Where'd all the SF shows go?

I miss Firefly

 

I would expect, that like everything else, SF series come in waves and then go in waves as well. Probably there'll be a resurgence in another 10 years or so, who can say.

 

There is actually an overabundance of scifi shows. There are, however, no space sagas, that's true. It's quite a shame really, I was personally a huge fan of Star Trek (all series), Stargate (all series), BSG, Firefly, Farscape, Andromeda, etc.

 

So you only count shows set in deep space? That's just a setting. A bit like saying there aren't many shows set in 1950s diners or Boston bars any more. Marvel's Agents of Shield and Tomorrow People are sci-fi, just not in space.

But the greatest and most enduring sci-fi show of all time, set in every part of space, with the ultimate spaceship, is about to come back later this year, so who cares about any of the others?

 

Personally, I put the Doctor in a category of his own.

 

Maybe it's out of fashion these days.
I mean most of the shows airing today are Reality or something Procedural or Action. Or a mix of those.

Dunno. Maybe old-school SF requires a certain mind-set or infantile curiosity that seem to be lacking these days.

 

I find it had to believe that the current audience no longer has the taste for space exploration. There's no easier way for people to suspend their disbelief than being presented with a setting where imagination is the only limit.

I'd say the biggest problem is the budget. Sci-Fi series, especially franchise ones, have massive budgets so that they can produce satisfactory special effects. Not that they can't get by on lower budgets—Farscape didn't have that much of a budget at all and it was still phenomenal—but people, especially younger audience, are a lot more critical of the visual aspects these days. It's hard to convince companies and networks to provide you with the funding if you can't guarantee them the numbers, and it's hard to get those in the genre without top notch presentation.

Personally, I wish they'd make more time travel shows. The heavy kind, where things get horribly messed up, not the whovian kind where paradoxes resolve themselves, by and large. Unfortunately, temporal physics and time theories go over the head of most "normal" people, including fiction writers/directors. Even decent series, like Journeyman, tend to be canceled after one season because they're not mindless enough for the masses.

 

Bah, Doctor Who is brilliant. I wasn't a huge fan of Matt Smith, but maybe Peter Capaldi will surprise me. David Tennant set the bar pretty high though.

 

Time travel back and revive Firefly. That would be awesome.

I generally don't like timetravel movies, shows etc, since 95% of them fail or just skip the fundamental paradoxes that needs to be dealt with. Those that nomatter what thesis you put up about timetravel need to be adressed.

I guess especially space sagas have a hard time catering to the masses without risking the high investment needed these days.

 

^ Ten was awesome! He was no doubt my fave Doctor!

 

It's annoying because Joss Whedon and all the actors are on board and they have a huge fanbase, but they just can't get the green light.

 

Yes, well, therein lies the problem. In spite of massively high critical acclaim, the show simply didn't have enough viewers. Not only is it in a niche genre, but it was also shoved into the Friday night death slot, and running the episodes in the wrong order didn't help much either. Consequently, even though almost everyone agrees that it is a great show, it never managed to kick off. Unsurprisingly, Serenity didn't really attract enough people after the fact.

I do think it had every chance of succeeding, regardless of the high production costs. But why bother when you can make loads of money with dirt cheap reality shows, right?

 

Seeing as Doctor Who is the greatest TV show of all time, let alone sci fi, let alone spacey, so the real question should be: why can't we have Doctor Who all year round?