Could a TV show with realistic astronaut stuff be successful in the 90s?
- Thread starter CmdrShep2154
- Start date
Riain
Banned
An expanded space programme starting back in the 60s could provide for an interesting setting for TV drama in the 90s, but there would need to be a lot more space action than OTL. With a Space station, moon programme and regular launches there could be enough of a backdrop that a space drama could have various scenarios like a cop or hospital drama does.
As already mentioned, Apollo 13, the movie was made in 1995. So there is a market for intelligently made space drama, even if most of the action still takes place on Earth. I mean we from a storytelling standpoint, it would make no difference if the movie was about figuring out how to keep three astronauts alive in a crumbling spaceship or if it was about rescuing a handful of sailors stuck inside a malfunctioning submarine.
That being said, the 90's also gave us 'The hunt for Red October', 'Crimon Tide' and almost the rather terrible 'U-571'. So if the 1990's had a market for realistic hardcore technology driven drama under the sea, it could just as easily have a market for such drama above the atmosphere.
That being said, the 90's also gave us 'The hunt for Red October', 'Crimon Tide' and almost the rather terrible 'U-571'. So if the 1990's had a market for realistic hardcore technology driven drama under the sea, it could just as easily have a market for such drama above the atmosphere.
The short answer is no, probably not.
Your COPS example shows just how silly this objection is. Do you think that everything that a cop does is interesting, too? No, obviously not. Instead, they just edit the footage to only show stuff that viewers are interested in. The same would be true here. No one is demanding that you film every minute of a six-month voyage to Mars; that would be patently absurd. Instead, you can focus in on "interesting" moments and let the viewer draw a line between the dots you provide.
I think a "realistic" TV show about astronauts could be successful in the 1990s, but you would be better off eschewing a historical (or current) setting and making something up, so that you have more freedom of action. For instance, make a series about the first mission to Mars, like @Zheng He suggested. You can model it after some real plan, but since no one has actually gone to Mars no one can call you out for getting this or that wrong except for some of the details of Mars itself. This will probably make production cheaper (i.e., more likely to pay off).
marathag
Banned
So given what NASA was doing in the '90, what would they cover for a 22 hour season after the cool 'Right Stuff' era and Apollo arcs are done?
COPs
'These pants aren't mine officer! I don't know how drugs got in both front pockets --I put these pants on after I lost mine at a party'
and then the idiots sign the release forms, so everyone can laugh at what sad sacks they are in syndication, for decades
so you got to fiction things up to keep it interesting?
Might as well do Stargate and Farscape
Did you not pay attention to what I was saying? You don't do "Right Stuff" or "Apollo-era" arcs, because that's just going to make everything more expensive and difficult as you struggle to make it "realistic," much less try to capture the '80s or '90s. Instead, you focus on something that's plausible and made up, like a Mars mission in the future, and you can use things like fictional accidents (oh, this week they have to deal with a solar flare! Oh, this week they have to deal with depressurization!), interpersonal drama, and similar mechanisms to make things interesting. In other words, the same thing as any other show, only this time in space and somewhat accurate-looking.
I mean, look at the actual show that the OP cited as an example of a "realistic" astronaut show: For All Mankind. It takes place in a made-up alternate universe with a larger American space program. It doesn't just recapitulate NASA's actual history like it was a documentary mini-series...
And frankly, some of the stunts they pull would have no place in the real world. If a ship is in a lowly inclined lunar orbit, it's not going to change it to a polar orbit in order to check the poles, land and return. Even with safety margins, it simply wouldn't have enough fuel for such maneuvers.
hard sci fi ideas that could be used for tv drama.
1. kinetic energy weapons.
2. stealth nukes in orbit.
3. solar power satellites .
4. a bean stalk.
5. an orion.
6. terra-forming mars.
7. an oneil colony.
8. military conflict in space.
9. SDI
10 all the above.
my opinion, yeah, a good writing team can make that interesting.
1. kinetic energy weapons.
2. stealth nukes in orbit.
3. solar power satellites .
4. a bean stalk.
