The demolished man is of course brilliant sci-fi but also a great 'Noir' detective story. And you don't get a lot more Noir than Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Blade Runner.
Bad times for the High Concept? Page 2
Quote: Marc P @ January 14 2009, 9:29 AM GMTAnd you donpt get a lot more Noir than Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Blade Runner.
Another great one, and surprisingly different to the film. Which is also ace.
I think that the reason that sci-fi sitcoms may not to do so well or may not start at all is one of cost. It costs a lot of money to make a sitcom which may take a few years to become successful. A sci-fi sitcom would be even more costly because you have to make specialist sets, costumes, would probably have a load of special effects and so on.
Perhaps that is why the most successful sci-fi comedy of all time, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, best works on the radio. You don't need expensive sets. Just voice actors, sound effects and music.
BBC Radio 7 broadcasts quite a lot of sci-fi comedy shows in its "7th Dimension" slot, which is decidated to sci-fi, fantasy and horror. It includes a mixture of sci-fi and drama. At the moment, they are broadcasting adaptations of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels.
Some of Radio 7's "7th Dimension" shows include Undone (about parallel universes), The Spaceship, (about a space crew trying to find alien live), Space Hacks, (about journalists for an intergalatic news corporation) and Revenge of the Celebrity Mummies (a horror comedy set in the British Museum).
If you include historical comedy, then another BBC 7 show, The Penny Dreadfuls Present... would also count. That was one of my favourite shows of last year.
Quote: Matthew Stott @ January 14 2009, 9:34 AM GMTAnother great one, and surprisingly different to the film. Which is also ace.
I much prefered the film to the book (but that might have been because of Rutger Hauer 
). I really don't seem to like Sci-fi as literature but like it on film.
Quote: Dolly Dagger @ January 14 2009, 9:39 AM GMTI much prefered the film to the book (but that might have been because of Rutger Hauer
As with fantasy literature and episodes of Doctors you have to sort the wheat from the chaff - for every hundred or so Anne McDragon whatsernames there is a Guy Gavriel Kay or Altered Carbon.
Quote: Marc P @ January 14 2009, 9:29 AM GMTThe demolished man is of course brilliant sci-fi but also a great 'Noir' detective story. And you don't get a lot more Noir than Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Blade Runner.
Noir in looks, mainly. One of the big problems for me with Blade Runner the film is that it wants to be A Big Sleep/Maltese Falcon in the future, but it just doesn't have the labrynth plotting that those had. In fact, the plot is pretty non-existent. Sean Young's hot in it, though. And I love the Rutger Hauer speach at the end.
Quote: Griff @ January 14 2009, 9:57 AM GMTBut who killed the chauffeur?
It was his gay lover at the club they went to called the Pink Dahlia I think. He refused to wear the uniform or something.
Quote: chipolata @ January 14 2009, 9:55 AM GMTNoir in looks, mainly. One of the big problems for me with Blade Runner the film is that it wants to be A Big Sleep/Maltese Falcon in the future, but it just doesn't have the labrynth plotting that those had. In fact, the plot is pretty non-existent. Sean Young's hot in it, though. And I love the Rutger Hauer speach at the end.
THere is a debate whether, in film, Noir is a style or a genre. I have it as a Genre so Blade Runner fits in with me. Agree about the plotting in a sense, but that is not a noir feature just a Chandler one.
Quote: Marc P @ January 14 2009, 10:02 AM GMTTHere is a debate whether, in film, Noir is a style or a genre. I have it as a Genre so Blade Runner fits in with me. Agree about the plotting in a sense, but that is not a noir feature just a Chandler one.
And Dashel Hammett. Also to me, a film like Chinatown is the ultimate noir film, with a morally ambiguous protagonist, an impossibly complex story and a bleak ending. LA Confidential is a good example of a more recent version, although the ending is a bit to upbeat for my liking.
Was Hammett as complicated as CHandler - I will have to re-visit!
Library for me later.
Quote: Marc P @ January 14 2009, 10:12 AM GMTWas Hammett as complicated as CHandler - I will have to re-visit!
Library for me later.
Why are you capitalising some of your SEcond letters?
I am a bad wRiter.
Quote: Marc P @ January 14 2009, 10:21 AM GMTI am a bad wRiter.
Perhaps it's like Flowers for Algernon, and you're just reverting back to your natural state? 
Quote: Godot Taxis @ January 14 2009, 12:48 AM GMTSure thing, Mr. B. I had in mind 1984, The war of the worlds and Brave new World, but it could equally be Tiger, Tiger, Ubik and say Flow My Tears the Policemen Said. I'd have to move a few plays and a copy of Razzle to see them though. I'm also playing Fallout 3 at the moment, if it helps.
Good choices, sir. And dear God, how good is Fallout 3? I'm going through a second run, this time playing a bad gal. I just nuked a small town on the behalf of some seedy guy I met in a bar then went wandering into the desert where I found a crashed flying saucer with a crazy alien space gun. Also, I aggregated some industrial action ballot figures and contacted the regional college principals with the results. See if you can guess which of these exciting adventures took place in my real life.
Quote: chipolata @ January 13 2009, 4:11 PM GMTI bow to Lee's greater knowledge of the industry, but I still would think for a new writer, it's easier to sell a high-concept idea than trying to flog the latest flatshare office-based sitcom etc.
I'm only going off what I've been told by people in the industry (including a commissioner). High concept shows, including sci-fi, are seen as a risky undertaking. And if that risky undertaking comes from an untested writer, it's doubly-risky. So in effect you're asking a commissioner to write a cheque for a million quid on a 50-1 outsider, when he could go for a 5-1 favourite. Sometimes it happens, but generally this is why flatshare / family-related sitcoms get made. Because everyone can relate to them.
However the US are making huge strides in high concept programming. Just look at the amount of paranormal / sci fi stuff that's being pumped out there. Supernatural, Lost, Heroes, Star Trek, Dead Like Me, Reaper, Pushing Daisies, Stargate etc etc. People do love a bit of escapism, which has been proven with the the enormous success of Doctor Who. So who knows, maybe commissioners will start taking more leaps of faith when it comes to high concept comedy, but at the moment you're hamstringing yourself as a new writer by putting up walls. A lesson painfully learned.
Quote: Lee Henman @ January 14 2009, 11:17 AM GMTA lesson painfully learned.
I'll say. Don't worry, Lee, one day they'll learn, then we'll destroy them all. With laughter. And guns. Huge guns.