Why are space operas not on Television anymore?

[Gurgeh]

Back in the 1990s/2000s shows like: Star Trek, Babylon 5, Farscape, Stargate, Firefly, Andromeda, Battlestar Galactica were on all the time. Now in the 2010s those types of shows are never on. Why? What happened to the good old days of space opera tv series?

[simbob4000]

I'm thinking Firefly (Fox also did Space: Above and Beyond before that) was the death knell for those on network TV (don't think one of the network ones went beyond their first season). I'm also thinking we likely got so many sci-fi shows like that because of the prequels.

Maybe some network will try again if this new crop of movies does well.

[Toreador]

Cost is probably the biggest reason compared to its ratings. BSG was expensive to make, Firefly had a poor ratings/cost ratio, SciFi channel needed a partner to finance Farscape and when they pulled out SciFi pulled to plug on Farscape. SGU didn't pull the ratings that the previous Stargate shows and Caprica killed the BSG franchise reboot.

Reality shows and sit-coms bring in the biggest bucks per cost which the networks are focusing on nowadays.

[Professor Moriarty]

prime time networks only want cop shows.

[Carabas]

Space operas have always been a very expensive genre that goes in and out of style periodically.
Disney supposedly is still wanting to do a Star Wars live action thing on tv.

[pro]

The alien fat lady stopped singing.

[Vakanai]

I was thinking about this the other day. As good as the new Star Trek films are, I'd rather not see another Trek film for the next decade or two if it means I get a good TV series out of the deal. It just works better as a series, linear storytelling, new explorations every episode. It just works.

[PretenderNX01]

I think there's not room for too many types of TV shows unfortunately, people go through trends.

There were tons of westerns in the 50s and 60s, the 70s and 80s had "back in the old days" type shows like Happy Days and Winder Years to way back in the day like Waltons and Little House on the Prarie. Then I guess it was all space as you pointed out in the 90s/00s and now it's all cops and clinics

Still even then, you had a Star Trek here and there.

[Lois]

Also think cost might be a part of it why they're not so much on TV anymore.
Seems to me that reality shows are a lot more popular these days.
Would love to see a space opera back on the small screen. *sigh*

[Crimson Knight]

Also think cost might be a part of it why they're not so much on TV anymore.
Seems to me that reality shows are a lot more popular these days.
Would love to see a space opera back on the small screen. *sigh*

Could Star Wars: The Clone Wars be counted as space opera? I wouldn't say so, as most of these sound like shows on space stations, ships, all that, whereas TCW couldn't necessarily be, but it, and perhaps Daniel Craig starring sci-fi Defiance, are all that come to mind for me.

[simbob4000]

I'm pretty sure there are a number of shows on with bigger budgets than most of those sci-fi shows. Farscape didn't have all that big of a budget from what I remember.

[JasonTodd428]

I would guess that it comes down to cost and ratings plus these things go in cycles anyway just like everything else does. I would really like to see shows like that again though. I miss Farscape, Babylon 5, Andromeda, and Star Trek.

[Carabas]

Could Star Wars: The Clone Wars be counted as space opera?

Clone Wars is absolutely space opera, but it's not live action, which is what the OP seemed tp have in mind.

[Wedge Antilles]

I guess all the "operas" have been brought to medieval times?

I think part of it is the difficulty in establishing what technology would be in use once humans start traveling through space as routinely as we fly on planes today. Star Trek TNG and Enterprise, just over a decade ago, seems like it's off from what we've evolved to today.

[pro]

I think part of it is the difficulty in establishing what technology would be in use once humans start traveling through space as routinely as we fly on planes today. Star Trek TNG and Enterprise, just over a decade ago, seems like it's off from what we've evolved to today.

I think this becomes increasingly more difficult. Technology was developing much slower 40, even 20 years ago. Developments will become even faster when AI becomes reality and they start taking over research developments. It becomes increasingly difficult to predict what the world will look like in say 100 years, let alone 500 years from now. The very nature of what it's like to be human will likely change in the next few hundred years.

This is also an issue with a new Star Trek series set a hundred years after TNG for example. What will that world be like by then?
In the modern Star Trek series we've seen AI, holographic people, teleporter mishaps that resulted in copies of people, holodeck personalities that are every bit as real as physical people.
Unless a great war set back or stopped technological developments Star Trek a hundred years after TNG would most likely have a crew that includes copies of people long dead, holographic personell, AI captains and more.
Red shirts? Teleport a copy of a person down to the planet. If he dies you send another copy. If that's too unappetizing a thought send a hard light hologram. Or an android.

I think a series like Fallen Skies has an opportunity to become a space opera when earth is liberated and humanity joins the galactic war. But I think most space operas will hav to include some sort of setback from which technological developments can regrow. Otherwise what we can do today and what we will likely be able to accomplish in the near future makes what the world will look like a hundred years from now just too unpredictable.

Star Wars deals with things a little diffently. It seems in the Star Wars galaxy there is a technological stagnancy for thousands of years. Technological developments reached a peak and then plateau'd and for the most part stayed more or less the same since the old Republic days.
But then this is a Space Opera that isn't directly linked to our own technological developments today.

So maybe there lies the solution: don't set a space opera in our own universe but rather one that has nothing to do with our modern day world.