It’s that time of year when I start to get anxious about which TV shows are going to get renewed. There’s always that deep and undeniable fear that my favorite show isn’t going to make the cut. This year with the current economic downturn, so many things are disappearing that I started to wonder what affect this will have on all of my favorite sci-fi pastimes. 

 

For TV, I expect that very little will change. Networks may expect more of the shows that plan to renew, but network TV has always been a very difficult place for sci-fi. The bigger impact will be felt from NBC eliminating an hour of programming in order to put Leno on at nine on weeknights. This means that NBC now has to cut five hours of programming, and I don’t really expect to see Chuck, Heroes and Medium all survive. But I digress. I’m here to talk about the recession. Shows on the bubble, like Dollhouse and Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles may have to pitch pretty hard to be renewed, but most of us saw that coming anyway.

 

For Movies, John Scalzi reports that very little will change for the sci-fi genre. Movie makers might cut budgets, and we might see fewer big names and smaller effects, but this will be a universal change. However, movies in general have usually done very well in hard times. They offer a chance to escape from the stress of hard times for a relatively small cost. Sci-fi is a bigger break from reality and many superhero movies leave with a feeling of hope in hard times. Overall, I expect sci-fi movies to weather the storm.

 

For books, the New York Times reports that sci-fi, like romance novels, are actually doing well during the recession. As people look for inexpensive ways to amuse themselves, they turn to books. Romance and sci-fi offer a complete escape from reality, a trip to a world where anything is possible. Thus the recession tends to drive up sales for sci-fi novels. 

 

The story is a little less hopeful for the comic book industry. Comics were already in tough territory before the recession began. Now as money gets tighter, people are looking for places to cut and comics have taken a secondary hit. The LA Times posts that sales to comic book vendors are down significantly. With many comic book shops being small businesses with little support to get through the hard times, we can only expect to see the number of comic shops to drop. Hopefully enough will make it through to keep the industry alive, but expect to see fewer titles, and possibly even a loss of the smaller comic publishers. 

 

Now if you’ll give me a moment I’ve got to climb up on my soap box. There is only one way to protect our favorite things from the recession, and that is to continue to support the. The government cannot on it’s own save our economy. It is up to us as consumers to do our part. If you want to make sure that sci-fi movies, and TV shows continue to be made then watch them. Pay to see a movie. If you want to see books being published, then buy them (or at least ask your local library to pick up a copy). If you want to see comics and super-heroes make it to see another year, then go buy your favorite titles. That is how we can ensure that the economy recovers and sci-fi remains to entertain another day.

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