Is space-based sci-fi on TV dead?

[knowles2]

No not Defiance, i know about that show, but i was sure that Defenders was a space based show, oh well my bad, i do still think there is one coming next year tho, just cant think of the name of it and for some reason i thought it was Defenders

It was on one of Syfy production slate for a pilot.

http://www.craveonline.com/tv/articl...-2012-a-beyond

But a warning, they have added a space base science fiction series every year for the last few years to their production slate with nothing being heard from them after they were announce.

Sherwood forest was another one they announced on their production slate that have never been heard from again, that was said to be worked on by Sanctuary crew.

[mr_kennedy]

It was on one of Syfy production slate for a pilot.

http://www.craveonline.com/tv/articl...-2012-a-beyond

But a warning, they have added a space base science fiction series every year for the last few years to their production slate with nothing being heard from them after they were announce.

Sherwood forest was another one they announced on their production slate that have never been heard from again, that was said to be worked on by Sanctuary crew.

Yeah i remember that one, sounded promising too.... Oh well

[MasySyma]

The genre needs a bit of a rest. I enjoy it too, but between 4 Treks, 3 Gates, BSG, etc., fatigue sets in. This type of show has trouble beating what has gone before, and with all of these, comparisons are inevitable, so a new show has it rough.

Trek's gap and great return shows that a pause may be needed to let effects improve and cam memories forget the classics enough to embrace something new.

[Snowman37]

But what people dont realise is that Space Based shows have all of that stuff *points to B5, DS9* we'll except for the last one but they were dark and edgy at times

Today's audience tunes in, sees actors in weird costumes and even weirder makeup on unrecognizable sets, and tunes out. They want to see pretty actors doing cool things like solve crimes while driving fast cars. That's why the space-based shows are gone.

I don't think that kind of TV is dead. It is just taking a bit of a break.

The difference is?

The genre needs a bit of a rest. I enjoy it too, but between 4 Treks, 3 Gates, BSG, etc., fatigue sets in.

Only if you watched all of it. Most casual viewers didn't. Heck, most people didn't even watch all 4 of the modern Treks.

This type of show has trouble beating what has gone before, and with all of these, comparisons are inevitable, so a new show has it rough.

The biggest problem is that space-based sci-fi on TV is laughed at by today's audience. Still taken seriously at the theater and in print, on TV... no one cares anymore. It's all about the latest weekly crime/lawyer/doctor drama.

Trek's gap and great return...

Return? Star Trek didn't return. We're talking about TV shows, not movies. Sometimes people forget that these are two separate mediums. I think a new Star Trek movie was always inevitable, Paramount Pictures makes too much money to let that go. One bad movie wasn't enough to kill the movie saga. Star Trek being off the air, in my opinion, has less to do with audience interest and more to do with network politics. The TV rights to Trek belong to CBS, run by President Leslie Moonves. Leslie Moonves hates science-fiction. So... yeah... Wasn't he the one who ordered the sales and auctions? There's videos on the web of the Enterprise sets that didn't sale or auction being destroyed by a bulldozer. I'm not kidding. You'd think they'd have been sold to another studio so they could be recycled for some random TV show or movie.

[min min light]

But what people dont realise is that Space Based shows have all of that stuff [Today, it's all about procedural, supernatural, and dark-and-edgy terrestrial science-fiction shows.] *points to B5, DS9* we'll except for the last one but they were dark and edgy at times

I think the problem is people don't realize that sci-fi in general is about the people dealing with the subject matter, not the subject matter. I say as someone who didn't get that for a long time. I cheated myself out of a lot of great shows (and not just sci-fi) that way. "Friday Night Lights, a show about football - zzzz no thanks."

There's no real reason that space opera should suffer burnout while sitcoms about friends and dramas about the workplace roll on with no problem, except that it's harder to get people interested in space operas in the first place. (Enough people for the ratings - that's not just the critical factor, that's the only factor.) I think it's more of a marketing problem than anything else.

[Durgia]

No not Defiance, i know about that show, but i was sure that Defenders was a space based show, oh well my bad, i do still think there is one coming next year tho, just cant think of the name of it and for some reason i thought it was Defenders

My bad, I had this...
Defenders movie mixed up with the SyFy show mentioned here

[Krisz]

People have lost interest in the space program, hence why space-based shows dried up on TV. The masses are no longer interested. Today, it's all about procedural, supernatural, and dark-and-edgy terrestrial science-fiction shows.

Good point. I grew up in the era of the space race, if you were going to become a fan of space based Science Fiction, boy was there a lot to get you into it on TV!

