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selenakOnce upon a time, when all things Star Trek were (mostly) the only game in town, the difference between space ship settings and space station settings seemed mostly amount to: a space ship setting lends itself more to episodic tv, meeting new characters and worlds every week, with the episodes being self contained and thus able to be watched in whatever order, whereas a space station setting favoured more intense and long time depiction of fewer (but detailed) cultures, when it came to the big picture, as well as ongoing relationship developments (when it came to the regular cast).
And certainly that’s true at first glance if you pit TOS versus DS9, but even if it’s TNG vs DS9, which is what more regularly happens, it only works up to a point, not least because you certainly couldn’t swap, say, a season 6 TNG episode with a season 2 TNG episode in terms of crew relations (and not just because of the presence of Dr. Pulaski in season 2).
But even in the 80s and early 90s, Star Trek wasn’t alone. DS9 would not have existed (infamously, causing a part of the fandoms to battle each other for years, which I always found exceedingly silly, since I love both shows) if Babylon 5 hadn’t been pitched by JMS first, and B5’s space station setting is inextricably linked to the weay the show changed tv history by being the first true arc show, managing to achieve its „novel on television“ aim. The story B5 tells, with its multiple interweaving storylines which, however, at times never intersect but run parallel, with its cast of whom only a third or so are humans serving in this universe’s space fleet, whereas the others are non-humans whose goals and stories directly relate to their individual worlds of origin and its politics as well as to the overall narrative – that story could not have been told if the main location was a human-commanded (or, for that matter, Minbari/Centauri/Narn-commanded) space ship.
Otoh, it’s worth pointing out a factor that shouldn’t be discounted: part of the viewership tuning in for a sci fi series or movie wants their fan service in the form of space battles. Shows with a space station setting have more trouble finding justification for these than shows with a space ship setting. Which is why DS9 aquired the Defiant in season 3 (and, of course, both the Dominion and for a season the Klingon war). B5 always had the Shadow War planned and coming, but there was a season and a half (or two seasons, depending whether you see the beginning of the Shadow War as Coming of Shadows (i.e. the Centauri/Narn war starts) or the s2 finale (complete with sledgehammer Chamberlain quote) of build up to go through first, and you can tell there was a struggle to placate the (either actual or presumed) demand for space ship battles before that. The pirate stories of season 1 are one case in point, and the other, notoriously, the character of space pilot Warren Keefer, who solely exist because the network pressured JMS to include a hotshot pilot (with hotshot pilot space battles) in the cast and was killed off by JMS ignominously as soon as he could.
One show that influenced B5’s creator, and would go on influencing subsequent shows such as Farscape and to a lesser degree the rebooted Battlestar Galactica, was Blake’s 7, which in itself via its depiction of a fascist Federation (with a symbol that’s the same as Star Trek’s Federation, just turned into another direction) was the first of many shows pitched as „the anti-Trek“. Its most important legacy when it comes to the space station vs space ship setting stories, I’d argue, was something else. Blake’s 7 needs to be set on a space ship not because its characters are explorers but because they are on the run; because they are a mixture of resistance fighters and criminals living in a fascist dystopia. This means they do often encounter different people each week, but they’re also in a long term narrative where the goal varies between fighting the regime and mere survival; there are long term villains (not solely the system itself, but individual representatives), and because crew relations are developing, you can’t easily change the episode order anymore (though in some cases you could, and it happened – maybe I’m misremembering, but I think some s4 episodes got swapped which means Soolin is more familiar with the rest of the gang, then again more distant?). Lastly, while a lot of unplanned external factors dictated how the unfolding B7 story developed – Gareth Thomas‘ decision to return to the RSC after two seasons being the most important one, leading to a change of leading man not by recast but by promoting an existing regular to that role, which in turn meant the show had to come up with an explanation as to why that new lead character, Kerr Avon, didn’t simply do what he had spent two seasons declaring he’d do were he in charge of the ship, i.e., use it to make money and be safe from the Federation - , the result, once the show had finished with its back then unprecedented shocker ending, looked like a completed narrative arc with the Blake/Avon relationship at its core.
