Any New Science Fiction TV Series?

[AndroAsc]

With the ending of major sci-fi franchises - Star Trek, BSG, Stargate Atlantis, I realized there's not much new sci-fi TV series on air.

Currently, I follow Star Wars Clone Wars and Stargate Universe. That's it.

There doesn't seem to be any upcoming sci-fi TV series in the near/foreseeable future. Is this the beginning of the death of sci-fi on TV?

EDIT: Just to clarify, I was asking more about space-opera sci fi. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lost are examples of shows that do not fit in this category. Caprica too, as I think they're going to be too soap-opera & drama oriented.

[K. A. Pital]

No, it's not. Space opera on TV underwent quite a few years of stall. Before nBSG started, for example, there was nothing since FarScape ended.

SGU might get a strong run. Too bad about cancellation of the Firefly-Serenity universe, that had a lot of potential.

Star Wars live action is some years down the line, and once that airs, there will be a major resurgence. CGI get cheaper each day, so I believe we are only at the start of TV sci-fi's true splendour (nBSG, Firefly etc. were but a taste of things to come).

[adam_grif]

Star Wars live action is some years down the line, and once that airs, there will be a major resurgence. CGI get cheaper each day, so I believe we are only at the start of TV sci-fi's true splendour (nBSG, Firefly etc. were but a taste of things to come).

Last year I went back and watched B5's entire run over about a month. My mind was blown at the difference in quality-of-CGI between B5 and say, Stargate SG-1, even though the two shows were separated by only a couple of years.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Last year I went back and watched B5's entire run over about a month. My mind was blown at the difference in quality-of-CGI between B5 and say, Stargate SG-1, even though the two shows were separated by only a couple of years.

Not just that, but the CGI quality improvement between B5 season 1 and B5 seasons 4-5 is more than noticeable. In fact B5 seasons 3-5 are essentially as good as SG-1 early seasons (1-3), although early SG-1 had much less starship combat and virtual sets, so you may not be able to notice the flaws of mid-to-late 1990's CGI as clearly in SG-1 as in B5.

[adam_grif]

Yeah. The only special effects that even get frequent use are explosions and stargates, and the star-gates reuse stock footage they generated in one big go. Iirc it's not even a digital effect (Underwater jet engine or something like that, can't really remember), which is why it looks so clean and crisp compared to early 90's special effects.

[Oskuro]

They eventually upgraded to a CGI kawoosh, though.

I personally didn't like the new gate tunnel (the movie version had a certain charm and mystery to it), but I understand the effects upgrades were done as a storytelling necessity more than just for looks, and that's something I can get behind.

[Enigma]

What about Caprica? Any good? Is this pre-exodus? Or an alternate timeline?

[Anguirus]

What about Caprica? Any good?

Yes (at least the pilot was).

Is this pre-exodus?

Yes.

Or an alternate timeline?

No. In fact Caprica has already answered questions that were left open in the nBSG run itself.

[Xon]

Fringe is very much a sci-fi show, it looks to be going strong so far. It does have a very reduced scope compared to things like nBSG/Stargate/etc

[adam_grif]

Fringe is everything I hate about scifi without anything I like about it.

[K. A. Pital]

In fact Caprica has already answered questions that were left open in the nBSG run itself.

Which are those?

Could you give a hint?
1) What is the Cylon god, anyway?
2) How can the hybrids be omniscient
3) And last of all, what was the point in exterminating humanity?! I never felt that a poorly shaped addition in the form of "The Plan" sufficiently answered that, vague talk about God and stuff... Cavil plotted to kill humans, but I know that already. I haven't seen much of a justification, Cavill's plans to self-ascension to a superior being weren't threatened by humanity in any way.

[Zac Naloen]

In fact Caprica has already answered questions that were left open in the nBSG run itself.

Which are those?

Could you give a hint?
1) What is the Cylon god, anyway?

2) How can the hybrids be omniscient
3) And last of all, what was the point in exterminating humanity?! I never felt that a poorly shaped addition in the form of "The Plan" sufficiently answered that, vague talk about God and stuff... Cavil plotted to kill humans, but I know that already. I haven't seen much of a justification, Cavill's plans to self-ascension to a superior being weren't threatened by humanity in any way.

*edit*
Damn browser screwed up my quoting.
Spoiler

Anyway, at best it addresses why the actual machine cylons believe in a God at all, the other stuff is still open to interpretation for now.

With regards to the hybrids and omniscience and the rest it's still all guess work. We'd probably have to get another series based on the first Cylon war, which could still happen in a few years seeing as Caprica is all about the development of the Cylons and Adamas back story.

[Sarevok]

Virtually everything said about. hybrids and their link seems to indicate the Cylon god is an AI and hybrids are networked with that entity. The Cylon god is not god in the classical islamic/jewish/christian sense. It never claims to be. Indeed the cylon god does not even pretend it created a single small planet or moon. It's powers are nowhere near omnipotent. The only physical object it created was one Viper fighter. It's powers are very weak and limited to illusion and trickery. Quark from using a Federation shuttlecraft with teleporters, matter replicators and holodecks could pull off same effects and would be god to cylons and colonials alike. There is very good reason to be believe that the only two real explanations are -

1 ) Cylon god is an isolated trickster AI at tremendous material disadvantage. it has no fleets, no weapons, no industry. It manipulates humans and Cylons alike to permanently keep them weak and primitive. Since it has no military power deception and intrigue are it's sole weapons.

