Back To The Future… Or Is It The Past?

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have a time machine. You know, hop in, enter a date and travel to that period of time to see what things were like. The only problem with this travelling to the past is that if things change in the past then our present would also change (if you subscribe to that particular theory of temporal logic). For example, let's say that we travelled back to when your family made the move to where ever it is you now live. Perhaps something you do in that past time period makes your ancestors decide that they should stay in England or Ireland or where ever they started. When you got back to 2009, things would be different. Maybe you don't live in where ever it is you live, or perhaps your family is somewhere else. Maybe you don't even exist because your great grandparents did not meet at the barn dance. Gets kind of confusing eh?

It seems that someone somewhere has invented a time machine and is using it to change the past -- our entertainment past anyway. Have we gotten to the point in entertainment where there are no new ideas out there? Last night (while watching the very first episode of Jeopardy, from like 1983, apparently we are hard up for reruns too), I saw ads on TV for 90210, Melrose Place, and Degrassi (not sure if it was Junior, senior, university or old age home version). Granted these shows are 're-dos' or 're-imaginings' or continuations of the originals, but come on really! Let's be honest, none of these show were of top quality when they were on the first time, do we really have to subject ourselves to them again (and in the case of Degrassi, again)?

I do admit that sometimes this rehashing of old ideas does come up with some gems. The original Battlestar Galactica barely lasted a season back in 1978. While this has something to do with the fact that it was somewhat campy and the vision of the creators out paced the technology available to put it on TV, (and the fact that the more conservative call for less violence on TV made the shooting of robots repetitive and boring), it really wasn't very good. But the 're-imagining' of the show lasted 4 seasons, had compelling stories and was well made. The new version made stars of several of the actors and went on to spawn a spin off. (I bet Dirk Benedict would like to have the royalties from the new show instead of the old horse he was in.) On the other hand the 're-imagining', or what ever it was, of Knight Rider didn't even last as long as the (now) brutal original (the new versions one strong point was that it thankfully didn't star David Hasselhoff).

But I digress. The main point being, we need new ideas. Sadly the television and movie industry is notoriously difficult to break into. Show producers are very reluctant to accept scripts and ideas from 'unknown' writers and obviously they keep going back to the same old well for ideas and scripts. So if you are ever sitting watching television and are thinking to yourself 'I could write better stories than this,' you're probably right. So, to all the producers out there, please start looking elsewhere for ideas and scripts, because the well you have been using is quite obviously running dry.