Now, if you look at post B5/DS9 shows set on space ships, the old „space ship setting = episodic tv sans arc“ assumption doesn’t really hold true anymore. Not even for Voyager, depite the (not unjustified) complaints o fit squandering the inherent tension in its „space ship isolated from all Federation worlds with the crew consisting of people who until the pilot fought each other“ by merging the Maquis and Starfleet personnel into one harmonious crew too soon and letting the crew encounter the same type of stories the Enterprise could have back in the Alpha Quadrant more often than survival stories, with the Voyager and its shuttles seemingly infinitely repairable despite not having access to Federation technology. Even in the first two seasons, which are the ones these complaints most related to, the relationships between regulars were developing and loathe it or like it, the Kazon & Seska arc meant there was an ongoing story.
The space ship show to truly break new ground in the 90s, though, was Farscape. Farscape with its „crew of criminals and rebels on the run in a universe ruled by a fascist regime“ premise directly hails from the B7 narrative tradition, and like B7, some of its most powerful narrative arcs which in retrospect work as if they were carefully planned out were, in fact, a matter of improvisation. (To wit: Scorpius implanting John Crichton with a neural clone of himself. It’s impossible to imagine Farscape without the consequences from this one plot decision, and yet the show’s writers swear it was a very late idea/retcon, occuring to them only mid-shooting of s2, not in s1 when the episode where it’s later revealed Scorpius did this actually happened.) There were many aspects that made Farscape feel like a breath of fresh air, not least that due to the show’s work with the Jim Henson factory, several of the aliens looked truly alien, not humanoid. (Frequent Farscape related dialogue when trying to win new viewers: „But – muppets!“ „The muppets will make you cry!“) There was also the fact that our leading man and human pov character, John Crichton, was not, in fact, the leader of the crew in-universe, but at first got treated as fish-out-of-water/fool. (This was new.) Farscape was anarchic in a way space ship set shows hadn’t been before in this regard as well as in others, making the leading couple’s UST RST in late s1 already without this resolving any of their relationship struggles, changing the original main antagonist to shade of grey supporting character of uncertain loyalties while promoting a new main antagonist (again, in late s1), revelling in the existence of bodily fluids of all types. (Back then, people used to joke that Star Trek characters never needed to pee – well, until First Contact; Farscape letting its characters vomit and fart all over the place is directly related.)
Another B7 hailing heritage was that the motley crew stuck with each other after the pilot at first doesn’t really like each other all that much, though even on the Liberator something as spectacularly cruel as what happens to Pilot by the hands of all but two of the other regulars mid s1 of Farscape would never have occured. (Well, not unless everyone was brainwashed, which they weren’t.) The friendships (and romantic relationships) that developed were works in progress, which, again, meant the episodes got less episodic the longer the show continued, along with the rise in prominence of the second (and most important for the overall show) main antagonist, Scorpius, and his unfolding schemes. This, in turn, also meant Farscape adopting something previously only associated with space station settings – to wit, alien internal politics dictating the overall plots a la B5.
Farscape‘s original antagonist, Captain Crais, was after John Crichton and the rest of the Moya crew for entirely personal reasons, and thus early FS could have its only direct "Crais versus Crichton" episode after the pilot and before the appearance of Scorpius utterly disconnected from any politcal story within the Unchartered Territories. Otoh Scorpius is after Crichton & Co because of the Peacekeeper/Scarran conflict whose literal embodiment he is, being a hybrid of both people courtesy of rape and abuse. The choice of Scorpius as main antagonist instead of Crais meant Farscape had found a way to have a space ship setting and a narrative involving detailed depiction of the kind of story previously told by space station shows, i.e. B5 and DS9.; the Peacekeeper/Scarran conflict finding ist resolution in the two part special that wrapped up the show post cancellation, The Peacekeeper Wars. Now, had the show remained strictly focused on Moya, it couldn’t have been done, but by the time season 3 rolled along, we had three main locations, Moya, Talyn and Scorpius‘ fleet ship.