It all died down a little after the last Apollo mission in 1972 as I recall, the only space based Sci Fi show that was still on that I watched at that time was Doctor Who. The interest was still there and a few came along sporadically like Space 1999.

Then Star Wars came along in 1977, the impact it had on popular culture woke up an interest in Sci Fi space travelling again and the Star Wars wanna be TV shows began. We got the likes of Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

Of course the Space Shuttle missions that began with the first Space Shuttle flight in 1981 rekindled an interest in space again, and it was the decade the Enterprise took to the stars again with 'The Next Generation'. Space based TV science fiction was on a roll and the 1990's gave the best selection to choose from since the 1960's, if not better than any that came before! Stargate, ST: Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5 are the best of the space based adventures and storytelling for me. The momentum was carried on into the 2000's and brought great shows like Farscape.

I guess there were a lot of stories to tell about human achievements and edeavours, humanity's insatiable curiosity, the celebration of the march of science and technological progress, and the excitement of the new millennium on the horizon, so space based sci fi was a great vehicle for storytelling in this case. As focus shifts more on people worrying about what is happening on Earth with global warming, apocalyptic weather events, seismic and volcanic destruction, food shortages, rising fuel costs and crashing economies there is really no reason to look out towards the stars for an answer. The focus has shifted to facing the problems on our own planet. So we have heroes and demons with supernatural powers that solve or create problems, along with things that scare us that are out of our control. People want to see shows with people solving real problems within society like crime, and people working to succeed in things for a sense of achievement. This is why it seems to me that there are more time travel aspects in Sci Fi and fantasy shows as people want to have a chance to change or affect change in events in the hope of making it better.

When things settle down again and some optimism and the sense of anything is possible returns to the world, perhaps TV shows will look out towards the stars again.

[MasySyma]

Only if you watched all of it. Most casual viewers didn't. Heck, most people didn't even watch all 4 of the modern Treks.


The biggest problem is that space-based sci-fi on TV is laughed at by today's audience. Still taken seriously at the theater and in print, on TV... no one cares anymore. It's all about the latest weekly crime/lawyer/doctor drama.


Return? Star Trek didn't return. We're talking about TV shows, not movies. Sometimes people forget that these are two separate mediums. I think a new Star Trek movie was always inevitable, Paramount Pictures makes too much money to let that go. One bad movie wasn't enough to kill the movie saga. Star Trek being off the air, in my opinion, has less to do with audience interest and more to do with network politics. The TV rights to Trek belong to CBS, run by President Leslie Moonves. Leslie Moonves hates science-fiction. So... yeah... Wasn't he the one who ordered the sales and auctions? There's videos on the web of the Enterprise sets that didn't sale or auction being destroyed by a bulldozer. I'm not kidding. You'd think they'd have been sold to another studio so they could be recycled for some random TV show or movie.

I think more people have watched more than they are given credit for generally. If people watched one Trek, they are usually aware of the others. This awareness and glut of the market is part of the issue. This forum in particular loves to discuss the Treks, BSG, and Babylon 5, which is great, but some of these classics were also surrounded by Andromeda, Lexx, and similar often too comedic shows. For example, I liked Andromeda before Kevin Sorbo, as one of the producers, decided it was too difficult to understand for his Hercules fans. The later seasons play like the writers watched Galaxy Quest and didn't realize it was satire. For every SG-1, two Earth 2s died, and these shows are all trying to appeal to the same audience.

Film and television also inform the market and viewer fatigue. Right now, comic book films, especially in film, are the rage, and now Arrow and other shows are following in their wakes. 20 years from now, people will be as tired of guys in spandex, super strength, and the feisty or passive love interests as they are of "new frontiers" now.

Trek's return was a good sign. If that film had bombed, it would be a sign that the scifi community doesn't care about space much anymore. But as nice as the reminder was, the tv community isn't ready for weekly stops to planet x yet. Notice how Paramount is being careful to not destroy a small flame. Too many Trek like films, and they will all flop again.

Also, whether in film or on tv, scifi is also about new tech, and we are living through a tech revolution. Kirk signed documents on a proto-tablet so thick none of us would buy it as we sneer with our iPads, Kindles, etc. ST:TNG's hypodermics without needles are reality now, so we also have to see this lag until people can imagine something greater than the tech we have now. We are a world with Picard's video conferencing, and while our space station is still tiny it exists. We may even hear new colorful news about something on Mars soon, so the space shows have to pause. Our world has too much to notice at the moment. We need to explore what we have.

