U.S. television science fiction
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U.S. television science fiction is a popular genre of television in the United States which has produced many of the best-known and most popular sci-fi shows in the world. Most famous of all these, and perhaps the most famous science-fiction program of all, is the iconic Star Trek and its spin-off shows comprising the Star Trek franchise. Further hugely influential programs have included the 1960s anthology series The Twilight Zone, the internationally successful X-Files and a wide variety of television movies and continuing series for over half a century.
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[edit] Programming in the 1950s and 1960s
The first really popular science-fiction program on American television was the children’s adventure serial Captain Video and His Video Rangers, which ran for six years on the short-lived DuMont Network from June 1949 to April 1955. Broadcast live in regular half-hourly installments, it chronicled the adventures of Captain Video and his sidekick The Ranger, who in the year 2254 defended the Earth from various threats in their space ship, The Galaxy.
Although it was not a particularly sophisticated program by the standards of what was to come later, it took advantage of many then-new technologies, such as luminance key effects to create superimposition, although it also fell back on various older techniques such as using stock footage from film libraries to cover scene breaks, and it reportedly had a new props budget of just $25 per episode.
Despite this it proved to be a very popular programming genre, drawing audiences of 3.5 million at its peak, a more than respectable amount for television at that time. It fired the imaginations of many young children who watched it, who had never seen science-fiction outside of the cinemas before, and had never been able to follow the same characters in a science-fiction setting over such a prolonged period of time, week-in week-out.
The financial crisis of the DuMont Network eventually led to the cancellation of Captain Video, and soon the collapse of the entire network itself. However, the program had made its mark, and other science-fiction shows rose during the course of the 1950s. Other networks were inspired by the success the Captain Video series.
ABC’s own attempt to cash in on the success of Captain Video was a small screen version of Buck Rogers, which had already proved to be a huge success as a film serial in the cinemas. Running from 1950 until just the following year, ABC’s Buck Rogers starred Kem Dibbs and later Robert Pastene in the lead role, and like its DuMont counterpart was the victim of a very small budget, which restricted most of the action to one single laboratory set, hardly the most thrilling of situations for the young viewers being targeted.
Another former film series and comic book character who was resurrected for the small screen during the 1950s was Flash Gordon, who, as played by Steve Holland, was the star of thirty-nine episodes of a syndicated television series which ran for again just one year, from 1953 to 1954.
Gradually, television producers realized that there was an adult audience for science fiction as well as a young audience. Television began to cater for this perhaps more cerebral type of science fiction viewer, possibly inspired by the boom of literary science fiction by the likes of Isaac Asimov which was beginning to take place, or by the rise of the allegorical science-fiction movies that permeated the decade.
One of the stalwarts of science fiction television in its early decades was to be the anthology series, in which a completely new story would be presented with each episode, with new actors, settings and situations, the only link being the producers, genre and the series title. The first really popular series of this kind was Science Fiction Theatre, a syndicated series which ran for seventy-eight episodes between 1955 and 1957.
Science Fiction Theatre was by no means the most famous anthology program to be produced in the US during the 1950s, however. Two years after it had finished its run, a new program in the same vein, but one which was to have far greater and longer-lasting success, began on the CBS Network. The Twilight Zone, as the show was called, had begun life as a one-off pilot, commissioned after the success of a science-fiction episode of the general drama anthology series Westinghouse-Desilu Playhouse.
In its original form, The Twilight Zone ran for six years, from September 1959 until September 1965, with 134 half-hour episodes during that time. Presenting a vast array of different types of science-fiction and horror stories, it created many memorable episodes, the imagery of which still linger in the American popular consciousness to this day, and the theme tune of the series has gone on to become an internationally recognizable icon.
This was the bedrock of the more grown-up, adult science fiction programs which would be presented to the audience during the sixties, shot on film (as was now almost standard for all American non-live television programs), well-produced, with interesting and imaginative ideas. Perhaps the most famous episode is the 1963 installment "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," which starred a young William Shatner as a man convinced there is a hideous monster lurking on the wing of the airplane in which he is traveling, but which nobody else can see.
That episode help launch the career of Shatner, as well as a film version and a revival series during the 1980s. It also served as inspiration for ABC’s decision in 1963 to launch their own science fiction anthology, the equally iconic The Outer Limits. Although The Outer Limits had a much shorter run, finishing in 1965, it proved to be famous and influential as well. Like its CBS contemporary, it only moderately successful revival decades later.