The conclusion, that you can tell what is basically and epic with multiple storylines with a constantly moving location after all as long as it’s locations, plural (not one ship but several) also holds true for the rebooted Battlestar Galactica. With the caveat that its first season had not a station but a planet (Caprica) as a secondary location, and its third for its first six episodes another planet as its main location, New Caprica. Still, in totem, Batttlestar Galactica, 2003 version, was a space ships, very much plural, show, and one that followed one epic of ancient literature in particular, to wit, the Aeneid: after the destruction by conquest of their homeland, our heroes wander through various dangers and experience one period of seeming settlement which however is the wrong choice until they arrive at their destiny-ordained, well, destination and end up forming a new people with a nation they were previously in conflict with.
Ancient myths aside, BSG, of course, channelled a lot of other things as well – show creator Ron Moore’s Voyager related frustrations, the original Battlestar Galactica set up, post 9/11 American anxieties, among others. (And such simple things as good old fan service, see above. BSG did regularly serve up space battles.) Its original marketing made a big deal out of the fact that there would not be any aliens (with Edward Olmos, playing Adama, notoriously saying he’d be out of there if ever an alien showed up, because BSG wasn’t really Sci Fi, to which I say, Olmos, you were in Blade Runner, shut up with the sci fi bashing and be proud of same). But its very premise meant that, secondary locations such as season 1’s Helo plot line or season 3’s six-episode New Caprica arc aside, it really could only take place on various space ships on the move. If they truly found the „new home“ they set out seeking in the pilot, the story would be over. (As indeed it was.) The original BSG had characterized the Cylons as one dimensonal antagonists. They were there to be a constant threat. The new BSG used them as mainly as antagonists for the majority of the show as well, but by the choice of giving them a human shape, making one of its regulars a sleeper Cylon who didn’t know her true identity and was horrified when she found out and turning the other villain it inherited from the original BSG set up, Baltar, who in the first show had simply been an evil Machiavellian traitor, into a self serving egotastic failboat in over his head but not actually driven by malice who had a key relationship to another Cylon meant that even in s1, the Cylons were more complicated. By the time the show wrapped up, the majority of them had become co-protagonists rather than antagonists. Now, I’m not discussing how well or badly this was achieved; I’m just noting that again, this made for a long term development kind of tale and radical changes between start and end, the opposite of episodic tv.
Currently, the only sci fi show with a space setting I’m aware of is again a Star Trek one, the first ST in decades, ST: Discovery. It hasn’t finished its first season yet, but while has told stories where the central problem was solved within one episode (the second episode featuring Harry Mudd, for example), and has placed itself in the previously established STverse (post Enterprise, preTOS), it definitely seems to be going for a longer, multiple storylines narrative that tries to balance Utopian ideals (our heroine, Michael Burnham, in difficult situations post series pilot does not follow the „someone has to get their hands dirty“ principle that has become standard for tv’s antiheroes in the decades since the last ST was on the air but when faced with two bad alternatives tends to think up a third solution instead) with dystopian realities (the primary setting of the show so far was the Federation/Klingon war, and now the fascistic Mirrorverse as well).
A space station isn’t anywhere in sight. It’s hard not to intone in one’s best Londo Mollari voice: „..the last of the Babylon stations; there would not be another“. Because, it seems, creators have figured out how to marry space ship settings with space station narratives. But who knows? Maybe space station settings will one day make a comeback.
No one and nothing, after all, is gone forever.
The other days
And certainly that’s true at first glance if you pit TOS versus DS9, but even if it’s TNG vs DS9, which is what more regularly happens, it only works up to a point, not least because you certainly couldn’t swap, say, a season 6 TNG episode with a season 2 TNG episode in terms of crew relations (and not just because of the presence of Dr. Pulaski in season 2).
But even in the 80s and early 90s, Star Trek wasn’t alone. DS9 would not have existed (infamously, causing a part of the fandoms to battle each other for years, which I always found exceedingly silly, since I love both shows) if Babylon 5 hadn’t been pitched by JMS first, and B5’s space station setting is inextricably linked to the weay the show changed tv history by being the first true arc show, managing to achieve its „novel on television“ aim. The story B5 tells, with its multiple interweaving storylines which, however, at times never intersect but run parallel, with its cast of whom only a third or so are humans serving in this universe’s space fleet, whereas the others are non-humans whose goals and stories directly relate to their individual worlds of origin and its politics as well as to the overall narrative – that story could not have been told if the main location was a human-commanded (or, for that matter, Minbari/Centauri/Narn-commanded) space ship.
