Why did Americans lose interest in space and space fiction in the mid 2000s?
- Thread starter CmdrShep2183
- Start date
Is it just me, but is it weird that there are those who watch Star Trek it seems primarily for 'information'?
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Amen. If "Information" or even plot was all that mattered, reading a synopsis would be the same as watching an episode. But then you miss the style, the directing, the mood and atmosphere, the acting, the lighting, the music and all the other things that go into producing a satisfying, emotionally-engaging theatrical experience. They're supposed to engage you viscerally and make you feel for the characters and their dilemmas; they're not just exercises in world-building or whatever.
Drives me nuts when folks go, "Oh, I read the Wikipedia entry so I don't have to bother seeing the actual show."
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I've always loved keeping track of continuity in fiction, but I'm really sick of the way fandom today has fixated on that encyclopedic exercise as the exclusive priority of fiction and the only way they attempt to engage with it, rather than the supplementary thing it should be. I think they could do with a word from Mr. Danny Kaye:
I think The X-Files is a perfect show to use as a defense for the occasional stand alone episode. Some of it's best episodes were the stand alone, monster of the week episodes.
I thought the first few episodes of Discovery Season 2, did a great job of giving us stand alone stories, while also moving the arc forward.
I thought the first few episodes of Discovery Season 2, did a great job of giving us stand alone stories, while also moving the arc forward.
I absolutely agree. I always preferred the monster-of-the week eps to the increasingly Byzantine conspiracy arc. "Home" is my all-time favorite X-episode. Hate to think that anyone would dismiss it as "filler" just because it didn't move some convoluted story arc from Point A to Point B.
"Serialized" is not intrinsically better than "episodic" and a good standalone episode should not be consider mere "filler" just because it's not part of some larger arc. "Hush" is one of the all-time great BUFFY eps, but it's mostly a standalone monster-of-the-week ep, too.
Heck, some shows, like THE GHOST WHISPER or MONK, worked best when they stuck to standalone episodes and didn't try to incorporate some kinda overaching arc plot just because that's what all the cool shows were doing. Didn't really fit their format.
Of course back then lots of people were saying it wasn't Sci-Fi because of that annoying habit were people sometimes say something doesn't count as Sci-Fi if it is good in a non Campy kind of way. If it's treated serious without all the bells and whistles that can come with the genre it gets to be treated as a normal tv show.
Jason
In fact the opposite is largely true.
Yeah, I think it was mostly interest shifting much more to fantasy (LotR, Harry Potter, PotC and Spider-Man/Batman/other comic book adaptations) and also later and further the recession made it seem too idealized and even darker versions still a little too removed from the public, a lot less interest in space or the future when there are so many real and long-lasting problems here.
Which is short-sighted, because developing space could solve a lot of those problems. The mineral resources of the asteroids are immensely more abundant than what we could ever mine from the ground. Solar power satellites could give us effectively limitless energy. Advanced materials and pharmaceuticals could be developed in microgravity. Polluting industries could be moved to orbit. Not to mention how many technologies developed by the space program have proven to be invaluable on Earth. And not to mention how the dream of discovering a new frontier can inspire a society, fire it up to a new level of dynamism and optimism.
I've got to disagree with you here, I'd say that most of the comic book adaptations are sci-fi rather than fantasy. Spider-Man definitely is since Spidey and most of his villains got their powers through science. It might not be realisitic, but it's still meant to be scientific, rather than magic. Even some of the adaptations of fantasy comics have changed thing to make them more sci-fi, like Thor turning the Asgardians into aliens, and Doctor Strange even gave it's magic a sciency explanation.
