SF TV viewers are very strongly in favor of originality and risk-taking in their television. Nowhere is this clearer than in the last 20 years of Star Trek on TV.
When TNG premiered in 1987, it was unique to television. There hadn't been a lot of SF TV since TOS ended in 1969, and what we did have consisted largely of action shows or sitcoms with a sci-fi twist (The Six Million Dollar Man, Knight Rider, ALF, Mork and Mindy, etc.). Without much precedent to work from, pretty much anything TNG did was risky, fresh and original. In fact, the only thing TNG could really copy was TOS, which it did to some degree in the first two seasons. Consequently, these seasons are regarded as the weakest, and it wasn't until the show found its own voice in the third season that it really took off.
But by the time VOY premiered in 1995, the landscape had changed. TNG and DS9 were no longer the only kids on the block, and audience expectations were higher. During VOY's run, the X-Files and DS9 were already on TV, and shows such as Farscape and Stargate SG-1 premiered. TNG took risks and pushed boundaries during its time, and now these other shows were taking further risks while VOY was not. As a result, VOY, which was trying to go back to TNG, felt stagnant.
This was one of the chief complaints I heard about VOY: it felt derivative. What was fresh and original with TNG was becoming predictable and hackneyed by the time of VOY's premiere, and there's nothing that SF fans hate more than feeling their favorite franchise is withering on the vine. (VOY's setting in the Delta quadrant made the TNG-style stories feel even more absurd.) DS9 was trying to push the boundaries of Star Trek just as TNG had done during its time: why couldn't VOY do the same thing?
The situation was even worse when ENT premiered in 2001. If VOY felt predictable, ENT, which was still trying to tell the same type of story, felt totally uncreative. It wasn't until the fourth season, when ENT finally found its own voice and started telling original stories, that the viewers' complaints diminished.
I think this is also why there was so much fan protest when shows such as Farscape and Firefly were canceled prematurely. It wasn't just that they were good stories with strong characters: they were promising to push SF TV storytelling in new directions. A couple of years ago, I posted a thread asking why Firefly's cancellation was such a sin, and one respondent said that the Firefly universe "screamed for exploration." In other words, Firefly had a lot of potential that got lost with its cancellation.
And yet Enterprise, which was also on at the time, was getting renewed. So a show promising new ideas and original storytelling got canceled, while a show that rehashed the same ideas and tropes was getting renewed? It wasn't fair, and it created a lot of cynicism about TV networks, American audiences and the future of SF TV. If networks and audiences didn't support original SF TV, many argued, then there was no future on SF TV. You can't sustain the quality of the genre on television with stories, characters and tropes people have seen countless times already.
Why do SF TV audiences value risk-taking and originality so much? I think audiences of all genres do to a certain extent, but it's especially poignant with SF. Why? There are a multitude of reasons, such the close relationship between the fans and the fictional universe. But I think the most important reason is that SF has historically been a testing ground for new ideas, whether scientific, technological, social or philosophical. SF audiences understand that (at least subconsciously), so when a show or franchise stops presenting new ideas and no longer challenges its viewers, we feel that it's not living up to its potential as science fiction. We like SF because of the sense of exploration and discovery it gives us, and we're not exploring and discovering if we've been there already.
I think we're starting to see the same problem now with SGU. In addition to complaints about the writing and characters, I think part of the reason there's so much resentment against the show is that it smacks of too many shows that have come before it. The setting feels like BSG. The "lost in space" concept has been played up repeatedly. Some of the characters feel like they walked in off of Lost. We've seen these characters and situations already, and we're growing weary of it. Once again, it's a show that's not demonstrating a lot of potential.
But that's just my perspective on SF TV. Thoughts?
When TNG premiered in 1987, it was unique to television. There hadn't been a lot of SF TV since TOS ended in 1969, and what we did have consisted largely of action shows or sitcoms with a sci-fi twist (The Six Million Dollar Man, Knight Rider, ALF, Mork and Mindy, etc.). Without much precedent to work from, pretty much anything TNG did was risky, fresh and original. In fact, the only thing TNG could really copy was TOS, which it did to some degree in the first two seasons. Consequently, these seasons are regarded as the weakest, and it wasn't until the show found its own voice in the third season that it really took off.
But by the time VOY premiered in 1995, the landscape had changed. TNG and DS9 were no longer the only kids on the block, and audience expectations were higher. During VOY's run, the X-Files and DS9 were already on TV, and shows such as Farscape and Stargate SG-1 premiered. TNG took risks and pushed boundaries during its time, and now these other shows were taking further risks while VOY was not. As a result, VOY, which was trying to go back to TNG, felt stagnant.
This was one of the chief complaints I heard about VOY: it felt derivative. What was fresh and original with TNG was becoming predictable and hackneyed by the time of VOY's premiere, and there's nothing that SF fans hate more than feeling their favorite franchise is withering on the vine. (VOY's setting in the Delta quadrant made the TNG-style stories feel even more absurd.) DS9 was trying to push the boundaries of Star Trek just as TNG had done during its time: why couldn't VOY do the same thing?
The situation was even worse when ENT premiered in 2001. If VOY felt predictable, ENT, which was still trying to tell the same type of story, felt totally uncreative. It wasn't until the fourth season, when ENT finally found its own voice and started telling original stories, that the viewers' complaints diminished.
I think this is also why there was so much fan protest when shows such as Farscape and Firefly were canceled prematurely. It wasn't just that they were good stories with strong characters: they were promising to push SF TV storytelling in new directions. A couple of years ago, I posted a thread asking why Firefly's cancellation was such a sin, and one respondent said that the Firefly universe "screamed for exploration." In other words, Firefly had a lot of potential that got lost with its cancellation.
And yet Enterprise, which was also on at the time, was getting renewed. So a show promising new ideas and original storytelling got canceled, while a show that rehashed the same ideas and tropes was getting renewed? It wasn't fair, and it created a lot of cynicism about TV networks, American audiences and the future of SF TV. If networks and audiences didn't support original SF TV, many argued, then there was no future on SF TV. You can't sustain the quality of the genre on television with stories, characters and tropes people have seen countless times already.
Why do SF TV audiences value risk-taking and originality so much? I think audiences of all genres do to a certain extent, but it's especially poignant with SF. Why? There are a multitude of reasons, such the close relationship between the fans and the fictional universe. But I think the most important reason is that SF has historically been a testing ground for new ideas, whether scientific, technological, social or philosophical. SF audiences understand that (at least subconsciously), so when a show or franchise stops presenting new ideas and no longer challenges its viewers, we feel that it's not living up to its potential as science fiction. We like SF because of the sense of exploration and discovery it gives us, and we're not exploring and discovering if we've been there already.
I think we're starting to see the same problem now with SGU. In addition to complaints about the writing and characters, I think part of the reason there's so much resentment against the show is that it smacks of too many shows that have come before it. The setting feels like BSG. The "lost in space" concept has been played up repeatedly. Some of the characters feel like they walked in off of Lost. We've seen these characters and situations already, and we're growing weary of it. Once again, it's a show that's not demonstrating a lot of potential.
But that's just my perspective on SF TV. Thoughts?