5. an orion.
6. terra-forming mars.
7. an oneil colony.
8. military conflict in space.
9. SDI
10 all the above.
my opinion, yeah, a good writing team can make that interesting.
marathag
Banned
So realistic, but completely fictional. Alt History has never done well in syndication till recently.
Not seeing the market for this in the '90s
_ For all Mankind_ has a million+ dollar budget per episode, and that's with today' super cheap to do CGI, and is still doing Apollo, after a fashion after losing to the USSR,
as task that here on this board is derided as fantasy without PoDs going back to the 1940s
_Above and Beyond_ had $2M/ep and that was with 1990s Dollars, when NSTC quality renders took a hundred+ Sun SPARCs ganged together to do it. And that's cheaper than ILM Modelwork.
_I dream of Jeannie_ isn't quite the level or realism that's being shot for, is it?
You're missing the point, again. It's not that the show should be alternate history, it's that being "realistic" doesn't mean just rehashing history for the Nth time. You can use creativity and originality to create a setting which is "realistic" (i.e., doesn't involve aliens or interstellar travel or anything like that, and is recognizably similar to the actual space program) while still being original and thus open-ended.
Also, you're bringing up cost, but ignoring the fact that there are plenty of ways to avoid having to do expensive CGI and still have a perfectly good show. For instance, the Mars ship could have spin gravity, ergo you can just use ordinary sets for all of the interior scenes. Or you could set your story in a Mars colony or a Moon base or the like, and thus be able to avoid using much if any CGI--maybe wires to simulate low gravity, but skipping that won't really raise too many hackles. This is basically what Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5 did, except that they were set in the standard interstellar future and involved more standard "sci-fi space battle"-type stuff, therefore ironically probably being more expensive than this show would be...
marathag
Banned
so Alternate History after all, if the Space Program is different from OTL. pretty much the definition of alternative History
Since you don't want that, you seem to want near future, and not talk about the past that gets you there.
OK, I guess.
Something that's not quite as out there as _Earth Two_
So a history where the Shuttles don't suck and kill Astronauts, as often, ok, but what make it Must Watch TV?
You ruled out aliens and such, since it has to be _realistic_, that rules out almost all the suggestions of Post#30
I like Space stuff.
But to most, it's really boring due to the speeds involved for the distance to travel anywhere, keeping with the realism of chemical propulsion , and any problems are likely to kill the crew, unlike Apollo 13 but more like all the other fatalities that happened with the Soviet and US programs
Istakills also isn't great TV
Uh, it could also be in the future. You know, like most sci-fi? Think The Martian, but as a TV show. That's definitely "different from OTL," but it's by no means an alternate history, because it's explicitly set in the future.
And you're the one who was objecting to alternate history, as "Alt History has never done well...until recently". My point was that you don't have to have alternate history to have a "realistic" show. What defines "realism," as I understand the OP to mean, is being set in our solar system (i.e., no interstellar travel), not having aliens, and having a space program that "looks like" the modern space program in some sense, i.e. space suits, chemically propelled spaceships, and the like. It doesn't mean that it's documentary-accurate in its presentation of what space is like or what spaceflight is like or anything like that. It's more of an aesthetic than anything else.
There are a lot of ways to elide those things or mine them for drama. As I said, you could set the show in a space colony or base of some kind--then you can use the time delay as an explanation of why certain things aren't possible (e.g., just getting help from Earth for the problem of the week) or to set up a major arc (e.g., there's an incoming ship that will arrive...eventually (i.e., at the finale) which could be good or bad) and it otherwise doesn't affect the show (since you don't have to spend six months to get from one side of the base to the other). Another way would be to set an episode or two on the ship in transit, then move on to the landing, as I also said earlier. Add some time clues, and the audience will grasp that several months have passed in the "real" world between the launch and landing, without you having to film every single boring moment.
Likewise, you can mine those sorts of deadly issues for drama. Oh no, there's a leak! Oh no, there's a meteor shower! Oh no this and that! Of course in the real world those might be more likely to be instantly deadly menaces, but given that this is Hollywood...well, television...a certain amount of dramatic license is to be expected. No one is expecting this to be a documentary series that ensures every single aspect is precisely what would happen in the real world.