[RavenCWG]

I guess there were a lot of stories to tell about human achievements and endeavors, humanity's insatiable curiosity, the celebration of the march of science and technological progress, and the excitement of the new millennium on the horizon, so space based sci-fi was a great vehicle for storytelling in this case. As focus shifts more on people worrying about what is happening on Earth with global warming, apocalyptic weather events, seismic and volcanic destruction, food shortages, rising fuel costs and crashing economies there is really no reason to look out towards the stars for an answer. The focus has shifted to facing the problems on our own planet. So we have heroes and demons with supernatural powers that solve or create problems, along with things that scare us that are out of our control. People want to see shows with people solving real problems within society like crime, and people working to succeed in things for a sense of achievement. This is why it seems to me that there are more time travel aspects in Sci-Fi and fantasy shows as people want to have a chance to change or affect change in events in the hope of making it better.

When things settle down again and some optimism and the sense of anything is possible returns to the world, perhaps TV shows will look out towards the stars again.

Actually I disagree. Yes the space race did do a lot to inspire people’s imaginations about the possibilities of space travel, about what might be out there and stirred the hope of a brighter tomorrow, but the sci-fi of the 1960’s (and most notably Star Trek) was as influenced just as much, if not more so, by the social and political upheaval of it’s day. Think about everything that was happening in the 60’s—the Cold War, the Cuban missile crisis, the war in Vietnam and the civil rights movement, just to name but a few. Couple that with the fact that the 60’s was a time of extreme censorship in network television. There were many topics, such as racism, that simply could not be talked about openly; but science fiction provided an outlet were you could put someone in mask or paint them green and put them in some fictional situation and suddenly you could talk about something controversial in a way that the censors wouldn’t understand. I argue that it was sci-fi’s ability to comment on the social and political conditions of the day that made science fiction so incredibly relevant to the 1960’s.

Science fiction, from its earliest days, has always been little more than thinly-veiled social and political commentary. You can see it plainly in the works of Jules Vern, H.G. Wells, George Orwell and many others. The problem today is that, for the most part, science fiction on television no longer speaks to the important issues of the day and therefore has become largely irrelevant. If sci-fi on television is to survive it’s going to have to return to its roots and once again start focusing on the issues of today in a way that not only entertains but also makes people think.

[Everlovin]

Good point. I grew up in the era of the space race, if you were going to become a fan of space based Science Fiction, boy was there a lot to get you into it on TV!

It all died down a little after the last Apollo mission in 1972 as I recall, the only space based Sci Fi show that was still on that I watched at that time was Doctor Who. The interest was still there and a few came along sporadically like Space 1999.

Spoiler:

Then Star Wars came along in 1977, the impact it had on popular culture woke up an interest in Sci Fi space travelling again and the Star Wars wanna be TV shows began. We got the likes of Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

Of course the Space Shuttle missions that began with the first Space Shuttle flight in 1981 rekindled an interest in space again, and it was the decade the Enterprise took to the stars again with 'The Next Generation'.

Spoiler:

Space based TV science fiction was on a roll and the 1990's gave the best selection to choose from since the 1960's, if not better than any that came before! Stargate, ST: Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5 are the best of the space based adventures and storytelling for me. The momentum was carried on into the 2000's and brought great shows like Farscape.

I guess there were a lot of stories to tell about human achievements and edeavours, humanity's insatiable curiosity, the celebration of the march of science and technological progress, and the excitement of the new millennium on the horizon, so space based sci fi was a great vehicle for storytelling in this case. As focus shifts more on people worrying about what is happening on Earth with global warming, apocalyptic weather events, seismic and volcanic destruction, food shortages, rising fuel costs and crashing economies there is really no reason to look out towards the stars for an answer. The focus has shifted to facing the problems on our own planet. So we have heroes and demons with supernatural powers that solve or create problems, along with things that scare us that are out of our control. People want to see shows with people solving real problems within society like crime, and people working to succeed in things for a sense of achievement. This is why it seems to me that there are more time travel aspects in Sci Fi and fantasy shows as people want to have a chance to change or affect change in events in the hope of making it better.

When things settle down again and some optimism and the sense of anything is possible returns to the world, perhaps TV shows will look out towards the stars again.

Given the reasons you gave (the non-spoilered ones) Do you - the general you - think it's possible that once civilian space flight is a reality, like Richard Branson wants to make available, sci-fi might see a resurgence?

[DarkenLycht]

I guess it's a pitty it kind of died, because that type of thing gives room for so many things.
Nearly everything is possible but I think that is the reason why it happend. There are too many possible ideas fir something new, but it should be, to make poeple like it again, something that really wasn't there before
And thinking of something like that takes so long and maybe gets complicated because of the many possibilities you have...

