How TV Warped My Fragile Little Mind, Part 1: SCIENCE FICTION (3/3)

Our last, best hope...

The Trek bandwagon met the Law of Dimishing Returns as it spawned two forgettable spinoffs, Deep Space Nine and Voyager (although, speaking of boobs, Jeri Ryan looked mighty fine in her Federation catsuit). Fortunately, while Trek waned, two other American series stepped into the Big Time. The X-Files brilliantly filled the void left by the (then) departed Dr Who, being scary and weird and featuring two superbly played, well-defined characters (depending on your orientation, you were in love with either Gillian Anderson or David Duchovny, or possibly both). Meanwhile, the Space Opera genre was overtaken by the mighty Babylon 5. Relentlessly dystopian and deeply paranoid, B5 pitched human concerns into a galaxy filled with creepy, genuinely distinctive aliens ruthlessly pursuing their own agendas. Relentlessly literate (one episode references both 1984 and the Luftwaffe raid on Coventry), it had three near-perfect seasons before scheduling problems and J Michael Straczynski's megalomania reduced much of the cast to repetitious, near-parody status (there was also one of the great lost opportunities in the history of television - the insta-doomed Susan Ivanova-Talia Winters romance). Nonetheless, B5 was a high-water mark for TV SF - I loved it so much I was actually in the Fan Club for a spell, until I realised just how sad that sounded...

The new millennium brought me into the era of digital TV, and introduced two similar space operas courtesy of The Sci-Fi Channel (which, like MTV, subsequently morphed into something unrecognisable from its original incarnation). Farscape took a uniquely Antipodean slant on American SF conventions in a series that was frequently bizarre, and as often as not completely unhinged. Featuring arguably the most motley ensemble cast ever assembled (several of them were puppets - how Gerry Anderson must have approved), and laden with frequently corrosive humour (resident nymphomaniac Chiana was, strictly speaking, a child), Farscape was a continual head-trip that marked the late arrival of the punk ethos in TV SF. More-or-less contemporary (at least on these shores) was Andromeda, a more conventional effort (it had its genesis with Star Trek guru Gene Roddenberry) that used the prospect of a genetically-egineered future as an excuse to fill its cast with beautiful people (Laura Bertram, Lexa Doig, Brandy Ledford, Lisa Ryder - oh, and Kevin Sorbo, if you like that sort of thing). Conceptually uneven - often from episode to episode - Andromeda at its best was a slick, faintly mocking take on the 'space outlaws' sub-genre (when the Andromeda Ascendant was in "all powerful" mode, it was hard not to be seduced by Rommie's smiling indifference as she vapourised yet another attacking fleet), and as such could be perceived as the 00s answer to Blake's 7.

And that, dear reader, is as far as I go - for now - with my life in television sci-fi. Can I sum it up in one phrase? Well, yeah I can, but I need to step outside the realm of TV to do it...

"It was... fun."