Happy Days are Here Again?

Written by Dan Carlson • @minutiaeman@tenforward.social

Published August 26, 2004

In the past, I’ve bitterly complained about the dearth of quality sci-fi television shows out there for us discerning fans. For the past year or two, there’s hardly been any series that’s of truly impressive quality — sure, there’s been Enterprise and Stargate SG-1, but the former has hardly been of stellar quality, and I’ve only recently discovered the latter. But other than that, what did we have? Farscape was axed in its prime by the Sci-Fi Channel, and Firefly was killed in its infancy by Fox. Andromeda was still running, but its quality was laughable in the extreme.

But fortunately, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Just yesterday, the Farscape: The PeaceKeeper Wars trailer was posted online, and it frankly blew me away. I can’t wait for October! And then there’s the Battlestar Galactica remake series, which is coming early next year. I can’t wait for January! And finally, and maybe most importantly, there’s Serenity, the Firefly revival, that’s coming next spring. I can’t wait for next April!

And of course, there’s still Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, two more high-quality television shows to tide us over in the mean time. And who knows? Maybe Enterprise’s fourth season won’t turn out to be the stinker that its most recent cliffhanger suggested it would be.

What’s that? Yes, you in the corner...

Yeah yeah, I know that this rush of quality probably won’t last. The Firefly movie is just a one-off production (although if it makes enough money, there’s a chance for a renewed television contract), and the Farscape miniseries won’t necessarily spawn any successors, either. The Battlestar Galactica remake is only slated for thirteen episodes in its first season, too.

But frankly, I don’t care. We’ve got some quality science fiction on the way again, and I’m quite pleased. I’d be more pleased if we were getting a larger commitment for long-term production of these shows, of course, but I’ll take what I can get. It’s a good time to be a science fiction fan again!