Honestly, you're obviously just looking for reasons to dump on the idea even though a slight amount of thought and creativity would show that all of the "problems" you bring up are non-issues that a competent writing team or showrunner could easily work around or utilize for the show if they so desired. Of course a non-competent writing team or show runner would struggle, but they would struggle with a basic sitcom, so I'm not sure why that's an objection.
For example, here's a premise. It's 2063 (or whatever other future date you like). The governments of Earth have come together to build the International Mars Base as the first colony on the Red Planet. Then a nuclear war breaks out between the Atlantic Alliance and the Pacific Pact (or insert any other made-up names you want) and severs them from Earth. Now the crew has to struggle to survive, all while divided between the opposite sides of the war...and, although the war stopped any future launches to the Mars base, one last ship did manage to get out before everything went to hell. It's not clear which side it's on, though...or whether it has a side.
See? This exploits "realism" for dramatic purposes (the long flight times mean that the one last ship can be a season-long arc, for instance), but by focusing on a colony and a lot on interpersonal drama between the personnel of the base most of the show can take place on interior sets without wire work, i.e. "cheap". Even the exterior shots can probably dispense with CGI, models, or any other sophisticated special effects for the most part. It's set in the future, and in a place that's enough of a cultural zeitgeist that you don't really have to explain except in broad strokes "how we got here," much less have to recapitulate the space program since 1957. So no problems with having to get people to understand alternate history. There's plenty of hooks for interesting A plots involving the colony having some issue and then having to deal with it somehow or another, and B plots involving Atlantic Alliance (i.e., American and European) personnel and Pacific Pact (i.e., Asian) personnel having tension between each other. There's no reason that this couldn't be a perfectly successful show.
Also, all of the suggestions of Post #30 are realistic, it's just that they're not really premises (except for #9, which has obviously been the foundation of many successful TV shows). #3, 4, 6, and 7 could be used to create an interesting show, but you would need more than just "a space elevator" or whatever. It would have to be "let's look at the operating team of the space elevator" or something of that sort.
Six feet under was about funeral agents and it was a multi season hit.
With good writing, acting, directing and producing you can make a show about everything.
What ruined "The right stuff" in comercial terms was that it's stayed true to its non fiction roots. They must have felt that "The book is so good the film will write itself".The film is remembered because of Sam Shepard coolness but there was little more for non space age fans.
With good writing, acting, directing and producing you can make a show about everything.
What ruined "The right stuff" in comercial terms was that it's stayed true to its non fiction roots. They must have felt that "The book is so good the film will write itself".The film is remembered because of Sam Shepard coolness but there was little more for non space age fans.
marathag
Banned
So not all that different from the _Mars_ set in the 2030s, by National Geographic , less the modern documentary cutin stuff- and no nuclear war, that would doom any Mars Base, since it's 'not realistic' for a self sufficient Mars Base 30 years from now, or 70 from 1990s
So like _Voyage to the Planets and Beyond_from the BBC or _Defying Gravity_ from ABC/CTV and BBC, that was sold as 'Grey's Anatomy... In Space!'
The latter had such poor ratings ABC didn't finish airing the 1st season
As I pointed out, "realism" in this case is more of an aesthetic than a fact. We're not making a documentary, we're making a TV show, so we're allowed to fudge things a bit so that we have a good premise. Again, the OP's example is For All Mankind, which you can pick to pieces in half a dozen ways if you want; but it looks like a real space program and it stays relatively grounded (no aliens or FTL travel or so on and so forth), so it's "realistic".
What's going to pull in the non-space fans is the same thing that pulls non-space fans into any show: good writing, good characters, good direction. If you have that, then you can make a show about anything and make it popular (as pointed out in the post you quoted, "Six Feet Under" is ostensibly about morticians, but it was very popular. Every sitcom ever is about "some random family doing ordinary family things"). If you don't, then your show is going to fail no matter what.