Where are the decent scifi series?

[KennyR]

If detective series had been as poorly represented as scifi through the years, Scooby Doo might be a good example of a detective series.

Campy, cliched, unimaginitive - and that's the good ones. :-) Star Trek TNG was good for its day but has aged very badly, and later spinoffs were very poor, with feeble characterisation and weak plots, usually involving some kind of time travel. By the end they just stopped relying on stories to attract viewers and just got buxom birds in tight catsuits to do that. Some unwritten Star Trek law goes that, the more episodes you make, the crapper the theme tune and the duller the characters have to be. And the tighter the catsuit.

I suppose Babylon 5 managed to prop up the scene for a while in the mid 90s, but latex aliens and its degeneration into a war of Light vs. Shadow threw it into the Bad Scifi Cliche Bargain Bin (which Farscape, Crusade, Andromeda and their ilk have never actually crawled out of since the beginning).

Lexx was startlingly original (not to mention pervy), but it eventually got really, REALLY boring too, taking whole series to tell a story that could be done in half an episode. This fate had been suffered the last series of Dr. Who two decades before. When ideas run out, just spread one good idea over six episodes, oh and show more cleavage. It works, honest...

Scifi is a genre where imagination should run wild. Weird dystopias, strange worlds, the struggle of individuals to comprehend their existence in other-worldy societies so alien they're hard to comprehend. In mid-2004, I now find myself in a situation where there is no decent scifi left at all. The days are gone where I could be impressed with a series which involves whole alien species and their diverse socialogical situation being shown as lesser known actors in latex masks all wearing the same clothes. Oh, and time travel stories. Again.

Just as well we have CSI. Pffh.

[KennyR]

odin wrote:
At least we have something decent coming up in the cinema, I Robot. With masteractor Will Smith as main cast. That's bound to make a good combination. Asimov and Smith.

:lol:

The closest Asimov ever got to big screen popularity was Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which he co-wrote the story for. It sucked.

I know most of Asimov's stories don't suck though. I'd be frustrated beyond belief if I was the man. He must be the most successful scifi writer who's been ignored the most by Hollywood.

[KennyR]

cecilia wrote:
no, THE best Star Trek was the first and the original. (what seems to be called "classical", now). They wrote about characters and ideas. and you had a set of really good actors.

Agreed. The original ST was good for its day because it was really original and had good relationships between characters. The characters themselves weren't given a whole load of history and emotional baggage and then told to try to portray it - Deniro could do that, most actor's cant, and usually try to end up with some boring angry angst-ridden character that softens as the series goes on (i.e. B'ehlana Torres). The ST characters were colourful and eccentric, and well acted. A little mould cast maybe (at first), but they worked and were popular. The baggage was added later to suit.

I'm not sure "real" characters work in scifi, since many of the writers lack real world experience, to be blunt. It would be interesting to see Scorsece direct a scifi film, for instance. ;-)

TNG didn't have such interesting characters, but it still had something - good stories, for a start. Stewart showed his star quality portraying Picard's wisdom and diplomacy, Worf was a good role, Data was an interesting character (if irritating later). But the women were window dressing and Riker and LaForge were rather dull (they obviously tried to make Riker be another Kirk, but the actor wasn't up to it and changed their minds).

TNG has aged though. I still laugh my ass off about the episode where they take on a load of country bumpkins in rags, and the love interest woman among them is wearing eyeshadow and mascara. :lol:

Damn, I'm arguing seriously about Star Trek on an internet forum. Geek alert. :-P

http://immolation.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/greatfx.jpg

[KennyR]

PMC wrote:
Is it me or is one of those purple dudes giving Picard the bird?

Well, that's what he gets for criticising their performance of Puttin' On The Ritz on his bridge.

[KennyR]

Cymric wrote:
I'm not sure I agree with this all the way. I think it is the other way around. My girlfriend and I had a little discussion about theater admission fares after seeing the visually spectacular but storywise extremely weak Van Helsing. She remarked people want to be entertained after a stressful day---and entertainment rules out engaging your brain in difficult stories and Deep Thought About Life's Truths. I think she has a point. Hollywood cares a lot about this and knows the difference like no other. (They make billions of dollars out of it, don't they?)

I think the "people only want dumb entertainment" mantra is a rather empty one. People are usually portrayed en-mass as a non-discriminating lowest common denominator mob, who will suck up any rubbish as long as it has enough special effects. Make unoriginal crap, hype it, show it, get the money. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Yet this doesn't seem to be always true. The new Matrix movies, for instance, and the new Star Wars ones - it didn't take film critics for people to judge those as crap. Could it be that even tired, working people want more than boom boom bang bang? These films were successes, but only because of hype. No-one will remember them fondly.

Without going to the other end of the scale and believing everyone will appreciate films like Solyaris and 2001: A Space Odyssey, or god forbid those artsy fartsy films (in my view usually pretentious, not clever), it does indeed seem like people do appreciate good scifi. This appreciation often seems to translate into pure dollars. In the case of Jackson's Lord of the Rings, even with the maimed story, the films are a massive commercial success.

Star Trek viewing figures have crashed, despite the obvious masturbation-bait to desperately grab more. Unoriginality and banality are directly to blame. Seems the masses do actually know good sci-fi when they know it - at least, "okay" sci-fi. Star Trek is tired and shows it, and people do notice. Even 14 year olds.