I've seen a lot of sentiments expressed (less so on these boards, though) about how SGU is "not SciFi", and they usually go something like this:
"There are barely any aliens, and the few we do see are a complete mystery. They rarely discover or use any new technology. They keep introducing new questions without fully answering the old ones. There are barely any battles and we see way too much conflict between characters who are universally hard to like."
To me, that describes the essence of Science Fiction as a literary and film genre.
Science fiction has always been about asking a lot of questions and intentionally ambiguous answers. About hidden aliens and unknown motivations. And about characters most of all. Deeply flawed characters, confused characters, outright bigoted characters. Any kind of interpersonal conflict you can think of, SciFi has tackled it - ideology, personality, nationality, gender, rank, social class, and on and on.
Even action- or war-oriented SciFi like Ender's Game or Old Man's War. Or fantastical SciFi like His Dark Materials. Or classic SciFi like War of the Worlds and Stranger in a Strange Land. Heck, even SciFi/Comedy like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Biting the Sun. Science Fiction elements serve as the setting, but the actual story is always centered around imperfect human characters.
Whether you like the show or not, and whether the show has successfully created an interesting story or not, SGU is actually truer to the SciFi genre than anything else on television. I wish more people recognized that.
And I wish SyFy would try creating more "real SciFi" shows and movies. SciFi/Fantasy as a literary genre is as popular as ever, there's no reason why SyFy's ratings should be so low (if it consistently offered SciFi). Instead, when I asked a friend of mine - who loves SciFi/fantasy books - if she ever "watches anything on SyFy", she responded, "That channel with the cheesy horror movies?"
"There are barely any aliens, and the few we do see are a complete mystery. They rarely discover or use any new technology. They keep introducing new questions without fully answering the old ones. There are barely any battles and we see way too much conflict between characters who are universally hard to like."
To me, that describes the essence of Science Fiction as a literary and film genre.
Science fiction has always been about asking a lot of questions and intentionally ambiguous answers. About hidden aliens and unknown motivations. And about characters most of all. Deeply flawed characters, confused characters, outright bigoted characters. Any kind of interpersonal conflict you can think of, SciFi has tackled it - ideology, personality, nationality, gender, rank, social class, and on and on.
Even action- or war-oriented SciFi like Ender's Game or Old Man's War. Or fantastical SciFi like His Dark Materials. Or classic SciFi like War of the Worlds and Stranger in a Strange Land. Heck, even SciFi/Comedy like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Biting the Sun. Science Fiction elements serve as the setting, but the actual story is always centered around imperfect human characters.
Whether you like the show or not, and whether the show has successfully created an interesting story or not, SGU is actually truer to the SciFi genre than anything else on television. I wish more people recognized that.
And I wish SyFy would try creating more "real SciFi" shows and movies. SciFi/Fantasy as a literary genre is as popular as ever, there's no reason why SyFy's ratings should be so low (if it consistently offered SciFi). Instead, when I asked a friend of mine - who loves SciFi/fantasy books - if she ever "watches anything on SyFy", she responded, "That channel with the cheesy horror movies?"
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