First off, when I use the word "media" in the title, I don't mean news. I mean the communication term of media, which is a form of communication that influences people widely. Yes, the "media" might do that, but that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about something much more subtle, but much more significant than television and radio news. I'm talking about television programming.
Last week saw the end of a television show that received rave reviews from those watching it, but at the same time it was a genre that appeals to a niche population, meaning that even though it had a huge impact on the people who experienced it, it made very few inroads to the mass population at large. The show I'm talking about is a science fiction show called Battlestar Galactica.
For those who don't know much about this show, it was a remake of an old cheesy television show from the 1970s, that involved the attempted genocide of the human species and the survivors' quest for a mythical planet called Earth. Meanwhile, they are hunted by a relentless, myopic enemy called the Cylons, a robotic race that seeks to destroy humanity for unknown reasons. The old series was cheesy by today's standards, but during its heyday, the 1970s, it was actually a very serious television show dealing with some pretty heavy issues. Today, we look back at the really bad special effects (they had the same space battle used for so many different fights that you knew exactly what was going to happen when the good guys started to do a maneuver because they only had about three big space battle special effects) and we laugh. So, when the idea came about that they were going to redo the show by today's standards, people who were big fans became very excited.
Then they made changes. And the fans went nuts. One of the biggest changes was that one of the main heroes, a Hans Solo-like character named Starbuck, was going to be a woman rather than a man. Man, the fans went crazy over this. They were so upset. There were Internet newsgroups created just from the people who said this would forever destroy the show. And then Dirk Benedict (the guy who played the old Starbuck) actually said he liked the casting of the woman for his character, so the fans started to shut up, even though they still mumbled under their breath when no one was looking.
The new show had some big shoes to fill, and right off the bat they did it. Characters that were known and loved by old fans were different, and not just because of one gender switch. Characters that people knew started doing things those characters would not have done in the 1970s, and then revelations appeared, and some well known characters were then discovered to be evil Cylons, throwing the whole, old Battlestar Galactica into flux. And then things kept changing so that people had no idea what to expect.
This continued during the four years that the new show was on the air. There was nothing that was sacred, other than the search for Earth. And even that fell apart in the telling of the story, which threw everyone for a loop. Without going into details, let's just say that expectations were one thing, and the revelations were another.
During this time, the show examined some sociological boundaries that no other show has ever taken head on like this. Genocide, the gray area between good and evil, the destruction of one's ideals, power grabs, strained friendships, trust, forbidden love, merits of assassination, religion, torture, and all sorts of other huge issues were tackled without throwing it in our faces. We saw real people dealing with horrible issues as their world was crumbling around them, and in the end there was always a shining light glowing through it that no matter how low they brought themselves, that humanity's greatest asset was that they would survive this and build again one day.
Unfortunately, the show ended last week with its finale. What this has done is create a vacuum in television space because for too long we've been given crap for television. I was talking about this show with a coworker one day, and she said she didn't like science fiction, like that, but liked "real" dramas, like Gossip Girl. That's part of the problem with the science fiction genre. It is often treated as if it is less than it really is because they see a space explosion and immediately think of it as some glorified video game. No other show on television has ever tackled the myriad of issues that this show did. Unfortunately, people like to throw names like "geek" around when they realize people are talking about a show like this. Instead, it's considered "right" to focus on much weaker shows like Monk or Gossip Girl, and then use that as the standard to which other shows should compare.
That's probably going to be hard to justify in the future, because a show like Battlestar Galactica has raised the bar for other shows in the future. Even shows like LOST are finding that they have to raise the level to be seen as relevant when something like BSG is in their area. The writing on LOST has gotten excellent lately, which I attribute to being a part of the BSG effect. You can't just get away with doing something stupid like we've seen on shows like Heroes, which continues to try to prove itself to be relevant but in reality is just pushing forward, trying to pretend to be innovative, but is becoming time consuming, boring and ridiculous, even when they put forth a somewhat good show. Unfortunately, and maybe this is for another argument and another day, but most of the good shows that break new ground all tend to be science fiction based, like X-Files, LOST, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and Babylon 5.
For me, this means that television shows are starting to realize the importance of writers, because there's no way this sort of thing could have been put forward without great writing. This was the same thing when Babylon 5 was on the air. No other show did the things that television show did over the five years that it aired. Unfortunately, when it finished its run, nothing ever stepped up to take its place.
My fear is that now that BSG has showed the world what important programming can do, will others pick up the slack, or are we going to end up with tons and tons of stupid programming, which equates to a new Law & Order in some new location and multiple variations on stuff that's been done to death? I hope not. But because people tend to avoid some of the greatest programming out there, I'm assuming we're going to devolve again, at least until something as big as BSG or Babylon 5 comes along again.
Labels: Television, Writing
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