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GIST TV Science Fiction Feature

trCowboys and Aliens

By Frank LoveceLate 1950s: "Marshall Dillon! Come quick! The Dalton Boys are ridin'intotown! And they've got Miss Kitty hostage!"Late 1990s: "Captain Janeway! Alert! The Borg are approaching SectorNine! lntelligence reports indicate they've taken First Officer Chakotayhostage!"Whoaaaa, Nellie! Who'd ever have thought, backwhen every other TV show was a Western, thatany other genre could so dominate the tube? lntheir late-1 9S0siearly-1 960s heyday, there wereas many as 31 Western series on the networksand in syndication. You couldn't change channelswithout getting into a shootout. And today? Swapsix-shooters for ray guns or FB|-issue sidearms, and welcome to thatgreat big roundup in the sky. Some three dozen sci-fi/fantasy series nowcrackle on the national hearth-an unprecedented number, establishingit as the single most prevalent genre in TV history. And even more areupcoming. Sure, there are many more channels today than before-butit's not as if they've brought a proliferation of, oh, say, pirate shows.

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The term "sci-fi," as a genre description, is admittedly broad-evensomething calling itself the "Sci-Fi Channel" includes.horror, paranormalfantasy and sword-&-sorcery in its programming. The common elementin what is more properly termed "speculative fiction" is essentiallymagic-which includes time travel and interdimensional wormholes, nomatter the pseudo-scientific overlay. ln any event, "sci-fi" is no broaderthan "Westerns," which, whether set in 1870s Texas or a 2870splanetary outland, are about bringing civilization to the frontier; GeneRoddenberry himself often referred to his creation Star Trek as "WagonTrain in space." And just as the Western encompasses not just cowboystories but also police procedurals (Iales of Wells Fargo, The Man fromBlackhawk), espionage (The Wild Wild West\, comedy (Maverick), horrorjlt- (various Twilight Zone episodes), family drama(Bonanza) and even medical drama (Dr. Quinn,Medicine Woman), so too does sci-fi/fantasyencompass the likes of police procedurals (IheX-Files), espionage (Earth: Final Conflict), comedy(3rd Rock from the Sun), horror (Buffy the VampireSlayer), family drama (Losf in Space) and war drama(the recent Space; Above and Beyond, the currentarc of Star Trek: Deep Space Ntne).|fFr- But why now the deluge? The writer-producersthemselves grandly extol a Zeitgeist of themillennium. "We're going toward it like a boat toward the Niagara Falls,"says Pen Densham, cre-ator of Space Rangers (CBS 1993), andexecutive producer of Showtime's lhe Outer Limits and Poltergeist: TheLegacy, and of the upcoming ABC monster-shark miniseries, PeterBenchley's Creature. "We're on a time stream, and we don't know what'son the other side. I think there's a tremendous curiosity now to try andget a vision of our future."Renowned author and media analyst Dr. Neil Postman(Amusing Ourselves to Death) oje!'s a mgre mundane

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this way again. "Our culture is starved for vital myths. lt's been a centuryof myth-debunking. And I think people find in the idea of outer-spacestuff and aliens and other creatures the possibilities of myth-of the ideawe're not alone in the universe, that we're sort of stewards of the earth. Ithink that has a lot of resonance now as people search for spiritualrelief.""lt's a literature designed to make you think about something other thanimmediate concerns," author David agrees, "whether you're-takingcontemporary ideas and commenting on them in a futuristic setting, ortaking characters and putting them in fantastic situations and seeing howthey react."And that, again, is common ground with the historically next-most-popular genre on TV. Because no matter if you're talking cowboys oraliens, no matter if the entertainment is serious or silly, the subtext is allabout facing unknown territory-whether it's what lies beyond the nextbutte, or the next star, or the next level of spiritual understanding orhuman ability. Try getting thatfrom Baywatch.Jk##ffiGIST's previous TV Sci-Fi articles: G.l

seven or Nine photo courtesv " "*6f;[ffis[?ti"ffili{l;:ilfl:?,ilb8?3;,ti;,HHJ''?":f[?1*',:ii"t or wB11; Nishtman photo courtesv;trAbout GIST Work at GIST To Advertrse E-mail UsCopyright @ 1997 GIST Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Photo credits