the Narns and Centauri are Eastern European countries in constant conflict, and so on.
It is perfectly legitimate and good to use the Science Fiction genre to tell a story that could only be told with science fiction -- "Hyperion" would have been a tough read as fantasy, I think -- but it's also perfectly legitimate to use the SF genre to tell stories that could also have been told in other genres. I don't want every one of my SF shows to spend most of the episode talking about the physics behind interstellar travel.
That said, I totally agree with what I thought was your main point -- the real problem is not the stories that are being told, but the fact that they're being told badly. I gave up on "Joan of Arcadia" halfway through the pilot, and I had Tivo'd it out of interest. I gave "Tru Calling" two or three episodes because I like Eliza Dushku. Everyone here is entitled to their opinions, and I hope that those shows appeal to enough people somewhere to make the industry realize that SF can work -- but they didn't work for me.
Brisco County Jr. was SF in several episodes, and steampunk in several others, and a darn romping good time in several others. The fact that he wasn't dealing with time travelling criminals every week doesn't mean that it was bad that he did it once. Heck, "The Dukes of Hazzard" had one episode near the end where them Duke boys done found themselves a little gray spaceman and helped him get back to his ship (Oh yeah. Seriously. I could not make that up.). Does that make the entire run of "Dukes of Hazzard" SF?
I'd rather worry about whether or not a show is good than what specific genre I can lump it into.
Wizardru, I'm gonna harp on one thing you said, though. Maybe it's because I write stuff that doesn't fit neatly into one genre or another, and thus haven't sold as much as I could have. (This is not an "I would totally be a bestseller if not for gablah" pity-fest. Multiple agents have independently told me, "This novel was written in a professional, polished style, and it was an enjoyable read, but I don't know that there's a market for something that crosses genres like this. I wouldn't know how to sell it." And of course, if it had truly blown their socks off, they'd have taken it anyway.) Whatever the reason, I really get annoyed wtih genre snobbery -- and I'm not saying that Dru was being a genre snob, but I disagree that SF stuff "isn't SF". It's not hard SF, certainly, but neither was Babylon 5. Babylon 5 could have been a fantasy epic with no real difficulty, with people flying around on dragons through magical portals between worlds. It could even have been a weird and interesting political espionage show with generous tweaking. A tiny American embassy in the middle of Europe that has a small city and a really big airport. The Vorlons and Shadows are ancient secret orders that have manipulated history over the centuries. The Minbari are the British, the Narns and Centauri are Eastern European countries in constant conflict, and so on.
It is perfectly legitimate and good to use the Science Fiction genre to tell a story that could only be told with science fiction -- "Hyperion" would have been a tough read as fantasy, I think -- but it's also perfectly legitimate to use the SF genre to tell stories that could also have been told in other genres. I don't want every one of my SF shows to spend most of the episode talking about the physics behind interstellar travel.
That said, I totally agree with what I thought was your main point -- the real problem is not the stories that are being told, but the fact that they're being told badly. I gave up on "Joan of Arcadia" halfway through the pilot, and I had Tivo'd it out of interest. I gave "Tru Calling" two or three episodes because I like Eliza Dushku. Everyone here is entitled to their opinions, and I hope that those shows appeal to enough people somewhere to make the industry realize that SF can work -- but they didn't work for me.
Brisco County Jr. was SF in several episodes, and steampunk in several others, and a darn romping good time in several others. The fact that he wasn't dealing with time travelling criminals every week doesn't mean that it was bad that he did it once. Heck, "The Dukes of Hazzard" had one episode near the end where them Duke boys done found themselves a little gray spaceman and helped him get back to his ship (Oh yeah. Seriously. I could not make that up.). Does that make the entire run of "Dukes of Hazzard" SF?
I'd rather worry about whether or not a show is good than what specific genre I can lump it into.