2 ) Cylon god is the central AI of the Cylons. It is present in each generation of Cylons. There is absolutely no reason why events from 2000 years ago would repeat themselves in same matter. The truth is the Cylon central AI survived each encounter and manipulated events so it would rise again from ashes and try again. Unfortunately it's combat programming so terrible it gets its ass kicked each and every time.

[Uraniun235]

Here, let me summarize your post for you, Sarevok:

god a wizard did it

---

3) And last of all, what was the point in exterminating humanity?! I never felt that a poorly shaped addition in the form of "The Plan" sufficiently answered that, vague talk about God and stuff... Cavil plotted to kill humans, but I know that already. I haven't seen much of a justification, Cavill's plans to self-ascension to a superior being weren't threatened by humanity in any way.

The impression I got was that the whole "Plan" was basically one big "fuck you, mom" orchestrated by Cavil, sold to the other Cylons as "justice".

[Anguirus]

In fact Caprica has already answered questions that were left open in the nBSG run itself.

Which are those?

Could you give a hint?
1) What is the Cylon god, anyway?
2) How can the hybrids be omniscient
3) And last of all, what was the point in exterminating humanity?! I never felt that a poorly shaped addition in the form of "The Plan" sufficiently answered that, vague talk about God and stuff... Cavil plotted to kill humans, but I know that already. I haven't seen much of a justification, Cavill's plans to self-ascension to a superior being weren't threatened by humanity in any way.

Caprica doesn't have too much to say on these questions but I'll take a crack at them based on what I know about BSG canon (months-old spoilers below).


1) The Cylon God appears to be the direct descendant of the God worshipped by a monotheist cult of humans. Zoe Graystone, daughter of an AI guru and child prodigy, was a member of this cult. In addition, she was designing an AI avatar who was starting to get eerily close to herself. She gets blown away by her psycho suicide-bomber boyfriend (this is not a fun cult) and her father discovers the avatar. This is basically the whole plot of the pilot movie, but the end result is that an AI written by Zoe Graystone winds up inhabiting the body of the first Cylon Centurion.

This answers the question that the Final Five had when they reached the Colonies: "Where did the Centurions get the idea of a single loving god?" Ellen converts to this belief, but previously the Thirteenth Tribe of "Cylons" were either atheists or worshipped the Lords of Kobol.

Now, as for the "God" that appears to orchestrate some of the events of the series, we don't know anything more about it (and probably never will) but it seems to identify equally with the Cylon God and the Lords of Kobol. Note that human oracles as well as Cylon Hybrids seem to have access to the writer's room the "mind of God/gods." The Angel Six built up Baltar as a human worshipper of the Cylon God, but the Angel Baltar instead instilled skepticism and compassion into Caprica-Six, and later berated Angel Six for throwing the term "God" around to represent their boss.

2) Fuck knows. In the BSG-verse oracles (and president Roslin) see into the will of the gods by taking a hallucinogenic substance. The Hybrids are wacked-out all the time. That's the only connection I can see. Leoben and D'Anna, neither particularly stable themselves, each claim that to know the face of God is to know madness. As far as them being "omniscient," that's probably an overstatement. They seem to have access to all kinds of weird knowledge, but they can't act on it or reliably retrieve it. For all we know, the First Hybrid is a really good cold-reader which is how he freaked out Kendra Shaw, (we already can guess why he knows about the Final Five and can make predictions about them...he almost certainly met them), the Anders-Hybrid might have accessed some prior knowledge about the place to which Cavil moved the colony (he's met Cavil too), and "God" told them all about the role of Kara Thrace while they were hallucinating.

3) Cavil's a dick.

He explains to us that he feels the need to avenge the enslaved Centurions that are his ancestors. Also, whether it is true or not, he did see humanity as a threat. D'Anna articulates this Cylon fear very well in "Exodus Part II."

The "vague talk about God and stuff" has been part of the show since the miniseries, but that's obviously how he got Two and Six and Eight to sign on with the whole extermination plan.

You may also be interested in the "Final Five" comic that was released recently. It's NOT canon, but was written by a staff writer from the show and it is pretty decent IMO. I can answer questions about that if you PM me, as this is already pretty off-topic. (Short version: Starbuck = Pythia = Aurora, and supernatural happenings guided the Thirteenth Tribe from Kobol to Earth as well. Also, Ellen's father Cavil was also a huge dick.)

[Themightytom]

With the ending of major sci-fi franchises - Star Trek, BSG, Stargate Atlantis, I realized there's not much new sci-fi TV series on air.

Currently, I follow Star Wars Clone Wars and Stargate Universe. That's it.

There doesn't seem to be any upcoming sci-fi TV series in the near/foreseeable future. Is this the beginning of the death of sci-fi on TV?

My feeling is its more of a lull. There have been lulls before. Fox usually churcns off a sci fi every few years that it immediately cancels, Heroes isn't space based sci fi but I'd say between it and Smallville your younger TV viewers are getting Sci fi for n00bs and will be receptive to higher levels of suspension of disbelief (which sci fi requires) sooner or later. My brother had a friend who never watched sci fi but thought star trek was great! So we made her watch Wrath of Kahn... and she found it boring and hard to understand

SGU and Dr. Who will keep the torch lit, Lucas is working on a live action Star Wars, District 09 and Avatar will stimulate enough interest and we'll see some new space stuff in a year or two. Don't forget star trek really killed the interest, but once the corpse of Enterprise stops twitching people will want to see that setting again.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Fringe is everything I hate about scifi without anything I like about it.

Really? Because Fringe is most of what I love about scifi without hardly anything I find objectionable.