TV Science-Fiction: A Genre In Decline on TV?
- Thread starter jefferiestubes8
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I thought that was the way to go with ENT but I soon realized that I just don't think that works anymore. TOS and TNG pretty much covered that well. The subsequent series never could come up with anything fresh along that front--it was only when DS9 and ENT embraced unique arcs for their respective shows that they became compelling.
I thought the pitch for Star Trek Federation actually was what Trek should be.
ENT was warmed over VOY and TNG scripts. Showtime would never stoop to that. They'd take the basic elements of Star Trek - optimism, a cultural/political belief in secular liberal democracy cast in the metaphor of space opera - and do something more sophisticated and mature with it. They wouldn't go back to the tired old tropes: crew visits alien world with a problem, time travel hijinks, etc. But they would hew to familiar elements like the military structure, the crew on a spaceship, the spaceship patrolling the frontier, bad aliens, good aliens, space politics galore. That sort of thing. And also, there would be plot arcs. That's expected in most cable drama series.
At least, that's what I'd tell them to do.
If Game of Thrones can be a success with 3M viewers, why can't Star Trek do that too? 3M viewers is nothing!!! HBO went for Game of Thrones because it has a built in fanbase who it can count as new subscribers. Hello, what franchise has a much bigger build-in fanbase than that??? Other than Star Wars, I mean. You don't want to deal with George Lucas, do you? 
At least, that's what I'd tell them to do.
If Game of Thrones can be a success with 3M viewers, why can't Star Trek do that too? 3M viewers is nothing!!! HBO went for Game of Thrones because it has a built in fanbase who it can count as new subscribers. Hello, what franchise has a much bigger build-in fanbase than that??? Other than Star Wars, I mean. You don't want to deal with George Lucas, do you? 
Same here. I was bummed knowing the show was cancelled before S4 even started. It gets good after it's a dead show walking? Typical.
I think this line of thought is key. Sci-Fi does well on the big screen, with big budgets and big audiences. On the small screen it's a big risk, with enormous bugets and small audiences. Now, in the age of reality TV, we see SyFy moving in that direction, with very cheap to produce reality-based programming.
I would like to see a new Sci-Fi channel that simply focused on rerunning old science fiction series and movies, with regular time slots instead of an ever changing schedule. The problem with that, however, is the difficulty in getting all the syndication rights to all the different genre shows at the same time.
Here is a good article:
http://www.gateworld.net/news/2011/05/how-wrestling-is-killing-science-fiction/
We will never see another 'just scifi' channel to survive it would have to be a mix of scifi, fantasy, horror, mystery and some action. I think Viacom has the best resouces to put out such a channel.
http://www.gateworld.net/news/2011/05/how-wrestling-is-killing-science-fiction/
We will never see another 'just scifi' channel to survive it would have to be a mix of scifi, fantasy, horror, mystery and some action. I think Viacom has the best resouces to put out such a channel.
But would anyone actually watch "The Old Sci Fi Rerun Channel"? Especially in a day and age when people's favorite old shows and movies are probably available on DVD anyway?
I have my doubts . . . .
Apart from LOST, there has not been a major SCI FI hit in years. Heroes and Fringe came close but Writing for Heroes and Time Slots for Fringe killed any chances of being in the same league as LOST. Most other shows have ended within 1-2 years because the simple fact...
SCI FI is not a mass appeal genre and the problem is cable, which is designed for small niche tastes is going more mainstream than ever and leaving SCI FI behind.
Were getting screwed in the U.S anyway 
because in the UK we've had Doctor Who, Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes to enjoy while your SCI FI declined.
SCI FI is not a mass appeal genre and the problem is cable, which is designed for small niche tastes is going more mainstream than ever and leaving SCI FI behind.
Were getting screwed in the U.S anyway because in the UK we've had Doctor Who, Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes to enjoy while your SCI FI declined.
Well Lost was SF, but it was HIDDEN SF, my mom who hates SF loved lost, as it was more then just SF.
I wonder what you could do for a hour long space opera using B5 budgets these days (As in B5 budget numbers not corrected for inflation.)
I wonder what you could do for a hour long space opera using B5 budgets these days (As in B5 budget numbers not corrected for inflation.)
I thought about that.
But imagine a channel where you could watch Lost in Space, Space: 1999, Star Trek TOS, Star Trek TNG, Star Trek DS9, Star Trek VOY, Enterprise, The X-Files, Doctor Who, Babylon 5, Andromeda, The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Battlestar Galactica, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, The Greatest American Hero, Highlander, Jericho, Man from U.N.C.L.E., Mystery Science Theater 3000, Quantum Leap, SeaQuest, Roswell, Seven Days, Sliders, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate Universe, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, V, The Wild Wild West, and any number of other genre shows -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_science_fiction_television_programs
Add in countless classic movies and you would have a fantastic array of sci-fi to fill any programming schedule and please any number of fans.
IMHO.
I don't know. I can barely keep up with the new shows I'm watching. I don't know where I'd find the time to rewatch some old show on a regular basis.
To be honest, I can see myself sampling a few old episodes of "Wild, Wild West" or "Space 1999" for nostalgia's sake, but I doubt that I would make a habit of it. And I suspect that I would find that many of them had not aged all that well.
