Why Do SciFi shows look cheesy?

[Driver]

This thought occurred to me that I brought up in the Falling Skies thread. The shows has a lot of similarities with Walking Dead, and yet they are so crazy different tonally and visually. An episode of Falling Skies looks like a TV show. Walking Dead looks like a movie.

 

SyFy has a bunch of new one hour space shows coming up that I was really excited for because I love the space opera genre but BSG broke the mold and no one has been able to do it since. Between Star Wars coming back and Gaurdians of the Galaxy killing the box office, expect an influx of scifi TV shows.

 

The first two SyFy is putting out: The Expanse and Killjoys. The Expanse is baed on a series of books about a detective who hooks up with a motley crew of spacers to solve a mystery. It's awesome. Killjoys is about a group of bounty hunters/mercs... IN SPACE. Both of these sound awesome and exciting.

 

Now watch the promos:

 

http://io9.com/glad-i-m-not-the-only-one-who-had-this-reaction-but-si-1700722059

 

http://io9.com/first-trailer-for-syfys-expanse-has-zero-g-sex-and-hin-1679750445

 

Now somebody, PEASE, tell me why these shows look straight up like they are from the 90s syndicated scifi era of shows. Colored lights, weak sets, and cinematography that is in no way dynamic. We've come a long way since Babylon 5, and yet both of these shows look like crap.

 

Why?

 

When shows like Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Better Call Saul or Hannibal manage to look and feel like well-directed movies week to week why do scifi shows (outside of BSG) always look like this?

[Guest El Chalupacabra]

I loved BSG when it was on, and it still holds up, but it had its flaws, as well. I think the CGI cylon centurions are aging particularly badly, and that by today's standards, BSG and its prequel, Caprica, relied far too heavily on real-world equipment. It worked using old retro tech on the Galacitca, because it was supposed to be an old ship, but on other episodes, like I think season 2(?) where they go back to nuked Caprica, seeing a bunch of US Army deuce-and-a-half trucks really took me out of the sense that it was a far off planet. But Caprica took that to even higher levels, even blatantly having shots of Vancouver, BC , er, I mean Caprica filled with streets full of Chrysler 300s. To me (and I am well aware of the counter argument that Caprica is supposed to be analogous to Earth), that just screams CHEAP and LACK of attention to detail, when you have recognizable landmarks, and modern technology without any effort to disguise it or give it any kind of "alien" appearance.

[Driver]

You're talking about production design-- which I totally agree is an issue in and of itself, I was mostly referring to cinematography/lighting/direction more than anything else.

 

But yeah-- you do bring up a point, how realistic these worlds they create are can make or break a scifi show. If everything has to be made from the ground up that does get expensive. That's why Star Trek in all its incarnations was always mostly interiors. Even when they went to a big city, you'd get an establish shot-- but then cut right into somebody's office.

[Guest El Chalupacabra]

I see what you are saying, based on those vids. The style is ripped right from the Matrix, and color scheme is inappropriately bright. A style that we've seen before in many other movies and shows, so without having seen those scenes before, it is familiar. As far as cinematography/lighting/direction, maybe it is a problem with Syfy, itself, like they are stuck in doing it a certain way? Or maybe inexperienced film makers, still doing it like they did in film school?

[Stevil]

Defiance started out that way but sorta mid-way through series one the effects budget went up and it's got even better in Season 2.

 

Quality series btw!!

[Destiny Skywalker]

I'm convinced its one of 2 things, and possibly both.

1. SyFy cheaps out on production values. Like Chalup said above, inexperience/starting film makers, or low budgets.

2. SyFy is pandering to a certain audience that likes the cheese. Because I don't necessarily see this sort of style on major networks.

[Guest El Chalupacabra]

I'm convinced its one of 2 things, and possibly both.

1. SyFy cheaps out on production values. Like Chalup said above, inexperience/starting film makers, or low budgets.

2. SyFy is pandering to a certain audience that likes the cheese. Because I don't necessarily see this sort of style on major networks.

Point 2 is one I hadn't considered, but is true. I mean we are talking about the makers of Sharknado!

[The Choc]

They think sci-fi TV fans are so locked into sci-fi that they will watch anything, so why spend money on production.

[Driver]

Probably all true-- and will stay that way until Showtime or HBO does a hard scifi series. Like how cop shows fit a certain paradigm over and over until The Wire came along.

[Darth Krawlie]

And I bet you they do once Game of Thrones ends and they have the budget for it.