Otoh, it’s worth pointing out a factor that shouldn’t be discounted: part of the viewership tuning in for a sci fi series or movie wants their fan service in the form of space battles. Shows with a space station setting have more trouble finding justification for these than shows with a space ship setting. Which is why DS9 aquired the Defiant in season 3 (and, of course, both the Dominion and for a season the Klingon war). B5 always had the Shadow War planned and coming, but there was a season and a half (or two seasons, depending whether you see the beginning of the Shadow War as Coming of Shadows (i.e. the Centauri/Narn war starts) or the s2 finale (complete with sledgehammer Chamberlain quote) of build up to go through first, and you can tell there was a struggle to placate the (either actual or presumed) demand for space ship battles before that. The pirate stories of season 1 are one case in point, and the other, notoriously, the character of space pilot Warren Keefer, who solely exist because the network pressured JMS to include a hotshot pilot (with hotshot pilot space battles) in the cast and was killed off by JMS ignominously as soon as he could.
One show that influenced B5’s creator, and would go on influencing subsequent shows such as Farscape and to a lesser degree the rebooted Battlestar Galactica, was Blake’s 7, which in itself via its depiction of a fascist Federation (with a symbol that’s the same as Star Trek’s Federation, just turned into another direction) was the first of many shows pitched as „the anti-Trek“. Its most important legacy when it comes to the space station vs space ship setting stories, I’d argue, was something else. Blake’s 7 needs to be set on a space ship not because its characters are explorers but because they are on the run; because they are a mixture of resistance fighters and criminals living in a fascist dystopia. This means they do often encounter different people each week, but they’re also in a long term narrative where the goal varies between fighting the regime and mere survival; there are long term villains (not solely the system itself, but individual representatives), and because crew relations are developing, you can’t easily change the episode order anymore (though in some cases you could, and it happened – maybe I’m misremembering, but I think some s4 episodes got swapped which means Soolin is more familiar with the rest of the gang, then again more distant?). Lastly, while a lot of unplanned external factors dictated how the unfolding B7 story developed – Gareth Thomas‘ decision to return to the RSC after two seasons being the most important one, leading to a change of leading man not by recast but by promoting an existing regular to that role, which in turn meant the show had to come up with an explanation as to why that new lead character, Kerr Avon, didn’t simply do what he had spent two seasons declaring he’d do were he in charge of the ship, i.e., use it to make money and be safe from the Federation - , the result, once the show had finished with its back then unprecedented shocker ending, looked like a completed narrative arc with the Blake/Avon relationship at its core.
Now, if you look at post B5/DS9 shows set on space ships, the old „space ship setting = episodic tv sans arc“ assumption doesn’t really hold true anymore. Not even for Voyager, depite the (not unjustified) complaints o fit squandering the inherent tension in its „space ship isolated from all Federation worlds with the crew consisting of people who until the pilot fought each other“ by merging the Maquis and Starfleet personnel into one harmonious crew too soon and letting the crew encounter the same type of stories the Enterprise could have back in the Alpha Quadrant more often than survival stories, with the Voyager and its shuttles seemingly infinitely repairable despite not having access to Federation technology. Even in the first two seasons, which are the ones these complaints most related to, the relationships between regulars were developing and loathe it or like it, the Kazon & Seska arc meant there was an ongoing story.
