The importance of being Sci-Fi

[Burt]

Just wondering what other people think. What would you say was the Sci-Fi show that contributed the most to the Sci-Fi world? Star Treks amazing ideas and long running? B5's unique 5 year storyline? BattleStar's realism? Star Wars intertwined stories? Doctor Who...for just being Doctor Who....
Any Sci-fi show (Or film) you can think of, that you think helped define or move along the genre more than any other. And why.

Me First. Gonna be boring:
Doctor Who

Why?

Longest running Sci-fi show. It was what the people of today (Directors, Story writers) watched when they were children. Cybermen. Where do you think the Borg came from? And the idea of 'Changing' the lead? Unheard of. Also means there is a different Doctor for every taste. The different stories....Sciencey...Horror...Comical...Mystery.. ..
The Music! Everyone knows the music! The icons it's given us... A police box, a tin dog, A scarf.... Celery?
I really can't think of show that has given us more!

[Scooter]

If you're going to include film 2001 is a compelling choice, because it made it possible to view sci-fi in a serious light, building on what had been done by Robert Wise with The Day the Earth Stood Still.

For small screen science fiction, I think the innovations of The Twilight Zone and the Outer Limits had a lot to do with making possible the serious exploration of sci fi subjects on TV...

[ijdgaf]

This is really two questions, as I see it. Each with different answers. So I'll answer each. I guess.

1) Which sci fi series has had the largest impact culturally?

Star Wars, without question. These movies transcend nerddom more than any other example of the genre. Sure, they're basically fantasy tales in space. But they're escapest fun that anyone can enjoy, and countless elements of the films have evolved into genuine pop culture icons. Nothing comes close. Not even Star Trek.

2) Which sci fi series has had the largest impact on the genre?

This question has different answers depending on your generational perspective. Verne's novels, Metropolis, Arthur C. Clarke novels, Doctor Who, Star Trek, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, and The Matrix are all equally valid answers for different eras.

[Burt]

Originally Posted by ijdgaf

This is really two questions, as I see it. Each with different answers. So I'll answer each. I guess.

1) Which sci fi series has had the largest impact culturally?

Star Wars, without question. These movies transcend nerddom more than any other example of the genre. Sure, they're basically fantasy tales in space. But they're escapest fun that anyone can enjoy, and countless elements of the films have evolved into genuine pop culture icons. Nothing comes close. Not even Star Trek.

2) Which sci fi series has had the largest impact on the genre?

This question has different answers depending on your generational perspective. Verne's novels, Metropolis, Arthur C. Clarke novels, Doctor Who, Star Trek, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, and The Matrix are all equally valid answers for different eras.

I'm meant in a more simple way. What Show/film/series do you think has moved/improved or added to the genre the most. Not so much the how much people enjoyed it.
For instance, many Sci-Fi shows and computer games now freely use the word Cloaking Device, as though it's a simple everyday term. That term however, was started by Star Trek.

[Nate the Great]

It occurs to me that there are a plethora (si, El Guapo) of ways to define the idea of "science fiction." We've seen to that. Depending on your definition of scifi, you could say it started with A Conneticut Yankee, but I'd usually start the proper scifi generation with the works of Jules Verne. At this point, we have:

1. Hardcore sci-fi. Star Wars, Andromeda, B5 and such. The technology (even to the point of midichlorians and such) is an integral part of the society, and any "mystical" properties can be explained fully. Science is as fully understood as is possible.
2. Softcore sci-fi. Trek, Stargate, etc. The technology is important, but new innovations can and do occur. Science is admitted as impossible to fully understand.
3. Bizzare sci-fi. Doctor Who, h2g2 and so forth. Technology is there, it's not really magic, but we don't want to dwell on it. Impossible stuff can and does happen, with some frequency, in fact.

So, if you accept these as broad categories, then you'd have three winners: Wars and Trek would accept laurels for the first two, but the third is more of a tossup.

[Gatac]

Seeing "Star Wars", "hard" and "Sci-fi" in the same sentence just blew my mind.

Truth be told, just about everything on TV or in the movies is properly labelled "soft" sci-fi, mainly in that it transcends technological and physical conditions beyond reasonable extrapolation. "Hard" sci-fi is a whole different beast. The new BSG and Babylon 5 back in the day have taken babysteps towards hard sci-fi, but they're not there yet.

Compare any of your examples to, say, 2001. Sci-fi does get "harder", but it is a good point of comparison. When was the last time a TV show paid proper attention to the problems of microgravity, for example? (Babylon 5 stands as a good example with the Earth ships and the station itself, but even they can't resist having artificial gravity on their "advanced" races to sidestep the problem.)

I don't think your categories as such are bad, but please relabel them to something that doesn't hurt my brain.

Gatac

[evay]

Originally Posted by Burt

What would you say was the Sci-Fi show that contributed the most to the Sci-Fi world?

Trek. Has another show or franchise inspired so many people to become real engineers, doctors, and astronauts?

[Gatac]

My point is, "hard" and "soft" are already defined along completely other lines than yours.

Let me put it this way:

"Set a course for Altair 3, maximum warp!" is soft sci-fi. "Thruster package 3, fire ten seconds" is hard sci-fi.

It doesn't matter if, within the setting, the technology is well-understood. It's about whether it uses real-world science or has to invent stuff. In this respect, Star Wars is not "hard" in any way; I'm not even sure it's Sci-Fi rather than space opera or science fantasy. In the Expanded Universe, Star Wars picks up way more technical details, but in the movies themselves? Forget about it. They hardly explain anything, and they don't have to.

2001 is, aside from the intelligent story, justly famous for the realistic portrayel of spaceflight (albeit advanced). There are no faster-than-light drives, part of the spaceships rotates to generate the illusion of gravity, everything else is in a microgravity environment. It doesn't get everything right, but it tries damn hard. Trek goes its own way and makes up nice-sounding new words to cover. Star Wars doesn't even try.

As for your categories, I think we can put that into "static" and "dynamic". Star Wars, as a setting, is incredibly stagnant in technology. I'm not saying this is bad, but on the whole, most "new" stuff is merely refining and repurposing, not making whole new inventions. The Death Star was a massive logistical and Engineering archievement, but it didn't have any advanced supertech. By contrast, Trek treats science as a completely open frontier - new technologies are discovered all the time or learned from alien species. In fact, the sheer amount of new species is staggering, and even if it doesn't work out, things are changing. Trek has seen so many new and alien drive systems, for example, that I'm not sure I can just list them all here from memory. Wars is content with repulsorlifts, sub-c drives and hyperdrives being just the way they are.

I'm not saying one is better than the other, I enjoy both for different reasons. But I think we need to watch our terminology.

Gatac