What are we actually looking for? (In a scifi show)

[El Moose Monstero]

Was thinking about this flicking through the Doctor Who thread, where someone said that they wanted less grimdark, more happy candy. What do you want to see in a scifi show? I don't mean for this to be a thread where we get everyone's detailed ideas for what alien race would do what to whom with a dildo shaped spaceship or exactly what characters would be, but more what people actually want in terms of genres / themes / atmosphere / content.

What sort of show do you actually want to sit down and watch for your dose of scifi at this moment in time? Do you want complex characters and a world of grey or do you want a paragon of goodness and a more black and white style? Broad focus with lots of characters or a narrow focus on a small group? What sort of issues or style (again, not details)? What is the background of the show? What themes would you want to see explored?

I don't know if this will work as a thread, just thought it would be interesting focus-group sort of thing - to see what the majority of people actually want to sit down and watch on a XXXXX night.

Again, no overly detailed descriptions!

[El Moose Monstero]

Obviously this is personal taste, which I'll admit does not translate to a worthwhile opinion!

Right now, I'd probably get a kick out of some sort of blend of a Due South / early SG-1 / Firefly level of character focus. Something where I can genuinely get behind the characters, get a dose of humour / light comedy and still stay within the context of an exploration / adventure style.

Thinking about it, that's essentially me saying that I want to be watching mid 90's camp 6'o clock BBC 2 scifi thing. Not that I want all scifi to go in that direction, obviously, and I'd want to have some intelligent plots rather than just pure cheese, but I wouldn't mind a bit of optimistic escapism in my scifi!

[CaptJodan]

I'm generally tired of campy scifi. I can certainly enjoy campy scifi if it's done right, but I'm much more satisfied with a complex story and characters who are flawed than I am with a clear cut "these are good people, these are bad people, fight" stories. SG-1 was a fun romp of scifi that I enjoyed throughout most of its run with ample amounts of humor. But the characters hardly changed, the bad guys were generally stereotypical with little or no redeeming qualities except to just be evil, and there was very little to engage my brain in a philosophical debate on an issue I hadn't considered before.

I like stories which challenge, or at least try to challenge, preconceived notions. I enjoyed the New Caprica arc in how it challenged the viewer by putting the "good guys" on the side of the terrorists, thus maybe forcing the viewer to either think differently about terrorism, or think differently about their heroes. I like long developed arcs as we saw in B5, where a character may start as one thing but we see a slow (not instant as we saw in BSG often) progression towards a change in that character until they grew into something different. I like to see characters genuinely challenged, put in difficult situations where their choice to solve a problem isn't easy, and they may never know if it was the right one. Finally, though, I still think a show with what some would consider to be "grimdark" would still need humor to balance it out.

Basically, for the various elements of the type of scifi I want to see, I turn to B5, nBSG's first couple seasons, and SGU's last season.

[Darth Tedious]

I loved the grey and black of B7, and the character arcs/politics of B5. If we could have all that, with SW action, TOS/TNG level thoughtful social insight (and Milla Jovovich and Natasha Henstridge)...

It'd be too good.

Oh, and lasers. Fuck realistic milscifi for a second, everything IS better with lasers.

[Ryag Han]

its a hard one, but generally i would like:
1) originality. some new stuff, and not the same old good guy-bad guy Clichés.
2) plot. either single episode plots or many episodes plots, just good written plots. even if it dose uses old Clichés, they can be done in a new fun or entertaining way.
3)character driven stories. i like to see the characters having to take hard decisions, and that kind of stuff. one of my favorite examples is O'Neill in SG1 episode The Other Side - S4E2, where he was just fine taking advantage of a war he knew nothing about to gain technology, but the second he found out they were a bunch of space nazis, he trowed it all away, even if it meant giving up a one of a kind opportunity. that's good character if you ask me.

[Ryag Han]

I loved the grey and black of B7, and the character arcs/politics of B5. If we could have all that, with SW action, TOS/TNG level thoughtful social insight (and Milla Jovovich and Natasha Henstridge)...

that would be an excellent combination. add some Battlestar Galactica kind of darkness and ta-da, you got the best sci-fi series.

Oh, and lasers. Fuck realistic milscifi for a second, everything IS better with lasers.

LASERS FOR THE WIN!

[Spice Runner]

1.) Characters are important. I really enjoyed the character development of B5 and Firefly.

2.) definately enjoy shows that show the bigger picture. For example the complexities of the geopolitics of the larger universe much like B5 or Ds9 or the as clone wars cgi series did to some extent.

3.) I would like to see a sci fi series show worlds which actually have more than one environment. I really hate that cliché.

[Number Theoretic]

Oh, and lasers. Fuck realistic milscifi for a second, everything IS better with lasers.

LASERS FOR THE WIN!

+1 FOR LASERS!

Oh, and more "run-down shady spaceport bars" and Used Future, please.

But i also am a fan of more realistic designs and settings. For example, a show, where only relativistic STL travel between the stars is possible, practically demands the development of creative and unique characters, that we have only seen in novels, so far.
Firefly as a good example fo character development has already been mentioned

[TOSDOC]

Scripts matter. Tight pacing is important for me. I like to feel like I just watched a 90 minute movie in 60 minutes or less. If there's no attachment to the characters the show dies a quick death, but it doesn't matter if your favorite is evil or not, as long as he's charismatic. A good story, especially about modern social issues, is a plus.

