The Cassutt Files
The Canon, Part 2

One of my all-time favorite sci-fi books is The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. 1, edited by Robert Silverberg, originally published in 1970 and recently reprinted both in hardcover (Tor 2003) and in paperback. What a treasure trove it is—15 of the best SF stories of all time (at least, up to the mid-1960s), as voted by the members of the Science Fiction Writers of America.

The list includes Asimov's "Nightfall," John W. Campbell's "Twilight," Bradbury's "Mars Is Heaven" and Heinlein's "The Roads Must Roll," as well as Tom Godwin's "The Cold Equations" and Jerome Bixby's "It's a Good Life". These stories are the core of the sci-fi prose canon.

As with the selection of four novels by Philip K. Dick for inclusion in the Library of America, publication in a book like the Hall of Fame—or in one of the Norton anthologies, for mainstream work—is important because it gives us standards by which we judge later works, and plain old common ground. Conversations about fiction are a lot more productive when the participants know the same stories.

The same need exists in conversations about, or judgments of, the success of sci-fi television. Hence our two-part examination of the Sci-fi TV canon.

Now ... what programs that aired after 1970 should belong in the canon?

The first challenge is recalling that for most sci-fi viewers, the 1970s were a dark age—at least as far as prime-time network series go. Of course, there is no universal imperative to have a canonical work from a specific era. And calling it a dark age is probably another way of saying, "Don't bother looking here." Since I believe there were canonical works between Trek original and Trek: Next Generation, I'll call this a twilight age.

(As a sidebar, I'll note that the animated version of Star Trek—22 episodes aired between 1973 and 1975, newly available from CBS Paramount Video—was probably the best pure sci-fi series of the decade. But young-adult novels don't get reprinted in the Library of America, and animated series, for all their virtues, are fated to be left un-canonized. For now.)

Stalking the classics

One work that is fondly remembered by sci-fi aficionados is the TV movie Duel (1971), directed by Steven Spielberg from a script by Richard Matheson, but you can't honestly call it sci-fi.

But The Night Stalker (1972), originally a TV movie with a Matheson script (from what was then an unpublished story by Jeff Rice) certainly makes the cut, and so does the series that followed from it—Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974).

Here is a classic example of a work's reputation growing over time—I am quite certain that it would not have appeared on any list of memorable sci-fi series prior to the premiere of The X-Files in 1993. It was the massive commercial and critical success of that work—combined with Chris Carter's generous acknowledgment of its influence—that raised Night Stalker's profile.

The most successful—for all their faults—television projects of the era were The Six Million Dollar Man (1974-78) and The Incredible Hulk (1978-82). Both were essentially superhero stories that bracketed the core of a sci-fi concept ... $6MDM, based on a novel by Martin Caidin, an aviation and space writer, approached the superhero concept from the near-future tech side, and Hulk from the comic-book magic side.

Both series featured memorable episodes; both had honorable runs in prime time. Both are worth knowing about and remembering, especially if you want to create your own series.

The 1980s give us a more varied menu of additions. No matter what you think of Star Trek: The Next Generation—and opinions vary on which seasons worked best—its impact on sci-fi TV is undeniable. It proved that sci-fi, at least Trek's version of it, had an audience. TNG not only opened the way for several follow-on series of varying degrees of success ... its writers went on to shape sci-fi TV for the next 15 years. Brannon Braga, Ira Behr, Ronald Moore, Bryan Fuller—all of them either began their careers here or found them shaped by Trek.

So into the canon with you: TNG and DS9. (But not Voyager or Enterprise. See below.)

Make room for Max

Then there's a case that hits close to home ... ABC's Max Headroom (1987). I worked on Max, so I must struggle for objectivity here.

Was Max ahead of its time? Undeniably. Are its sci-fi concepts still relevant today? Let me think. ... A world of a thousand TV channels in which the televisions also watch the audience? OK, yeah.

But has Max spawned a vocal fan base? Is it even available?

The answer to either question is, not that I can see. Max, sadly, is a counterexample to Kolchak: The Night Stalker ... a critical success that has been diminished by time and circumstance. It doesn't have a place in the sci-fi TV canon.

But The X-Files (1993-2002) does. Smart, stylish, well cast, well written and popular and influential—again, like Trek, both for its content and for creative personnel who have populated numerous other efforts—X-Files rivals Twilight Zone and Trek in its impact on the way sci-fi stories are told on television. I've learned that in meetings, you can always make a creative point by referencing X-Files. For that reason alone, it qualifies.

What about the revivals of Twilight Zone (three of them, 1985, 1989 and 2002) and The Outer Limits (1995-2002)? I was involved with the first TZ and the early days of OL, so my judgment may be skewed ... but with TZ, I think the answer is no.

One reason is the towering impact of Serling's original: When a viewer or critic talks about a TZ-like story, that's what is meant. And while I can happily point to half a dozen TZ-1980s episodes that are outstanding, they are still judged by their fidelity to Serling's original model. Or their deviation from it.

The revival of Outer Limits is another matter. Perhaps because the original series had less impact than Serling's series, the 1990s version had the potential for more. But since OL overlapped the canonical X-Files, I'll leave this in the category of too-early-to-tell.

Which is where I leave Trek: Voyager and Enterprise. And Firefly, the new Battlestar Galactica, the Stargates ... while I have opinions about which of these shows would fit that list—BSG is a slam-dunk—I'll keep them private until the 200th installment of "The Cassutt Files."

Ask me then.