[min min light]

Is space-based sci-fi on TV going the way of the Western?

On reflection, I think Westerns died out because there's really no PC way to do one.

[Krisz]

Actually I disagree. Yes the space race did do a lot to inspire people’s imaginations about the possibilities of space travel, about what might be out there and stirred the hope of a brighter tomorrow, but the sci-fi of the 1960’s (and most notably Star Trek) was as influenced just as much, if not more so, by the social and political upheaval of it’s day. Think about everything that was happening in the 60’s—the Cold War, the Cuban missile crisis, the war in Vietnam and the civil rights movement, just to name but a few. Couple that with the fact that the 60’s was a time of extreme censorship in network television. There were many topics, such as racism, that simply could not be talked about openly; but science fiction provided an outlet were you could put someone in mask or paint them green and put them in some fictional situation and suddenly you could talk about something controversial in a way that the censors wouldn’t understand. I argue that it was sci-fi’s ability to comment on the social and political conditions of the day that made science fiction so incredibly relevant to the 1960’s.

Science fiction, from its earliest days, has always been little more than thinly-veiled social and political commentary. You can see it plainly in the works of Jules Vern, H.G. Wells, George Orwell and many others. The problem today is that, for the most part, science fiction on television no longer speaks to the important issues of the day and therefore has become largely irrelevant. If sci-fi on television is to survive it’s going to have to return to its roots and once again start focusing on the issues of today in a way that not only entertains but also makes people think.

I totally agree with what you say about what the role of Science Fiction as social and political commentary has been through the decades. I was only looking at the space based side of Science Fiction, since we were discussing space based shows, and how anything to do with space and the advance of technology gave an air of anything is possible with science and technology during that time. It reflected how the belief in what technology can do would take mankind anywhere they could imagine.

Today that optimism is gone, for me it is turning inwards, to problems on Earth, Science Fiction is making commentary on social decay as economic problems make life harder. No surprise what we see are ‘zombies’, who to me are commentaries on people being powerless and mindlessly working and unaware of how much they are controlled by things around them that they cannot change. Post apocalyptic shows that give us the collapse of society, reflecting the decay of neighbourhoods, cities, and the realization of how utterly dependent on technology our society has become to the extent that civilization will collapse without it! Economic factors have changed the focus of Sci Fi, there is no money to dream about the stars when there are problems on Earth.

I guess I beg to differ as far as TV Sci-Fi is concerned, I feel they are still fulfilling the social commentary side, it shows with how depressing Sci Fi shows that are on at the moment are if you really look at it! Watching people chopping zombie heads off gives back some sense of control, but it also sadly relflects on how little regard there seems to be for others around us as we all live in our little bubbles looking out for number one, holding on to what little we actually have, I’d say that’s something to think about!

TV Sci-Fi it can be said is divided into to two sides I guess. The grim apocalyptic views, which we did have in the 50's and 60's with the very real fear of nuclear war and science running amok, and today with economic woes. The escapist view, the lighter side, the time travel shows, heroes with powers (always a mainstay of Sci-Fi) putting the world to rights and making us all feel better.

Given the reasons you gave (the non-spoilered ones) Do you - the general you - think it's possible that once civilian space flight is a reality, like Richard Branson wants to make available, sci-fi might see a resurgence?

All this is tied up with the economy, a feeling of optimism as I can't seem to stop saying!

Until people feel better about the economy, and things get better financially for them, civilian space flight won't be a reality until it does. Even if Richard Branson makes it more accessible by making it commercially viable, it won't happen if very few can afford it, ergo people will not pay attention and Sci Fi will not reflect this.

If the world economy picks up and people end up with more disposable income I don't doubt that excitement for space travel will be renewed and with it spaced based Sci-Fi. Once again people will wonder where to travel next. I know I'd be on that civilian space flight if I could afford it, it's on my bucket list!

[Snowman37]

Is it that big of a deal if space-based TV shows are off the air for now? There's plenty of reruns/Netflix/DVD's to watch in the mean time. Give it time folks. There may not be a resurgence, but at least one good show popping up in the future is inevitable.

Would anyone be up for a faithful remake of Lost in Space? Star Trek: Voyager (1995-01) had a very similar premise, and that lasted seven years. I think there'd be an audience for it.

[Krichton]

People have lost interest in the space program, hence why space-based shows dried up on TV. The masses are no longer interested. Today, it's all about procedural, supernatural, and dark-and-edgy terrestrial science-fiction shows.

People have not lost interest. If a crappy show like BSG can stay on the air for four seasons then ppl are clearly interested.