Why is TV SF so bad? (And a modest proposal to fix it)

[Alelou]

Worthwhile? Yes, if they can have it cheap without losing any time. A higher priority than 1) ratings, 2) making budget -- no. Never. Consider how steep the investment is for science fiction compared to a regular show to begin with.

It would be nice to see someone succeed at making good science fiction profitable, that's for sure. Maybe if the smart people didn't tune out in disgust, it WOULD succeed. But I suspect pouring any spare money into a cool special effect might pay off better.

Anyway, one of the things I love about the geeks on "Big Bang Theory" is that as smart as they are, they still love their bad-science science fiction shows.

[Transwarp]

A higher priority than 1) ratings, 2) making budget -- no. Never.

Yep. Ratings rules all. Too bad we'll never know if a more science-friendly approach would have helped or hurt ratings.

Maybe if the smart people didn't tune out in disgust, it WOULD succeed.

Oh, I still watch. But I grumble and grouse from the sidelines. Can't help it--that's just the way I am.

[WarpGirl]

I'm having a hard time imagining 'good science' taken to the extreme. What does that look like? Wouldn't that be called 'real life?' Wouldn't a show where 'good science' is taken to the extreme be just about any show that's set in the real world?

That's just the point if science fiction is just like "real life" what is the bloody point!

You keep bringing this up, but I am completely unable to see ANY correlation between the science in an episode and the actor's performance. What am I missing? How would adhering to 'good science' have affected the quality of Mr. Trineer's performance in any way at all?

My point is that if Sim didn't have Trip's memories and then no beautiful performance.

That's not the point. I don't desire 'good science' (or consistency, or any of the other things we're talking in this thread) to get enjoyment out of them, I desire them so they don't get in the way of a good story (which is the actual source of my enjoyment.) Anyone without a scientific background isn't going to know the difference either way, so 'good science' should not affect their enjoyment one way or the other.

Fair enough, but a person without your background might be annoyed trying to figure out the real science. It's easier to just chalk it up to fantasy. Lazy? Yes. A good thing? Not really. But let's face one very inportant fact, that in order for TV shows to succeed they need millions of people.

Uh... no. But you can tell a good, enjoyable story with or without 'good science'. So why not WITH? This assumption that the quality of an episode will suffer if an effort is made to insure 'good science' is completely baseless.

It would suffer if millions of people sat in the living room scratching their heads because you need a master's degree to understand it! I'm not saying they shouldn't TRY as often as possible but you have to play to a very large audience.

We are in complete agreement. But once again, the two are not mutually exclusive. The fiction does not suffer when the science is accurate. But I do demand an explanation for an obvious impossibility. Just make the attempt and I'll be happy. Going back to my example of Archer using X-Ray vision to save himself, you said you would have been okay if it was somehow explained. That's really all I need: an attempt to explain a phenomenon so I don't feel like I've been thrust from the world of Science Fiction into Fantasy.

I agree, but sci-fi is also fantasy, all fiction is fantasy. You have to embrace that element as well.

[panyasan]

That's not the point. I don't desire 'good science' (or consistency, or any of the other things we're talking in this thread) to get enjoyment out of them, I desire them so they don't get in the way of a good story (which is the actual source of my enjoyment.) Anyone without a scientific background isn't going to know the difference either way, so 'good science' should not affect their enjoyment one way or the other.

Fair enough, but a person without your background might be annoyed trying to figure out the real science. It's easier to just chalk it up to fantasy. Lazy? Yes. A good thing? Not really. But let's face one very inportant fact, that in order for TV shows to succeed they need millions of people. .

Uh... no. But you can tell a good, enjoyable story with or without 'good science'. So why not WITH? This assumption that the quality of an episode will suffer if an effort is made to insure 'good science' is completely baseless.

It would suffer if millions of people sat in the living room scratching their heads because you need a master's degree to understand it! I'm not saying they shouldn't TRY as often as possible but you have to play to a very large audience.

Millions of people watch channels like Discovery Channel - people without any degree in science how enjoy shows about scientific facts. A huge audience enjoys The Big Bang theory - with all its reference to science. I don't have any degree in science or know more than the basic facts I learn a long time ago in the first years of high school, still I enjoy science in a show. When you explain science in a logical and understandable way, lots of people are going to follow it. Of course, you have have the crowd that is more interested in soap and soaps stars for example and is going to be bored by science, but I really doubt that's the audience that will watch a sfi-show.

