With the cancellation of Enterprise, Trek TV left the air after 17 straight years of continuous programming (TNG, DS9, VOY, Ent). BSG is ending after this next season. Babylon 5 left the airwaves years ago. Stargate and Stargate: Atlantis are way past their prime. And several smaller shows (Earth: Final Conflict, Andromeda, and Firefly) have come and gone. So what do you think will be the next generation of television sci-fi? What would you like to see?
I assume you're referring to Firefly. Well, it did at least inspire a theatrical film. That's more than other shows can claim.
There's still plenty of sci-fi on. In terms of stuff that's new this season, there are two X-Files clones debuting this season with "Fringe" and "The 11th Hour." There's "Sanctuary," which I don't know a lot about, and some new show that's going to be syndicated. There's the "Life on Mars" remake. There's "Caprica" and Ron Moore's "Virtuality" (or whatever that's called). There's "Dollhouse." Some of these shows, obviously, will fail. Most of them, probably. But hopefully some will succeed. That's in addition to things like "Chuck," "Heroes," "Lost" and so forth that are sci-fi-ish and are going to be on for (knock on wood) at least a couple more seasons.
I'm ready for something new. Firefly and nuBSG have been welcome additions, but nothing else out there now attracts me.
Dollhouse has already been cancelled by Fox. The memo has been written but has yet to be distributed.
I enjoy Heroes, don't get me wrong, but it's not really Sci-Fi. It's more modern-day fantasy. Farscape is another entry for your dead series list, btw.
Don't you get it, man? He's infected the network; no matter how many times we kill him, he'll jump to a new, younger body and keep churning it out...
Contemporary sci-fi is dead, in terms of coming up with new ideas. Don't get me wrong... there are some great shows and movies, but they're not original. Hell, just about every popular sci-fi TV show is picking over the bones of a previous incarnation: Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Stargate: Atlantis, etc. And look at this summer's movies: Iron Man, Batman, Star Wars, The Hulk, The X-Files, yadda yadda yadda
Original SF movies hardly ever do the box office to justify their budget. Sadly. As for TV series, if we take the OP to mean space-based SF, there's only so many different concepts to be told and most all of them have been done. One can recycle a previously done concept and hopefully tell some imaginative stories but the basic concept has almost certainly been done before. But then, what's the old saw that says there really are only five basic plots in all of fiction anyway?
Chronicles of Riddick was just such an attempt, and it failed. And they even convinced Dame Judi Dench to appear in it. Judi Dench and Vin Diesel, there's a combo you don't see every day.
