Semi-Charmed Life

The Unpopularity of Scifi

It's unfortunate that the scifi genre of movies and television is so often maligned and unappreciated by the general public. I can somewhat see why. I don't consider myself a scifi fan. Scifi shows and movies don't really come off as appealing to me, and often times I get the impression that it's either too complicated to watch or too cheesy to believe. Those biases are the reason why it took me so long to pick up on good television shows.

My scifi resume isn't that impressive.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

This was one of the shows I grew up on. I don't consider myself a diehard fan, but it was a show I watched whenever it was on and I've seen a lot of damn episodes. People who have never seen TNG are really missing out. Very rich show with some very good stories.

Star Trek Voyager

Another very good Star Trek series. I was never much into any of the other Star Trek series except for TNG and Voyager.

Stargate: SG-1

I wouldn't even call myself a fan of the show because it would sully the fanhood of a true fan of the show, but this is something I watch every now and then when it airs late night. The plot is usually pretty interesting, and I like Richard Dean Anderson.

Battlestar Galactica

I thought this show was the geekiest show ever for the longest because of the name of the series. I'm glad I gave it a shot because even though I thought some of the stuff in the first few episodes were corny (frack!?), the plot is very epic and the characters really grow on you. And yes, even the word frack becomes tolerable. Awesome show. I have to catch up on the last season though. I'm hoping they tie up all the loose ends.

Firefly

This is the show I'm currently working on now. Another show that I'm glad I gave a chance to. This show was axed after only airing 11 out of 14 episodes, which is an atrocity considering how good the show is. It's a shame when there is a good show out there that is not well received by the mass audience. This has been the case with 30 Rock, Friday Night Lights and Arrested Development, along with other good shows which either end up being canned or teeter on the edge of cancellation every season. I'm on episode 9 of 14 already, and I'm already feeling sad that there will be no season 2 to look forward to, although I'll have Serenity (a full length movie based on the show was made because the Firefly dvd was well received). Fox apparently butchered Firefly by airing the episodes out of its intended order, which made Joss Whedon vow to never work with them again. His new show "Dollhouse" will be airing on Fox, but he has said that "These are different people [...] they didn't do to me what was done to Firefly."

And here's David Cross and his take on why Arrested Development got canned:

Anyway, going back to my original point . . . don't know if I really made it, but it's that there is an unjust negative bias towards scifi by the mass audience, and people should try to overcome that and give scifi a chance. If they give it a shot, they'll realize that there's some really good writing out there, and that some really good shows don't have to end up being canceled.