Comments on: Is sf ready for prime time?

By: Endless Links « Torque Control

Endless Links « Torque Control — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 09:23:41 +0000

[...] Martin McGrath and Lou Anders comment on Gareth McLean’s Guardian article on SF TV. [...]

By: Lyle Hopwood

Lyle Hopwood — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 17:12:25 +0000

Battlestar Galactica’s creators and actors went out of their way to claim to BSG was NOT SF. (Despite it showing on SciFi channel; go figure.) Dave Langford’s Ansible alone has 6 “as others see us” references.

Here’s a couple:
Ronald D.Moore, a writer and executive producer of the new Battlestar Galactica, explains how it is Importantly Different: `”It’s just fleshed-out reality,” said Moore. “It’s surprising to see because it’s not in the science-fiction genre. Sci-fi doesn’t usually treat adult men and women as adult men and women, and we wanted to treat them as adults.”‘ (Washington Post, December)

Katee Sackhoff, who plays Starbuck in the series, seems to agree: `I’ll meet people who haven’t watched the show purely because it’s on Sci Fi. I’m like, you’ve gotta be kidding me. It’s not really science fiction. [...] they’ve turned it into a drama first and a science-fiction series second.’

I guess when pressed I’d say SF is now almost universally loved in the west, but the vast majority of the consumers are still embarrassed to admit it.

By: Martin McGrath

Martin McGrath — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 10:47:05 +0000

I don’t know Jeremiah, while I could possibly buy this for shows like Lost and maybe Heroes I think that people clearly understand BSG and Dr Who (or Primeval, or Torchwood or, I’m guessing, the forthcoming Outcast) as definitively sfnal – to the point that minstream positive reviews frequently start off with disclaimers like “ignore the fact that this is geeky science fiction”…

Producers might hide behind phrases like “high-concept” when they can’t bring themselves to say the sf words, but I don’t think they’re fooling anyone.

By: Jeremiah Tolbert

Jeremiah Tolbert — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 23:29:28 +0000

I don’t think the public (and the show creators) don’t see these shows as SF. (The creators might, but you’ll be hardpressed to get any of them to admit it on the record.) I think genre ideas have become ingrained in popular culture, though, but they don’t “belong” to SF anymore, which has too many negative connotations for most of the public to want to associate with it. SF won, and lost, at the same time.