[WarpGirl]

Millions of people watch channels like Discovery Channel - people without any degree in science how enjoy shows about scientific facts. A huge audience enjoys The Big Bang theory - with all its reference to science. I don't have any degree in science or know more than the basic facts I learn a long time ago in the first years of high school, still I enjoy science in a show. When you explain science in a logical and understandable way, lots of people are going to follow it. Of course, you have have the crowd that is more interested in soap and soaps stars for example and is going to be bored by science, but I really doubt that's the audience that will watch a sfi-show.

I Watch the Discovery Channel and I watch a bunch of period British movies and that are lushly romantic and sappy, that I suppose a lot of people would refer to as "Soap Opera's" I enjoy science and facts. But I find it extremely annoying to watch a show where I am trying to be entertained and I have to take notes for a quiz at the end. I don't mind breaking out my notebook for a long marathon on the rainforest on the Discovery Channel, I have a great aversion to breaking it out when I want some fantasy!

[panyasan]

You do have an one track mind, WarpGirl. So things only can be entertaining and nothing else? Entertaining shows that give you some new information or some new knowlegde about science aren't possible? Can things be only one way? That's kind of boring, isn't it?

Like I said, a bit of good science, brought in a good understandable way in an entaintaining story isn't impossible. It's problably a good show and a show people like to watch, without them having the feeling they have to take notes. (The things I learned about the human body just by watching CSI ).

And by soap opera's I didn't had English drama in mind - mr. Darcy is my favorite. I have watch soaps - they are fun, but if I have to choose between a good sfi show or a soap - I rather spend my time watching a science fiction show.

[WarpGirl]

Oh good gracious I HAVE NOT SAID good science shouldn't be in science fiction read all of my posts and you'd realize I HAVE SAID that they SHOULD include good science when they can include it in an entertaing way. I'm done I'm tired of being hit over the head too. Sometimes I don't feel very welcome here either!

[Distracted]

Admin note: Take a break, people. Or I'll be forced to close this thread. Please remember not to SHOUT at each other when civil tones will do. Thank you.

[putaro]

Oh boy.

So, I don't think that having good science means that you have to have a big lecture and a quiz at the end. I'm not asking to be educated, I'm just asking that the science (and technology) presented not make me go "Oh, that is SO stupid."

Transwarp and Alelou both presented ways that Tucker's memories could have been present in Sim with fairly straightforward explanations that may not be completely scientifically accurate (telepathy and memory duplicators being unknown at this time) but that are consistent with the Star Trek universe (where they DO have telepathy at least) and don't contradict currently known science that anyone with a high school diploma should know (that is, that DNA doesn't carry your memories and that identical twins don't share memories).

All I'm asking for is that writers spend half an hour with Wikipedia on subjects, keep track of things like times and distances and stop moving the damn planets and solar systems around willy nilly and produce "science fiction" that at least doesn't contradict what you learned in high school science classes.

It's not just science, though, just about everything goes out the window when making movies. I grew up in San Francisco and there are plenty of movies set in The City. One of my grandmother's pet peeves used to be that they would ALWAYS mess with the geography. You know, they hop off a cable car and walk onto the Golden Gate bridge.

Or guns that never run out of ammo. Cars that have suspensions that never give out no matter how many crazy jumps you do with them. The list goes on.

Suspension of disbelief is necessary for fiction. I would like, however, that writers not abuse it any more than is absolutely necessary.

[Alelou]

Ah, the shortcuts made possible by editing and stock shots.

I once saw a lovely full-page newspaper ad for a relaxing vacation on a beach in Florida -- and the beach was beautiful, sandy, white, and enticing ... with mountains in the background.

My son keeps noticing the same submarine footage in Paramount movies. They filmed it once and then they keep recycling it for every future submarine they need, even if it's the wrong submarine.

I have a friend who will cut people out and photoshop them into group photographs if they were unable to make an event. She'll email these things around, or even print them for you. I find that quite bizarre.

I don't want to lose "Similitude" but can you imagine there was some sort of photoshopping process for getting Trip's memories into Sim, only the process sucks? THAT might have been even more interesting.

