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Your Top Five/Ten Sci-Fi Plot Cliches
Thursday, 22nd January 2009, 17:09

ChangesPosted by Mark Oates on 22-1-2009 17:09

In the same spirit as Sue's discussion about humour:

I've been thinking about sci-fi tv shows like Star Trek (all versions), Battlestar Galactica (1978 original), Space:1999, Bab 5, Farscape, etc. and I started thinking that so often these shows fall into a rut where they recycle each others' plots (cunningly disguised, of course). As a f'rinstance, I refer you to the intelligent rocks to be found in both Classic Trek and S99 (Fred Freiberger being a lazy writer in the second).

Any fellow nerds/geeks/discerning connoisseurs of speculative fiction care to discuss?

Aythangew.

Comments on this Item

ChangesPosted by Stuart McLean on 24-1-2009 22:36

Hmmm...I recently watched S1 of The X-Files and noted an episode that could be considered more than a mere homage to the Star Trek episode 'The Trouble with Tribbles'. Unless I was dreaming. Entirely possible of course.

ChangesPosted by Mark Oates on 25-1-2009 04:04

There's an S99 Series 1 episode "Alpha Child" where Cyd Hayman has the first baby on Moonbase Alpha and it grows up inside of a week into Julian Glover in a really unmanly silver romper suit. The same basic storyline (only the kid grows up into an ethereal life form) cropped up as one of the spec scripts for Star Trek Phase II and finally got made as a Star Trek TNG episode (The Child, I think) where Deanna Troy wound up up the duff.

ChangesPosted by Si Wooldridge on 25-1-2009 11:16

I'm pretty sure that the S1 X-Files episode about the computer-controlled building was ripped from an episode of the New Avengers. Not sure I remember the Tribbles one though...

ChangesPosted by Stuart McLean on 25-1-2009 19:02

Ah! Si - that was it. Not the New Avengers thing ....more the HAL in 2001.

Yes ...nothing new sadly.

I remember reading a really great short sci-fi story once that was such a good idea that I felt sure it MUST have been done before / since. It started with a man building a time machine and the first few pages are the account of his first try at using it. What happens is he decides to just go back in time five minutes to start with. What followed was all the text from the previous few pages...in an endless loop. Great idea for a Twilight Zone episode...

Re: Bablyon 5 etc ...though I really enjoy(ed) it, imho it was really more a soap/drama than anything else. It just happened to be staged aboard a floating space station. I never saw Farscape / Stargate and actually never really enjoyed Star Trek after the original series. It seemed to become something else. However, I really enjoyed the revisit to BG....very bleak but certainly addictive.

It's a genre that seems to still have plenty of mileage in it....

ChangesPosted by Si Wooldridge on 26-1-2009 19:46

I'm a huge fan of B5 and I think the new BSG is the closest that's come to it with quality plot arcs, although I'm not convinced that some of the BSG arcs were planned as far in advance as the B5 ones...

Really wanting to see where the final half season of BSG is going, first episode last week was slow burning but worth it.

ChangesPosted by Curtis Owen on 4-6-2009 23:00

I love Sci Fi cliches, when there done right! I've got a great cutting from a magazine, "Things that always happen in Star Trek'', its a very funny article.

He's an example, 'The karate-chop defeats all' - An armed man will be dispatched with a single blow. If a fight with a more important character is on the cards, exactly four moves are all that is required for a sweaty Captian Kirk to emerge triumphant.

The original Star Trek is great for embracing cliches!

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Your Top Five/Ten Sci-Fi Plot ClichesThursday, 22nd January 2009, 17:09