The State of Sci-fi Fantasy and Horror on TV

don ramo

is it just me or has tv gone far to generic and simplistic with the stuff they air these days, i decided over the last week to stop watching, Defiance, The Strain, Falling Skies, and Continuum,

bar the strain these are all multiseason shows, and the main reason i decided to stop was because they have had multiple seasons to get going, but all they seem to do is loop back and around in circles, their all short 12-16 episode seasons, but only 3-4 of the episodes a season may actually generate forward momentum in the show, only for it to get undone latter in another episode,

when i think of a sci-fi/fnatasy/horror shows, id use the likes of Deep Space Nine and Battlestar Galactica, and more recently Fringe, as a gauge, with their multi-season development, each one moving the story along as near enough the speed of light compared to others ive mentioned above,

we have obvious exceptions like Game of Thrones, and The Walking Dead, and id even question The Walking Dead, but compared to the others it in the upper echelons of horror,

are these generic shows gonna just keep coming thick stupid and twice as fast just so some cable channel might stumble upon the next Juggernaut tv show, and give any show that has a half respected hollywood director attached the project who in the end may only contribute to about 5% of the project but have his name plastered all over it, in order to dupe the masses into believing that you are watching a master stretch his muscles on the small screen, when all hes doing is paying for his earthquake insurance for his malibu beach house,

there are probably a few shows out there that i might enjoy and i may even know about them, but those 4 shows made up about 50% of my sci-fi/fantasy/horror viewing, 3 genres i really enjoy, and love it every time i hear of a new one being made, only to end up fighting myself for 3-4 years to watch it, mainly cause it the best material i can get my hand on,

Chocolate Lions

You're talking about stuff that can't help but look dumber to you as you get older. If you revisit old stuff you watched you might judge it more harshly?

The only sci-fi I've really enjoyed on TV is Battlestar. I got a bit of a kick out of the first few seasons of Supernatural as far as supernatural stuff goes.

I remember watching Buffy and Angel when they were first on but I wouldn't look at them twice now, not even if they were all that's on. Always hated Star Trek. Maybe I'm the wrong person to answer this. :pac:

don ramo

Chocolate Lions wrote: »

You're talking about stuff that can't help but look dumber to you as you get older. If you revisit old stuff you watched you might judge it more harshly?

The only sci-fi I've really enjoyed on TV is Battlestar. I got a bit of a kick out of the first few seasons of Supernatural as far as supernatural stuff goes.

I remember watching Buffy and Angel when they were first on but I wouldn't look at them twice now, not even if they were all that's on. Always hated Star Trek. Maybe I'm the wrong person to answer this. :pac:

well i probably have become more of a cynic as i grew older, also having absorbed so much more tv and film probably doesnt help matters, but quality is quality, fair enough not everyone is a ST fan, i am, and i only rewatced DS9 2 years ago, and i actually loved it even more than when i first watched about ten years ago, BSG is probably the only show that i would consider equal to DS9 in a space set show,

it just seems that as TV seems to get better and it get easier to make these shows, it just seems that the right people dont seem to get their shot often enough, you have abrams, spielberg and del toro having their doors bust down to get their name on the show, and they do irregardless of whos actually running the day to day of the show,

you have a show like falling skies, a great idea, and a great team working on it for the most part, it looks brilliant, but they seem to have wasted the entire budget on cgi, rather than a good showrunner and a good writing staff, for a 12 episode a season show your lucky to have 3 good episodes, theirs always that 1 or maybe 2 great episodes that do just enough to keep you coming back,

bnt

I don't think SF on TV has ever been all that great, to be honest. The OP mentions some good past shows, but there was a healthy dollop of crud, too. Anyone remember Space 1999 or Buck Rogers? :pac:

Of the current crop, the only one I'm watching at the moment is Continuum, which is OK, I think. Some serious timeline-mangling going on, if you think about it e.g. what are the temporal ramifications of

a suicide bomber setting off his device at the exact moment he was *born*

?

I'm still waiting for the miniseries based on Asimov's Foundation series, or for someone to tackle Clarke's Childhood's End. There's always been room for improvement, and still is, I think.

Harry Palmr

To much expensive generic mush on these days. Back in the day a fantasy (of whatever type) series was rare and to be treasured now you're tripping over vampires and zombies.

Still, Thunderbirds is back next year

don ramo

bnt wrote: »

I don't think SF on TV has ever been all that great, to be honest. The OP mentions some good past shows, but there was a healthy dollop of crud, too. Anyone remember Space 1999 or Buck Rogers? :pac:

Of the current crop, the only one I'm watching at the moment is Continuum, which is OK, I think. Some serious timeline-mangling going on, if you think about it e.g. what are the temporal ramifications of

a suicide bomber setting off his device at the exact moment he was *born*

?

