The Evolution of Science Fiction in the 20th and 21st Centuries

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Science fiction television series have definitely been, and will always be, popular amongst the general television viewing audience. Originally, no production company would endorse George Lucas’ idea of a “science fiction” movie, thus Star Wars came close to not existing. Suffice it to say, without Star Wars, we would not have had Star Trek, or any of the other popular science fiction franchises. Fortunately, Lucas got a break, Star Wars mania swept the nation, and television broadcasting changed forever.

In the 1970’s, the term “science fiction” was in a world of its own, defining itself as a concept unique to the rest of the mainstream media, filled with soap operas (Young and the Restless), comedy (Just for Laughs), biased newscasts (FOX) and drama (CSI and Lost). Science fiction television shows were popular for their action, adventure and well-thought-out storylines. That is how Star Wars and Star Trek became as successful as they did. But only a few sci-fi fanatics knew that there was a clash between the forces of good and evil in real life…

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Let’s take a look at the main science fiction television channels in today’s society. We have:

• Sci-Fi Channel
• Space Channel
• ABC
• NBC

Science fiction television programs require much more time, effort, and most importantly, money, to produce, particularly due to the vast amount of special effects required for each episode. As such, networks often don’t want to show these types of programs – not because people don’t like to watch them, but because they can’t make as much of a profit. This is the unfortunate mentality of these networks. ABC and NBC, for example, think to themselves, “If we can make a 50% profit from a 2 million viewing audience watching the ‘Young and the Restless,’ why should we air a science fiction series making only a 25% profit from the same 2 million viewers?”

Laser battles, ship-to-ship combat and massive explosions require a much higher cost than a simple gunfight. This is why television shows on crime drama, reality competitions and soap operas remain on the air, because they’re relatively cheap to produce, and the number of people watching them versus the cost involved is more than reasonable in the network’s eyes. To give you an example, think about Star Trek. After the first Star Trek series ended in 1969, it took 18 years for a Star Trek sequel to be produced. The same can be said about the television programs “Big Brother,” “Survivor,” “Dancing with the Stars,” “American Idol,” and “America’s Got Talent.” They’re all cheap to produce and they rack in the ratings, meaning advertisers pay more money to have their products advertised during the program’s commercials, and the television network airing the show makes a higher profit.

Science Fiction in the 21st Century

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Due to the high cost involved in producing science fiction programs, the term “science fiction” has gradually enlarged to incorporate a significant amount of soap opera and personal drama. In the past, we would look at “science fiction” as an action genre, full of laser fight scenes and ship battles. Now, though, the term has literally been butchered to the extent where society now considers certain shows to be part of the genre, even though they contain minimal science fiction elements.

Let’s take a look at some of the 21st century television programs that today’s society classifies as “science fiction,” even though they don’t really fall into that category:

• Battlestar Galactica (Reimagining of the Original Series)
• Star Trek: Enterprise (Seasons 1 and 2 Only)
• Doctor Who
• Jericho
• Fringe (Produced and directed by J.J. Abrams – the same person who directed the new 2009 “Star Trek” movie)

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Now, I’m a Star Trek fan, so you’re probably wondering why I’ve included Enterprise on the above list. I’ll explain this later on. For the moment, each of these programs has a couple of things in common:

• The majority of the episodes contain minimal special effects.
• More “guns” are being used as weapons than lasers or other futuristic weaponry.
• The shows tend to focus more on personal character dramatization than action.

These three simple reasons explain how science fiction has changed over the years. Television networks have essentially reduced the genre to little more than “Soap Opera + Drama + 15 Minutes of Gun Pointing or Shooting.” The series “Fringe” is supposed to focus on alien technology and abnormal human experiments, but many of the episodes so far don’t seem much different than that of CSI or LOST.

We take a look at Star Trek: Enterprise and for the first two seasons, the majority of the episodes focus on minimal special effects, old-fashioned torpedoes, and extensive character dramatization. It seems like Braga and Berman wanted the show to focus more on the stress imposed on the crew than the amount of action involved. And sure, on occasion, we’d get a good laugh from the Andorians. But then again, the series was cancelled after only four seasons, with a lousy series finale at that.

Of the 13-episode seasons of Doctor Who, only about half of the episodes in each season have special effects included in them.

Recent polls have indicated that the new re-imagined Battlestar Galactica has attracted a high number of female viewers, most likely because the majority of it focuses on drama and real-life issues (such as religion and politics). However, this isn’t what science fiction is all about. Whatever happened to lasers and awesome fight scenes?

Geez. This “cutting down of expenses in science fiction shows” needs to stop. Star Wars and Star Trek were so successful because of their great storylines and the high amounts of money used in their special effects. Remove the effects, put in a standard non-fictional storyline, and you remove the genre. No wonder why Star Wars: The Clone Wars is currently so successful on Cartoon Network. It’s because Lucas is putting in massive light-saber duels and ship laser combat scenes in High-Definition, even though if it were to air on some other channel, he’d probably get criticized for the expenses-to-earnings ratio.

In conclusion, we as a society need to force the television networks to bring the science fiction genre back up to the once high standard it used to represent. Otherwise, the actual meaning of the phrase “science fiction” will become no different than that of “drama,” “reality” or “soap opera.”

More Television Topics by Dialga:

·         Star Trek: New Generations – Series Premiere Part 1 of 2

·         Star Trek: New Generations – Series Premiere Part 2 of 2

·         Top 10 Star Trek: Enterprise Episodes List