Did the RDM BSG kill ship-based SF on TV?

[Republibot 3.0]

Lately I've been hearing people saying that the new Galactica kinda' killed space-based SF on TV.

The argument is that it was really popular for a bit there, so everyone wanted to imitate it to one extent or another, but then somewhere in season 3 it sort of stumbled and lost the interest of most casual viewers. It kind of staggered to a halt, and the finale was widely regarded as terrible. I myself actually think the finale was so bad that it undid everything good about the series, and turned EVERYTHING into a combination of Deus ex Machina and "A Wizard Did It." (That was full disclosure there) This then soured everyone on space-based shows, and that was that.

Myself, even though the RDM BSG outstayed its welcome, I don't really buy the theory, since the only space-based series that was terribly "Galacticaish" was SGU. Of course some argue that SGA was cancelled a year early to allow them to make SGU, so I guess that's possible, but I'm not really buying it.

Anyway: Discuss!

1) Did BSG kinda' kill space-based SF on TV?
2) In a larger sense, can a show's own popularity become disadvantageous for its genre as a whole?

[DigiFluid]

No. The space-based sci-fi landscape has been pretty sparse for a very long time.

[Hyndara71]

Interesting ... mostly because I see it the other way. I couldn't barely stand the beginning of New BSG and never watched that show in the original run because I really hated all this drama. When I watched the complete show last year I have to say, I kinda liked the ending while I will never really like the beginning.
About Universe ... how can you! No, no one of TPTW ever watched or knew anything about New BSG! Everyone telling another story is a liar!
Just kidding, sorry
As far as I know Stargate TPTW wanted the same critical acclaim new BSG TPTW got for their show. That's why in Universe the whole bunch is much more whining and whimping and cheating at each other than in New BSG.

About killing ... I would say no. Spacebased Scifi is at the moment not up to date. Now everything is more about invasions or timetravelling. I think it's only a matter of time till we will see another space- or shipbased Scifi-show. And, btw. isn't there coming a new ST-movie? That's, as far as I know, space- and shipbased

Just my opinion *shrugs*

[Snowman37]

People lost interest in space-based TV shows long before BSG. The space-based shows were a big thing in the 90's, but that only lasted for about a decade. People moved on to the cop/lawyer/doctor procedural shows of the 00's.

[Republibot 3.0]

No. The space-based sci-fi landscape has been pretty sparse for a very long time.

I dunno, man, you had like 18 years of Trek, which overlapped with 15 years of 'Gate. Basically, this season is the first one since 1987 that hasn't had a space-based SF show on it. Not to mention B5, Andromeda, Defying Gravity, Firefly, and a host of others.

[Republibot 3.0]

People lost interest in space-based TV shows long before BSG. The space-based shows were a big thing in the 90's, but that only lasted for about a decade. People moved on to the cop/lawyer/doctor procedural shows of the 00's.

You might be right. 1994 is generally regarded as the peak of popularity for the Trek franchise, when you had TNG, DS9, VOY and "Generations" all in one calendar years. From that point on, however, the popularity declined. However it continued on well into the 00s, and Gate started in 98, I think, and ran for 15 years. You've got a not-insignificant number of other shows running, some with considerable lives. BSG ran for 4 seasons/7 years (Man, the lags between seasons were killer!)

On the other hand, there are *never* a whole lot of space-based shows and the reason is primarily that they're really expensive. With a cop show, the cop can hop in a car and drive through town. In an SF show, they have to build the car prop, do a CGI model of the town, come up with clothes that look futuristic, etc. It's just crazy more expensive. So the show has to be WAY more popular than a comperable show to justify the expense. I mean, NCIS costs about $3million/ep, and brings in as many as 22 million viewers. SGU cost about the same, and brought in about 700,000.

[Hyndara71]

People lost interest in space-based TV shows long before BSG. The space-based shows were a big thing in the 90's, but that only lasted for about a decade. People moved on to the cop/lawyer/doctor procedural shows of the 00's.

Interesting and wrong:
In the 1990's mystery-shows were up to date (X Files, X Factor, Pretender, Millennium, etc.). Cop-shows were always successful (The Untouchables, The streets of San Francisco, L.A. Heat, etc.) and often longlasting (Colombo CSI etc.). Lawyer-shows were on their high in the 1980's with shows like "L.A. Law" or "Matlock" and surely some more which titles now won't come to my mind (sorry, it's late over here ). And "doctor"-shows had their high too in the 1990's with shows like "ER" or "Chicago Hope".

[Republibot 3.0]

Interesting ... mostly because I see it the other way. I couldn't barely stand the beginning of New BSG and never watched that show in the original run because I really hated all this drama. When I watched the complete show last year I have to say, I kinda liked the ending while I will never really like the beginning.

I agree about the beginning. <G>

As far as I know Stargate TPTW wanted the same critical acclaim new BSG TPTW got for their show. That's why in Universe the whole bunch is much more whining and whimping and cheating at each other than in New BSG.

I'll tell you why I like the whining on SGU and hate it on BSG: On BSG the people started out dysfunctional and appalling, and they stayed that way. They were despicable in the start and despicable in the end, except for some deathbed conversions in the last 10 minutes or so of the finale. On SGU the people started out dysfunctional and (not quite as) appalling, but over time they rose to the challenge, and became better people in the process.

I think BSG would have played out better for me (Even with the crappy ending) if the characters had started out as reasonably functional, reasonably likeable, reasonably decent folks, and then they fell apart as the situation deteriorated. I think it would have been much more interesting to see Lee and Bill getting along well as Father and Son at the start, and have their relationship gradually torn apart as the show progressed, for instance. Having them start out estranged and more-or-less stay that way through the whole run of the show...meh.

