Sci-Fi in the 20Teens

If anyone out there can tell me just what we're gonna call the 2011-2020 period, please let me know.

So I was watching DirecTV on the Continental flight from Houston to Seattle on my way back from Costa Rica, and I came across the Pilot for "Falling Skies" on TNT, (first of all, this show is what ABC's "V" should have been, which has now been cancelled, thank Gawd) and it got me to thinking about the current state of Sci-Fi in TV & on film (keeping in mind that "actual Sci-Fi", like the literary kind, on paper, is beyond me. If I'm reading, I want it to be non-fiction. Let the moving pictures tell me the fake stories.)

It's well known and accepted (I assume) that Sci-Fi is known for reflecting the collective fears of the society it is generated in. Classic examples abound; In the 50's, with fear of being suddenly and overwhelmingly overrun by communism ran rampant (like it was something that rained from the sky - "Tomorrow, sunny with a 40% chance of communism with some early morning marxism..") and the movies/television (well mostly movies, television had yet to develop itself that far at that point) spoke to this. "The Day The Earth Stood Still" warned us all that if we didn't learn to get along aliens would come from the sky and vaporize our weapons with giant robots controlled by commands from the necronomicon. "Earth vs the Flying Saucers" (or something titled like that) was about plain old alien invasion, same with "War of the Worlds". Aliens come down and threaten to eat our brains, and only a lame deus ex machina can save us (cuz' intergalactic beings with faster than light travel are incapable of protecting themselves from microbes).

The 60's were all about the fear of the potentials of technology. "2001"s Hal 9000 is the classic example. Star Trek often dealt with the failure of technology or the dangers of letting super computers control civilizations; consider episodes like The Apple, Return of the Archons, The Changeling, Spock's Brain, What are Little Girls Made of? etc... Also rife with episodes about the fear of the weapons we built, (The Doomsday Machine being the all time classic). While not dealing directly with technology, "Planet of the Apes" spoke to the dangers of what could happen to our world if we let it get away from us. We would be maniacs, and blow it up (apparently).

The 70's continued this theme of fear, only it expanded beyond technology and into the world of medicine and the body. "Alien" is the prime example here, or "The Omega Man", "Soylent Green", all about what would happen the firmament, the 'material' of the Human race if we let it all get away. This also saw the emergence of the psuedo Sci-Fi/Horror zombie plethora, "Day of the Dead" being the major comment on the consumerism mixed with body horror. Also, watch just about anything David Cronenberg did at the time. (Star Wars notwithstanding in here, I maintain that it belongs in it's own category of 'space fantasy', there's nothing all that scientific about it)

The 80's seemed to be about the fear of being left behind, the fear of the excitement and wealth of society passing us by. "Flight of the Navigator", "The Last Starfighter", "ET", the trend is subtle but present. "Quantum Leap" even took part in this, literally removing Dr. Sam Beckett from his life and making him re-live other peoples lives.

90's Sci-Fi commented on the distrust of the authorities on power. The granddaddy of all conspiracy shows "The X-Files" taught us all that there was a sinister motive behind anything and everything, including Bee's. Other copy cat shows like "Dark Skies" went further with this, attempting to sew every event in history into one giant conspiracy. "TekWar" & "Robocop" also touched on these themes.

9/11 shaped 2000's Sci-Fi pretty clearly. The idea of the dangerous 'others' who live within our midst. "Battlestar Galactica" illustrated this beautifully, so did "Lost" by making the term 'The Others' a common reference. "The Matrix" goes so far as to insinuate that our whole existence is masterminded by someone or something else (blending 60's fear of technology excellently with modern fear of the world around us).

So where does this leave us now in the 20Teens? Let's look at the shows, the examples we have. "The Walking Dead" explores not just a world where zombies rule, but instead of focusing on the horror or the consumerism it deals more with the day to day realities of 'Living Among Them'. Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" while not being completely Sci-Fi, shows us a world where society has collapsed and we must all fear the cannibals. "Cloverfield" gives us the first person account of an invasion we are completely unable to contend with. "Jericho" while a drama, not a Sci-Fi (and cancelled before it's time) depicts the realities of living in a world where you must rely on your neighbours as the foundations of society have been nuked out of existence. Even "Lost" deals with surviving without the support of the systems we have built over the past 6 decades. And while hilarious, "Zombieland" is chilling in also showing us a world where survival is the true horror of the zombie apocalypse. Noah Wylie's latest show, "Falling Skies" deals with the aftermath of being invaded by six legged creatures who contracted out their battle weapons contracts to the Predators and who's spaceships resemble large sawhorses. What does all of this have in common?

Today we fear the collapse of what we have come to count on for our future. Remember in 2008 when the rich took all our money by betting against the people who didn't have any, and this threatened our way of life so much that we had to give over even MORE money so as to prevent us all from losing all the money we had, only now there's no money to pay for anything anymore so now we still have no money? Yeah, that thing. The modern fear seems to be that the future will be a world where there will be no support, no systems we can count on. We'll have to learn to survive on our own with very little, move back to subsistence living and fear our neighbours again. No police, no welfare, no pensions. Just you and whatever you can carry, or whatever you can grow where you stop for a few days. The future has always been shown as being more advanced (even in "Blade Runner" made that advancement look dirty and unpleasant) but we are faced with the reality of going backwards, and being unable to content with what comes next. It's not us being wiped out by aliens, it's about us having to run and hide from the big bad universe/planet which has come home to roost. This I find the scariest of all. I'm a service industry worker. I have very few survival skills. MAYBE I could make due in a zombie holocaust (the apocalypse which I feel most prepared for - fingers crossed!) If our pensions and medical system were to vanish overnight, I don't know what I'd do.

So what's the next trend in Sci-Fi? I dunno. Talk to me about in 2015.

And also ask me just how likely I think a "28 Days/Weeks Later" zombie outbreak is. You might be surprised by how close I fear we are!