Sci-Fi Tv

Kathryn Watson

ENG 3073, sec. 01

Genre TV vs. Reality

Sadly, the days of scripted television may soon be gone. Reality programming is rapidly consuming much of today's entertainment. One of the genres that is taking the reality hit the hardest is the sci-fi/supernatural genre. Shows in this category are th polar opposite of reality TV and are suffering for it. More networks are letting go of quality escapism and are instead churning out cookie cutter versions of reality. The sci-fi/supernatural genre is the purest form of escapism in programming. Isn't that what television was mean for, to escape everyday life (reality) and journey into a fantasy world of hopes, dreams, heroes

and happiness?

Shows like Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, Tru Calling, and even soaps like Port Charles, and Passions could all be put into the Sci-fi/supernatural genre. In this genre there is always a conflict between good and evil, with the roles usually clear. The protagonist is the "good" trying to save the world from the "evil" by either fighting or using some spell. There is also always a hero, and this person lets the viewer believe that there can still be good in the world, someone to save humanity. Unlike reality TV the situations in these shows are purely fictional, things that could never happen in real life. Even the premiss of most of them is laughable; Angel's protagonist is a vampire in LA (with a soul, no less), Buffy is a vampire slayer (hence the title), Charmed has three witch sisters that battle the underworld every week and still have normal lives, Tru Calling has Tru rewinding days to save people who were at one time corpses she was working on in the morgue. The ideas sound silly, but the quality of the storylines and the morals, based solely on the battle between good and evil, is much higher than that of any other genre (especially reality, which has no morals).

It's not that these types of shows aren't getting ratings, Angel was the only program on the WB with a ratings hike on it's last season. People get connected to these shows, there were so many "Save Angel" campaigns and "Save Tru" campaigns. It's doubtful that there will ever be a "Save Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire" campaign. The audience connects more with these shows because there is an ongoing interest in the characters. In reality TV there are new characters at least every season if not more often than that, the viewer has no time to get connected to the characters or the storyline.

Regretfully, because of reality TV being the preference, these shows barely get a fighting chance lately. Tru Calling was a redundant show for most of it's first season, someone dies and Tru goes back to save them. Until Jason Preistly came in with the same powers, but used them to keep the people dead. This totally shook up all of the assumptions of the protagonist being the "good," blurring the lines of good and evil. This was a great plot twist and had it been revealed earlier than the last two episodes of the first season, maybe Tru Calling would have made it to a second (and more enticing) season. The show was cut show while filming the sixth episode of the second season, no doubt to make room for some new "reality gem" from FOX.

The Blurring of good and evil is something that reality Tv does have. There's never a pure good vs. pure evil conflict, the producers and editors may want people to think there is by editing people into a role, but what is good or evil is never determined because real life isn't like that. In real life, everyone has a bit of both, a synergy between good and evil. In the sci-fi

shows when the line is blurred, once the smoke clears it is still "this