Lord, It’s Hard to be a Humble Science Fiction Fan

I am currently following three television shows: Warehouse 13, Fringe, and Terra Nova. I’d like to add Falling Skies to that list but the show went on hiatus until next year.

I don’t watch anything on Starz or HBO or those other premium cable channels. Since they’re all competing for my discretionary income beyond whatever the basic cable service commands, they have booked themselves beyond the price range I’m willing to pay.

So I have not yet watched Game of Thrones, Spartacus: Blood and Sand, or any of those other “cool” science fiction and fantasy shows that media critics hold out as examples of what’s good in genre television these days.

By some odd miracle (and perhaps because of the 5-episdoe intervention of Leonard Nimoy) Fringe managed to get past its second season. It’s not easy for good shows to do that. I’m still smarting over the devastating loss of Legend of the Seeker (which died not for lack of audience but for lack of distribution to a very willing and visible audience). I was just about to get into Caprica when SyFy decided it wasn’t the magic selling sauce it was supposed to be.

And where, oh where, is my beloved Stargate: Universe?

Science fiction TV just isn’t what it was ever supposed to be: brilliant, engaging, experimental, risk-taking, breath-taking, entertaining, and thought-provoking. Instead it’s mostly exasperating and frustrating.

I’m still not sure I want to watch Terra Nova but it hasn’t driven me into tearful boredom yet. That said, I committed to doing a podcast during the next episode so I’ll have to catch up with it through the On Demand channel. I already watch Fringe through On Demand and I have caught about half the recent episodes of Warehouse 13 that way.

Unlike many W13 fans I have never gotten into Eureka, which is about to end a respectable run. Why is that? I have no idea. The show just doesn’t appeal to me.

Nor can I get into Alphas. It seemed too much like Heroes to me, which seemed too much like a reality show-meets-“Bring it On” (the series of cheerleading drama movies). Is Heroes still in production? I don’t know. I don’t care.

Here is what I want to see in my science fiction and fantasy: a clash of civilizations and/or cultures; worlds brought to the brink of destruction; huge story arcs that introduce a few ideas one episode at a time and bring back characters over multiple seasons; and a reasonable facsimile of logic and organized presentation. You can tease me all you wish with unrevealed stuff as long as you reveal SOMETHING that makes sense.

It’s the senseless disclosures, the boring character development, and the unrealistic patronization that expects me to suck up every cheaply made science fiction show with the rabid enthusiasm of a mindless Nielsen drone which makes me want to turn off the television or slap an old DvD into the player.

I miss The Queen of Swords. It told a great story even if it WAS based on Zorro. It was a new twist.

I miss Farscape, which ended too soon and too quickly.

I miss … I miss shows that make me want to tune in each week. I miss the shows that made me want to arrange my schedule around THEIR schedules. I caught up with Enterprise through syndication reruns because it was inconveniently scheduled at 7PM on Wednesdays in my market. Maybe if it had been thrown into a more convenient 9 or 10pm slot on those nights I would have stood by it longer than I did during its production time.

Science fiction TV gets short shrift because it takes audiences time to warm up to the themes, the worlds, the characters, the new ideas and the old ideas being rehashed. Sometimes you can solve that problem by putting a girl in a skimpy outfit long enough for the fanboys to realize that there is some actual thought behind the show. More often you have to introduce really good storylines early on that make people forget they are watching characters.

When the audience can imagine anyone going into the situations that the main characters of a science fiction TV show face week after week, the show succeeds. That is because actors MUST be ubiquitous to science fiction and fantasy. The audience needs to be primed by stories that make sense, offer up plenty of surprises, and which avoid being caught looking cheesy.

The last cheesy show I watched was Jack of All Trades, which I loved immensely, but it was one of those rare shows that pokes fun at itself in such an over-the-top way that people were put off. It did that, I think, because it was formatted to be a Bruce Campbell vehicle — and though Bruce is a great actor and he was supported by a fantastic cast, the audience could not imagine anyone else doing the things that Bruce and his friends were doing.

Science fiction and fantasy are about making people think. Great science fiction and fantasy force people to think, challenge them, maybe even threaten them. Great science fiction and fantasy frighten the audience, impose unusual restrictions on the audience that demand a contrary point of view. Great science fiction and fantasy make the audience want to be in the same situations that the stars face.

When you’re sitting there, watching the new show, asking yourself, “What would I want to do in this situation?” you know the show has grabbed you by the collar and is shaking you every way possible. You’re in its grip firmly, succinctly, irretrievably. You want to be in that situation, face that world, confront its challenges, solve its problems. You want to share the joys and the frustrations of the characters because they resonate with you through the challenges presented to them.

That’s the problem with all these stinky science fiction shows. They make us feel safe. We’re chewing the same gum we’ve always chewed. There is no emotional or mental risk entailed in watching the new TV shows.

If Terra Nova fails it will be because it’s boring. There’s more to an Earth that is 85 million years younger than our world today than dinosaurs. If the producers of Terra Nova are counting on the dinosaurs to carry the show, then it is doomed. Dinosaurs are as ubiquitous as actors. We’ve seen them before. The show has to dig deeper than that.