I'm still waiting for the miniseries based on Asimov's Foundation series, or for someone to tackle Clarke's Childhood's End. There's always been room for improvement, and still is, I think.

oh i know SF was always a rare commodity, but it still is, and it shouldnt be, thats my point, their making plenty of sci-fi shows and they look pretty good, but thats about it, they look good, but the people making them dont seem to be creative enough to hold down a multiseason storyline,

there are acres of space for improvment from the current lot, but i dont think it will happen, like i said, as generic as the shows being made now are, their getting renewed, extant and under the dome were renewed earlier this week, and a lot of people seemed pretty surprised about it,

i dont think ive ever heard mention of asimovs work being done on TV, but the SYFY channel announced a Childhoods Ends miniseries earlier this year,

Vorenus400

don ramo wrote: »

oh i know SF was always a rare commodity, but it still is, and it shouldnt be, thats my point, their making plenty of sci-fi shows and they look pretty good, but thats about it, they look good, but the people making them dont seem to be creative enough to hold down a multiseason storyline,

there are acres of space for improvment from the current lot, but i dont think it will happen, like i said, as generic as the shows being made now are, their getting renewed, extant and under the dome were renewed earlier this week, and a lot of people seemed pretty surprised about it,

i dont think ive ever heard mention of asimovs work being done on TV, but the SYFY channel announced a Childhoods Ends miniseries earlier this year,

Have you tried Real Humans? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Humans It was a Swedish sci fi series set in an alternate universe where robots are a reality. First series was very good. and it deals with a lot of asimovs ideas. Doesnt have a massive budget but a very good concept. I think there is the inevitable US remake in the works.

ixoy

Continuum is far from simplistic. Its time travel elements are quite complex as are some of its thoughts on ethics and more. It's far from being one the other shows you list.
If you're talking about having a set goal then very few achieve it. BSG was a good show but it became increasingly clear that they hadn't a clue as to where they were going with it, including who the Final Five even were. Deep Space Nine had some excellent arcs but they only began in its fourth season to any extent and prior to that you'd have had the same issues.
Fringe is a good example (from its second season on) and I'd like more of that. Sleepy Hollow is crazy but it does push the plot along each week too. Person of Interest is borderline scifi and it also pushes plot arcs along each week. The reason others don't is probably because the shows kept getting cancelled. It's been decades now but no scifi show has still come even close to a planned story arc like Babylon 5. Others may have had arcs but they were generally just mere outlines. We need more truly grand schemes.

bnt

One of my favourite commentators on SF in general is author David Brin. (You might know him as the author of The Postman, which was made in to a movie by Kevin Costner.) For example, see his piece about Idiot Plots, which goes in to how storylines might not work if people acted rationally:

Want the simplest example? We've all seen it in Grade B horror movies. A dozen spoiled, giggling teenagers enter a haunted house. The lights go out. Someone screams. Then we hear the famous line.

"Hey, gang. Let's split up!"

Why? Why do kids in these films deliberately choose to do the stupidest thing imaginable?

Because if they don't split up — if they behave like intelligent people who pool their resources and march out of there with linked arms — the author might actually have to exercise some imagination in order to keep up that precious jeopardy for 90 minutes. But if you start with an assumption of stupidity, the script almost writes itself, hurtling from one gruesome decapitation to the next.

Using the example of Continuum again (minor spoiler): Keira lands in our time wearing a catsuit that is effectively magic by modern standards. (See Clarke's 3rd Law.) Where's the jeopardy there, if the suit is a deus ex machina solution to all problems? So, straight away you can see that the writers have to have the suit fail in some way, and sure enough, it's damaged in an explosion. So far, so predictable. It's what happens as a result that kept me interested:

the young Alex Sadler helps to fixes the suit, but at the same time he's working on technology that he will go on to invent years later. So what did he actually invent or not?

don ramo

ixoy wrote: »

Continuum is far from simplistic. Its time travel elements are quite complex as are some of its thoughts on ethics and more. It's far from being one the other shows you list.
If you're talking about having a set goal then very few achieve it. BSG was a good show but it became increasingly clear that they hadn't a clue as to where they were going with it, including who the Final Five even were. Deep Space Nine had some excellent arcs but they only began in its fourth season to any extent and prior to that you'd have had the same issues.
Fringe is a good example (from its second season on) and I'd like more of that. Sleepy Hollow is crazy but it does push the plot along each week too. Person of Interest is borderline scifi and it also pushes plot arcs along each week. The reason others don't is probably because the shows kept getting cancelled. It's been decades now but no scifi show has still come even close to a planned story arc like Babylon 5. Others may have had arcs but they were generally just mere outlines. We need more truly grand schemes.

continuum just went around in circles, its a great show to debate time travel theory with, but the plot didnt move forward, 3 seasons in and kiera didnt

effect one single thing in the time line, its playing out exactly like its supposed to,

i agree that DS9 took a while to get going, but overall its a great show, i liked the single location, where things that happened in one episode effected things in another episode, and they had a great range of characters that always kept you interested,

fringe is probably the best sci-fi show of the last 10 years, person of interest if you want to take it as sci-fi is up there to, sleepy hollow i think is like falling skies, doing just enough to keep you coming back, but it shows the shortcomings of the shows creativity, that they dont have a multiseason story planned out and are slowly feeding it to us, as their making it up, and like i said, for a 12-16 episode season your lucky to have 2 great episodes, falling skies would bore you to tears at the best of times,

i think there is just more bland sci-fi, the level of sci-fi shows has increased massively over the last 4-5 years no doubt, bar Fringe (i dont really consider POI sci-fi) there are a lot of shows out there that really came up short, falling skies probably more so than any cause of the idea of the show, and how unbelievably bad they played it out, 2 great ideas thrown in amongst 15 bad ones,

don ramo

Vorenus400 wrote: »

Have you tried Real Humans? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Humans It was a Swedish sci fi series set in an alternate universe where robots are a reality. First series was very good. and it deals with a lot of asimovs ideas. Doesnt have a massive budget but a very good concept. I think there is the inevitable US remake in the works.

never heard of it, might give that a look at some point,