[Kotik]

I don't want to lose "Similitude" but can you imagine there was some sort of photoshopping process for getting Trip's memories into Sim, only the process sucks? THAT might have been even more interesting.

Especially, since Similitude had several options to even make sense of later developments of the show. One of my own pet-theories is that this desert-larva thing involved in Sims creation had strong telepathic abilities - how else could they have downloaded all of Trip's memories. That would give a really convenient tool to explain, why Trip was able to bond with T'Pol later on, even though the average human has all the telepathic skills of a tree stump. Guess it's basically down to the fact that most of us amateur writers spend vastly more time on getting our story line right than those, who produce the "professional" sci-fi's these days.

[Transwarp]

Guess it's basically down to the fact that most of us amateur writers spend vastly more time on getting our story line right than those, who produce the "professional" sci-fi's these days.

Heck, even my operating system is better than what the 'professionals' produce!

[Alelou]

And I would continue to insist that the two jobs are so different that it's truly unfair to compare them. Fanfic writers have a much, much, much simpler task that they can complete to their own satisfaction in as much time as they wish. Screenwriters are participating in a high-pressure collaboration under tight deadlines, with very limited control over the final product. I can cook pretty well on my own terms, but put me on "Chopped" and I'm quite sure I'd be a laughingstock. I like to think that I might have succeeded as a screenwriter, but I'm not going to kid myself that it would have been easy or something I would have succeeded at without more experienced hands coaching me up a steep learning curve. Most endeavors that require expertise look easy and obvious to people who don't truly understand them. This is why my husband always says "I could do that!" when we're watching the Olympics. Ballet looked easy to me until I actually took some lessons. People often think teaching is an easy job until they actually try it. How about allowing for the possibility that true expertise in television screenwriting might require a great deal more skill, knowledge and experience than you realize?

Not that you can't bitch about the final product. Just ... don't assume you'd be so much better at it just because you've written some nice fanfics. That's like saying that someone who can sew a nice dress for herself over the weekend would make a good emergency trauma surgeon on a Saturday night.

[Kotik]

Not that you can't bitch about the final product. Just ... don't assume you'd be so much better at it just because you've written some nice fanfics. That's like saying that someone who can sew a nice dress for herself over the weekend would make a good emergency trauma surgeon on a Saturday night.

You've made my point, Alelou. Neither TW nor myself said that we're better than the pro's at their job, because if we were, we would have their jobs. I for once only said that most fanfic writers put more time to get things like story-line and science background right. That's what you actually seconded by saying that they are working to strict deadlines. That doesn't change the fact however that due to that time pressure the end result is often of less quality, especially when it comes to thorough scientific research. There are some episodes in ENT where you can literally see that they ran out of time to get the scientific background even remotely right (example: Rogue Planet)

[Transwarp]

I *know* I couldn't do their job. And I know that if I had to write fanfic under the same time constraints that screen-writers have, the results would not be pretty. (I am a slow, methodical writer who plods along at a snail's pace, making frequent edits and revisions as I go.) So my hat's off to them.

I also know that TV is a different and more complex medium. As I writer, I have access to the 3D world in my reader's mind. I can show you what the characters are thinking as the action unfolds. I am not constrained by a rectangular window into the world that is created by a whole different team of people, or the talents of the actors, or the sound track. I am the god of my universe, all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful.

After what I have learned here of the studio system, I can understand why we get the programs we do. I can see how the pressures of deadlines and ratings and budget constraints act on the final product. But there is still a little part of me that can't help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, there might be a market for a science fiction show with good science and continuity and adult plots. That maybe the effort required to do that would actually pay off. I am probably wrong, but it's still nice to dream.

And I can't help but think that there might be a better system for doing it. After all, my operating system (linux) really IS better in just about every way (more stable, more secure, more capable) than the commercial alternative. And it wasn't developed by teams of highly-paid, highly-skilled programmers working in a tightly-controlled environment on a tightly-managed schedule.

Of course I have no idea what that better system might be. Clearly my initial idea (expressed in the first posting of this thread) that the show-runners just needed more time was a little naive.

Finally, I must admit to great astonishment at the idea that ballet could actually look EASY to anybody. It's about the hardest-looking thing I have ever seen!