There was an excellent article in SFX Magazine recently highlighting this very fact. It had quotes from film makers, authors and TV show creators, all desperately back peddling away from their own creations which are so sci fi as to be the most sci fi-y thing ever.

One quote was someone saying that their work wasn't sci fi because it was based on what actual scientists think might actually happen in the actual future. Guh.

I'll see if I can look it out and post some of the quotes.

People who are in large embarrassed to find themselves liking something sci fi or fantasy, generally come out with stuff like this, saying "Hey I like it because it's more than just sci fi"

Generally speaking, I agree, but I doubt that Wired, of all places, is calling BSG "broad-based" because they're embarrassed to be liking sci-fi.

Yuhuh, it was that broad brush o' min causnig problems.

I don't have a problem with "is you is or is you not sci-fi", but I do highly doubt that BSG "reinvents the genre". Like, really? A barely-disguised alternate-world treatise on your current social and political world? Wow, what an unknown concept for SF!!

I mean, intellectually, I'm pleased that that kind of SF can exist, but, this kind of thing has been done before.

but, this kind of thing has been done before.

Done this well, and on television, I'd say rarely.

I'll agree that "reinvent" is a pretty strong word. (As is "best" -- I'd have to pick Farscape if it came down to a choice.)

One quote was someone saying that their work wasn't sci fi because it was based on what actual scientists think might actually happen in the actual future. Guh.

They mean it's science based fiction, eh? There ought to be a word or phrase that covers that...

This is the whole thing with Margaret Atwood claiming that Oryx and Crake isn't science fiction because, um, she doesn't write science fiction and there aren't any spaceships in it.

Or, really, that the Lee/Kara relationship on BSG is "queer het" (i.e., slash) because Starbuck is too cool/butch for it to be het.

No, seriously.

I breifly saw that and boggled. It's got to be one of the stupidest things I've seen. Is it slash writers who are saying this or slash readers or both?

Because I get really tired of the "oh noes!! girly parts and boy parts interacting is of the ick!"

I will say that I was surprised to find I really like Shannon/Sayid, but more because they are my only OTP. And the OTP-ness of it caught me off guard.

While most sci-fi -- whether on TV, in movies or books -- remains aimed toward science geeks or overgrown adolescents,

Ummm..... While I would generally agree with their point when it comes to movies and TV, well written SF in print is supposed to be accessable (though it didn't always used to be that way). It's one of the reasons that TV and especially movie "sci-fi" usually leaves me pretty grumpy, because it's usually some other genre (action or horror) dressed up in space suits, but mostly just really badly written.

Although I will admit that it may just be that I think all the print sci-fi is accessable, just because I liked it.

(As is "best" -- I'd have to pick Farscape if it came down to a choice.)

As Jess goes, so goes my nation.

BSG is ranking pretty high up there for me, but Farscape gets the "best" pick froom me, hands-down.

I am finding that individual Firefly episodes stand up to rewatching much better than individual Farscape episodes; there are more layers.