The good news is that science fiction and fantasy themes are beginning to pick up on British television. They never went away, just deluged native content with US imports. The vibrant literary scene was never translated into television.
The bad news is that this trend incoporates too many remakes. Aware of the popularity of the fantastic, the economics of production look to secure an experimental medium by reproducing successes from the past or in other media. Thus, we have a summer of spectacular blockbusters that trot one superhero after another, as the stylistic honour of Ditko or John Romita Jr fall prey to the limited bombast of CGI. We have seen livelier versions of computer games and a cycle of revisionism veering towards adult oriented remakes. The new Dr Who could be gay, with a spin-off series: Torchwood, where the leader is gay, and the cast are Welsh (the black sheep of the Dr Who stable?); and, a politically sophisticated new series of Battlestar Galactica.
The announcement that there is a new series of Blake's 7 does not surprise. Dark outlaw space opera has been picked up by Sky One for a six episode series, and two pilot scripts have been commissioned. The series is positioned in the artficial conflict of good CGI versus good storytelling.
Pyke told SFcrowsnest.com, “At a time when science fiction shows often
discard good story-telling for overblown visual effects - and following
the lead of Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica - the time is ripe for
a revival of a show that represents the best traditions of the genre,
not to mention one of the best-loved and most successful dramas of all
time."
Has any recent space opera fallen into this trap? If you take a list of recent science fiction series on television: Star Trek, Babylon 5, Serenity, Charlie Jade, Lexx, Stargate and Farscape, good story-telling has not been discarded for visual effects. Being a fanboy, this list shows that the genre has thrived and improved on a mixture of auteur vision, the strengths of collective storywriting and improving technology for special effects.
Welcome to a remake but new series are better.