5 years and still going

[Murgos]

To be fair, I am aware that sci-fi used to refer to something different. Essentialy, I though it refered to stories in which the speculative technology and social situations were the main focus of the story. 2001 is traditional sci-fi. Alien is a Horror movie in a sci-fi setting. Very little stuff made these days fits what used to be the "sci-fi genre". I would say Children of Men is one of the few recent examples that does fit it, and theres not a single ray gun or spaceship to be seen.

To me this is the High Concept/Low Concept thing.  High Concept is stuff like Phillip K. Dick where even The Short Happy Life Of The Brown Oxford qualifies as Sci-Fi even though it is about a common everyday shoe.  Low Concept is when you get something like Spaceballs where the Sci-Fi is really just a setting used because it's cool and there is not even an attempt to explore any deeper questions.

Asimov used robots in I, Robot to explore questions of slavery, determinism, identity, creation and etc... the movie used robots but really wasn't all that interested opening a dialog on any big questions.

My point though is that it is all sci-fi and it (Sci-Fi) has always been a setting (John Carter of Mars (1911) or The Galactic Lensmen (1928?) for examples of early low concept sci-fi) the drama, comedy, action and etc... elements aren't instead of the Sci-Fi label they are additional descriptors to it.

edited to add dates to illustrate the point.

[Ironwood]

Yeah, in book form it's Sci-Fi.  In the movie, it's a comedy because the whole things about Robin Williams dying.   I mean, that's some funny shit.

[Ironwood]

Many Episodes of TNG were fucking played out IN THE HOLODECK.

Dream sequence.  Magic.  Drug sequence.  Shared hallucination.  Flashback/flashforward.  There are numerous ways in which holodeck-esque scenes could be carried out sans sci-fi.  Modern sci-fi is rarely more than fiction which uses the setting as a prop.  Classic sci-fi normally used it to help mask questions about humanity, such as using androids to questoin the meaning or future of humanity.  Aliens can mask questions of racism, culture, etc.  You don't need sci-fi as vehicles for any of this though, and they're all questions which have been explored in plenty of depth long before this was even a genre.  For example, you have a holodeck episode where the people are trapped there, but aren't aware that everything is fake?  Rework of Plato's cave. 

Sorry mate, I missed you in my skim reading.

I disagree with what you said.  For a different point of view, look at that episode where Beverly was being 'haunted' by a Lantern.  It was fucking lame.  However, the episode with Riker in the Mental Asylum WAS a way to do the same 'holodeck' story without the frigging holodeck, so I guess your argument may have legs.

But I know you'll disagree no matter what my stance is, so I'm going to go with the Magic Haunted Lantern being Fucking Lame.  It just needed fucking Jupiter Jones to come in and solve the case.  Fucking LAME.



Fucking Lame :  What wins internet arguments.

[DraconianOne]

I never saw Firefly but even if it's 'just a western in space' it is still Sci-Fi.  Because, you know, it's in space.  Where a western would, you know, have to be in the Old West...

You should.  Unless you don't like stuff written by Joss Whedon.  It's great.  It also has the appropriate piece of dialogue:

Wash: That sounds like something out of science fiction!
Zoe: Honey, you live on a spaceship.

[Endie]

I'd go fruether than Draconian: I hate most of Joss Whedon's whiny nonsense, but Firefly is from an altogether better place.

[Arthur_Parker]

A guy at work gave me his firefly boxed set because he bought a 2nd one.  I thought that was weird, plus I wasn't interested in it, anyway I was bored one night and started watching it.  Didn't get much sleep for a few days watching it all.  Really can't believe they cancelled it, considering the normal crap that is on TV.

[Ironwood]

It has a special place in my heart merely for the fact that there's a Baldwin in it that's WORTH A DAMN.


Truly epic.

[schild]

Really can't believe they cancelled it, considering the normal crap that is on TV.

I can. Westerns don't get good ratings.

The only people that like westerns are old men from a previous generation who talk differently than I do. And probably don't like that gosh-darned TV set.

And it takes a certain kind of nerd to enjoy Joss Whedon. I, personally, think his writing is unbearable trash. Honestly, I'm surprised that show lasted as long as it did.

I was more shocked by the cancellations of Wonderfalls, Veritas, Sportsnight, Surface, and The Tick. And, of course, Dead Like Me.

[Ironwood]

Do you practice in front of the mirror ?

[Arthur_Parker]

Really can't believe they cancelled it, considering the normal crap that is on TV.

I can. Westerns don't get good ratings.

