Multi-Ethnic Space Operas: Not on Syfy Any More

First Dark Matter, now The Expanse. That’s two space opera sci-fi tv shows cancelled by Syfy in the last 9 months. In the meantime, Star Trek: Discovery kicked off on CBS Access, to rave reviews by fans but middle of the road commentary from everyone else. All three shows follow in the tradition of previous Star Trek series, Babylon 5, or Battlestar Galactica — star-jumping ship crews, inscrutable aliens, brash men (until recently almost exclusively) colonizing or “decolonizing” other planets. The big change of these last few years in science fiction entertainment is that ethnic and racial diversity in the shows has finally moved past lip service and tokenism to a truly apparent dedication to showing human variety on screen. At least as much human variety as alien, anyway. We know there’s an audience for this kind of show. But now with the cancellation of the two series on Syfy, where will large-scale science fiction shows that at least pretend to represent a range of racial and ethnic identities be found? Dark Matter

Premiering in 2015, Dark Matter followed a crew (and additional hangers on) on the ship Raza as they struggled to regain their memories and figure out how they got into this utterly sci-fi situation. I wouldn’t call Dark Matter excellent watching, though. The plots often left me with more questions than answers and not in a good way. It will never cease to amaze me how writers will have people work together who clearly hate each other, in the name of “Well, we…