Sci-fi television shows find new audiences thanks to the Internet
It happened again last night. I was dreaming I guess, but the TARDIS sound was so clear, I woke up sweating. But there was nothing. I think I was imagining things again,” I told my friend one Sunday morning on our usual day out. “Either you need help, my child, or I should start hearing the TARDIS soon,” he retorted. Besides our love for all things irreverent and demonstrably weird, we also share a mutual obsession with Doctor Who, the iconic British sci-fi show that has been around since 1963, making it one of the longest running shows in the history of television. For the uninitiated, TARDIS is Time and Relative Dimension in Space, a spaceship and time machine of the Doctor, a Time Lord (a highly developed alien race) who comes to Earth and forms an inseparable bond with the planet and its inhabitants. The Doctor Who franchise, constituting a radio series, spin-offs and a print series is one of the most popular in the world. Since the return of the series in 2005, after a hiatus, it has established an extremely wide viewership base. The revival series was initially produced under Russell T Davies, and later taken over by Steven Moffat.
Doctor Who’s present popularity is perhaps symptomatic of a larger phenomenon — a huge demand for sci-fi shows has been generated by easy access to the Internet, producing an interest in more shows of this kind, especially in India. But with the advancement in English language programming by various television corporations in India, one can expect that it would not be long before dedicated channels such as SyFy will soon make in- roads in this country. Soon, a wide audience will be able to enjoy some brilliantly conceived shows like Warehouse 13, Continuum and Black Mirror.
A current hot favourite in India (being aired on Star Premiere), sci-fi series Fringe is an absolutely stunning and hugely popular series created by the supremely talented JJ Abrahms, which concluded with its fifth season in 2013. JJ Abrahms is responsible for expanding the horizons of the sci-fi genre and has also directed the reboot of the Star Trek universe with two recent films. Fringe deals with paranormal science and a world where two parallel universes collide. John Noble plays an adorably eccentric and brilliant scientist Walter Bishop in the series, who is addicted to marijuana and LSD.
Defiance, starring Grant Bowler, Julie Benz and Stephanie Leonidas presents us with a post-apocalyptic earth that a host of alien races from a confederation/ planet system have come to inhabit. The Earth forces are depicted as a militarised
Doctor Who’s present popularity is perhaps symptomatic of a larger phenomenon — a huge demand for sci-fi shows generated by easy access to the Internet.
society now, bent on conflict. Defiance is a small community that has isolated itself because it believes that both human and alien races are capable of cohabitation. It offers a wonderful window into various alien cultures trying to share a given geographical space and societal setup. Sci-fi has always been able to draw allegories easily to talk about the complexities of human existence. Defiance portrays a radically different society, which strives every day to counter its own internal xenophobia, whether perpetrated on part of the humans or aliens.
I was lucky to have access to a cable connection as soon as it arrived in India, thanks to a set of TV-crazy parents. Those were the days when the original Star Trek used to be aired late night on Star Plus. As the highly animated William Shatner (Captain Kirk) and the acerbic and brilliant Leonard Nimoy (Spock) traipsed around the universe, discovering new galaxies and new civilisations, I would inevitably dream about a fantastic world of aliens, androids and proto-humans with fascinating machines, gadgets and gizmos.
It was the only available escape from the immediate realities that one didn’t want to be a part of. Now that I have grown up substantially, or so I hope, science fiction still rules the game. And if anyone has a problem with that, Ray Bradbury has the answer — “I have never listened to anyone who criticised my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.” m