Why doesn't more TV have sensible characters?

[andrewducker]

We've been watching TNG recently (currently midway through Season 4), and I've been struck by something that seems near-unique to it. All of the main characters are decent, reasonable, nice people, trying to do their best to make the world a better place.

Sure, they make mistakes, and they have occasional issues over things. They occasionally disagree about the best way to proceed. But fundamentally it's about adult people behaving well while trying to solve problems. And it's _lovely_.

I mean, I loved watching BSG, where fucked up people made messed up decisions on a regular basis. I loved watching flawed characters being "realistic". But so many dramas nowadays seem to be all about the flawed people fucking up their lives that it's become rather wearing. The sheer level of cynicism weighs me down sometimes.

Are there any shows out there right now in this mould? What should I be tracking down?

Oh - this was finally triggered by this:

"HELL NO: The Sensible Horror Film" (Watch on YouTube)

via d_c_m

Comments

[miss_s_b]

Bones! Bones is full of lovely people.

[conuly]

I would pay good money to see that film.

[vanessagalore]

On STNG, Roddenberry initially banned the writers from writing interpersonal conflicts among the crew. He believed "such petty and ego-driven problems would be a thing of the past by the twenty-fourth century."

(From the Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion)

And then of course Roddenberry's involvement with the show gradually ended after the first season, but we were left with the remnants of a conflict-less crew. I can't imagine trying to write characters without conflict, and I think the show really improves the further it gets from Roddenberry's dictum in the later seasons.

It's a far cry from Ron Moore (who cut his teeth on STNG) announcing "It's the characters, stupid" before writing the end of BSG.

I have a theory that TV Sci-fi was more optimistic in the Clinton years because the US was more optimistic about the future, and then by the time of Farscape and later on BSG we were immersed in Republican terms and therefore sci-fi became drastically darker and angsty. I suppose it's just common sense that TV would reflect the moods of the times, but still I miss shows like STNG and DS9 (which was less optimistic than STNG but not as dark as Farscape).

[alexbayleaf]

I felt this way about "Call the Midwife" when I watched it. It was reassuring to know that all the core characters were decent people trying to do good.

Another one that was unexpected comfort viewing due to good-people-ness was the Canadian police drama Flashpoint. Every episode has an antagonist of some kind, but part of the conceit of the show is to try and help you see that the antagonist is just a person trying to deal with stuff, too.