where’s the sci-fi for grown-ups?
drwho, geek, life, scifi, tv April 7th, 2010Doctor Who returned to the nation’s screens recently for the fifth series of the modern (post 2005) era. A new lead actor, Matt Smith, plays the eleventh incarnation of The Doctor and the appropriately titled first episode, “Eleventh Hour”, has been well received by critics and the series’ many fans alike.
That’s all very nice, but the return of Who has left me wondering, where’s the grown up science fiction on UK television?
Matt Smith is the 11th Doctor Who
Hold fire for a second and let me just say that the point of this post is not to stick the Sonic Bootdriver into Who. It’s clearly a high quality show enjoyed by millions of children and adults alike, including quite a few of my grown-up friends who I hope won’t be offended in any way by this post. In the Tom Baker era I rarely missed an episode or novel myself and I think I gave the revamp a fair chance by watching a couple of series.
However I quickly tired of the new Who. My problem, if you can even call it that, and if you can then it is my problem, is that Doctor Who strikes me as a show aimed primarily at children and teenagers. Analysing why that is or looking for reasons for the show is written and produced that way is another post entirely, and I’ve digressed enough. Suffice to say that personally I can’t get away from the “it’s a kids’ show” feeling.
Which leads me nicely back to the original question. Where’s my sci-fi?
BBC's 2009 remake of Day Of The Triffids
I’ll grant you there are occasional mini-series such as 2007′s Andromeda Strain, or Day of the Triffids that shuffled in on its roots at the tail end of 2009, and even more occasional short run series such as Paradox and, perhaps at a stretch, Ashes to Ashes and Survivors. Entertaining as they are, these shows are sci-fi-ish themes being played out in very ordinary worlds.
But where are the 20 episode series like Doctor Who, but aimed at adults who are allowed to stay up after the watershed? I’m talking about UK contemporaries for Galactica, or a reimagining of Blake’s 7 (a show, don’t forget, that in the first episode has the main protagonist charged with child sex abuse and, in the final episode, has the entire major cast gunned down) ?
I can’t accept that, as a country, we lack world class writing, acting, technical or production talent. Are these individuals then just brain-draining abroad, lured by supersized American and Canadian paycheques?
Science fiction series are notoriously expensive to create, so is it a simple question of budget? Or an audience size that justifies the necessary budget? Is this why we see the sci-fi-ish ”ordinary worlds” as I called them above, and little or no original sci-fi programming from commercial stations?
Am I just whining about a matter of degree? My dad holds that all science fiction is nonsense about “lumpy heads” (his description of most TV alien makeup) and therefore all for kids, but then I don’t think he’s seen Blake’s 7.
Or am I just, somehow, missing all the grown-up science fiction that is actually being produced and broadcast in the UK?
I’d love to hear what you think.
John Girvin is a software engineer, sci-fi buff, cyclist and retrocomputer fan (ie: nerd) from Belfast, Northern Ireland.
If you liked this article, why not subscribe to the RSS feed for more?
You may also enjoy these great related articles:
April 7th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
At the risk of trying to oversimplify the situation, I think that we’re now living in a global TV marketplace. The adult sci-fi long-runners are being made by the likes of ABC (Lost; Flashforward) and so on. They can sell the franchises widely enough to make them economically viable.
The BBC has found a niche (9 to 14 year-olds and their parents) that may have been unsatisfied by anyone else by resurrecting Dr Who so successfully under its newer, 9th to 11th Doctors.
One thing I have noticed is the degree to which ladies have taken the Dr to their hearts – I may have been too young in the Tom Baker days but I’m sure it was just for boys back then. That must be down to more inclusive writing.
So in summary, I think it’s all down to global TV licensing and re-broadcasting plans, where adult sci-fi is dominated by US shows leaving only one sufficiently large audience for the BBC’s Doctor to occupy.
What d’you think?
April 7th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
The “re-imagining” of BSG was a kind of UK production, IIRC, as it was backed by Sky and aired in the UK before the US. That was 6 years ago though. I gave up on it after a few series as it wasn’t going anywhere fast.
