Where have all the space operas gone? Where are all the shows I grew up with filled with spaceships and lasers? Where are all the scifi shows that weren’t ashamed to be scifi shows?
I miss those shows. Because being an unashamed space opera filled with spaceships and lasers gave shows the opportunity to tell the great stories that only science fiction can tell.
It’s like everyone learned the wrong lesson from Battlestar Galactica. BSG was created to prove that science fiction was a valid medium for story-telling. And it was so excellent that all the critics, who for so long had dismissed scifi as synonymous with bad, had to sit up and take notice. So they consoled themselves by telling people oh it’s not really scifi; it’s a character drama in space. Never mind that that’s pretty much the definition of science fiction.
And instead of learning that scifi can be good, everyone somehow walked away with the idea that good shows can’t really be scifi.
So today we’ve ended up with shows that I have bitterly dubbed “diet scifi”. Scifi shows that spend most of their time trying to convince viewers that they’re not really scifi. And in the process, they completely lose me. Because I want to watch scifi.
I want to watch unashamed space operas filled with spaceships and lasers.
Shows like Star Trek or Babylon 5 or Farscape or Stargate. Or Earth: Final Conflict or Andromeda. Or even Sliders or Quantum Leap which lacked spaceships and lasers but were uncompromisingly scifi in other regards. Hell, I will take Power Rangers in Space.
Can I have shows like that back? Please?
Ugh, YES TO ALL THIS. FARSCAPE, PEOPLE. Fringe is the only SciFi we’re getting from network tv, but I miss the spaceships. I miss space and all the beautiful and terrible things.
I think sci fi is a nice broad spectrum. We can have dimension jumping shows like Fringe, and call them sci fi. Or wacky tech like Eureka. But gods damnit I agree… where are the space operas?
I think that BSG might’ve scared some away for a while… well “scare” is the wrong word. But honestly, if a new space opera came along right after BSG I don’t think it would’ve survived. Cause BSG was some of the absolute best space based scifi well, ever (not my personal favsourite though. Farscape takes that spot, no contest). But it has been more than long enough since BSG left us. We’ve gotten over our initial sense of loss. We’ve moved on. And a show now would not immedeately be called the BSG replacement and never live up to that. We’re ready and we’ve been for a while.
I recently read the Jax series by Ann Aguirre and all through it I thought “this would make a damn good tv show”. It has the space and the lasers and even a few aliens. But also really good characters and relationships (that are exciting without having ust for seasons) and intrigue. Some books you wish would be made into movies or tv shows just to make more people interested or cause it could maybe look cool. Some don’t work at all. But hell, reading these books I could even envision single episode plots, mid season cliffhangers etc. I was even reminded of Firefly and BSG at times. We need a new space opera, and this would just be perfect.
