[KJ]

Lets not kid ourselves. Both Richard Hatch's and Bryan Singer and Tom DeSanto's Galactica revivals would have been far more darker in tone and gritter than the classic series. But i doubt a more up to date series needs to be more realistic in order to be taken seriously though?

Today you have shows like C.S.I., 24, Alias, Bones, Prison Break and The Sopranos. But realistic are they really when most of their themes in the series are overblown elements from the real world, i.e. the police in the crime labs solving more crimes than LT Columbo ever did, counter terrorism agents who are more like James Bond saving the world, superspies with attitude, morgue cops who solve crimes within the episode's 50 minute run time, prisoners smarter than an entire state full of law enforcement trying to recapture them and of course gangsters who have killed so many people you wonder why the police haven't thrown out the book and arrested them all anyhow.

While today's shows come across as more realistic due to their settings and have a more grounded approach to them. They are basically TV shows with the usual mundane elements of a series thats just exaggerated and given huge storyarcs made for you to tune in again the following week. They aren't any more realistic than say show of their kind from two decades ago. The dramatic acting and styles have improved from previous generations and so has the way a show is developed and produced etc.

Its the way society has changed thats made television develop along side it in order to adapt to our current present standards of excellence. You're more awares of whats makes good television, acting and drama etc. And to be honest, every genre needs an update with a new approach sooner or later. Sci-fi gave us Star Trek and Lost In Space, shows that dealt with exploration in deep space, years later people wanted deeper stuff with more drama thus we got Babylon 5 and Deep Space 9 set on a space stations and they were certainly more "soap opera" driven with the usual sci-fi trappings etc which only furthered the concepts that came before as an all round production. Shows after B5 were all storyarc 5 year sci-fi TV shows that had set storylines (Earth Final Conflict, Odyssey 5, Final Wave, Andromeda) and have all since then become less episodic television shows and everything is "season based" around particular storyarcs etc. Shows like Firefly and Farscape came along later with more attention thrown on the characters and characterizations rather than the show's whacky sci-fi concepts and action sequences.

See the patterns?

Times and people change along with their society and they way we all develop, and how television as a market changes and develops as well. Films these days are more sequel and remake driven, perhaps cos hollywood's truly run out of ideas. But sooner or later that'll change too.

When this so-called grounded, realistic, gritty and darker TV concepts run dry of ideas and TV concepts for a show on cable and whatnot. The map will change again to suit whatever comes along next. And perhaps we will all see a return to the more fantasy driven and imaginative exploration of lighter and moe optimistic television shows of the previous generations.

Perhaps writers of today feel less imaginative thus everything they write is more grounded. But that doesn't mean a more grittier approach is better 100% of the time. Its certainly refreshing though, cos we're now seeing thing happen on TV and cable/satellite that we didn't see long ago (Think "HBO" televison) thats give you a fresh perspective on situations from real life events that TV producers are trying to capture on their shows. But even these so-called realistic shows have fantasy elements cos television is based in drama and dramatic peformances. And drama isn't 100% realistic no matter which way you slice it, things are hyped up, changed and altered to exaggerate things from real life for entertainment purposes.

And in that, even the realistic gritty shows of today have there failings.

KJ