The years 1964 and 1965 were to prove an important period in the history of US television science fiction. They saw the conception of two brand new "space opera"-based science fiction shows, both featuring broadly similar galactic exploration themes, each show dealing with them in very different manners. The first of these to reach the screens was the new CBS show Lost in Space, which ran for three seasons from 1965 to 1968 and was from the stable of producer Irwin Allen.
Allen, who later went on to produce the famous 1970s disaster movie The Towering Inferno, produced a whole range of popular science fiction series on American television during the 1960s. These included Land of the Giants, The Time Tunnel, and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, all involving futuristic, scientific concepts played out as the background to glossily produced action / adventure shows. Critics of Allen’s output often argue that it is all rather soulless and shallow, but as mass-produced entertainment it proved popular with American and international audiences.
[edit] Star Trek
Star Trek began as an unscreened pilot made in 1964 before the series began in 1966. The show was conceived by the producer Gene Roddenberry, depicting a future of galactic exploration and struggle, with all creeds and colors of humanity working together to explore the stars in a similar manner to the pioneers of the old West in America. Produced by Paramount for the NBC Network, Roddenberry’s original 1964 pilot for Star Trek, called "The Cage" and starring Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike, was regarded as being too intellectual and slow-moving by the network: however, they had sufficient faith in the ideas behind the program to commission a second pilot, which replaced the character of Pike and all but one of the rest of his crew with the new crew commanded by Captain James T. Kirk, played by William Shatner.
Star Trek was also known for its social commentary. The background for this commentary was a set of alien cultures that roughly paralleled the Earth of today. The United Federation of Planets was analogous to America, Star Fleet to NATO, the Klingons to the Soviet Union, and the Romulans to China.
The show used a few established science fiction authors to write some of its episodes. Harlan Ellison wrote “The City on the Edge of Forever,” Richard Matheson wrote "The Enemy Within," and Theodore Sturgeon wrote “Shore Leave,” and “Amok Time”.
[edit] Star Trek plots with social commentary
When that background seemed restrictive, Star Trek would create new cultures and new situations. When an episode was written about racial prejudice (“Let That Be Your Last Battlefield”), half-black and half-white aliens were created. Frank Gorshin, playing Commissioner Bele, was black on the right side of his body, and white on the left. He was trying to arrest Lokai, played by Lou Antonio, who was black on the left, and white on the right. When Bele brought Lokai back to their home planet, no one was left alive. A racial war had killed everybody. In spite of Kirk saying “Give up your hate”, Bele and Lokai fled the Enterprise and continued their fight on the planet’s surface. The focus of this episode was not technology, but feelings and philosophy. The prejudice, and the pursuit of Lokai by Bele could have been a story without the presence of a star ship, and a pursuit across the galaxy. Therefore, it would be an example of soft science fiction.
Star Trek could also be technical. In the episode "The Changeling," Nomad is an Earth space probe that becomes damaged, and then somehow merges with the alien probe Tan-Ru. Its programming somehow changes, and it now seeks out and destroys imperfect life-forms. Nomad destroys the Malurian System’s four billion inhabitants, and then encounters the Enterprise. Kirk and his crew discover Nomad’s past and its new programming, and have to stop it before it destroys any more races. This, of course, they do. This is a classic case of out-of-control technology. Without Nomad, the technological artifact, there could have been no story. Science is used to analyze Nomad, and to determine how to defeat it. Therefore, this episode is an example of hard science fiction.
In this new form, Star Trek ran for three years until 1969, although it was never a huge ratings hit and stopped two years short of its planned five year run. Only a fan campaign had prevented it from being canceled after the second season, but despite this apparent unpopularity, the show had a special quality to it that attracted a loyal fan base, and during syndication of the program in the early 1970s it proved to have an enduring popularity that would not go away. An animated series was commissioned, and eventually in the late 1970s a sequel series, Star Trek: Phase II was planned and work begun. However, after the success of Star Wars in the cinema, Paramount scrapped the idea of a new series and decided instead upon launching Star Trek as a film franchise. Star Trek would return to the small screen in a new form in due course, but not until 1987, some eighteen years after its original cancellation.
[edit] 1970s and 1980s
Aside from repeats of Star Trek gathering popularity in syndication, the early 1970s proved to be at something of a low ebb for television science fiction in the US. Very few series of any great note or popularity were produced, and few if any from this period are remembered today. The most notable effort in this period was Space: 1999, originally produced by Gerry Anderson which was shortlived and poorly received.
