You need good characters to make a good show regardless of the setting, and also to help the viewers relate to the “big” stuff going on around them.
Don’t get me wrong, I think I like the stuff you like. I’d happily watch a documentary about all the made up technology and new science & life they discover, with zero need for conflict or personal growth or “feelings” or whatever. But that wouldn’t be the TV show, which is experienced largely through the eyes of the crew.
I like scifi. I like to explore the strange and push past the walls of reality. I like dangerous visions. Big ideas.
But interpersonal drama, identity-stroking and, yes, politics. It’s just weak and boring. It’s small. Damn small.
Do you see the difference?
Unfortunately the majority of people prefer the small stuff so that’s who they write for.
Scifi will always be a niche culture.
This popular stuff is not scifi. It’s the old dumb crap dressed up in spaceships and aliens.
Sometimes startrek goes big. Sometimes it doesn’t.
politics is all-encompassing, it can be as big or as small as anything else
You need good characters to make a good show regardless of the setting, and also to help the viewers relate to the “big” stuff going on around them.
Don’t get me wrong, I think I like the stuff you like. I’d happily watch a documentary about all the made up technology and new science & life they discover, with zero need for conflict or personal growth or “feelings” or whatever. But that wouldn’t be the TV show, which is experienced largely through the eyes of the crew.