I love good sci-fi and at any given time I’m usually in the process of watching one or two sci-fi shows on Netflix or some other streaming service. It’s something I like to do in the evening before going to bed. Not every night, but almost. Usually just one episode, but sometimes two in a row.
A “Beam me up, Scotty” communicator from Star Trek, The Original Series. Photo by Stefan Cosma on Unsplash.
When it comes to sci-fi, I’m an omnivore. I like the dark dystopian stuff, like Westworld or Altered Carbon. I also like utopian sci-fi, like Star Trek, and I’ve in fact seen every episode of Star Trek ever produced for TV (yes, even Enterprise with Scott Bakula as Captain Archer). I like funny and witty sci-fi like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a mix of Star Wars and Spaghetti Western, as we’ve seen in The Mandalorian.
It’s hard to rank all the different sci-fi shows, because there's some much good stuff out there, but if I’d have to pick two all-time favorite shows, it would be Star Trek The Original Series (TOS, 1966-1969) and Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009). These two shows are of course quite different in terms of story and setting, but what they both have in common is excellent storytelling with deep, complex characters.
It was just a few years ago that I decided to re-watch all three seasons of TOS, and while the visual effects and camera work aren’t much to cheer about, the challenges faced by NCC-1701 and its crew are not only immensely entertaining but also at times deep and philosophical. The acting is great, of course, and there are countless memorable scenes especially between Dr. McCoy and Spock. And William Shatner’s Kirk is … well, it’s Captain Kirk – who boldly goes where no-one has gone before!
Battlestar Galactica portrays quite a different universe and some of you might remember the original show from 1978, which ran for just one season and came back with 10 episodes in 1980. Here I’m talking about the remake from 2004 with a fantastic plot and again, superb acting. As Time Magazine put it in 2005 when Battlestar Galactica was chosen as their Show of the Year:
This remake took a corny Star Wars knockoff from the ’70s and turned it into a piercing look at morality, faith and what it means to be human. It also featured some of the most kick-ass, mind-blowing sci-fi on a small screen in the decade.
Whereas computer-generated imagery (CGI) didn’t even exist in the 1960’s, the creators of Battlestar Galactica had a ton of tools and tricks at their disposal. Indeed the show looked good, but Battlestar Galactica was never about visual effects. Precisely as in TOS, the story, the characters, and the acting were so strong that special effects remained in a supporting role only.
And that’s precisely how I want my sci-fi. If it looks good, then that’s a nice bonus, but ideally a good show is not only entertaining and visually pleasing, but also challenging with a mesmerizing story. Some of the best shows even make us slightly uncomfortable in the way they raise difficult questions, often around ethics and morality. At its best, sci-fi really makes us think about what kind of a future we want to build for ourselves.