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Science fiction first appeared intelevision programming in the late 1930s, during what is called theGolden Age of Science Fiction.Special effects and other production techniques allow creators to present a living visual image of an imaginary world not limited by the constraints of reality.
The need to portray imaginary settings or characters with properties and abilities beyond the reach of current reality obliges producers to make extensive use of specialized techniques of television production.
Through most of the 20th century, many of these techniques were expensive and involved a small number of dedicated craft practitioners, while the reusability of props, models, effects, or animation techniques made it easier to keep using them. The combination of high initial cost and lower maintenance cost pushed producers into building these techniques into the basic concept of a series, influencing all the artistic choices.
By the late 1990s, improved technology and more training and cross-training within the industry made all of these techniques easier to use, so that directors of individual episodes could make decisions to use one or more methods, so such artistic choices no longer needed to be baked into the series concept.
Special effects (or "SPFX") have been an essential tool throughout the history of science fiction on television: small explosives to simulate the effects of variousrayguns,squibs of blood and gruesome prosthetics to simulate the monsters and victims in horror series, and thewire-flying entrances and exits ofGeorge Reeves asSuperman.
The broad term "special effects" includes all the techniques here, but more commonly there are two categories of effects.Visual effects ("VFX") involve photographic or digital manipulation of the onscreen image, usually done inpost-production. Mechanical orphysical effects involve props, pyrotechnics, and other physical methods used duringprincipal photography itself. Some effects involved a combination of techniques; a ray gun might require a pyrotechnic during filming, and then an optical glowing line added to the film image in post-production.Stunts are another important category of physical effects. In general, all kinds of special effects must be carefully planned duringpre-production.
Babylon 5 was the first series to usecomputer-generated imagery, or "CGI", for all exterior space scenes, even those with characters in space suits. The technology has made this more practical, so that today models are rarely used. In the 1990s, CGI required expensive processors and customized applications, but by the 2000s (decade), computing power has pushed capabilities down to personal laptops running a wide array of software.
Models have been an essential tool in science fiction television since the beginning, whenBuck Rogers took flight in spark-scattering spaceships wheeling across a matte backdrop sky. The originalStar Trek required a staggering array of models; theUSSEnterprise had to be built in several different scales for different needs. Models fell out of use in filming in the 1990s as CGI became more affordable and practical, but even today, designers sometimes construct scale models which are then digitized for use in animation software.
Models of characters arepuppets.Gerry Anderson created a series of shows using puppets living in a universe of models and miniature sets, notablyThunderbirds.ALF depicted an alien living in a family, whileFarscape included two puppets as regular characters. InStargate SG-1, theAsgard characters are puppets in scenes where they are sitting, standing, or lying down. InMystery Science Theater 3000, the characters ofCrow T. Robot andTom Servo, two of the show's main (and most iconic) characters, are puppets constructed from random household items.
As animation is completely free of the constraints of gravity, momentum, and physical reality, it is an ideal technique for science fiction and fantasy on television. In a sense, virtually all animated series allow characters and objects to perform in unrealistic ways, so they are almost all considered to fit within the broadest category ofspeculative fiction (in the context of awards, criticism, marketing, etc.) The artistic affinity of animation tocomic books has led to a large amount ofsuperhero-themed animation, much of this adapted from comics series, while the impossible characters and settings allowed in animation made this a preferred medium for bothfantasy and for series aimed at young audiences.
Originally, animation was all hand-drawn by artists, though in the 1980s, beginning withCaptain Power, computers began to automate the task of creating repeated images; by the 1990s, hand-drawn animation became defunct.
In recent years as technology has improved, this has become more common, notably since the development of the Massive software application permits producers to include hordes of non-human characters to storm a city or space station. The roboticCylons in the new version ofBattlestar Galactica are usually animated characters, while theAsgard inStargate SG-1 are animated when they are shown walking around or more than one is on screen at once.
In general, science fiction series are subject to the same financial constraints as other television shows. However, high production costs increase the financial risk, while limited audiences further complicate the business case for continuing production.Star Trek was the first television series to cost more than $100,000 per episode, whileStar Trek: The Next Generation was the first to cost more than $1 million per episode.[citation needed]
One of the earliest forms of media fandom wasStar Trek fandom. Fans of the series became known to each other through thescience fiction fandom. In 1968,NBC decided to cancelStar Trek.Bjo Trimble wrote letters to contacts in the National Fantasy Fan Foundation, asking people to organize their local friends to write to the network to demand the show remain on the air. Network executives were overwhelmed by an unprecedented wave of correspondence, and they kept the show on the air. Although the series continued to receive low ratings and was canceled a year later, the enduring popularity of the series resulted inParamount creating a set of movies, and then a new seriesStar Trek: The Next Generation, which by the early 1990s had become one of the most popular dramas on American television.