As for Blake’s 7, a couple of years ago, Sky (again) said it was developing a couple of 60-minute scripts (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7364663.stm) but I haven’t noticed any more word on that.
Torchwood is a bit more grown up, but again it’s very much set in an ordinary world (being based on Earth, and more specifically the UK).
There’s a lot of sci-fi around that’s not aimed at children, though admittedly much is set on Earth. But if the “ordinary worlds” are the problem, and you’re simply after grown-up sci-fi in space or other-worldly settings, what’s the problem with stuff that’s produced in the US (Stargate Universe, for example)? Is it just the accents? Or is the problem that it’s not shown on the right channels (BBC, ITV, 4, Five)?
April 7th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
“Science fiction series are notoriously expensive to create, so is it a simple question of budget?” – I’m not convinced they have to be, though. I’ve long tired of series which focused more on special effects than storyline. But I would agree that they have become very expensive. Nice to see that the latest Dr Who is on a very much tighter budget.
I haven’t particularly taken to the eagerness with which the more recent Dr Whos get smitten (which is part of the reason why I think it’s more female-friendly). 9th/Rose, 10th/any number of girlies, 11th/Amy (you can see it coming). Maybe I just wasn’t aware of the simmering sexual tension in the Tom Baker era between the Doctor and his many assistants. Perhaps disturbingly, the only one of my children (ages 10, 8, 7) interested in Dr Who is my daughter (the middle one). But I am enjoying it enough to keep the series record on my Vision box!
April 7th, 2010 at 2:24 pm
Daren: there’s no problem about the US and Canadian series, I’m a big fan of Stargate for example. What I’m wondering is where the UK produced equivalents of Stargate (and the like) are.
There have been rumblings of a Blake’s 7 return for some years now. We can but hope!
I didn’t know about Sky backing BSG, thanks. That’s what I meant in the final paragraph: am I just missing it?
April 7th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
Good point about the globalised syndication market, Phill. It’s much easier for foreign series to get aired on UK television than it ever was, and we do get all the big (and some of the not so big) “adult sci-fi long-runners” (as you so aptly describe them) on our screens.
Is it acceptable for the BBC to be squeezed into niches on its home turf though, so to speak? Why should the flow be so one-way? What’s to stop UK companies producing their own series and taking advantage of this market?
April 8th, 2010 at 10:04 am
The BBC seems to have aspirations to franchise around the world, but I agree that UK-based, UK-aimed shows should be made. Maybe the drama department (or whatever it’s called) runs on glabal economies and budgets can’t be found for “smaller” shows.
If a UK writer has a killer idea that a UK production outfit can execute, it should be done. We all know we have the best baddies in the world, which is a good start.
OK most of them live in Hollywood now…
I think it’s a case of “first up best dressed”. ABC and Fox did it first, so had a model to replicate. That shouldn’t mean that other people fear to tread on their turf so if a global niche can be found, the BBC should be well placed to fill it, but it’s a risk that they might be unwilling to take with all the hoo ha about license fees that seems to be persisting in recent years.
I’d love to see a good BBC global phenomenon though, sci-fi or not.
April 8th, 2010 at 10:13 am
Doctor Who was snuck out of the doldroms from under BBC London’s nose and it’s been used to revitalise BBC Cymru as they’ve developed it into a worldwide franchise – the aforementioned global phenomenon. You’ll have noticed that you couldn’t turn on the TV at the end of 2009 without spotting Tennant in the background.
BBC Northern Ireland could do the same. Not many people know that Paradox (with Tamsin Outhwaite) was funded by BBC Northern Ireland but not a penny of the money was actually spent here and I don’t think even a second of it was filmed here.
It’s interesting that non-SciFi can afford to have a cast of thousands (count the actors on retainer in Easties or Corrie) but Sci-Fi can barely have a mini series dedicated to it. If Doctor Who is anything to go by, there is plenty of appetite for well executed Sci-Fi.
