The Best and Worst Tried and True Science Fiction Plots
The one where there’s a mysterious infection. Star Trek and Stargate are particularly guilty of this plot line with the mysterious infection that quickly sweeps through the entire ship. Meanwhile, the doctor must hurry to find a cure before the clock runs out. The one where the strange alien creature quickly learns how to speak English even though he/she/it has only been around the earthlings for a few hours. Just saw this one in a Stargate episode but am pretty sure Star Trek has also been guilty of this tried and true plot line. The one where they go back in time. Ah, the time travel episodes. Whether it’s Charmed, Star Trek or Stargate, there has been many a time travel episode, usually with the heroes having to figure out a way to get home while trying not to “change history." The one where they go to a parallel/alternate universe. Maybe even more common than the time travel episodes are the parallel universe episodes. Again, Star Trek and Stargate are particularly guilty of this, although even Buffy the Vampire Slayer has ventured into this territory. These alternate universe stories often give the actors a chance to be “evil”. The one where our heroes are supposedly in danger even though they’re the stars of the show, so of course we know they’ll live. Okay, just about every show is guilty of this one, with perhaps the exception of Lost. Battlestar Galactica is what I’m thinking of most recently. As if we didn’t know that Starbuck was gonna come back!
The one where they have to save the primitive culture. Stargate and Star Trek have done this story more times than I can count. Sure, sometimes they don’t want to be saved, and other times it conflicts with the Prime Directive, but it’s pretty much the same science fiction plot. The one where the holodeck breaks. You would think they would have a full-time holodeck engineer, given the amount of time that the holodeck breaks down on Star Trek. And why is the safety override always the first to go? Although kudos to Voyager for turning a truly overdone science fiction plot into a masterpiece with Bridge of Chaotica. The one where the hero spends some years living an alternate life only to automatically adjust back to their usual routine by the end of the episode. Of course, I’m mostly thinking of Captain Picard in the Inner Light, but we’ve also seen this in DS9 with Chief O’Brien. The one where our heroes go on leave but of course, something always has to happen. When will our heroes ever be able to take a day off? We’ve seen it on Stargate, Star Trek - does anyone ever actually have fun on Risa? Even seaQuest couldn’t resist this science fiction plot. The one where they join fight club. Bored to tears with this sci-fi staple. If I wanted to watch a fight, I would watch a decent boxing match. Even so, Angel, Charmed, Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica are all guilty of this science fiction plotline.
The one where they turn into kids. Another one that Stargate and Star Trek are fond of is turning our heroes into kids. I have to admit though, that the kids in these episodes tend to do some pretty good impressions of the main cast! The one where our hero is in an insane asylum. Star Trek, Stargate, even Buffy, has played around with this storyline with varying degrees of success. The problem is maybe that the audience knows that the characters aren’t insane so why should we take it seriously? The one where they switch bodies. This can be a pretty fun one actually. Both Buffy and Stargate have had fun with these storylines. Like the one where they turn into kids, it’s cool to see the actors doing impressions of each other. The one where the day repeats itself over and over again. This theme can actually be more tried and true versus tired and trodden, if done well as seen by how well Stargate did with this theme. The episode where they don’t take themselves too seriously. These are the fun episodes. The Wormhole Xtreme episodes, the ‘getting turned into a puppet’ episodes, the musical episodes. And it can also be where writers take a chance. Break the mold - like the X-Files did when they crossed over with COPS. In truth, this is what we need more of. Return from The Best and Worst Tried and True Science Fiction Plots to Features
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