Am I out of love with sci-fi?

[FPAlpha]

I wouldn't say I'm opposed to it. They're clearly very popular, and I do watch some of them. However, I do feel these days that you can't just enjoy a TV series for what it is, you have to make a commitment to it. Most of these series don't get past the first year, and some of them don't even get that far.

The ones that do give us complicated ongoing mythologies that have no hope whatsoever of being resolved in the finale. I watched Lost and Battlestar Galactica and enjoyed them both (BSG more than Lost) but the finales had no hope whatsoever of wrapping up everything that happened on the two shows. I compare the ending of Lost to the much more satisfactory ending of Life on Mars (UK) / Ashes to Ashes. Completely different shows of course, but remarkably similar finales but while it worked with the episodic nature of Ashes to Ashes, it didn't work as well with the complex mythology created on Lost.

It's also been a long time since I've felt a TV show was must see. I can't remember when the last time I rushed home to watch a TV show was. Nothing on TV at the moment makes me say, "I can't wait until the next episode". Trek used to do that in spades for me. I'd even watch that week's episode of Trek again over the weekend. The closest anything comes to that now is Doctor Who where I will do my best to watch that week's episode that night. Whereas everything else I watch gets recorded or downloaded to watch when I can fit it in. Watching something live? Forget it - it never happens any more. (On a separate subject, I do miss that 'shared experience' of watching something at the same time as everyone else does).

And now with Netflix and Amazon, etc, there's a constant stream of people recommending new TV shows to me. Oh you've got to watch this programme. I will when I get a chance to watch the million other TV programmes you've recommended.

Also, not everything has to serious and foreboding. Not everything has to be as grim as Game of Thrones. Can't we have fun TV shows any more? Give me more shows like Warehouse 13, or Eureka. The closest I come to that right now is The Librarians and Scorpion.

However, I think I may have found something new that I like. I caught the first episode of Timeless on UK TV the other night. It has a good chance to become a good show. Of course, now I've said that will be when the show gets cancelled.

(EDIT to add this.) Apologies - after reading this post back, it does come across as a bit of a rant. I'm just trying to recapture my lost love for sci-fi TV.

To be honest i don't miss the times of self contained episodes like TNG used to have.. often enough something monumental happened to a character and it was never followed up upon. You remember the episode where Picard was "hit" by an alien probe and lived out an entire life in an alien culture? That's life changing and the only thing that came out of it was the very few instances where we saw him play the flute which he learned during that episode.

I much prefer arc storytelling like it began with DS9 and the Dominion threat. It started in the season 2 finale and gradually built up to become the central focus in the last 2 seasons. Worf and Jadzia fell in love and gotten married and we saw that relationship start and brutally end, Sisko went from a bitter widower at the show start to an admired and very capable leader, we have seen his son grow up and find his own way and later on Sisko found love again with Cassidy Yates.

Yes, it requires commitment and you can't skip half a season and be able to follow it effortlessly withon 1-2 episodes, much less so with heavily serialized shows like Walking Dead or Breaking Bad because each episode is important but this has apparently become the thing since HBO and other subscription channels or Internet streaming services like Netflix have made the 10 -16 episodes story arc shows popular (and which you could binge in a weekend per season).

So i guess most popular shows nowadays aim for a big story to tell that is maybe interrupted by stand alone episodes if they are on network TV and have 20-22 episodes per season (the DC superhero shows Arrow, Flash and Supergirl come to mind.. a mix of arc/season story and stand alone episodes) but if it's HBO/AMC or something like this and 10-16 episodes the storytelling is much tighter due to less time per season.

The only holdouts i can remember are cop/crime shows with the case of the week formula but since i don't follow them all that much i can't say for sure (last show i watched like this was Castle but even they had several red story threads sprinkled throughout).

 

[Kelthaz]

Yeah, I don't think I could go back to self-contained, monster of the week shows either. I'm fine with a few standalone episodes each season to break up the big plot (Buffy does this well), but if a show isn't serialized I will not watch it.

 

[JD]

I'm more or less with you guys. I still enjoy episodic shows, but if given the choice I much prefer serialized stories. You can just get so much deeper into the characters and stories in a serialized story than you can in an episodic show.

 

[TRON JA307020]

But isn't that part of the down to for lack of a better term instand the "gratification audiance" who can't wait to see how things unfold over a season/series. So are we reaching the point now that people won't even bother to tune in for a more serialised show because they'll think it'll be cancelled so why invest the time?

I can happily enjoy episodic shows and more serialised shows.