After the end of the original Star Trek series, and before the first Star Trek movie, producer Gene Roddenberry was able to produce and write a few TV-movies, none of which had anything to do with Star Trek. Genesis II, 1973, involved Alex Cord as Dylan Hunt, a scientist who after waking up from suspended animation, finds himself in a primitive society. The character name Dylan Hunt found its way into Andromeda (2000-2005), the syndicated series produced by his wife Majel Roddenberry after his death in 1991. Dylan Hunt is portrayed by Kevin Sorbo, who’s character is trying to reestablish the Systems Commonwealth. The Questor Tapes, 1974, involves an android that disappears. Planet Earth, 1974, is a sequel to Genesis II. This time, Dylan Hunt is played by John Saxon.
Another member of the Roddenberry family of science fiction shows is Earth: Final Conflict (1997-2002). It was created after Roddenberry’s death, and based on his notes. This show cast and story line that were constantly changing, with only one character remaining for the entire run of the show. Because of its interstellar conflict and character drama it is a typically classified as a space opera.
It was not until later in the decade, again inspired by the post-Star Wars boom of 1977 and beyond, that science fiction series began to return to prominence. One of those particularly keen on exploiting the networks’ new interest in the genre was producer Glen A. Larson, who created two new science fiction series in quick succession: another television version of Buck Rogers, this time entitled Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979-81) and his own original creation Battlestar Galactica (1978-80).
Both of these series had much in common – they were glossily produced on high budgets, with pilot episodes that were released theatrically into cinemas in some territories. However, both series seemed to place an emphasis on style over content, with the scripts generally being run of-the-mill action / adventure affairs with few of the more challenging concepts of science fiction that had marked out their predecessors. It is perhaps for this reason that both programs were so short lived, although they did attract highly dedicated and vociferous fan bases and do still linger to a certain extent in the popular consciousness.
Science fiction print authors didn’t usually make it onto TV. Most TV scripts were created originally for TV. One of the few famous print authors to make it to the small screen was Ray Bradbury. His book, The Martian Chronicles, was produced as a mini-series that first aired in 1980. Labeled as “faithful” but “bland'” it included such stars as Rock Hudson, Darren McGavin, Roddy McDowall, and Bernadette Peters.
The most significant US science fiction television series of the early 1980s was the 1983 mini-series V, which aired on the NBC network. An allegorical tale paralleling the rise of the Nazis in Germany of the 1930s with the arrival on Earth of an apparently friendly alien race with hidden motives, the mini-series proved to be highly popular and iconic, spawning both a sequel The Final Battle the following year, then a full-blown television series for the 1984-85 season, although neither of these were as successful as the original, being more action-oriented and somewhat less cerebral.
1987 saw the arrival of what is perhaps the most successful, in terms of sales and worldwide viewing figures, science fiction series of all time, Gene Roddenberry’s re-launching of his Star Trek franchise, Star Trek: The Next Generation. Taking place on a new starship Enterprise some seventy years after the events of the original series, unlike its predecessor it was not supported by a network, but instead sold directly into syndication. The program was a huge success, running for seven seasons and like the original series spawning several feature film spin-offs.
Another 1987 series was the oddball Max Headroom. Originally a British pilot film, it was picked up and re-made in America as a darkly comical drama series which followed an investigative video news journalist, Edison Carter (played by Matt Frewer) as he pursued stories and exposed scandals in a dystopian, TV-obsessed future. Edison was aided and abetted by a group of friends and colleagues, and by his electronic alter-ego, the stuttering, sarcastic iconoclast, Max Headroom. Although Max himself became something of a pop-culture phenomenon of the 1980s, the series itself was not a great success -- despite being lauded for its portrayal of a world "20 minutes into the future", a Blade Runner-like cyberpunk world, where TV channels and ratings wars were everything, and people (particularly those at the margins of society) were nothing.
[edit] 1990s
The success of Star Trek: The Next Generation led to further Star Trek series which took place within the same time frame: firstly Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-99) and later Star Trek: Voyager (1994-2001) and UPN’s Star Trek: Enterprise (2001-05). All of these series have helped affirm the iconic status of the Star Trek franchise, but as well as this they helped lead to a science fiction boom of the 1990s, as many networks and production companies sought to make their own shows in a genre which had shown itself to be incredibly popular and profitable again.
Although there were many run-of-the-mill series that did not get past a single season, this boom decade for science-fiction produced many intelligently written, creative, imaginative shows that have in a very short period of time been able to establish themselves in the popular consciousness of television viewers not just in the US, but worldwide as well.
Space: Above and Beyond lasted just one season – 1995-96. The basic premise was space Marines defending Earth against hostile aliens. Perhaps the show didn’t last because it produced no stars. seaQuest DSV, on the other hand, had a star in Roy Scheider. He played Captain Nathan Bridger from 1993-95. He was replaced for the 1995-96 season by Michael Ironside, who played Captain Oliver Hudson. The show was cancelled after that season.
