Science Fiction done 'cheap'... And 'fake' science fiction.

[Redvers Ganderpoke]

It was just a drama of the week, the fact that he was in a different body made no difference and doesn't magically make it SF.

The original Star Trek was basically "Wagon Train to the stars"--it had exactly the same structure as a Western, but happened to be set in space. Does that make Star Trek not SF, or does it mean Wagon Train was actually SF?

And some of the same actors (Deforest Kelly was known for appearances in TV Westerns ). Star Trek also used the Carry On Film's trick of fitting the story around whatever sets they had to hand. (See Return of the Archons, Spectre of the Gun, A Piece of the Action and Patterns of Force (Nazis!!))

[Morkonan]

... But nobody blames them for this - it was produced in the middle of a writers' strike, and they had to put something together, so they used clips of previous episodes and a really lame storyline written by someone who wasn't a writing guild member (and it shows!).

One bad apple, or a missing one, can spoil the whole bunch!

Last night I watched "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children." I had seen the title on the YA shelves, but hadn't paid attention to it. It's YA, so I thought I wouldn't be interested. Bored, with not much on TV, I saw it on and decided to watch it. I was pleasantly surprised, as well as bheing a little bit concerned, with the storyline. But.. in the production, there was one serious flaw - The music was, for many scenes, terrible. The choices and compositions were just plain bad. (Really bad ElectroPopDance music for a fight scene? Nothing but broken "thrumming" for a dramatic scene?)

Unlike a novel, a movie or a television series is a compilation of efforts. Even a good director can't always shine through to produce their vision of the story. Visible faults throughout a piece can snowball with viewers unable to forget them. (MPHPC is a good movie and story, though, despite that one flaw.)

When you're producing a TV show you have a certain budget and a certain amount of time, and within those constraints you must produce (say) 24 episodes. Therefore you will ALWAYS get the occasional completely useless episode. And you'll always get aliens impersonating humans in order to save a few dollars (unless the alien costume can be done practically rather than electronically).

Exactly. That's one issue that feeds into the compilation of efforts. In cases where the story absolutely requires exceptional effects, the lack of them or required complex scenes is always telling. Imagine "2001" without spaceships... What's the impact on the audience of the commercial flight to the spacestation? The rotating cylindrical quarters scene on Discovery? All done well, all presenting added-value to the audience, because of their quality, and all vital to the overall presentation of the setting.

...So what if Sam's soul transferred into the body of a different person via a strange time machine (powered by God, don't forget). So just because the opening voiceover involves him taking a new body via time machine, that makes it science fiction? That's an excessively broad viewpoint of SF, IMHO...

There are a lot of things that feed into that storyline. It's one of the things that makes it interesting. But, the underlying premise is driven by technology/science and that's really what matters when defining it. Whether or not that technology somehow allows us to reach into the spiritual or changes us or allows us unique insights into ourselves is it's "theme."

My favorite example of a science-fiction setting and plot contrasting with a much broader theme is "The Night's Dawn" trilogy by Hamilton. In this story, the setting is in the far future where much of what we imagine today as being very advanced scientific concepts has been realized. But, humanity is still, despite its knowledge, trudging along, trying to figure itself out. And then... the question of our ultimate fate is realized, reaching deeply into fantastical, even spiritual, realms, where "good" and "evil" are questioned. And, perhaps, that question isn't even answered...

The point is that a story's theme doesn't define its genre anymore than a genre requires a particular theme. That's the beautiful thing about fiction - You're free to tell any story you want in any setting you want using any sort of character you want.