The problem is if a serialized show has a crappy ending(i.e. Lost and BSG) years are wasted watching it. I rarely rewatch serialized shows because I already know the outcome and usually don't want to watch the entire series to get there. I prefer the DS9 route because for the last 3 years they mixed the dominion arc with stand alone episodes perfectly. So I enjoy a mix.

 

[Degra1]

I like both episodic and serialized storytelling. It all comes down to the writing. TNG and for the most part X Files told standalone stories and were great. They also did 26 new episodes a season and churned out reliably consistent good episodes

ENT did 26 episodes it's first two seasons full of standalones and was mediocre. The difference is quality of writing

By the same token serialized storytelling doesn't guarantee good episodes. There have been plenty of serialized shows in recent years that suck and most of them had short seasons so the argument short serialized seasons are inherently better than 26 standalone tv seasons goes out the window

I think the main difference between serialized storytelling from the 80/90 and today is the idea of making serialization unnecessarily complicated and convoluted with bloated mythologies. Whatever happened to straightforward linear season long arcs that pay off within the tv season rather than making a big mystery out of everything spinning dozens of unanswered questions that drag on for the life of the show. The former is far more entertaining, the latter not very satisfying viewing experience

 

[TRON JA307020]

I like both episodic and serialized storytelling. It all comes down to the writing. TNG and for the most part X Files told standalone stories and were great. They also did 26 new episodes a season and churned out reliably consistent good episodes

ENT did 26 episodes it's first two seasons full of standalones and was mediocre. The difference is quality of writing

By the same token serialized storytelling doesn't guarantee good episodes. There have been plenty of serialized shows in recent years that suck and most of them had short seasons so the argument short serialized seasons are inherently better than 26 standalone tv seasons goes out the window

I think the main difference between serialized storytelling from the 80/90 and today is the idea of making serialization unnecessarily complicated and convoluted with bloated mythologies. Whatever happened to straightforward linear season long arcs that pay off within the tv season rather than making a big mystery out of everything spinning dozens of unanswered questions that drag on for the life of the show. The former is far more entertaining, the latter not very satisfying viewing experience

Right. Having a mystery or unanswered questions last several seasons is annoying especially if the answers don't pay off or if they are never answered(i.e. Lost). The beauty of stand alone episodes is that you get the payoff in a hour and you are only out an hour if the ending sucks. If its a series wide arc and the ending sucks you are out a few years.

 

[Greg Cox]

If its a series wide arc and the ending sucks you are out a few years.

But that assumes that you were only watching the show for the ending, and not actually enjoying each episode when you watched it the first time. I mean, presumably you found the episodes entertaining when they first aired or you wouldn't have been watching the show in the first place. And all those hours of enjoyment were not erased from the timeline by a lame ending, so you're not out of anything except a satisfying final episode.

A bad finale doesn't retroactively take away all the laughs and thrills and entertainment you had along the way. You still had those experiences.

 

[Borgminister]

Fringe did an interesting mix of serialized and standalone. Even X-Files. I might check out The Expanse (no, not my stomach), which has been critically acclaimed. Am watching Incorporated and Travellers, both middling to good shows. But all serialized, true, which I don't mind as long as things don't get too convoluted. Walking Dead is classic, even though the best by date is potentially approaching. Dunno, as long as a show is well done, whether it's serialized or not, I'll watch and be entertained.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I'm amused at the serial v episodic debate, because a lot of early prose and film SF was serialize.

 

[Degra1]

But that assumes that you were only watching the show for the ending, and not actually enjoying each episode when you watched it the first time. I mean, presumably you found the episodes entertaining when they first aired or you wouldn't have been watching the show in the first place. And all those hours of enjoyment were not erased from the timeline by a lame ending, so you're not out of anything except a satisfying final episode.

A bad finale doesn't retroactively take away all the laughs and thrills and entertainment you had along the way. You still had those experiences.

It depends. If a serialized drama tells a self contained season long or two half season long arcs then those series from my experience have a focus and drive and even if there are a series of set up episodes followed by a payoff those set up episodes are fun and entertaining g on their own.

