Good sci-fi dead

Surion

BSG gone. SGU gone. Caprice gone. V gone.

There is nothing spacey left!!! Anyone know of anything to come???

Signed Desperado.

Ravage1616

Falling Skies Just started in the US. It's not bad and does have some promise!

Sin_J

There's the new BSG spin off Blood and Chrome. Follows young Adama during the first cylon war.

Apart from that i can't think of anything else. I'm sure Fox will think of something good to do for a season then cancel but otherwise there's nothing really on the radar.

I want something with spaceships or Mechs, someone make a mechwarrior tv show.

Ravage1616

There is actually spaceships and Mechs in Falling Skies! :P

Sin_J

Ravage1616 wrote: »

There is actually spaceships and Mechs in Falling Skies! :P

Hmmm. I read some small stuff about it but it just seemed a bit meh overall. Besides i think the underdeveloped humans taking on the advaned aliens but still manging to hold their own and eventually win has been a bit overdone now.

I think i want something a bit more along the lines of BSG, trek, later SG where the humans are a pretty decent match for the antagonists.

But i'll have to watch falling skies and see how it goes.

Sanctuary never see,s to get much love. It's one of the most consistently entertaining shows on atm and one which each season has gone from strength to strength.

I think that the problem isn't that good sci fi is dead but rather that networks are afraid of investing in a show such as Stargate Universe which really took nearly 30 episode before it got in any way must watch TV.

Antar Bolaeisk

Fringe was excellent last season and it's coming back for a fourth season in a couple of months.

Terra Nova is on the horizon though how sci-fi-ey it'll be, other than the setting, I don't know.

I honestly can't see anything spacey in the forseeable future, other than the Star Trek and Stargate reboots to make them more accessible for a modern audience.














I honestly don't think we'll see any more space shows of the calibre of Star Trek or BSG (I never liked that one but loads did) being produced under the standard tv model and succeeding since the audience has moved on from watching these shows on the tv. The next big thing in my opinion will be an independent, internet released show.

Surion

Nooooo!! Doesn't seem like the best offering coming?! Do you remember some years ago Earth 2?? They were fleeing from war torn earth or something like that and were stranded on a planet with 'dream-time' aliens following them. Sounds a little like Terra Nova?

I'm hearing so much about Fringe, I'll head down to xtra-vision this evening and see if they have the season 1 box set and try and get into it. But take note...I'm doing this out of desperation for sci-fi!!!

So for the next while, Sin_J, we'll not have ships buzzing and flying and people firing ray guns all over the place. What a sad place we've reached *reaching for hanky, sniff sniff*.

Internet released shows....intriguing but really as entertaining?? Perhaps its the death knell for spacey space on TV!!!

Sin_J

The independent shows won't have the budget to do space opera properly. As much as you can do decent enough cg on the cheap now i think a web shows would just seem cheaply done. Although i'd love to be proven wrong

They would probably make great character pieces but i'd want a decent bit of action thrown in now again as well.

The current rating for tracking shows in the us is the leading cause of shows not canceled but tv as a medium is not the problem i think. it's that the best sci-fi on tv is serialised and tv networks absolutely hate that. They want a program that anyone can jump into at any time and pick up the show.

It's the route star trek generally took, and in most cases stargate. They want self contained stories that wrap up in 40 minutes and everyone can move through the series knowing that if they miss an episode it won't really matter.

BSG started to slide in quality in the third season when the network seeing how popular it was getting wanted more single ep stories so new viewers wouldn't be frightened off.

Johnny Storm

FWIW Leonard Nimoy had a guest role on Fringe a few seasons back.
IMHO Fringe is just OK-ish. It started out as an X Files reboot but then developed its own thing a bit. It always seems like its just about to become really great but never does, somehow.
Warehouse 13 is similarly quite watchable but ...

AnCapaillMor

I think the problem with space operas besides the costs is the low potential for product placement.

Beruthiel

Ravage1616 wrote: »

Falling Skies Just started in the US. It's not bad and does have some promise!

I watched it last night. I wanted to be really impressed. I wasn't.
I'll still watch the next few episodes to see if it will improve though.

Goldstein

On the tv maybe but on the upside a lifetime isn't enough to read all the truly great works the science fiction masters have produced.

Nodin

Sin_J wrote: »

There's the new BSG spin off Blood and Chrome. Follows young Adama during the first cylon war.

Apart from that i can't think of anything else. I'm sure Fox will think of something good to do for a season then cancel but otherwise there's nothing really on the radar.

I want something with spaceships or Mechs, someone make a mechwarrior tv show.

As there's a giant mech movie due 2013, you may get lucky.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1663662/

"Terra nova" is actually a bit like the "Saga of the Exiles" in that people use a one way gate back to the past. No aliens or torcs as far as I'm aware though. No idea what age group its aimed at, but as its on US 'free to air' it probably won't be that gritty.

Ideally HBO will get around to doing something. We can only hope and offer sacrifices.

Ravage1616

Beruthiel wrote: »

I watched it last night. I wanted to be really impressed. I wasn't.
I'll still watch the next few episodes to see if it will improve though.

Yeah after seeing the second episode I'm not so sure, It's all very typical and nothing overly new!

Conall Cernach

Nodin wrote: »

"Terra nova" is actually a bit like the "Saga of the Exiles" in that people use a one way gate back to the past. No aliens or torcs as far as I'm aware though. No idea what age group its aimed at, but as its on US 'free to air' it probably won't be that gritty.

Ideally HBO will get around to doing something. We can only hope and offer sacrifices.

Why does nobody make "The Saga of the Exiles" as a tv series? It would be fantastic.

Nodin

Conall Cernach wrote: »

Why does nobody make "The Saga of the Exiles" as a tv series? It would be fantastic.

t'would, if done well. However (for example) theres been two stabs at riverworld and both have been atrocities.

..........but seeing as Game of Thrones/Walking Dead/BSG/True Blood have been well received there is every reason to be optimistic as to adult 'proper' adaptations hitting the screen.

Conall Cernach

Nodin wrote: »

t'would, if done well. However (for example) theres been two stabs at riverworld and both have been atrocities.

..........but seeing as Game of Thrones/Walking Dead/BSG/True Blood have been well received there is every reason to be optimistic as to adult 'proper' adaptations hitting the screen.

Although the books take a couple of hundred pages or so to actually get to the Many Coloured Land the producers could do it like Lost and show each member of Group Greens story in flashback and start the action the minute they step through the timegate. It would cost a fortune in special effects though.

Nodin

Ravage1616 wrote: »

Yeah after seeing the second episode I'm not so sure, It's all very typical and nothing overly new!

It has to be said that you would have thought that - if nothing else -

Doom would have taught humanity the correct method of walking down darkened corridors with a shotgun when there was aliens about.

.

I don't think its that bad, but I tend to approach these things with low expectations. Uneven, more than anything else, in tone, acting, dialogue. Still, I sat through all of the rebooted "V", so I'll probably suffer this to the end.

Anachrony

Good science fiction isn't dead, it's just in book form, where it's always been. Film and television have always struggled with the genre. Some space opera type shows have been acceptable, but good quality hard science fiction is extremely difficult to film. Certain series could take hundreds of millions of dollars per season to put on screen with proper production value, would be very hard to write a good dialogue driven screenplay without being bogged down by endless exposition, and would still only appeal to a niche audience even if executed to perfection. Books are a much easier medium to tell a good science fiction story.