Is There Light at the End of the Tunnel?

I am a fan of science fiction! There are times when I yearn for television, films and comics that fit into that genre. Babylon 5 for all its faults is probably the only television show in the last twenty years that does. Solaris and Interstellar are the only films that I can't remember that I felt really satisfied me in what I was looking for.

I feel frustrated when I talk to other people about the lack of science fiction out there and their come back is 'what about Doctor Who?' You see for most people, who are not fans; all they need to see on their television or cinema screen is a space ship or an odd looking alien for it all just to blend into the same thing. It is all just Sci-Fi to them. If only they would look a little closer.

None fans (including comic book publishers, television and film producers and studio heads) will rarely bother to take a closer look, to try to examine, explain and interpret it in all its different forms.

However, for me as a fan, what is out there breaks up into three different categories...

What I would call 'science fiction substitute', that usually manifests itself in the form of the Police procedural drama; criminals from the future are chased back through time to present day earth by a cop who has to round them all up and send then back to the future or some such thing.

It is not the real thing; it is just the powers that be (producers and studio heads and so on) trying to take advantage of the cult fans reputation for spending money without spending much of theirs.

And then there is that curiously captivating category that seems to be about little more than space men running around blowing stuff up. As much as I love things like Doctor Who, Star Wars, Flash Gordon or the Marvel Studio's film Guardians of the Galaxy, they only tend to have elements of science fiction in them and lack any real science or speculation about the future.

Now the genuine thing for me, what some people call hard science fiction, be it the more thoughtful tales like Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man, Harlan Ellison's Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman or tales with a little more action to them like Frank Herbert's Dune books seem to be a rarity in the world of comics, films and television.

Theodore Sturgeon summed up the genre perfectly in 1952 when he said "A science fiction story is a story built around human beings, with a human problem, and a human solution, which would not have happened at all without its scientific content."

In essence it tells stories about the human condition...

But why do we not see more that fit into the genre like for example the aforementioned Babylon 5 in comic, television or films? J. Michael Straczynski once talked about how difficult it was to get studio heads interested the genre. Now that Straczynski is a studio head and owner of Studio JMS could he be our saviour?

He has several film and television projects on the go. The Netflix show Sense8, the Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy adaptation for Spike TV, Straczynski has also bought an option on Harlan Ellison's classic story, "Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman" and lets not forget a big budget film reboot of Straczynski own Babylon 5.

There are definite signs of improvement out there. There might even be a whole new wave of hard science fiction coming to a television or cinema screen near you.

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