However, one of the more successful and most artistically ambitious series of this period was Babylon 5. Produced and largely written by J. Michael Straczynski with creative input by Harlan Ellison, this show attempted to create a series long epic tale that avoided many of the clichés of the television genre. The series was highly acclaimed for its writing and its innovative visuals as the first television series to extensively use computer-generated imagery to create spectacular visual effects for an economical price. In addiition, its five season run (1993-98), the intended length of the series, was longer than any American non Star Trek space series up to that time.
[edit] 1990s Earth bound series
There were time-travel and dimension-hopping series in the vein of Quantum Leap (1989-93) and Sliders (1995-2000), and mysterious conspiracy thrillers such as The X-Files (1993-2002). The latter series in particular enshrined itself within the pop culture of a generation in a manner in which few television series are able, and the entire decade produced a rich vein of highly successful science fiction shows, the popularity and creativity of which has rarely been equaled by so many programs in such a short space of time.
[edit] Other science fiction genres
Two other subgenres were comic science fiction, and youth science fiction (children and teenagers). Examples of the former are My Favorite Martian, CBS, 1963-66; Mork & Mindy, ABC 1978-1982; ALF, NBC, 1986-90; and 3rd Rock from the Sun, NBC, 1996-2001. These shows weren’t true science fiction – the wonder of the previously unimagined was missing, as was the impact of science and technology on society. Science fiction was just a vehicle for laughs.
There are many examples of youth science fiction. They are characterized by relatively simple plots, and characters despite lacking production value. A British import using marionettes was Fireball XL5, initially released in 1962. Fireball XL5 was a rocket ship protecting Sector 25 of the Solar System. Also first released in 1962 was Space Angel, a cartoon. “Space Angel” was the code name for Scott McCloud, captain of a space ship. The Jetsons originally ran on ABC from 1962-63. George Jetson was the head of a family of the future. Usually, Jonny Quest, (1964-65), was a cartoon adventure, but with science fiction technology, e.g. a rocket ship and a hovercraft. Higher production values were quite evident in the Zenon trilogy released by the Disney Channel. Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century was released in 1999, Zenon: The Zequel was released in 2001, and Zenon: Z3 was released in 2004.
Futurama (1999-2003) was released as mature audience, situation-comedy cartoon. It was created by Matt Groening, who also created The Simpsons. Futurama centers around a group delivering packages for the Planet Express Corporation.
[edit] US television science fiction today
At the turn of the century, however, a change began in the type of telefantasy program that was popular with the viewing masses. Most of the genre programming to be found on the networks was horror or fantasy based rather than science-fiction as such: there was perhaps a sense that audiences were tired of science-fiction, and sought other types of programs. Thus the rise to popularity of such shows as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, its spin off Angel and the stylistically similar Charmed. All of these were set in the real world of the present day, but involved fantastical and horrific threats to the central characters, and possessed a wit and self-awareness that had perhaps been lacking in some of their more po-faced science-fiction predecessors.
Nonetheless, the popularity of science fiction as a genre means that several notable programs are still on-going. Stargate SG-1 has aired since 1997, and is somewhat unique in being a successful spin-off series from the 1994 movie; it has been sufficiently successful to warrant a spin-off, Stargate Atlantis. The Sci-Fi Channel original series Farscape while never garnering a widespread audience, was heralded by critics and gained a dedicated fanbase, which helped the creators wrap up several story lines in the miniseries event Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars after the shows cancellation. The FOX television series Firefly, although canceled after half a season, generated a large enough fanbase to be made into a 2005 theatrical film, Serenity. The aforementioned Star Trek: Enterprise ran for four seasons, and the Sci-Fi Channel aired a mini-series based on the original Battlestar Galactica, whose success paved the way for the acclaimed Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series), which began its third season October 6th, 2006.
The nature of science fiction as a genre and the trends of American culture, allows is to explore the whole range of all types of science fiction – from comedy to drama, just entertainment to socially relevant, youth to adult, soft to hard, gross to tasteful, cheap to expensive productions, and lame to thoughtful.
Despite trends in television, science fiction as a genre has firmly established its place in the make-up of American programming. The future of science fiction could be significantly helped by the advances in digital imagery, which allows for spectacular visual effects for a relatively economical price.
[edit] References
- Asherman, Allan (1986). The Star Trek Compendium. Pocket Books. ISBN 0-671-62726-0.
- Malcom, Nollinger, Rudolph, Tomashoff, Weeks, & Williams (August 1, 2004). 25 Greatest Sci-Fi Legends. TV Guide, pp. 31-39.