Star Trek fans continued to grow in number, and first began organizing conventions in the 1970s. No other show attracted a large organized following until the 1990s, whenBabylon 5 attracted bothStar Trek fans and a large number of literary SF fans who previously had not been involved in media fandom. Other series began to attract a growing number of followers. The British series,Doctor Who, has similarly attracted a devoted following.
In the late 1990s, a market for celebrity autographs emerged oneBay, which created a new source of income for actors, who began to charge money for autographs that they had previously been doing for free. This became significant enough that lesser-known actors would come to conventions without requesting any appearance fee, simply to be allowed to sell their own autographs (commonly on publicity photos). Today most events with actor appearances are organized by commercial promoters, though a number of fan-run conventions still exist, such asToronto Trek andShore Leave.
The 1985 seriesRobotech is most often credited as the catalyst for the Western interest in anime. The series inspired a few fanzines such asProtoculture Addicts andAnimag both of which in turn promoted interest in the wide world of anime in general. Anime's first notable appearance at SF or comic book conventions was in the form of video showings of popular anime, untranslated and often low quality VHS bootlegs. Starting in the 1990s,anime fans began organizing conventions. These quickly grew to sizes much larger than other science fiction and media conventions in the same communities; many cities now have anime conventions attracting five to ten thousand attendees. Many anime conventions are a hybrid between non-profit and commercial events, with volunteer organizers handling large revenue streams and dealing with commercial suppliers and professional marketing campaigns.
For decades, the majority of science fiction media fandom has been represented by males of all ages and for most of its modern existence, a fairly diverse racial demographic. The most highly publicized demographic for science fiction fans is the male adolescent; roughly the same demographic for Americancomic books. Female fans, while always present, were far fewer in number and less conspicuously present in fandom. With the rising popularity of fanzines, female fans became increasingly vocal. Starting in the 2000s (decade), genre series began to offer more prominent female characters. Many series featured women as the main characters with males as supporting characters.True Blood is an example. Also, such shows premises moved away from heroicaction-adventure and focused more on characters and their relationships. This has caused the rising popularity offanfiction, a large majority of which is categorized asslash fanfiction. Female fans comprise the majority of fanfiction writers.
American television science fiction has producedLost in Space,Star Trek,The Twilight Zone, andThe X-Files, among others.
British television science fiction began in 1938 when the broadcast medium was in its infancy with the transmission of a partial adaptation ofKarel Čapek's playR.U.R.. Despite an occasionally chequered history, programmes in the genre have been produced by both theBBC and the largest commercial channel,ITV.
Nigel Kneale'sThe Quatermass Experiment (1953) and its sequels have been called "one of BBC Television's earliest audience successes" and Kneale became "one of the most influential television and film writers to emerge in the 1950s".[2]Doctor Who, which launched in 1963 and ran until 1989, then was revived in 2005, was listed in theGuinness World Records in 2006 as the longest-runningscience fiction television show in the world[3] and as the "most successful" science fiction series of all time.[4] Other cult British series in the science fiction genre includeThe Tomorrow People,Space: 1999,Blake's 7,Star Cops andRed Dwarf.
Science fiction inCanada was produced by theCBC as early as the 1950s. In the 1970s,CTV producedThe Starlost. In the 1980s, Canadian animation studios includingNelvana, began producing a growing proportion of the world market in animation.
In the 1990s, Canada became an important player in live action speculative fiction on television, with dozens of series likeForever Knight,Robocop, and most notablyThe X-Files andStargate SG-1. Many series have been produced for youth and children's markets, includingDeepwater Black andMythQuest.
In the first decade of the 21st century, changes in provincial tax legislation prompted many production companies to move from Toronto toVancouver. Recent popular series produced in Vancouver includeThe Dead Zone,Smallville,Andromeda,Stargate Atlantis,Stargate Universe,The 4400,Sanctuary and the reimaginedBattlestar Galactica.
Because of the small size of the domestic television market, most Canadian productions involve partnerships with production studios based in the United States and Europe. However, in recent years, new partnership arrangements are allowing Canadian investors a growing share of control of projects produced in Canada and elsewhere.
Australia's first locally produced Science Fiction series wasThe Stranger (1964–65) produced and screened by theAustralian Broadcasting Corporation. Later series made in the 1960s includedThe Interpretaris (1966)Vega 4 (1967), andPhoenix Five (1970). The country's best-known science fiction series wasFarscape; an American co-production, it ran from 1999 to 2003. A significant proportion of Australian produced Science Fiction programmes are made for the teens/young Adults market, includingThe Girl from Tomorrow, the long-runningMr. Squiggle,Halfway Across the Galaxy and Turn Left,Ocean Girl,Crash Zone,Watch This Space andSpellbinder.