About killing ... I would say no. Spacebased Scifi is at the moment not up to date. Now everything is more about invasions or timetravelling. I think it's only a matter of time till we will see another space- or shipbased Scifi-show. And, btw. isn't there coming a new ST-movie? That's, as far as I know, space- and shipbased

Just my opinion *shrugs*

Invasions and time travel are *cheap.* That's why they're popular. With studios, anyway. <G>

Let me maybe explain what I'm getting at another way:

Back in the mid/late 60s, there were a whole lot of SF shows, a lot of space shows, including TOS, and we'll throw Voyage to the Bottom fo the Sea in there as well, since it's for all intents and purposes, a planet of the week show (Substitute "Island" for planet and there you have it. Also: lots of aliens) They were really popular, they died out.

In the 70s, space shows were a non-starter. They either bombed instantly (Starlost, UFO), or were too expensive to keep on the air (Galactica). In the '80s, owing mostly to Trek, Space became cool again, and by the 90s you had scads of popular space shows. In the last two or three years, that's all dried up, it's not popular anymore.

So there's a cycle at play, obviously.

Now: in the case of Trek: it had a lot of success, and for a long time there, *EVERYONE* who wanted to do a space show (or a submarine show) decided to copy the TNG formula, including Trek itself (VOY, ENT) until it just became horribly boring and hackneyed. They'd gone to the well a few times too many and found it dry. Their own success killed them because they ran out of ideas. Likewise, the people who were copying them never had any ideas to begin with, so they were toast, too, and the the "Trek" way of doing things came to be perceived among the 'danes as just silly, boring, preachy, and goofy-looking. So not only did that affect Trek itself, but space shows in general, whether they were good or bad. Guilt by association.

Gate was, I think, popular because of its "Right here, right now" quality, and its general lack of preachyness and emphasis on action and generally interesting episodes, which Trek didn't have. It probably was on the cusp of going to the well too many times just before SGU came on. Hadn't hit it yet, but it was in sight.

I think BSG was popular BECAUSE it was basically anti-trek, and pretty overt about it. However doing the opposite of something that's no longer popular anyway will only keep people's interest for so long, and by the end, BSG's buzz was gone. SGU tried (Willingly or otherwise) to jump on a trend that had already ended.

So: The Trek-styled ship based show is dead, and good riddance. Played out. The Gate-styled planet-of-the-week show was still going. BSG revived the ship-based show, and then kinda' bled it to death, and SGU made the mistake of playing last year's trend. Way too 00s for the Teens.

So we can argue that indirectly BSG killed Gate, and we can argue more directly that BSG killed the ship-based show.

Conversely, I think Gate would still be running in some form if they *hadn't* done a dysfunctional somewhat misanthropic ship-based show.

[maneth]

And let's not forget the decline of all drama due to the networks' preference for "reality" crap, a lot more of which is scripted than they want to let on, at least in outline (they intentionally script scenes/situations that tend to generate conflicts) and "Talent" shows in various guises. As long as there are people willing to make fools of themselves in public, and an audience to watch such, that is probably not going to change.

[Infinite-Possibilities]

Even if the BSG finale was that bad, why would fans apply its faults to every show set on a ship?

[Republibot 3.0]

And let's not forget the decline of all drama due to the networks' preference for "reality" crap, a lot more of which is scripted than they want to let on, at least in outline (they intentionally script scenes/situations that tend to generate conflicts) and "Talent" shows in various guises. As long as there are people willing to make fools of themselves in public, and an audience to watch such, that is probably not going to change.

True. And again: Those are cheap. Good ratings, low cost, you can't really blame 'em, even if it's tripe. It's a good return on the network/studio's investment.

Ironically, every time the Writers Guild strikes for better terms, they end up pushing TV more in the direction of Reality shows and hurting thier own position. I mean "Cops" started in the big '87/'88 strike...

[Republibot 3.0]

Even if the BSG finale was that bad, why would fans apply its faults to every show set on a ship?

Not fans, Danes. Mundanes. Normal people. Not Fen. Casual viewers, not geeks. They tend to be motivated more by word of mouth and buzz and short attention spans and not a lot of loyalty to a particular show. These are the people who *didn't* watch SGU (or Caprica, or, truth be told, the latter years of BSG), and that's why the shows died. (BSG was supposed to go two more seasons, but ratings fell so bad in year 3 that Syfy would only allow one more to wrap it up)

The way they tend to think is "Hey, this show is just like that other show I like, so I'll watch it!" or in the case of SGU, "Hey, this show is just like that other show that I stopped caring about like four years ago, so I'm not going to bother with it."

Make sense?

[Infinite-Possibilities]

But even so if the only thing they have in common is that they are set on spaceships why would casual viewers do that? Are you saying casual viewers don't understand that different shows are different?

[Republibot 3.0]

But even so if the only thing they have in common is that they are set on spaceships why would casual viewers do that? Are you saying casual viewers don't understand that different shows are different?

Well, yeah. TV is largely based around that idea. You have one popular thing that's new, or new-ish, and you get a zillion knockoffs. Then the popular thing outstays its welcome, and anything that appears similar quickly goes the way of the hoop skirt and the dodo bird as well.

[Infinite-Possibilities]

It still strikes me as a stretch to think that one episode can single-handedly kill an entire concept. Not everything that is wrong with one show will be the problem with others. If ship based shows are in decline it will be because casual viewers are tried of space ships, not because of viewers thinking something like "Battlestar Galactica had a disappointing finale therefore every show that has a spaceship will have a dissapoiting finale."