The space ship show to truly break new ground in the 90s, though, was Farscape. Farscape with its „crew of criminals and rebels on the run in a universe ruled by a fascist regime“ premise directly hails from the B7 narrative tradition, and like B7, some of its most powerful narrative arcs which in retrospect work as if they were carefully planned out were, in fact, a matter of improvisation. (To wit: Scorpius implanting John Crichton with a neural clone of himself. It’s impossible to imagine Farscape without the consequences from this one plot decision, and yet the show’s writers swear it was a very late idea/retcon, occuring to them only mid-shooting of s2, not in s1 when the episode where it’s later revealed Scorpius did this actually happened.) There were many aspects that made Farscape feel like a breath of fresh air, not least that due to the show’s work with the Jim Henson factory, several of the aliens looked truly alien, not humanoid. (Frequent Farscape related dialogue when trying to win new viewers: „But – muppets!“ „The muppets will make you cry!“) There was also the fact that our leading man and human pov character, John Crichton, was not, in fact, the leader of the crew in-universe, but at first got treated as fish-out-of-water/fool. (This was new.) Farscape was anarchic in a way space ship set shows hadn’t been before in this regard as well as in others, making the leading couple’s UST RST in late s1 already without this resolving any of their relationship struggles, changing the original main antagonist to shade of grey supporting character of uncertain loyalties while promoting a new main antagonist (again, in late s1), revelling in the existence of bodily fluids of all types. (Back then, people used to joke that Star Trek characters never needed to pee – well, until First Contact; Farscape letting its characters vomit and fart all over the place is directly related.)
Another B7 hailing heritage was that the motley crew stuck with each other after the pilot at first doesn’t really like each other all that much, though even on the Liberator something as spectacularly cruel as what happens to Pilot by the hands of all but two of the other regulars mid s1 of Farscape would never have occured. (Well, not unless everyone was brainwashed, which they weren’t.) The friendships (and romantic relationships) that developed were works in progress, which, again, meant the episodes got less episodic the longer the show continued, along with the rise in prominence of the second (and most important for the overall show) main antagonist, Scorpius, and his unfolding schemes. This, in turn, also meant Farscape adopting something previously only associated with space station settings – to wit, alien internal politics dictating the overall plots a la B5.
Farscape‘s original antagonist, Captain Crais, was after John Crichton and the rest of the Moya crew for entirely personal reasons, and thus early FS could have its only direct "Crais versus Crichton" episode after the pilot and before the appearance of Scorpius utterly disconnected from any politcal story within the Unchartered Territories. Otoh Scorpius is after Crichton & Co because of the Peacekeeper/Scarran conflict whose literal embodiment he is, being a hybrid of both people courtesy of rape and abuse. The choice of Scorpius as main antagonist instead of Crais meant Farscape had found a way to have a space ship setting and a narrative involving detailed depiction of the kind of story previously told by space station shows, i.e. B5 and DS9.; the Peacekeeper/Scarran conflict finding ist resolution in the two part special that wrapped up the show post cancellation, The Peacekeeper Wars. Now, had the show remained strictly focused on Moya, it couldn’t have been done, but by the time season 3 rolled along, we had three main locations, Moya, Talyn and Scorpius‘ fleet ship.
The conclusion, that you can tell what is basically and epic with multiple storylines with a constantly moving location after all as long as it’s locations, plural (not one ship but several) also holds true for the rebooted Battlestar Galactica. With the caveat that its first season had not a station but a planet (Caprica) as a secondary location, and its third for its first six episodes another planet as its main location, New Caprica. Still, in totem, Batttlestar Galactica, 2003 version, was a space ships, very much plural, show, and one that followed one epic of ancient literature in particular, to wit, the Aeneid: after the destruction by conquest of their homeland, our heroes wander through various dangers and experience one period of seeming settlement which however is the wrong choice until they arrive at their destiny-ordained, well, destination and end up forming a new people with a nation they were previously in conflict with.
Ancient myths aside, BSG, of course, channelled a lot of other things as well – show creator Ron Moore’s Voyager related frustrations, the original Battlestar Galactica set up, post 9/11 American anxieties, among others. (And such simple things as good old fan service, see above. BSG did regularly serve up space battles.) Its original marketing made a big deal out of the fact that there would not be any aliens (with Edward Olmos, playing Adama, notoriously saying he’d be out of there if ever an alien showed up, because BSG wasn’t really Sci Fi, to which I say, Olmos, you were in Blade Runner, shut up with the sci fi bashing and be proud of same). But its very premise meant that, secondary locations such as season 1’s Helo plot line or season 3’s six-episode New Caprica arc aside, it really could only take place on various space ships on the move. If they truly found the „new home“ they set out seeking in the pilot, the story would be over. (As indeed it was.) The original BSG had characterized the Cylons as one dimensonal antagonists. They were there to be a constant threat. The new BSG used them as mainly as antagonists for the majority of the show as well, but by the choice of giving them a human shape, making one of its regulars a sleeper Cylon who didn’t know her true identity and was horrified when she found out and turning the other villain it inherited from the original BSG set up, Baltar, who in the first show had simply been an evil Machiavellian traitor, into a self serving egotastic failboat in over his head but not actually driven by malice who had a key relationship to another Cylon meant that even in s1, the Cylons were more complicated. By the time the show wrapped up, the majority of them had become co-protagonists rather than antagonists. Now, I’m not discussing how well or badly this was achieved; I’m just noting that again, this made for a long term development kind of tale and radical changes between start and end, the opposite of episodic tv.