Just because I feel like enumerating how truly false the initial complaint in this particular edition of "Old Man Yells At Clouds" is, here is a list of space opera television programs produced by Anglosphere television from 2005 to present:
- Stargate: SG-1 (1997-2007)
- Futurama (1999-2013)
- Stargate: Atlantis (2004-2009)
- Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009)
- Power Rangers S.P.D. (2005)
- Doctor Who (2005-present)
- Hyperdrive (2006-2007)
- Flash Gordon (2007-2008)
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008-2014; 2020-present)
- Defying Gravity (2009)
- Stargate Universe (2009-2011)
- Caprica (2010)
- Outcasts (2011)
- Extant (2014-2015)
- Star Wars: Rebels (2014-2018)
- Dark Matter (2015-2017)
- Killjoys (2015-2019)
- The Expanse (2015-present)
- The Orville (2017-present)
- Star Trek: Discovery (2017-present)
- Nightflyers (2018)
- The First (2018)
- Origin (2018)
- Final Space (2018-present)
- Lost in Space (2018-present)
- Star Wars: Resistance (2018-present)
- Pandora (2019-present)
- The Mandalorian (2019-present)
- Star Trek: Picard (2020-present)
Then why do these shows engage in universe-building or arcs if it requires more effort than a sixth grader in math class dealing with "ants in the pants" syndrome?
I agree, though, in that it shouldn't be the exclusive priority. At the same time, if the franchise's universe set up basic tenets as core fundamentals, it would be in poor taste to ignore them. Can we now blame the franchise for having exclusive priorities to be followed?
If nothing else, why not strap on jet boots to Borg and let them whiz around their cubes and spheres and diamonds and clovers and horseshoes, with their reasoning that it's a magical incantation that brings new to-be drones to them, that'd be really cool and will attract lots of new fans from the Harry Potter and LotR worlds, right? That's also a poor example because I'm not insinuating STP has done anything so radical with the Borg, and chances are they're not. I was thinking of something rather different regarding any possible Major continuity violation, which is nothing to Grin at...
Then why do these shows engage in universe-building or arcs if it requires more effort than a sixth grader in math class dealing with "ants in the pants" syndrome?
Because it serves the telling of the story. The problem is when people invert that and act as though the story merely exists to serve the accumulation of worldbuilding data. I mean, sports fans love to talk statistics, but the purpose of sports is not merely to accumulate statistics.
Worldbuilding is setting the stage for a story. Stage design and scenery construction can be important and worthwhile exercises, but they're a supplement. They exist to support the narrative and drama, not the other way around.
Nobody said they should be ignored, just kept in perspective as part of the whole. You absolutely shouldn't ignore the dials on your car dashboard, but you'd be insane to think that you could throw away the rest of your car and get around with the dashboard alone. Life is not about simplistic binary choices between mutually exclusive opposites. It's about maintaining a healthy balance among all of the things that are important, that coexist and interact as part of a greater whole.
I have no idea what this question means. The point is that merely establishing facts for Wiki articles is not the exclusive priority of telling a story. Nobody would say "Well, I read that person's statistics and bio on the dating site, therefore I don't need to go on the actual date with them." The information is worth having, but it's part of the larger experience, not a substitute for it or the only purpose of the exercise.
that's 29, all since 2005 and you've even missed a few:
Red Dwarf (2009, 2012, 2016-2017, 2020)
The 100 (2014-Present)
Other Space (2015)
Another Life (2019-present)
For All Mankind (2019-present)
Avenue 5 (2020)
And we can expect probably another 5 or more showing up in the next couple years.
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I'd argue that Americans didn't have a huge interest in space and space fiction outside of Star Wars and outliers like the success TNG was in the 90's to begin with. Stuff like Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, and Farscape, while liked by fans and critics were never a ratings bonanza to begin with and only gained numbers that are insta cancellation by regular tv network standards.
It's hard to tell though, how much interest there might have been, since none of these series got a chance on the big 4. As an example of the disparity between the big 4 and everyone else, Supergirl averaged almost 10 million viewers on CBS. On the CW at best it's picked up is 2-3 million. Few cable channels or syndicated TV in the old days ever gets/got a fraction of what broadcast TV did/does.
It's true that SF/fantasy has always been a niche interest. But I think the gist of the thread is that even just within the SF genre, the early 2000s saw a shift away from space-based TV shows in favor of more Earthbound ones. And as I mentioned before, prose SF had gone through a similar phase in the '80s-'90s, when "space opera" had fallen out of repute and the emphasis was on Earth-based, typically near-future genres like cyberpunk, bioengineering/transhumanism, climate change themes, etc. SF may be a niche, but it's a diverse niche and it has its shifting fashions like any other field of interest.