Science Fiction TV Shows...coming to Syfy...and a bit on Firefly

[shadowkat]

Hmmm...Syfy's The Ascension, the Canadian science fiction alternate reality mini-series, isn't that good is it? Watching it now - and it's not holding my interest that well...it's the casting I suspect. And possibly the writing and direction, feels sort of listless.

But..Syfy has some interesting series coming up...the one I really want to see is The Expanse based on award winning the sci-fi mystery series by J.A. Corey and starring Thomas Jane.

Not sure about the reboot of 12 Monkeys as a mini-series, that was a favorite science fiction film of mine and amongst Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis' better roles. Pitt plays the villain in it.

But the mini-series based on Arthur C. Clark's Childhood's End starring Charles Dance (Tywin Lannister) looks interesting.

Sci-fi is hard to pull off well - and to appeal to a wide audience. People are nit-picky when it comes to sci-fi. That was Firefly's problem. They are hoping The Expanse will be like Firefly and Farscape...the description reminds me a little of Bladerunner meets BSG by way of Firefly in Space.

And the next season of Helix could be interesting...it's going the tropical route. But not a huge fan of gross out horror, although anything regarding the CDC and investigation of disease fascinates me...and I just get drawn to it. Major story kink - I'm thinking I may have been a frustrated pathologist in a former life or I just like the puzzle bit. Now if they'd just focus on figuring out the puzzle over the gross-out effects of the disease. Such as the Andromeda Strain and World War Z.

Confession time? I like space operas quite a bit. Actually my favorite sci-fi is non-horror in the same veine or trope as Firefly, Star Wars, Farscape, Battle Star Galatica...and well Bladerunner. Not really a fan of the extremely popular and somewhat more mainstream or universally accepted alien invasion or sci-fi horror trope made popular with series like X-Files, Fringe, Doctor Who, V, Alien, The Thing, Helix, Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, etc. Because of the latter - for years I associated science fiction with scarey monsters. (Also as an aside? My paternal grandfather adored science fiction movies, monster movies, and horror novels - much to my grandmother's considerable chagrin. ) But if you happen to be a fan of the X-Files trope - The Hunters based on Whitey Strieber's books might catch your interest. I'll probably pass. Like not a fan of that trope - it's my main issue with Doctor Who actually - it's that trope. When Doctor Who veers away from that trope, I'm happy, but everyone else isn't - because everyone else loves that trope.

Firefly like Farscape - I enjoyed quite a bit, both were serialized space operas. But they had problems finding an audience. Space operas tend to. They aren't episodic, you have to follow them, and well there's that melodramatic element.
You can't just pop in whenever you feel like it. Firefly, in particular, had an uphill battle because for reasons that escape me, Whedon chose to reference 1950s Westerns. I think it may be because he studied them in film school and he was interested in exploring the tropes and subverting them. (I get that, I studied them in school too.) He'd already explored the horror trope, now he wanted to do sci-fi and westerns. But, a lot of sci-fi fans do not like that genre, which isn't exactly known for it's political correctness. (Westerns tend to be racist, sexist, amongst other things.) I honestly think if he'd dumped some of the Western bits, the show would have taken off. Because I know a lot of people who stopped watching it - because of the Western tropes. Now, I liked the Western trope...but I actually like Westerns better than horror science fiction. And Firefly was a combination of two of my favorite genres - Westerns and Sci-Fi. What I struggled with - is Whedon's obsession with the Civil War - from the perspective of the Old South. He'd just read the Killer Angels, and was obsessed with the confederates who fought the union, and why they did. Well...I hate to say this? But there's a reason WWII movies are more popular than Civil War movies. The Civil War was at its heart about slavery. You can't quite get around that. The ideas that intrigued Whedon were about people rebelling against the system or this anonymous corporate structure that wanted them to lock-step or conform. But he could have referenced that in another way, without the Western trope references that jarred many people. I think the show would have succeeded if he'd been a bit more careful with the Western trope.

Then again...

There were a lot of factors that caused that show to fail, I suspect. And, whether it failed ...may be a matter of opinion, since it did result in a movie, and there have been various comic books.

Comments

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

That's a good way to put it.