The only people that like westerns are old men from a previous generation who talk differently than I do. And probably don't like that gosh-darned TV set.

And it takes a certain kind of nerd to enjoy Joss Whedon. I, personally, think his writing is unbearable trash. Honestly, I'm surprised that show lasted as long as it did.

I was more shocked by the cancellations of Wonderfalls, Veritas, Sportsnight, Surface, and The Tick. And, of course, Dead Like Me.

Yeah, I liked buffy too.

[Merusk]

It has a special place in my heart merely for the fact that there's a Baldwin in it that's WORTH A DAMN.

He's worth a damn because he's not related.   I'm sure the Baldwin family had a fit when they realized they couldn't get SAG to change his name.

[Ironwood]

Wow.

The More You Know.

Cheers, I suspect I'm one of a long line of retards who merely made an assumption.  That explains it all !

:)

[CmdrSlack]

I thought the same thing about him. My theory was that he was only half-Baldwin or adopted or something, hence the lack of suckiness.

[Slayerik]

Really can't believe they cancelled it, considering the normal crap that is on TV.

I can. Westerns don't get good ratings.

The only people that like westerns are old men from a previous generation who talk differently than I do. And probably don't like that gosh-darned TV set.

And it takes a certain kind of nerd to enjoy Joss Whedon. I, personally, think his writing is unbearable trash. Honestly, I'm surprised that show lasted as long as it did.

I was more shocked by the cancellations of Wonderfalls, Veritas, Sportsnight, Surface, and The Tick. And, of course, Dead Like Me.

Is this whole post a joke? I can't tell. I don't think I've ever heard of any of those shows (minus the Tick). Maybe I'm a certain type of nerd that likes Firefly but has no radar for these actual 'good' shows you mentioned.

You are the first person I have talked to that watched the show that didnt like it. Ah well.

[Merusk]

The only reason I knew Adam Baldwin wasn't a "real" Baldwin is because I'd looked him up previously.  I'd recognized him in Independence Day and wanted to be sure.  I thought the same thing until I read the bio. 

[Arthur_Parker]

I tried watching Sportsnight but the canned laughter track put me right off.  You American's are strange sometimes, can someone explain to me why Seinfeld was so popular?

[Venkman]

Seinfeld was popular because there were no real rules for the show, outside of the cast and sets. It didn't follow the usual path of sitcoms because it didn't devolve into a soap opera like most do. Nothing remarkable about the show ever changed, except the situations, remaining a show of single episodes about nothing, something they even took to an artform in the one ongoing storyline they ever did (them sitting around writing a show for NBC about nothing, complete with a Pilot they filmed and showed with doubles doing the exact things the main characters do.)

There was almost no evolution to anything, which I think is part of its staying power. And it was replete with stupid events, wierd terminology (jerkstore, man hands, regifter, etc) that were catchy enough to enter popular culture. It still is very popular in syndication.

[cmlancas]

I still laugh at it and choose to watch it over other television shows. :)

[Mrbloodworth]

Dead like me was a really good show.

[schild]

I tried watching Sportsnight but the canned laughter track put me right off.  You American's are strange sometimes, can someone explain to me why Seinfeld was so popular?

Since Darniaq responded, you have to explain why Coupling and Black Books was considered funny.

[Oban]

Dead like me was a really good show.

Yes, why was it canceled again?

[schild]

Dead like me was a really good show.

Yes, why was it canceled again?

Ellen Muth had freakishly huge hands?

[Endie]

I tried watching Sportsnight but the canned laughter track put me right off.  You American's are strange sometimes, can someone explain to me why Seinfeld was so popular?

Since Darniaq responded, you have to explain why Coupling and Black Books was considered funny.

Coupling wasn't funny: the Welsh bloke was funny and he happened to be in Coupling.  When he wasn't in series three, but went to do voiceovers for Microsoft ads instead, Coupling was apalling.

Black Books was funny because of Bill Bailey's range of expression, Dylan Moran's comic acting, and because the scriptwriters were actually very talented and put effort into making many episodes into complex shaggy-dog stories (the gradual build-up to the Frankenstein episode in the wine-bottle episode springs to mind).  It also had a density of jokes that came close to the US, ensemble-written form.

[Bunk]

Dead Like Me was cancelled because despite having some great characters and a really cool premise, the show got to be really boring and repetative.

Laugh tracks are warning sirens designed to let me know to change the chanel before I accidentaly watch drek. Unfortunately, they occasionally get added to shows that don't deserve them, likely due to the oppinions of a room full of inbred focus groupers who showed up for the $50 and free cookies.