[Driver]

Trade secret: HBO has no less than 60 shows in development. Every year the put out 2 new 1 hours, 2 half hours to go to pilot

[ShadowDog]

 

I'm convinced its one of 2 things, and possibly both.

1. SyFy cheaps out on production values. Like Chalup said above, inexperience/starting film makers, or low budgets.

2. SyFy is pandering to a certain audience that likes the cheese. Because I don't necessarily see this sort of style on major networks.

Point 2 is one I hadn't considered, but is true. I mean we are talking about the makers of Sharknado!

 

They didn't make Sharknado, The Asylum did. SyFy just purchased it. Still, to your point, they purchased it knowing it was crap.

[ShadowDog]

The answer is probably already in this thread in the replies above. But I have two related thoughts.

 

1) Science Fiction is the least grounded storytelling because it's shit that isn't real in current day and age. So the mind has the hardest time accepting it and getting sucked into the story. The bar is much higher for SF than a court drama for example even though the court drama might depict stuff on screen far more unlikely to ever happen than aliens landing. It just literally takes one thing to throw you out of it.

 

2) A quote from this article: http://www.laweekly.com/film/stop-laughing-at-old-movies-you-anding-hipsters-5523746

 

"If this had been an opera, that wouldn't be a problem. Play audiences expect to use their imagination. As my former editor, theater critic Steven Leigh Morris, once told me, the difference between a play and a movie is an actor on a stage can say, “Hark, there lies the castle!” and get away with pointing to a cardboard box. Put that same moment onscreen, however, and the people in the seats expect to see some good-looking turrets and a drawbridge."

 

In the old days audiences were willing to collaborate with the filmmaker by using their imaginations to fill in the gaps. Now everything has to be spoonfed to the audience visually because CGI has robbed us of our imaginations.

[Stevil]

I'd argue that cgi has helped fuel imagination. But I understand your point.

[Driver]

I don't think cgi has ruined imagination, but yeah-- I get the point about the benchmark for the suspension of disbelief becoming higher and higher.

 

I'd say in terms of it contributing to bad looking scifi is that lower budget shows think cgi will fix all their problems and you end up with Babylon 5 syndrom where it's so disjointed it pulls you out.

[Stevil]

I don't think I could have gone on watching Defiance if the dodgy visuals form the start of series 1 continued. The first feature length episode was weird because it had really bad CG until the end. It seemed like they'd spent their whole budget on the battle with the Volge which was awesome.

 

Visuals are well polished and look great in it now though. I'd say after about episode 3 you started to notice a difference.

[UK Legend Killa]

Generally Sci-Fi shows don't have a broad appeal, won't bring in high ratings and so always run a risk of cancellation. Networks don't want to pour money into shows that they may cancel after a season or two so they won't. Therefore there is less money to spend on props, sets and all of the fancy trappings that go with it.

 

I do hope HBO go all in on a Sci-Fi show one day. They have shown that fantasy type show's can work with Game of Thrones if you make them good enough (of course Mr Martin also has something to do with that too!). I think if you had said to any network five years ago we're going to make something which has dragons, a bit of magic and rolls along like a fantasy version of The West Wing with it's dialogue and pacing, you would have been hard pushed to get anybody to believe it would work

[Driver]

That's an interesting conundrum, because if you look at the top grossing movies of all time, the vast majority of the list are scifi films, or at the very least have scifi elements. Why those numbers don't translate to ongoing, well made successful space operas on TV is a mystery.

 

That said, if Battlestar Galactica, Walking Dead and Game of Thrones can penetrate the mass media and be the same size hits as big network dramas, (which they are) I'm sure it can be done with a space show. BSG proved it-- it just fell off the rails and Caprica wasn't a satisfying follow up.

[Darth Lohr]

I loved the American version of Being Human, but almost never gave it a chance - and was shocked as hell that it was good - simply because it was on SyFy. Over the years, I've come to equate that station with cheese and low-budget B (or C!) grade shows and movies. In fact, I never watched a single episode of BSG when it was on the air largely because of the low expectations I've learned to have for anything shown on that station. Now, I realize that is not always the case, anymore. My enjoyment of Being Human encouraged me to try Bitten right off the bat and I was glad I did. I've retroactively enjoyed BSG and I keep thinking that one of these days, I'm going to give Lost Girl a shot. Still, as a whole, my expectations for any new show drop considerably if I learn it's on SyFy versus any other network.