Other series likeTime Trax,Roar, andSpace: Above and Beyond were filmed in Australia, but used mostly US crew and actors.[5]
Japan has a long history of producing science fiction series for television. Some of the most famous areanime such asOsamu Tezuka'sAstro Boy, theSuper Robots such asMitsuteru Yokoyama'sTetsujin 28-go (Gigantor) andGo Nagai'sMazinger Z, and theReal Robots such asYoshiyuki Tomino'sGundam series andShōji Kawamori'sMacross series.
Other primary aspects of Japanese science fiction television are thesuperherotokusatsu (a term literally meaningspecial effects) series, pioneered by programs such asMoonlight Mask andPlanet Prince. Thesuitmation technique has been used in long running franchises includeEiji Tsuburaya'sUltra Series,Shotaro Ishinomori'sKamen Rider Series, and theSuper Sentai Series.
In addition, severaldramas utilize science fiction elements as framing devices, but are not labeled as "tokusatsu" as they do not utilize actors in full body suits and other special effects.
Among the notable German language productions are:
Danish television broadcast the children's TV-seriesCrash in 1984 about a boy who finds out that his room is a space ship.
Early Dutch television series wereMorgen gebeurt het [nl] (Tomorrow it will happen), broadcast from 1957 to 1959, about a group of Dutch space explorers and their adventures,De duivelsgrot (The devil's cave), broadcast from 1963 to 1964, about a scientist who finds the map of a cave that leads to the center of the Earth andTreinreis naar de Toekomst (Train journey to the future) about two young children who are taken to the future by robots who try to recreate humanity, but are unable to give the cloned humans a soul. All three of these television series were aimed mostly at children.
Later television series wereProfessor Vreemdeling (1977) about a strange professor who wants to make plants speak andZeeuws Meisje [nl] (1997) a nationalistic post-apocalyptic series where the Netherlands has been built full of housing and the highways are filled with traffic jams. The protagonist, a female superhero, wears traditional folkloric clothes and tries to save traditional elements of Dutch society against the factory owners.
Italian TV shows includeA come Andromeda (1972) which was a remake of 1962BBC serial,A for Andromeda (from the novels of Hoyle and Elliott),Geminus (1968),Il segno del comando (1971),Gamma (1974) andLa traccia verde (1975).
French series areHighlander: The Series,French science-fiction/fantasy television series (both co-produced with Canada) and a number of smaller fiction/fantasy television series, includingTang in 1971, about a secret organization that attempts to control the world with a new super weapon, "Les atomistes" and 1970 miniseries "La brigade des maléfices".
Another French-produced science fiction series was thenew age animated seriesIl était une fois... l'espace (English:Once upon a time...space).Anime-influenced animation includes a series of French-Japanesecartoons/anime, including such titles asUlysses 31 (1981),The Mysterious Cities of Gold (1982), andŌban Star-Racers (2006).
The first Spanish SF series wasDiego Valor, a 22 episode TV adaption of a radio show hero of the same name based onDan Dare, aired weekly between 1958 and 1959. Nothing was survived of this series, not a single still; it is not known if the show was even recorded or just a live broadcast.[6][7][8]
The 60s were dominated byChicho Ibáñez Serrador andNarciso Ibáñez Menta, who adapted SF works from Golden Age authors and others to a series titledMañana puede ser verdad. Only 11 episodes were filmed. The 70s saw three important television films,Los pajaritos (1974),La Gioconda está triste (1977), andLa cabina (1972), this last one, about a man who becomes trapped in a telephone booth, while passersby seem unable to help him, won the 1973International Emmy Award for Fiction.[9]
The seriesPlutón B.R.B. Nero (2008) was a brutal SF comedy byÁlex de la Iglesia, in the line ofThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,Red Dwarf, orDoctor Who, with 26 episodes of 35 minutes.[10][11][12] Other series of the 2010s wereLos protegidos (2010-2012),El barco (2011-2013), andEl internado (2007-2010), all three inspired by North American productions, with minor SF elements.[13][14]
The latest success isEl ministerio del tiempo (The ministry of time), premiered on February 24, 2015 onTVE's main channelLa 1. The series follows the exploits of a patrol of the fictional Ministry of Time, which deals with incidents caused by time travel.[15][16][17] It has garnered several national prizes in 2015, like theOndas Prize, and has a thick following on-line, calledlos ministéricos.[18][19]
Serbia producedThe Collector (Sakupljač), a science fiction television series based uponZoran Živković's story, winner of aWorld Fantasy Award.
Návštěvníci(The Visitors) was a Czechoslovak (and Federal German, Swiss and French) TV series produced in 1981 to 1983. The family show aired in a larger number of European countries.
For a list of notable science fiction series and programs on television, see:List of science fiction television programs.
People who have influenced science fiction on television include:
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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