Currently, the only sci fi show with a space setting I’m aware of is again a Star Trek one, the first ST in decades, ST: Discovery. It hasn’t finished its first season yet, but while has told stories where the central problem was solved within one episode (the second episode featuring Harry Mudd, for example), and has placed itself in the previously established STverse (post Enterprise, preTOS), it definitely seems to be going for a longer, multiple storylines narrative that tries to balance Utopian ideals (our heroine, Michael Burnham, in difficult situations post series pilot does not follow the „someone has to get their hands dirty“ principle that has become standard for tv’s antiheroes in the decades since the last ST was on the air but when faced with two bad alternatives tends to think up a third solution instead) with dystopian realities (the primary setting of the show so far was the Federation/Klingon war, and now the fascistic Mirrorverse as well).
A space station isn’t anywhere in sight. It’s hard not to intone in one’s best Londo Mollari voice: „..the last of the Babylon stations; there would not be another“. Because, it seems, creators have figured out how to marry space ship settings with space station narratives. But who knows? Maybe space station settings will one day make a comeback.
No one and nothing, after all, is gone forever.
The other days
no subject
Date: 2018-01-20 12:37 pm (UTC)On a more minor point - "That Old Black Magic" is actually the one and only episode which has Crais directly battling the crew between the pilot and Scorpius's introduction in "Nerve". There aren't any actual routine and self-contained "Crais tries to trap and destroy the heroes" eps.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-20 03:41 pm (UTC)another point regarding fanservice and space battles is the noticeable way that in both Babylon 5 and Deep Space 9 the heroes fail to avert a war in a manner that, cynically, can be read as the writers wanting their violent space war plotline while depicting the heroes as sympathetically reluctant to fight.
Well, there's that. I also always thought that Sheridan lamenting everyone is into the clarity of a war good vs evil scenario but not into the messiness of peacekeeping in later s5 was obvious author admission, especially since if JMS had gotten a fifth season guaranteed before finishing s4, the Earth Civil War would have been extended into s5.
In all fairness, though, I would say B5 laid its cards on the table from the get go (i.e. that a war would eventually happen), with all the foreshadowing in s1 (most obviously in Babylon Squared. Whereas with DS9 I'm more inclined to believe that doing a war storyline (and not in a way TNG had handled the Borg, i.e. a two parter at most, but as something extended) was something of a later decision, both because it hadn't been done in Trek before and because of the ratings. (That is to say, the Dominion war. The Klingon s4 storyline I'd classify as solely born out of the necessity of justifying Worf's transfer to DS9 on a Watsonian level.)
no subject
Date: 2018-01-20 03:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-20 05:07 pm (UTC)But a lot of fans are contrasting it with discovery and saying orville is more like real star trek and what they seem to mean by that is that orville has a white male lead.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-20 05:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-20 11:10 pm (UTC)I actually rejected the ST reboot on the grounds that it made everything including TOS alternate universe. I regard it as another AU which I didn't feel interested enough in to watch more of. Not to mention the sodding lens flares.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-20 09:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-20 10:41 pm (UTC)(And even by the latest book, people in authority are still going, "Oh, those guys? I forgot they existed.")
no subject
Date: 2018-01-21 09:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-27 01:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-21 09:04 am (UTC)Or blend them - Killjoys has a spaceship setting (Lucy), a space station setting (the RAC) and a planetside setting (Westerly, mostly) and uses elements of each type of narrative on a regular basis.