I like truly ALIEN aliens. I know humanoid characters are easier to create and interact with on a TV stage, and you can make a humanoid character into a really enigmatic being with a good script. But I just don't think it's going to be that way in real life, and I like shows that are brave (and have production values) enough to not only realize a really different kind of alien life but also thought it through enough on it's ecology, thought processes, and motives to add that much to the story.

[Night_stalker]

What I want in a scifi show, are simple, but underused themes and ideas, in my opinion:

1. Character development, like in B5, which has already been stated, but can bear some repetition. Make the characters 3-D, with flaws, and keep the fethin' characterization consistent.

2. Toss the campy scifi tech, I want somewhat realistic weapons and tactics. I have no issues with lasers being used, but please do a little research into how they work, and try NOT to have them just be the magic answer to every problem.

3. No rubber foreheaded aliens. I want them to have completely different biology, language, histories, and appearances. Look at Mass Effect, and Warhammer 40K for how to properly do it.

4. I want those cliches tossed out the airlock, without a space suit!

5. I want some halfway decent battle tactics, including the fact that SPACE IS 3D, and NO REDSHIRTS. I want our armed personnel to be competent and deadly at their jobs.

6. Dark stories, with moral ambiguity are requested.

[Ahriman238]

It's a minor thing, but I'd like to see aliens be sort of, well, alien. Not just their appearance, or their biology. I wnat their culture and attiudes to range from the charmingly bizarre to the outright baffling. I'd like to see the aliens crack jokes and make pop culture references that fly right over the heads of the humans for once, because they don't watch Rygellian TV or appreciate the subtle comic genius of Qiabloc. Then have the humans start using their own in-jokes and pop culture refrences. Have the hwole thing escalate too and far past the point of ridiculousness, where every line is a Monty Python or offworld-equivalent quote, until an authority figure has to intervene and declare a moratorium on such things.
Have all groups still do this, when no one responsible is watching. Even introduce us to the alien cultures by having them have to explain a bit of their history so some joke will make sense.

Continuity and character growth are major points for me. You can and should introduce the character's personalities by how they approach their common problems, rather than having shitty time-wasting "character focused" episodes. But I still want to feel, as time goes by that the characters have grown over time and learned something from their experiences. And not some shitty moral that they forget by next episode, but something that sticks with them. Have it make sense in context, too. If a character screws up and someone gets hurt or killed, they should be appropriatly remorseful and not make that particular mistake again.

In this, it really helps to have planned the whole hting out ahead of time, like B5, rather than making it up as you go along, like nBSG. You know, spend some time going over what you really want to happen, and what will happen to each character. Take a page from the Evil Overlord list and hire an average five-year-old. Fix any plot holes he points out.

[Deathstalker]

The Deathstalker still holds out hope that Buck Rogers will be redone. If done well it could handle most everything listed above. The problem will be that Syfy will make it and screw it up.

[Uraniun235]

I want fun, plot-driven, self-consistent space opera.

[Ford Prefect]

Powerful drama, difficult intellectual concepts and excellent style.

[Guardsman Bass]

Fun and self-consistency are also high on my list, although I do like it to generally take place in a "gray" setting with complex, flawed characters. I usually dislike sci-fi with a constant overtone of self-righteousness and pomposity.

[Stark]

I don't have trouble finding scifi to watch. Maybe the question should be 'what do you look for in a long-term show to obsessively watch' rather than 'what do you want in a show'. Plenty of shows already have what I want, and because I don't have the need to watch TV all the time, I don't have a need for a current, ongoing series to fuel my habit.

That said, I don't have different standards for scifi than anything else. I want powerful drama, I want compelling characters, and I want themes that resonate. I don't want self-indulgent, I don't want forum-fishing fanservice, I don't want grim for the sake of dark or laughs for the sake of out louds.

Since I discovered that cartoons from the 70s did gigatons, galactic scales and dogfights just fine, I don't feel the need to fetishise the trappings of violence.

[loomer]

Explorations of gender and identity issues in a post-cybernetics or post-genemod world would be one of the things I'd like. The struggle with the concept of a soul was a big part of Ghost in the Shell and one I quite liked, so maybe throw that in too.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

Depth, drama, difficulty. There's a reason I stopped watching Network TV ages ago; I'm bored by watching good people with good values win out all the time. I'd rather watch struggle and sometimes defeat, both with the external and internal conflicts. I'd rather watch a serial that's willing to take its time to spin out a narrative than standard episodic TV. I guess I'd like something like SGU, more like the first season than the second. Or a Babylon 5 that isn't bogged down by Straczynski's LotR fetish and hero worship and lame dialogue. What sci fi brings to the table is the ability for a show to be bigger and more challenging and more audacious and beautiful than a modern drama can necessarily be. It can grapple with more concepts with more freedom, make more outsized characters and more operatic conflicts. It can have more stylized shit without sacrificing Suspension of Disbelief.