As an aside, I watched 2001 last night. Intelligent, surreal sci-fi. And not beyond our means. We have enough people coming out of colleges every year who want industrial experience that we could probably make a series every year.
April 8th, 2010 at 10:23 am
Where’s the adult Sci-fi? Simple; we’re rubbish at it so we don’t make it.
We don’t want it so we don’t learn how to do it properly. Every time we make a series, it ends up getting cheesed to death or comes with built-in cheese from the outset. Couple that with frankly laughable effects and a small audience, you can see why we make costume dramas: we’re good at them and we can sell them to a large enough audience to make it worthwhile.
I hate to say leave the Sci-fi to the Americans, but that’s what the market is telling us.
April 8th, 2010 at 10:36 am
I think that, although the sentiment is very negative, Jaed makes the right point: we stick to waht we’re good at.
In a risk-averse world, the BBC will continue to make programmes it knows it can do a good job of. Doctor Who is a refreshing departure from this in my opinion.
The only point I disagree with is the cheesecount. Any series, global, American or otherwise, gets a fromage injection at seris 2 or 3 and it’s usually downhill from there. My theory is that the great ideas have already run out by the time this happens, and it’s just a question of desperately trying to hold onto a tiring audience. Don’t just think sci-fi here: all the global long-runners have gone that way.
Doctor Who is a refreshing change from this, usually. Despite the use of rotating baddies being potentially boring, a good squad of writers keeps it fresh. That, and the regular regeneration of the Doctor (how many other series could get away with morphing the lead role?!) makes it new for the old audience, plus allows a new audience to start afresh. It’s pretty clever when you think about it.
April 8th, 2010 at 10:42 am
I’m still struggling to see the particular point of the “UK-based, UK-aimed” angle. Unless it’s based on Earth (i.e. those familiar “ordinary world” locations), sci-fi is pretty independent of locality, isn’t it? I mean, being set on alien worlds, in space, and with international crews (if not casts).
Is it a style issue? Pitching the material at UK values? Or just the fact that it’s written and produced in the UK, by British people?
I suppose I’m just quite happy with watching sci-fi made elsewhere. And Doctor Who & Torchwood aside, I’ve been left pretty “meh” at recent UK efforts. The recent version of Day of the Triffids was rubbish, for example (partly because it just reminded me of Survivors too much, I think).
Hell, even the new Red Dwarf episodes made last year left me cold, and I used to run a Red Dwarf web site!
April 8th, 2010 at 11:03 am
@phillconnell, while my sentiment may seem negative, it’s more disappointed. I loved Dr Wo, Blake’s Seven, Sapphire and Steel, etc., but that was when I was a kid and I couldn’t see the terrible, terrible shortcuts our production teams used. The same quarry, the wobbling spaceship hulls, the “lumpy heads”; they all remind us we’re watching people pretending. If you watch Firefly (arguably the best TV show of the last decade) you see it’s about characters without the need to shoe-horn in a wobbly green one-eyed Frank Sidebottom ambassador or Peladon alien.
I’m of the opinion that good story-telling about characters is the way to sell Sci-fi. It’d be easy to do a retelling of Seutonius’s 12 Caesars … IN SPACE or to do MacBeth … IN SPACE but for some stupid reason, we think of the medium as for kids. Battlestar pwned us by doing political drama with actual plot arcs (something the UK’s 6-episode format can’t handle well) and setting it on spaceships, much in the tradition of using sci-fi as a metaphor for here/today.
We could do it, but we’d put a bloody robot dog in it for the kids.
April 8th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Darren and Jared: both brilliant comments, which to be honest I think I completely agree with. I do love thinking out loud about things I don’t honestly know too much about.
I hate to agree with such a cliched example, but good old Terry Pratchett has brilliantly retold a load of classics in unfamiliar environments, making Jared’s point about retelling good stories so apt.
But I guess there’s nothing wrong with robot dogs if it makes it possible for us to watch this stuff with our kids and enjoy it on a totally different level at the same time – hey, they can watch it on repeats in 10 years and get it again, maybe.
John – I have really enjoyed this post.