The problem though is how modern serialized storytelling is approached by writers these days. Instead of having a series with a pretty wide open premise and a modest ensemble that tells a season long arc in pretty linear straightforward terms they've become obsessed with creating a series with a very limited focus and then proceeding to burden it with a complicated mythology and cast of characters where you have no idea really what's going on and you have to sit and wade through some rather dull episodes waiting to get some larger context to understand everything. And then maybe those earlier episodes once everything comes into view will be more interesting or maybe not. Those set up episodes though IMO should be interesting and entertaining on their own the FIRST time through not dependent on later context which is exactly what shows like Lost or Heroes would do

And in the case of Lost it was being treated like one massive series spanning story with a beginning middle and end. So you cant just tell a viewer the bad finale shouldn't sour your opinion of the series as a whole when it reverberates back throughout re shaping the series itself. We aren't talking about a show like The X files which had an awful series finale but it didn't and couldn't taint what came before because the show wasn't defined by the finale. It remained relatively independent of its finale by virtue of its storytelling style. Lost on the otherhand was so interconnected and interdependent that you can't help but let the finale taint the series at large. Then at the end of the day Lost amounts to not much more than some interesting twists and a few standout moments in this large overdone narrative tapestry. Look at lost the series as one big two hour episode. You sit through 105 minutes then end with an awful ending. You arent going to rush to rewatch or have much impetus to rewatch it. That's why I avoid any series that has a LOST like approach to its storytelling because IMO it just doesn't work and makes for very poor entertainment. Plus most get cancelled in their first season anyway. Unfortunately pretty much anything nowadays this applies to. I keep hoping writers will get back to basic storytelling and not be so caught up with story structure, non linear storytelling, fast paced scenes that are dramatic inert and mythologies

And I hate shows that do a hybrid approach trying to be a little bit standalone and a little bit arc based like Fringe or Flash for instance. To me it ends up being unsatisfying and all over the map. The standalone plot becomes an underdone afterthought then the arc related stuff feels anemic with only a tiny bone thrown to the fans interested in the serialized story. Frankly be all in on standalones or all in on serialization

 

[TRON JA307020]

But that assumes that you were only watching the show for the ending, and not actually enjoying each episode when you watched it the first time. I mean, presumably you found the episodes entertaining when they first aired or you wouldn't have been watching the show in the first place. And all those hours of enjoyment were not erased from the timeline by a lame ending, so you're not out of anything except a satisfying final episode.

A bad finale doesn't retroactively take away all the laughs and thrills and entertainment you had along the way. You still had those experiences.

I liken it to a movie that starts out good but by the second half becomes incredibly stupid but I stick with it hoping it will get better. When the movie does not get better the whole experience has been ruined and the memory of the movie becomes frustrating. Same with a series that has a bad ending. I have no motivation to ever watch BSG(2000s version) or Lost ever again. Both of the shows got very frustrating but I stuck with them hoping they would get on track again. Sadly they never did.

 

[FPAlpha]

And in the case of Lost it was being treated like one massive series spanning story with a beginning middle and end. So you cant just tell a viewer the bad finale shouldn't sour your opinion of the series as a whole when it reverberates back throughout re shaping the series itself. We aren't talking about a show like The X files which had an awful series finale but it didn't and couldn't taint what came before because the show wasn't defined by the finale. It remained relatively independent of its finale by virtue of its storytelling style. Lost on the otherhand was so interconnected and interdependent that you can't help but let the finale taint the series at large. Then at the end of the day Lost amounts to not much more than some interesting twists and a few standout moments in this large overdone narrative tapestry. Look at lost the series as one big two hour episode. You sit through 105 minutes then end with an awful ending. You arent going to rush to rewatch or have much impetus to rewatch it. That's why I avoid any series that has a LOST like approach to its storytelling because IMO it just doesn't work and makes for very poor entertainment. Plus most get cancelled in their first season anyway. Unfortunately pretty much anything nowadays this applies to. I keep hoping writers will get back to basic storytelling and not be so caught up with story structure, non linear storytelling, fast paced scenes that are dramatic inert and mythologies

The problem with Lost ( i stopped watching sometime in the 3rd season) and BSG, as the most common examples of this, is that the producers/main writers apparently didn't really plan out the entire show well, if at all. At best they planned the first season and it was a smash hit, they go into second season and use some of the ideas from season 1 they couldn't include for time or other reasons but introduce new stuff that they hope will work out and tiny cracks appear in the whole tapestry that widen as the seasons progress until the whole show is broken beyond repair.

With Lost i clearly remember the producers (Lindelof) stating that everything that happened could be explained naturally, i.e. no science fiction or "magic. Fast forward and from what i read the show went into time travel and apparently everyone who started the show actually died in the crash and it was all some kind of mass dream or hallucination or whatever.. so much for that ironclad statement.

