o they're bringing back Battlestar Galactica. It's been, what, 20 years since Apollo (or was it Apollo's stepchildren) found (or failed to find) Earth? Oh, who cares. Next spring I'll be flipping through the channels, and there it will be, whether I want it or not. I don't care how many of you Battlestarrians or Galactic-fans are lurking out there, this was by any standards a bad show--bad dramatically, bad science-fictionally. It was even a ratings loser that cost a lot. Not the sort of project you'd expect to see coming back to life in a new millennium.
The reason it's coming back, of course, has nothing to do with its lack of quality. Nor is it in response to some secret groundswell of desire on the part of thousands or even millions of viewers. Like Poltergeist and Robocop and Friday the 13th and Stargate SG-1, like Outer Limits and Twilight Zone, like those Gene Roddenberry's Earth: The Final Andromeda (at least I think that's what it's called) and Peter Benchley's Amazon, and all of the Star Trek shows, Battlestar Galactica lives on because it has become a brand name.
Brand Names Bring Bargaining Power
Back in the 1980s, some years after the first Galactica died what should have been its final death, I worked as a children's programming executive for an unnamed major television network. I came to the job filled with idealism and enthusiasm, ready to nurture projects that I thought were good. And so, to be perfectly fair, were my bosses.
So we labored to develop the best of what was pitched, no matter where it came from, no matter what auspices it had. Animated, live-action, concepts that cleverly used a little of both, all for Saturday morning, of course. But they were honorable projects nonetheless.
And when we started proposing schedules inside and outside CBS (damn, the network was supposed to be anonymous), we got our heads handed to us, figuratively speaking.
Because the only projects anybody--network sales, advertisers, the real powers in broadcasting--wanted to buy were those that had recognizable brand names.
Hulk Hogan. Donkey Kong. Richard Pryor. It didn't matter that the brand name had nothing to do with the content--the whole trick, in fact, was to find some way to jack up the famous brand name and run a whole new concept under it. As long as the project had a recognizable name, it was fine.
Brand names, you see, are familiar. They are shorthand. They stand out from the white noise that fills our lives, all of that. I mean, you want people watching your television show, so you use every trick you know to get them to tune in.
There's nothing evil about using brand names. Well, there is the little problem of all those promising concepts that don't have brand names that just happen to get left by the wayside.
And there is the matter of the sometimes tenuous, or downright non-existent, relationship between the brand name and the concept. (Does anyone out there truly believe that Gene Roddenberry created a television concept called Andromeda, complete with a ship's captain named Dylan and aliens known as Nietscheans? If so, please send me your name: I have some dot.com stock to sell you.)
But television is a Darwinian system. The rules change by necessity. The survivors survive. Besides, every now and then, through some combination of talent and luck, a Star Wars or a Babylon 5 manages to find an audience--and becomes a brand name all its own. (I'm betting that Farscape is almost ready to become a brand name.)
The real problem with brand names is this--there aren't enough of them.
SF's Most Promising Franchise
Not too long ago, faced with this sort of nonsense in my rapidly vanishing career as a writer-producer of sci-fi television, I made up a list of brand names that had not yet been exploited. I offer it to the industry and SCIFI.com readership at large, if not exactly as a public service, then an example of self-serving in public.
What about brand names from the world of written sci-fi? Rule one is that there are about six sci-fi writers whose names have the clout of, say, Peter Benchley (forget Stephen King, who isn't a sci-fi
writer by most definitions, anyway). Asimov, Clarke, Bradbury and Heinlein. (Not Sturgeon.) Herbert and Dick. You could probably get some traction with McCaffrey, but mostly because she's associated with dragons in general, not necessarily because she's famous for her particular dragons.
And what do you have? Think of Bradbury and you remember "The Illustrated Man," a perfect brand name for an anthology series. (Sorry, being re-developed as a feature film.) Or "The Martian Chronicles" (ditto, or so I was led to believe). For Asimov, Foundation or I, Robot. (Both tied up in the feature film world.) For Clarke, anything-Odyssey (unavailable, for obvious reasons). Heinlein ... well, after Starship Troopers, maybe he shouldn't be on the list.
Even then you are stretching the definition of brand name.
So you have to look back at sci-fi feature films, or to television. And the pickings can be mighty slim there, as well. I mean, Tom Corbett, Space Cadet is a little stale. The Invaders was too bland to begin with. Ditto for Forbidden Planet. A brand name like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea doesn't leave you a lot of room to maneuver. (Besides, seaQuest DSV tried the same general concept.)
Nevertheless, after careful thought, I have found the perfect, still unused sci-fi brand name, one that has certain appeal to a male audience, and yet a female lead.
I'm talking about Species, the title of two fairly well-known sci-fi movies starring Natasha Henstridge. (You won't have Miss Henstridge in this, I don't believe. But you don't need her: there are plenty of other wildly attractive and acceptably talented hot Canadian actresses to consider.) You don't have to build on the plot of the original movies, either. From what I remember, I'm not sure there was much room left in that particular story arc, but who cares? It's the brand name we're after. Create a whole bunch of Species gals.
A series about alien sex babes running amok on planet Earth? It practically pitches itself. I can see 22 episodes on Showtime's Friday night schedule with my eyes closed. Don't tell your parents, but on cable you could have some tasteful nudity or other adult activity, and it might even be dramatically justified! (It was in the original movies!)
Don't hurt yourselves rushing to the phone to lock up those rights.
Just let me know when it's on, so I can set the timer on my brand-name VCR.
Michael Cassutt used to write a lot of sci-fi television. More recently he has written books, such as the aerospace thriller, Red Moon, available in bookstores everywhere, and the short story "Beyond the End of Time," coming soon on Scifi.com's Sci Fiction.
