What happened to spaceship shows?

[Christopher]

Yeah, the Transplanted Humans trope has been done to death. It was the foundation of the Stargate franchise, and it's the flipside of the equally hackneyed Ancient Astronauts trope that was the basis of both Stargate and the original Battlestar Galactica. Honestly, I'm surprised that Star Trek: TOS only used it once as an explanation for one of its many Earth-duplicate cultures (the "American Indian" planet in "The Paradise Syndrome").

There's also the rather odd variant of Iain M. Banks's Culture universe. The main characters in the Culture stories are mostly "human," but they're not Earth humans, they're a mix of a few alien species that coincidentally evolved humanlike forms, and that have been part of the Culture for ages by the time they first discover Earth in the 20th century (and embed observers among us clandestinely for a while before revealing themselves). That's a common enough cliche in older prose SF and in SFTV/film, but it's always surprised me to see it in something as modern, original, and hard-SF as the Culture series.

 

[Tim Walker]

Generally the transplanted humans are transported by either of two groups: 1. Benign aliens 2. Slave masters

In SG-1 it seems that most of the colonies were planted by slave masters

This slave idea appeared a couple times in Trek: The 37s (VOY) and North Star (ENT).

Of course, Trek also had the benign version, the Preservers.

If the aliens had terraformed planets before depositing humans, you have a half way reasonable explanation for why there are so many class M planets out there.

 

[Christopher]

If the aliens had terraformed planets before depositing humans, you have a half way reasonable explanation for why there are so many class M planets out there.

Which, again, was a basic part of the Stargate premise. There was an early first-season episode where terraforming was invoked to explain why most alien planets looked like the woods outside Vancouver.

(Last time at the Shore Leave convention, KRAD's fiancee gave me a button saying "Vancouver Intergalactic Terraforming Corporation: Because Every Planet Should Look Like Vancouver." I'm afraid it's a bit worse for wear now, since I accidentally put it through the laundry.)

 

[Gaith]

That's hardly fair.

Maybe, but people are hardly obligated to be fair in what TV they want to watch during their downtime.

 

[Christopher]

Maybe, but people are hardly obligated to be fair in what TV they want to watch during their downtime.

I wasn't talking about them, I was talking about what you said earlier. You said you thought it was "very limiting" to do "planet-hopping" science fiction without aliens, because you assumed that the only possible subject matter for such a series would be exploration and first contact. That is an unfair conclusion to jump to, because it ignores all the other potential subject matters that can be used, and have been used, in interplanetary/interstellar science fiction over the decades. There are many subjects for space opera other than alien contact, and there is a wealth of quality interplanetary/interstellar science fiction set in humans-only universes. It doesn't have to be limiting at all.

 

[Tim Walker]

1. One thing that worked for Andromeda were the "drifts", which were basically cities in space. These tended to be old enough to have gone their own way.

I can imagine something similar in Trek. Of course, DS9 was a frontier-town-in-space, borrowing from Westerns.

2. Another possibility is the underground mining colony. Which was used in the Horta episode.

So for options 1. and 2. you build interiors, without making the locale look like southern California, or the area around Vancouver.

For Trek I wouldn't rely on 1. and 2. But these might be options if the script doesn't actually need a class M planet.

 

[Christopher]

I've often thought that TV directors of photography missed out on ways to make a location look like an alien world. One is to use color correction to make the sky, the light, and the vegetation an alien color. The original Battlestar Galactica made a good go of this in "War of the Gods," but it'd be far easier today with digital color correction. Another could be to use different lens focal lengths to make the horizon appear closer (for a smaller planet) or more distant (for a larger planet). Additionally, you can use sound design to create the sounds of exotic alien insects or animals. Star Trek and Doctor Who did this back in their original series, but not so much in the revivals (and DW's tended to sound too electronic to be convincing).

Of course, finding more diverse locations than just forests and deserts and quarries all the time would help a lot too. But that's not easy on a TV location budget.

 

[Tim Walker]

It's been a long time since I have seen any TOS episodes, but I seem to recall that planet scenes had interesting sound effects.

 

[The Wormhole]

I've often thought that TV directors of photography missed out on ways to make a location look like an alien world. One is to use color correction to make the sky, the light, and the vegetation an alien color.