The best example of this is of course Babylon 5.. JMS had a clear plan and story he wanted to tell and he worked towards it and built up the mystery bit by bit and it holds up even on repeated viewings where you actually sometimes spot the smallest clues of the bigger picture. It's not his fault that reality put some wrenches in his plan such as the mental problems of Michael O'Hare that prevented him to act beyond season 1 or that the network dragged their feet about the decision if they will green light season 5 until JMS ran out of time and reworked season 4 to at least be able to finish the main story (and of course they greenlit season 5 after the fact).

As others have said it's unfortunately difficult nowadays to choose a serialized show because the networks have become notoriously fickle and often enough cancel the show just as it begings picking up steam.. being burnt several times people get reluctant to start a new show, now the numbers are not exactly what the network hoped for and they cancel it, more viewers get burned etc.. It's a vicious circle which is why i rarely start shows nowadays that might interest me and only begin after it's apparent that the show is around to stay (say at least 2 seasons) and word of mouth is generally positive.

 

[Greg Cox]

I can see where a bad ending can sour your overall opinion of a series after the fact, and maybe even discourage you from rewatching it, but, at the time you watched the episodes, you had an enjoyable (if transitory) experience, so it's not like those good times have been erased from your past. And if you were sitting through dull episodes waiting for a payoff way down the road. . . . well, the problem is that those episodes were dull, not that the series didn't nail the landing a few years later.

(My own rule of thumb, when writing, is that even if a chapter mainly exists to advance the plot from Point A to Point B, you still have to make that chapter entertaining in its own right, with snappy dialogue or whatever, even if this is sometimes easier said than done.)

We experience TV shows and books and songs and plays and concerts in the now, not just for how we're going to remember them later. And an enjoyable experience still happened even if future events change your opinion of the series.

It's like when comic-book fans insist that rebooting a series or a character means that they wasted their time and money on all those old stories they used to enjoy but which now don't "count" anymore. Which always baffled me. If you enjoyed reading those issues back in the day, why does it matter if they aren't in the continuity anymore? You still had a good time reading them, right? So why consider that time wasted now?

Same with serialized TV shows . . ..

 

[MacLeod]

Unfortunatly there is the old adage "That you can't please everyone all of the time"

 

[tomalak301]

I can see where a bad ending can sour your overall opinion of a series after the fact, and maybe even discourage you from rewatching it, but, at the time you watched the episodes, you had an enjoyable (if transitory) experience, so it's not like those good times have been erased from your past. And if you were sitting through dull episodes waiting for a payoff way down the road. . . . well, the problem is that those episodes were dull, not that the series didn't nail the landing a few years later.

(My own rule of thumb, when writing, is that even if a chapter mainly exists to advance the plot from Point A to Point B, you still have to make that chapter entertaining in its own right, with snappy dialogue or whatever, even if this is sometimes easier said than done.)

We experience TV shows and books and songs and plays and concerts in the now, not just for how we're going to remember them later. And an enjoyable experience still happened even if future events change your opinion of the series.

It's like when comic-book fans insist that rebooting a series or a character means that they wasted their time and money on all those old stories they used to enjoy but which now don't "count" anymore. Which always baffled me. If you enjoyed reading those issues back in the day, why does it matter if they aren't in the continuity anymore? You still had a good time reading them, right? So why consider that time wasted now?

Same with serialized TV shows . . ..

The ending does sour people on a series after the fact. The best example for me was Seinfeld. I hated that finale, and now every time I watch an episode, I think back to that finale and my enjoyment of the episode I'm currently watching is deminished.

With serialized storytelling, you really need to have an ending that made the series worth it. Yeah I agree there are enjoyable episodes, but if the ending isn't all that great, it could be a while before you come back to rewatch that series.

 

[Markk]

Westworld is good..

 

[Mudd]

Serialization is primarily a marketing strategy.

 

[Shawnster]

(EDIT to add this.) Apologies - after reading this post back, it does come across as a bit of a rant. I'm just trying to recapture my lost love for sci-fi TV.

I still believe you've not lost your love for sci-fi. You just don't like modern storytelling formats.

I feel where you're coming from. Back in the 80s I used to listen to Top-40/Pop. By the late 80s I wasn't liking it so much. I wondered what was happening to me and why I didn't really care for what I was hearing on the radio. Turns out I just wasn't much into Top-40s/Pop. I still liked rock and roll, but my taste in musical formats had changed. I was growing into the more hard rock category (or what we call classic rock now). I also developed a fondness for alternative (back when it was really alternative).