[Slayerik]

"shiznitz - WUA and Slayerik are arguing which side of a glory hole is less gay."

I really have made it! I hit 1000 posts this week and am included in a sig! 

 

[schild]

the show got to be really boring and repetative.

This has NEVER gotten a show canceled as fast as Dead Like Me was.

[Arthur_Parker]

I tried watching Sportsnight but the canned laughter track put me right off.  You American's are strange sometimes, can someone explain to me why Seinfeld was so popular?

Since Darniaq responded, you have to explain why Coupling and Black Books was considered funny.

Black books I can't remember watching more than once.  Coupling 1-2 weren't terrible, I liked the episode when one of the guys picks up a girl on a train by pretending he had a wooden leg.

[DraconianOne]

Coupling wasn't funny: the Welsh bloke was funny and he happened to be in Coupling.  When he wasn't in series three, but went to do voiceovers for Microsoft ads instead, Coupling was apalling.

Black Books was funny because of Bill Bailey's range of expression, Dylan Moran's comic acting, and because the scriptwriters were actually very talented and put effort into making many episodes into complex shaggy-dog stories (the gradual build-up to the Frankenstein episode in the wine-bottle episode springs to mind).  It also had a density of jokes that came close to the US, ensemble-written form.

I agree about Coupling.  Black Books, on the other hand, should have been funny for all the reasons you mention - Dylan Moran, Bill Bailey (who is my favourite stand-up of all time) and co-written by Graham Linehan - it just never tickled me that much.

[Endie]

Black books I can't remember watching more than once.  Coupling 1-2 weren't terrible, I liked the episode when one of the guys picks up a girl on a train by pretending he had a wooden leg.

That was my favourite, too: by far the best scripted, and with groundwork that paid off in lines like "I have seen the gates of heaven... and I have too many legs."  But again, I think I liked that so much because it was basically about the Welsh bloke.

It was sometimes very well written though.  One of the cleverest sit-com jokes I have ever seen was the centerpiece of one episode, where you saw the same party from the point of view of the male and then the female, shot pretty much scene for scene. The comedy revolving entirely around the fact that there was an ugly girl in the female version who simply didn't exist in the scenes as seen by the male, totally changing the meaning of the repeated dialogue when you realised that she was speaking too.

[Tale]

Black Books was funny because of Bill Bailey's range of expression, Dylan Moran's comic acting, and because the scriptwriters were actually very talented and put effort into making many episodes into complex shaggy-dog stories (the gradual build-up to the Frankenstein episode in the wine-bottle episode springs to mind).

From the same writers as Black Books, another episode of Father Ted.

Father Ted - Escape from Victory part 1
Father Ted - Escape from Victory part 2
Father Ted - Escape from Victory part 3
Father Ted - Escape from Victory part 4

[DraconianOne]

Speaking of Graham Linehan, the second series of The IT Crowd is starting tonight.  It's a bit hit and miss but on the plus side it has Chris Morris in it and one of the main characters has been seen to wear a t-shirt with the 256th level of pac-man on it.

[EvilJohn]

Sports Night is what put Aaron Sorkin on the map I believe, and was actually quite funny with the main two characters (the two anchors) banter. However, the laugh track was definitely teh devil there. Too bad about Studio 60, it had potential... but too pretentious for my tastes.

As far as Black Books (funny at time, and mostly Bill Bailey, who is amazing) or Coupling (meh), if you even vaguely liked them I'd recommend Spaced (the guys from Shaun of the Dead, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) and/or West Green Wing (a bit more surreal but quite funny). Both are actually very funny, and Spaced is some of the best TV (well technically DVD) I've ever watched.

Aside-- New poster, long time reader. Figured it would be safe enough to chime in on TV shows.

--Edit: Sorry had Sorkin on the brain that is supposed to be Green Wing.

[Oban]

30 Rock beats the crap out of Studio 60.

[EvilJohn]

30 Rock beats the crap out of Studio 60.

Go figure, the original ads for it looked like un-funny and ass. Now that I am over in the land of Kilts, I see less current US TV... someone native to the UK explain what the hell is up with Sky's obsession over the Simpsons and Family Guy. Funny stuff, but several episodes back-to-back nightly is a bit much.

[Miasma]

I always mean to watch 30 rock because the two episodes I have seen were really funny but I always, always forget.  That's okay though, the first season comes out on DVD September fourth so I will get to enjoy all those episodes without commercials.

I'm guessing they are going to start Lost much later than normal because season three doesn't come out until December, usually they release them before the next season airs.