Battlestar Killed the Scifi Show

"Name an 80's Science Fiction TV show".

That was the hot topic of conversation at the office today...which is some tough trivia...because basically, there was none.

It seems that we were too busy watching watching the "reality" of "Dynasty" (1981-1989), "Dallas" (1979-1991), and "Diff'rent Strokes" (1978-1986) to crave any science "fiction" on TV.

With the exception of the few shows listed below, the general consensus around the water cooler was that "Star Wars" (1977) spawned "Battlestar Galactica" (1978), whose bad LED- and velour-based special effects showed America exactly why you should watch space dramas in the movie theater and not on the small screen. This killed off space-based television shows, but left plenty of room at the box office for the likes of "Blade Runner" (1982), "Starman" (1984), "Back to the Future" (1985), "Aliens" (1986), 2 more "Star Wars" movies (1980, 1983), and 4 more "Star Trek" flicks (1982, 1984, 1986, 1989).

Effectively, it wasn't until the reappearance of Star Trek in "Next Generation" (1987) that Sci-Fi returned to TV.

Eventually, "Battlestar Galactica" reappeared, too; waiting 16 more years (2003) to take off again, this time dumping Teddy Ruxpin and flightsuits with capes and landing on their very own SCIFI Channel.

Most shows are in list are hardly worth mentioning...none of them are really space-based scifi, with the exception of "Buck Rogers" - which taught me that in space, you could wear white all year long - and "V" - which taught me that Marc Singer could wear anything he wanted...as long as it was a loincloth (see "Beastmaster", 1982).

With a little help from Google...here are the 80's TV shows I found that could remotely be called "scifi":

Buck Rogers (1979-1981)
Greatest American Hero (1981-1983)
Matthew Star (1982-1983)
Knight Rider (1982-1986)
Manimal (1983)
V (1983)
Tales from the Darkside (1984-1988)
Max Headroom (1985)
Starman (1986-1987)
Alf (1986-1990)
Alien Nation (1989)
Quantum Leap (1989-1993)