I really think this is where you're at. You still love sci-fi, you just don't like current storytelling formats. You need something different. Perhaps it's a different format. Have you explored anime? Have you explored foreign television? What about the current Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime formats? What about reading books?

If all else fails, you can always revisit past series that you've loved. Whatever you have recorded (on whatever format) or whatever you can find.

As an aside - I hate this current trend of online media dropping the entire season all at once. I hate it, hate it, hate it. I dislike this catering to the "I have to have it all and have it now" mindset. Binge watching an entire season. It takes away the joy and anticipation. There is no excitement for the next episode when you can immediately start watching it. Nothing to whet your appetite when you can have it all and have it now. Maybe we would have a different opinion of our past favorite shows if we could watch the entire season at one setting as opposed to over a year.

You can also take a break. I really like Vikings and that keeps me eager for the next episode. Not sci-fi in any fashion.

Oh, and I much preferred the UK version of Life on Mars. Much better than the American remake. I'm still in love with the UK's Annie.

 

[Kelthaz]

As an aside - I hate this current trend of online media dropping the entire season all at once. I hate it, hate it, hate it. I dislike this catering to the "I have to have it all and have it now" mindset. Binge watching an entire season. It takes away the joy and anticipation. There is no excitement for the next episode when you can immediately start watching it. Nothing to whet your appetite when you can have it all and have it now. Maybe we would have a different opinion of our past favorite shows if we could watch the entire season at one setting as opposed to over a year.

Just because the season is released all at once doesn't mean you have to binge watch it. No one is forcing you to watch the show faster than you want. What's wrong with giving people the choice on how to consume their media?

 

[retroenzo]

I still believe you've not lost your love for sci-fi. You just don't like modern storytelling formats.

I feel where you're coming from. Back in the 80s I used to listen to Top-40/Pop. By the late 80s I wasn't liking it so much. I wondered what was happening to me and why I didn't really care for what I was hearing on the radio. Turns out I just wasn't much into Top-40s/Pop. I still liked rock and roll, but my taste in musical formats had changed. I was growing into the more hard rock category (or what we call classic rock now). I also developed a fondness for alternative (back when it was really alternative).

I really think this is where you're at. You still love sci-fi, you just don't like current storytelling formats. You need something different. Perhaps it's a different format. Have you explored anime? Have you explored foreign television? What about the current Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime formats? What about reading books?

If all else fails, you can always revisit past series that you've loved. Whatever you have recorded (on whatever format) or whatever you can find.

As an aside - I hate this current trend of online media dropping the entire season all at once. I hate it, hate it, hate it. I dislike this catering to the "I have to have it all and have it now" mindset. Binge watching an entire season. It takes away the joy and anticipation. There is no excitement for the next episode when you can immediately start watching it. Nothing to whet your appetite when you can have it all and have it now. Maybe we would have a different opinion of our past favorite shows if we could watch the entire season at one setting as opposed to over a year.

You can also take a break. I really like Vikings and that keeps me eager for the next episode. Not sci-fi in any fashion.

Oh, and I much preferred the UK version of Life on Mars. Much better than the American remake. I'm still in love with the UK's Annie.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. I really don't like modern storytelling techniques which also makes me a bit nervous about the upcoming Star Trek series.

And yeah I don't get the whole thing about releasing a whole series in one go neither. Although I take a different stance on it. It doesn't tempt me into binge-watching it, it tells me that I can watch it at my own leisure which had the opposite effect. ie I started watching Daredevil on Netflix but never got around to even finishing season 1 of it. Because I didn't finish watching it, I never watched Jessica Jones or Luke Cage. In contrast, I love The Grand Tour and Amazon release it one episode a week. If I can watch that episode before the next one is released, then I'm happy.

As for your other suggestions. I've thought about anime but I've never found anything that really captures my imagination, but I have dipped my toe in on some of the anime movies. (I want to know what the people that created My Neighbor Totoro were on when they made that movie!)

Never really looked at Hulu but I don't think they've got much of a choice in the UK (correct me if I'm wrong).

I am rewatching old favourites and taking a break. While I've been rewatching Trek from the beginning whilst introducing my girlfriend to it, I've also been rewatching Doctor Who, Farscape, Red Dwarf, and am thinking of giving Stargate SG-1 another viewing.

Glad you're a Life on Mars UK fan too. I did enjoy the US version to a degree but the UK version kicks it out of the park. Happily I managed to find a cheap copy of Ashes to Ashes series 2 the other day so I'm just one series short of my full LoM/Ashes collection.