It actually really annoys me whenever we get the planets where the all the footage on the planet is tinted red or orange. Nu BSG was especially guilty of this when it came to depicting irradiated Caprica under Cylon occupation, though Stargate also did this a few times and Star Trek tried it once on TNG (Descent). Yeah, I get they're trying to make things look different, but to me it's just distracting.

 

[Christopher]

It actually really annoys me whenever we get the planets where the all the footage on the planet is tinted red or orange.

Sure, if it's just a simple uniform tint, that's not that interesting, especially when so many shows and films in this age of digital color correction do that anyway with Earthbound scenes. I'm thinking of something more creative, like altering the color of the vegetation or the sky.

"War of the Gods," which I mentioned before, did something rather more complex and interesting. I'm extrapolating this, but I'd guess that they took the green negative, printed it in monochrome, and rephotographed just it through a red filter, then recombined it with the other color negatives. This made the plants appear red, though it also made the uniforms look redder and did weird things to the skin tones.

 

[publiusr]

That's me all right.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

A lot of shows when they want to create diverse landscapes just start the scene with a sprawling CGI backdrop then the action occurs at confined angles or in front of green screens.

 

[Tim Walker]

NuBSG, Season 1, You Can't Go Home Again

One location featured was a desolate, unlivable world. The DVD commentary indicated that it was filmed at a quarry near Vancouver. It was convincing because no blue sky was visible from the surface, and there seemed to be a storm at the (barren) surface.

 

[Crow T. Robot]

Generally the transplanted humans are transported by either of two groups: 1. Benign aliens 2. Slave masters

Not in recent years. Most of the space-faring shows that have come out since the turn of the century have essentially been about colonists. Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Killjoys, and Dark Matter immediately come to mind. Though in the last two it's largely assumed for the setting as a whole, while Killjoys does imply there was a bit of effective slavery going on, too (albeit with human slave masters who also accompanied them).

 

[sojourner]

Not in recent years. Most of the space-faring shows that have come out since the turn of the century have essentially been about colonists. Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Killjoys, and Dark Matter immediately come to mind. Though in the last two it's largely assumed for the setting as a whole, while Killjoys does imply there was a bit of effective slavery going on, too (albeit with human slave masters who also accompanied them).

None of the shows you just cited have cases of transplanted humans in the context that Tim Walker was referring to.

 

[Tim Walker]

I have come across comments about channels cutting costs in recent years. In particular, regarding so called "reality shows" being cheaper to produce than other endeavors.

It has been commented that shows in space are expensive.

So.....

To get a green light for a new franchise, where do you cut costs?

I'm thinking that we may be lucky to get this....

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SoOkayItsAverage

 

[Christopher]

I have come across comments about channels cutting costs in recent years. In particular, regarding so called "reality shows" being cheaper to produce than other endeavors.

It has been commented that shows in space are expensive.

So.....

To get a green light for a new franchise, where do you cut costs?

It's less costly than it used to be, given advances in CGI. I think people forget that Babylon 5's pioneering use of the Video Toaster, a technology that allowed elaborate CG effects to be created far more inexpensively than was possible before, sparked a revolution in genre TV. Suddenly it was possible to do far more FX-heavy shows than ever before, to do fantasy and SF more affordably, and the '90s boom in fantasy and SF was a consequence of that greater freedom. Sure, the FX often looked fake even by the standards of the day, but they were much more versatile and expansive than was possible with conventional methods, as well as more affordable, so it was worth the tradeoff. And as CG effects have continued to improve, we've gotten more and more impressive visuals on TV budgets.

More generally, though, I don't think your question is hypothetical, because we're seeing the answer in shows like Dark Matter and Killjoys. Space shows can be made affordable by avoiding aliens; by shooting in Toronto or Vancouver; by skimping on elaborate sets and using lots of warehouses and malls and the like; and by not using a lot of expensive, big-name actors.

 

[Tim Walker]

Interesting points, Christopher.

Conceivably we could get a good show-in terms of story-if the scripts are good, and the cast is good (if obscure).

I recently tried watching Farscape, but had trouble following it, quit after the first few episodes.

 

[Christopher]

I recently tried watching Farscape, but had trouble following it, quit after the first few episodes.

I felt it didn't really find its voice until the second season. Everyone praises Rockne S. O'Bannon for creating the show, but in fact it got much better after David Kemper took over as showrunner from season 2 onward.

 

[Tim Walker]

Besides cost, what else should be considered regarding a new space show?