Man, what is it with good sci-fi series turning so bad? And it's not like it's just movies, either. The Dune series tanked after book 3 (though one could argue that it tanked after book 1).
What's that a question?
The Gerbil explains all. Errors I think popular media makes.
1. The One Upmanship Error. I've seen this over and over again. Lets make the ultimate catastrophe, now lets make the ultimate weapon. Now for a encore let's um...ah...make.... Once you get into using purely shock tactics over and over again the shock wears off. When the whole universe is in peril 99 million times it is kind of hard to care. The same thing can be applied to special effects, romances etc. I've often seen shows that have nothing left become more comical or controversial on their last legs. What is the solution? Focus on character development more and use the icing sparingly. If you can be brought to care about the characters even small things matter. Which brings me to error number two...
2. Characters do not evolve! Normal people do change over time that is to say characters should remain true to their core, but, have personalities and relationships that evolve. In romantic relationships for example how many characters have a serious relationships? Most have one episode flings or relationships that never change. When characters do get married they are often presented as uninteresting, which I believe shouldn't have to be the case. New main characters are often few as well.
3. Convoluted plot lines. I realize that continuing plot lines do have a appeal and some will continue to watch a show purely to see what happens, but, end a story arc sometime people. That some people will stop watching a show during its course is a fact. So that means you need new viewers. I think new viewers actually want to understand some of the plot without having to watch a dozen shows to do so. It felt like a chore trying to understand some of the past events in Stargate considering I did not see all the episodes. In X-men comics they went as far as putting a fold out "fill you in" page in the cover of every issue :/
I think Stargate made all three errors. It is important to note Stargate had a long successful run though.
Note that these errors hold for episodic shows with a linear plot, not shows like the original Star Trek which are basically independent of each other. While I liked most of Star Trek Next Generation (not all of it) I personally liked the original series better. (well, when I heard about that Sulu thing it kind of killed it a little for me :/ ). Anyway that is my opinion on why most shows nowadays are lame (excepting the moral reason).
Now go here for the Greatest Star Trek Episodes you have never seen! Shameless plug hehe http://www.cgalliance.org/forums/showthread.php?p=231883#post231883
