Comments on: where’s the sci-fi for grown-ups?

By: Phill

Phill — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 12:16:40 +0000

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.

By: Jared Earle

Jared Earle — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 10:03:20 +0000

@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.

By: Daren

Daren — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 09:42:21 +0000

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!

By: Phill

Phill — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 09:36:19 +0000

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.

By: Jared Earle

Jared Earle — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 09:23:01 +0000

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.

By: mj

mj — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 09:13:59 +0000

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.

By: Phill

Phill — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 09:04:57 +0000

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.

By: John Girvin

John Girvin — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 13:31:38 +0000

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?

By: John Girvin

John Girvin — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 13:24:00 +0000

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?

By: Niall

Niall — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 11:31:14 +0000

“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!