I'd love to see a big epic live-action CGI fest Space Opera on TV, but that isn't particularly realistic.

I'm sure I'd also love a cool sci-fi sitcom, but I doubt that it would have legs.

[The Romulan Republic]

Some things I would appreciate in a sci-fi series:

1. Consistency. Ie tech. works the same way each time its used, characters act in character, etc.

2. Idealism/optimism. I don't particularly like grimdark.

3. Non-human aliens, which others have already mentioned.

4. Competency from the characters, including, as Night_stalker noted, in combat.

5. Originality, obviously.

[Stark]

Do you realize the most optimistic drama is to be found in a darker, hopeless setting? The 'grim dark' in nbsg was just cheap, inconsistent, stupid, forced drama as you'd find in any soap opera. It's not a direct consequence of being 'dark'.

[The Romulan Republic]

Do you realize the most optimistic drama is to be found in a darker, hopeless setting? The 'grim dark' in nbsg was just cheap, inconsistent, stupid, forced drama as you'd find in any soap opera. It's not a direct consequence of being 'dark'.

Okay, well, I'm not saying you can't have dark settings and optimism in the same setting. Its just that I don't want everything to be cynicism, misery, and moral compromises.

[Stofsk]

Depth, drama, difficulty. There's a reason I stopped watching Network TV ages ago; I'm bored by watching good people with good values win out all the time. I'd rather watch struggle and sometimes defeat, both with the external and internal conflicts. I'd rather watch a serial that's willing to take its time to spin out a narrative than standard episodic TV. I guess I'd like something like SGU, more like the first season than the second. Or a Babylon 5 that isn't bogged down by Straczynski's LotR fetish and hero worship and lame dialogue. What sci fi brings to the table is the ability for a show to be bigger and more challenging and more audacious and beautiful than a modern drama can necessarily be. It can grapple with more concepts with more freedom, make more outsized characters and more operatic conflicts. It can have more stylized shit without sacrificing Suspension of Disbelief.

I'd love to see a big epic live-action CGI fest Space Opera on TV, but that isn't particularly realistic.

I agree with most everything you've said here, but it appears you're overly cynical on the prospect for big, epic space opera using live action and CGI. A lot of the sci-fi shows that came out in the last decade had pretty decent production values for a TV show. Where they failed is the writing. Something like nBSG or SGU had a lot of capacity for epic space opera, which was squandered as we had episode after episode about boring characters talking boring shit all the time. Farscape pretty much was an epic space opera show. So was Babylon 5.

Unless you want it to be MORE epic than either of those two shows. Considering your criticism of Babylon 5, I suspect the bigger issue you have is again, the writing. Something like B5 is let down by JMS' lame dialogue. His plotting is what is interesting about the show, as was his character arcs (particularly Londo). Also I wonder how much American shows suffer from having big seasons of 20+ episodes. A lot of a show's problems - mainly to do with their budget - might not be such a problem if you halved the number of episodes, or kept it to like a dozen episodes per season. That way you can focus more on the plotting and you have more of a budget to work with as far as sets and vfx go. But I don't know enough about TV production to really evaluate that.

I'm sure I'd also love a cool sci-fi sitcom, but I doubt that it would have legs.

3rd Rock From the Sun? Red Dwarf? A sci-fi comedy show is certainly possible.

[madd0ct0r]

Schlock mercenery, the series.

[Apollonius]

- It must have FTL travel. No dystopia where humanity is confined to Earth, unless it's only during the first few episodes of a series.

- The main characters should be mortal. No Star-Dreck-style main characters that are invulnerable and morally infallible. If the story demands it, characters should be able to die. BSG2 had that, and it was one of the things that kept you on edge.

- The story should focus more on Historical events than on characters, or at least, equally so. Episodes shouldn't be scripted around showcasing a character's personality. I want to see how politics and diplomacy work, how armies are raised, how battles are fought, how the losers cope with defeat, how the victors exploit victory, how such events impact culture...

- I'm perfectly fine with unrealistic non-Newtonian craft behaviour, and non-Einsteinian FTL. :-p
I can tolerate fighters behaving in space as if they were flying through atmosphere, and I don't mind the lack of relativistic time dilation. In fact, I actually prefer it that way.

- When there is a battle, I want to see violence, destruction and death. More like Star Wars, less like Star Trek.

- If there is conflict, there should be a logical reason for it. "We are evil, and we want to destroy you because you are good" is not a reason.

- Lots of exploration. Show me how the protagonists explore alien environments, biologies and cultures.
Don't make a big deal about how the protagonists explore their innermost feelings, hopes and fears. Only trekkies care about shit like that.

[Eternal_Freedom]

More than anything, I would like to see situations where the "bad guys" for want of a better term, actually succeed at something. One of the things that got me turned off Trek was the knowledge that ultimately the good guys would save the day somehow, despite the insurmountable odds.

For instance, when they started the Dominion War and abandoned DS9, the impact was lessened somewhat by knowing that they would ultimately return and triumph. Why? Because they're the good guys and they always win.

This is probably the reason I found the film Atomic Train enjoyable, because despite the hero's efforts it still goes to shit.