I was inspired by the thread about the (to use an overused buzzword) reimagination of V and I got to thinking.
In recent years science-fiction has come back to primetime and the mainstream networks in a big year. The very first season of television I watched upon returning from my military deployment seemed to have tons of new sci-fi shows, apparently inspired by the BSG miniseries and Lost.
Specifically I’m talking about Surface and Threshold but there have been plenty of others too, then and since. Yet, except for BSG and Lost, and now Knight Rider and Fringe, very few shows actually survived.
I never got to see Threshold so I can’t speak for it, but while I really liked the concept for Surface the execution really was pretty bad. The special effects for the creatures were even worse than Sci-Fi’s original Saturday night films and instead of being a cool show about the discovery of something dangerous in our oceans, the producers were trying to rip off every scary scene from a Peter Benchley novel.
Also, I only ever saw one episode of Bionic Woman but that was all I needed. I was hoping for a cool espionage show with a sci-fi twist. Instead, in a poor attempt at cashing in on BSG’s and Lost’s dramatic angle, they chose to focus on the love lives of the main characters, and apparently some piece of the Friday Night Lights audience with Jaime’s sister and her teen angst.
Anyway, these are just my thoughts and I’ve been looking for some good discussion regarding many of the cancelled sci-fi programs of past seasons. Anyone else have an opinion they’d like to express?