So, is there a market for vintage sci fi? All the belly aching about discovery not being star trek enough for a core element of the fandom, and even I occasionally wish there were a few TNG episodes I hadn't seen yet, got me thinking maybe they should make some more. I am of course, perfectly happy with Discovery as it is, but is there room for something else too? A continuation of Next Gen, DS9 and voyager, rolled up in to one, with 24th century design and 21st century special effects? Planet of the week type stuff? X-Files picked up where it left off with the same credit sequence, Red Dwarf is back on telly. The Mondsasian Cybermen fit modern Dr who quite seamlessly. I don't think Picard the Return would set the networks on fire, but would it make a return on the production costs?
I think Generation-X is reaching the point where a Murder She Wrote or Diagnosis Murder type show that features older actors and is aimed at an older demographic starts to make sense. I mean, I'm 47 and not ready for the catheters yet but I do feel the generation gap BADLY and am watching enough Me-TV to know that something intentionally retro and deliberately out-of-step with current millenial attitudes would be comfort food for my soul. The Orville is mostly hitting that button although I don't really need the dick jokes. But I think there's a market for this.
As with most things in the media it's all in he execution. But look at some of the things that have come back in the last decade or so, some of them are based on what people where watching in the 70's/80's, give it another 5 or so years and we might see a return to some 90's shows as those with the ability to make those decisions now where children then. And Nostalgia can play a part.
You might be on to something here. I'm 41, and the boomers have things like New Tricks, where all the TV faces of the seventies and eighties turn up in a cozy police drama, my generation is missing something of the nostalgia.
Star Trek Continues is the most faithful recreation and continuation of the Original Series imaginable, short of cloning the original actors - but their total lifetime non-unique views on YouTube pale next to Trek's ratings back when ENT was cancelled. The Orville is heavily influenced by Trek and Next Gen, but with new characters in an original universe, and loads of crude humour. So far I believe its doing well enough, ratings-wise. I'd watch a Next Gen revival, but I'm not sure enough people would to make it profitable - especially considering Sir Patrick's pay check was huge at the time of Nemesis.
I don't know if Next Gen revival would work. Older actors are fine for crime dramas, for characters with action responsibilities, they were already stretching it in Nemesis. A show with characters from Next Gen mixed with new characters would work a little better.
At least when it comes to depicting real history, it can always be posited as a “period” story. Science fiction doesn’t get that kind of leeway by its very nature; nothing ages so quickly as trying to depict the future.
I'm a little surprised they haven't tried to do That 90's Show yet. Especially when things like Fuller House, Girl Meets World and Will & Grace are on. Maybe the actors they'd need just aren't available, but it's an opportunity to put everyone in grunge clothes and make fun of jaded MTV misery culture, not to mention have everyone react to the internet coming into existence. Eric Foreman raising his kids in the 90s to a grunge soundtrack, that's free ratings there. I'm hoping that Orville convinces TV network execs that Bermantrek style space operas are less of a risk.
Hey, one thing about the Orville. Yeah, there was some crude humor in the pilot. I hated that, and I dislike Family Guy and the rest of MacFarlane's output. I watched the second episode. Felt only fair as I gave Discovery until episode 4 before I quit. Starting with episode 2 the crude humor tapers WAY off. The jokes actually start to get funny in episode 5. See Isaac and Malloy in a prank war. The budget isn't close to Discovery's, and it shows. However, the Orville looks just fine. Very much a visual continuation of TNG, with some Galaxy Quest sensibilities thrown in. The action scenese in episode 6 were cool, as were some in the pilot. And the crew of the Orvill spends a lot more time "discovering" things than the crew of Discovery has. TL'DR, Orville is a good show. I was almost rooting for it to fail and was very pleasantly surprised.
My idea of "retro sci-fi" is stuff like 1930s/1940s pulp magazines, the old Flash Gordon serials through the first Perry Rhodan novels, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, Star Trek TOS, the original Outer Limits and Twilight Zone series and the like; as well as later productions with a fantastic, stylized retrofuturistic aesthetic, along the lines of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, The Incredibles, and Meet the Robinsons. And I would absolutely love to see more sci-fi in this vein. Kor
Its retro because they don't make em like they used to. I considered classic, or vintage, but retro seemed the most appropriate, and would cover any style that has fallen from favour, not just nineties. Always looking to broaden my vocab though, open to suggestions.
Not a criticism, to be clear. Just feeling my age a little, that's all! I still think of anything after STAR WARS as "modern," as opposed to the stuff I grew up on.
I doubt it. So many spinoffs have been absolute failures. Besides, not sure anyone would be interested in Eric Foreman without Red and Kitty.
There is occasional '90s nostalgia in the movies, such as The Perks of Being a Wallflower. But for a whole TV series... does anyone even remember That '80s Show, which lasted all of thirteen episodes? A "'90s Show" would probably suffer the same fate. Kor
There's "I Love The 70s" and "I Love The 80s" and "I Love The 90s" and even "I Love The 2000s" on VH1 - those are filled with nostalgia. It always seemed to me that the self-congratulatory nostalgia trend was accelerating. I'm frankly surprised that we don't have shows "fondly looking back" on things that companies have in the pipeline to release next year, by this point. Someone told me a while back that there's a place in England called Newbridge, and it's called that because it's the town where they built a new bridge to replace the old bridge. The NEW bridge went in in the late 1200s. Reflecting on that makes it hard to get seriously excited about things celebrating a mere 10, 25, or 50 years, by comparison*. My whole nation is in elementary school, compared to that kind of history. *Except birthdays and wedding anniversaries, because those have significance compared to our lifespan, not compared to the overall span of all of time.