@ Kevin: I've been trying to differentiate between a series and a serial. Serials come in tw0 flavours as far as the viewing public is concerned where the least value flavour is the dreaded soap opera ... at least when viewed from the opinion of the wider audience. Soaps are trashy and low-brow and -- by definition -- they neither promise nor are they expected to deliver a conclusion. By contrast a series is a set of self-contained entertainments, each complete within itself.
The problem I have is that there's been a modern trend to serialise a format by introducing what is now known as story arcs within a series. More specifically I object to shows where the story arc is such a large factor in the overall scripting that it is between difficult and impossible fully to appreciate an individual episode viewed out of context. Lost was an absolute exemplar of that, and I strongly suspect -- without any evidence that I am wrong -- that Revolution will be the same.
You asked me to name some examples of SF series I enjoyed. Well, the X Files would have to be one. The story arcs were never so embedded that an individual episode could not be enjoyed without that empty feeling which comes from a WTF? feeling when the credits roll. Dr Who has been following story arcs in recent series, but again these are not the drivers of the franchise and isolated episodes can be enjoyed without the need for a deep knowledge of the position the episode holds within the overall story arc. Frankly I find it easier to cite examples of quality TV that isn't SF. For example, I bought the novel Shogun at an airport in 1980 and enjoyed its 1,000+ pages immensely ... later that same year I also enjoyed the TV miniseries which ran to 9+ hours and left out almost nothing of the novel.
@ Kevin & Azhria Lilu Regarding Being Human ... I loved the pilot. It was the most awesomely novel and inventive scenario I'd ever seen and I hoped for more. The first series was rather good, but after that it all went downhill -- USian fashion -- with a convoluted labyrinth of story arcs and ever more ridiculous excuses to leave the "series" hanging unresolved in the hope of securing funding for another season.
@All Regarding TV SF. In the good old days, SF could be made on a small budget. The original The Day The Earth Stood Still was mind-blowingly excellent; the Keanu Reeves remake was a CGI spectacular pile of poop made on the heels of Reeves' box office pulling power in the wake of the hugely impressive Matrix (although the sequels that completed the hastily imagined trilogy were pale shadows of the original movie, made only to exploit the commercial success of the original).
There is an infinity of inventive creativity out there. My heart bleeds tears to see hackneyed memes endlessly recycled only because they are easy to produce, easy to sell to suit-wearing accountant execs, and -- crucially -- as easy to have written as any old soap opera.
In conclusion. SF has a special place in literature, and by extension it should respect that position and be responsible when entering the the motion picture field. The Leslie Nielson classic, The Forbidden Planet, works precisely because it does not rely on SF for the story (it's actually a parody of Shakespeare's The Tempest). Permit me to draw a comparison to the detective genre -- the who-dunnit. There are two flavours of crime story; in one variety we are shown the crime and follow the detective's progress as the crime is solved (eg. Columbo); in the other the crime is investigated cold by the hero (eg CSI). Now if we extend that to SF, we have the uncomfortable notion of an SF story where the SFian element is the mystery.
Uncomfortable? Yes. It is to me. Good SF is a ripping good yarn. Bad SF is a rotten story. But bad SF is also where the SF itself is the mystery. Revolution and Lost score off the top the scale in this respect. In this respect those shows have more in common with a terrible Agatha Christie yarn where -- whatever you think -- the ending will always leave you thinking WTF!!!!