(There's a reason I have not watched DARK SHADOWS in decades. Why spoil my rosy childhood memories?)
I see your point, and there are certain shows I might not watch for similar reasons. But if you look at that link and all the possible shows, and then think of all the possible movies that could be shown, I think every fan could find a lot that they would want to watch. Maybe not all the time, but enough to make the channel viable, as costs would be low.
I'd like a channel like that. TV sucks really bad these days that I would rather watch a tv show I've seen dozens of times that was endlessly entertaining than watch brand new crap.
In fact, I watch The Golden Girls on Hallmark Channel and that show is so great I'm sitting through a second run of the series after just finishing up one run. Same for Empty Nest and Frasier. I've seen episodes of Roseanne dozens of times but still find myself rewatching them on TVLand same for Three's Company. I watched Dallas reruns on the old TNN channel before it became Spike. I had been watching Friday the 13th The Series weekdays on Chiller, Profiler on Sleuth. I watch HUB because of the nostalgia of seeing the original 80s Transformers, Adam West's Batman, Laverne and Shirley. I watch Hallmark Cjannel Movies only for Murder She Wrote reruns.
Spike dropped VOY and DS9 and it has been a while since I have watched either and would like to watch them again.
In fact, I watch The Golden Girls on Hallmark Channel and that show is so great I'm sitting through a second run of the series after just finishing up one run. Same for Empty Nest and Frasier. I've seen episodes of Roseanne dozens of times but still find myself rewatching them on TVLand same for Three's Company. I watched Dallas reruns on the old TNN channel before it became Spike. I had been watching Friday the 13th The Series weekdays on Chiller, Profiler on Sleuth. I watch HUB because of the nostalgia of seeing the original 80s Transformers, Adam West's Batman, Laverne and Shirley. I watch Hallmark Cjannel Movies only for Murder She Wrote reruns.
Spike dropped VOY and DS9 and it has been a while since I have watched either and would like to watch them again.
I'm guess I've got the opposite attitude. I'd rather watch something new, like CHUCK or CASTLE or GLEE or whatever, than revisit some old favorite. I mean, I enjoyed ROSWELL the first time around, but I have no real desire to sit through the entire series again. Heck, I have the entire run of XENA and BUFFY on tape, but I don't think I've actually watched an episode in years. Ditto for DS9 and VOYAGER.
There's still plenty of good shows on tv these days, if you look hard enough. DEXTER, WAREHOUSE 13, MERLIN, BIG BANG THEORY, VAMPIRE DIARIES, etc.
I think you would be surprised how much of the old stuff you would watch if you just came across it channel surfing.
I'd like to see a high-end premium cable channel focused on science fiction, fantasy and horror with original series and miniseries in prime time and reruns of old shows and movies during the day and late at night.
I'd love to watch something new but only if it is good. The problem is in my opinion most of tv for the last several years has been awful--I'd argue this was the worst season of tv with crap like The Event, V 2.0, Flash Forward, last several seasons of Heroes, Caprica, SGU, The Gates, Persons Unknown in the sff genre.
The only two shows I consistently enjoyed this season were the guilty pleasure but oh so much fun Gossip Girl and the well done serialized supernatural drama The Vampire Diaries. Everything else I could care less about. I used to really enjoy Chuck but this season it got stale and I got bored so I stopped watching it early in the season. Castle never caught on with me--been there done that with two leads "will they/won't they" acerbic relationship coupled with the very tired prodecural whodunnit. When you've seen one procedural like that you've seen them all and I got my fill of those shows with Columbo, Matlock, Murder She Wrote years ago--I enjoyed them tremendously but I want something new not warmed over. That's why I quickly lost interest in The Mentalist. I'm tired of lawyer shows like Law & Order. I'm tired of cop shows.
GLEE ain't my thing.
I intend to catch Dexter when the show ends and go back through it. Warehouse 13 is more fluffy SyFy that I don't like a la Eureka. I don't think BBT is that funny. I checked it out because Chuck Lorre worked on one of my all time favorite sitcoms--Roseanne--and was looking for a sitcom that wasn't dumb and it also had Johnny Galecki but I checked it out and the humor just didn't work so I stopped watching it.
So yeah I'd rather watch an old tv show that might not be as fast paced, flashing or VFX laden as shows these days but at least had competent writers, characters I cared about and interesting storylines. And as I rewatched a lot of these older shows I appreciated them more and just highlighted and reaffirmed for me the problem isn't me but the shows themselves actually just really do suck these days.
Yeah, this is why my home video purchases have been sharply curtailed in past five or six years. I came to the realization that I just didn't have that much free time to delve into my rapidly growing and dust collecting catalog of discs. Now, before I plunk down money on a deluxe box set of That Totally Awesome Show I Think Was on Tuesdays When I Was In Seventh Grade: The Complete First Season, I look myself in the eye (mirror) and ask, "How many times will I really watch this?" I'm finding more and more that the answer is,"Maybe once." I find that Netflix, You Tube, etc. usually fill the need for the occasional fast-forward down memory lane.
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