Thursday, September 29, 2005
If I Ran a Science Fiction Network
Bernard gave me food for thought on the last SF thread. He's right and I'm wrong there's absolutely no good SF on tv. Battlestar Galactica is better than average, though there's something about it that doesn't quite grab me. Maybe I have to be a regular viewer. I confess I've only seen about seven episodes.
Good sf/fantasy tv-movie treatments I've seen recently on that network or elsewhere: A Wrinkle in Time, The Lathe of Heaven, Dune, and Gormenghast. Most of what is programmed for film on SciFi is ubertrashy.
I would love to see an established sf writer or two or three be recruited to write two to four shows. I think Kevin Anderson would do a good job; his books read like movies. And his Seven Suns Saga, though not top-shelf literature, is excellently plotted and characterized. (I recommend it.) I avoid spin-off lit on moral principles, so I don't know how his Star Wars and Dune stuff is.
Connie Willis is another sharp writer who could write for film. I loved her first novel Lincoln's Dreams (reviewed here). Certainly her award-winning Doomsday Book would be a worthy film effort.
I think the SciFi channel should eschew the lame title and go with what fans like: SF. (No serious SF person refers to it as SciFi. Not one.)
I think they could produce some good science shows. I remember a good number of interesting things (like this) on TLC or the Discovery Channel before they went true crime.
I think they could take a stab at film versions of famous SF novels more regularly than the fourth sequel to Anaconda.
