Is science fiction no longer entertaining television for mainstream viewers?

[ray gower]

I suspect the argument between whether it is Sci-Fi or SF, in this context, is akin to dogs arguing over a bone. For most on the receiving end the difference is marginal and irrelevant.

On television the first requirement is entertainment to hold the peasant hordes interest between the adverts. Usually that means something that they can relate or aspire to. If it includes an allegory or parable then that's cool, but the first rule is to offer something that interests the mass.

For books, yes, the distinction may be more important to some, but that is personal and there is a wide market for taste. But you can get away with a lot more.

Cinema sits between the two. Their victims have volunteered to surrender two hours of their lives because they think they are to receive something.

 

[D_Davis]

D... Same for me, except I've been reading (careful now) SF for more than 50 years and hadn't heard of it until this week.

By the way, I generally like the so called "Western or Robot Run Amok" story. Light escapism reading is never a bad choice in my estimation.

I've always said "sci-fi," and thought that SF was just a further abbreviation and this abbreviation.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I think there is a distinction to be made between people who have been reading science fiction for xx number of years, and people who have been actively talking about science fiction with a large group of like-minded individuals for the same span of years.

Not that one is any better than the other, but if you'd been going to SFF conventions, and joining SFF clubs and writers groups for the last twenty, thirty, or fifty years, you would certainly have been aware that most hardcore science fiction fans don't care for the word "sci-fi."


As for that story about 2001 and the folks in the front row smoking pot, I've heard that one before. I don't know if it's true. Again, it may be a matter of perception, based on where and when and among which people we've each been discussing the movie in the past. I haven't seen the movie myself, but my early impressions of it were formed by hearing my friends who were the most hardcore of hardcore SF fans speak of it with reverence.

 

[Connavar]

Im just glad i know better now before i go to a SFF convention....

 

[Steve Jordan]

As for that story about 2001 and the folks in the front row smoking pot, I've heard that one before. I don't know if it's true.

I'm pretty sure it is true, and that MGM knew it: When they re-released the movie for years afterward, the poster's accompanying blurb was, "The Ultimate Trip..."

Regarding the thread's original question: You have to give mainstream viewers what they want to see. If that's sex, give 'em sex. If it's mindlessness, give 'em mindlessness. If it's space battles and monsters... give it to 'em. Series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Star Trek catered to the things mainstream audiences wanted, and they were very popular and successful (until they'd been on for years, and people just got tired of them). It's not impossible for SF TV to accomplish the same thing again, and regain popularity.

Right now, we're in one of those phases where mainstream audiences aren't looking for thoughtful TV... but that can change. In the meantime, any SF that isn't so... thoughtful... can be successful.

I think they're also getting tired of remake formulas, which is why Bionic Woman and Knight Rider are dying as they are born. But fresh SF ideas have a better chance. Lost and Heroes are good examples of those fresh ideas (well, mostly Lost), which are doing better. Lost, at this point, has about come to the end of the period in which thoughtfulness was working for them... they may as well degenerate into an island-wide ongoing war at this point, and make sure all those hard bodies get their clothes ripped right down to their undies. They'll get plenty market share...