Sci-fi is the genre of ideas — it shouldn't just be about big budgets and spectacular visuals

"You're gonna need a bigger TV." That was my initial response to the very first episode of "Foundation" back in 2021. The big-budget adaptation of Isaac Asimov's novels (which has just returned to Apple TV+) delivered space opera sequences on a truly epic scale, and was visually ambitious in a way no sci-fi show would — or even could — have attempted just a decade ago.

In fact, it's not that long since describing a TV show as "cinematic" felt like the ultimate compliment, reserved for the blockbuster likes of "Game of Thrones" and "Westworld". But as streaming has evolved into the dominant species in the TV ecosystem, cinema-quality production values have become the norm.

Disney+'s ever-expanding stable of "Star Wars" and Marvel TV series are effectively movies cut into bite-sized chunks, while Amazon has spent enough money on "The Rings of Power" to make Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy look like the plucky little indie that could. Even British sci-fi institution "Doctor Who" — a show that was, for much of its lifetime, synonymous with rubber masks and plasterboard sets — has joined forces with Disney to make the TARDIS feel bigger on the inside and the outside.

I wonder, though, if the current obsession with making every sci-fi TV show look like a blockbuster has gotten in the way of what should make the genre great: compelling stories and massive, thought-provoking ideas.

Of course, many of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time have been built — at least in part — on groundbreaking VFX. It's hard to imagine the original "Star Wars" breaking box office records if Industrial Light & Magic hadn't made X-Wing vs TIE Fighter dogfights look like the coolest thing in the galaxy, while "Blade Runner" would never become a genre touchstone without its spectacular futuristic cityscape. The biggest talking points coming out of both "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" and "Jurassic Park" were the groundbreaking computer-generated effects that felt like our first glimpse of an exciting new frontier.

But in all of those films, the effects were simply the icing on the cake — there to augment an already-impressive product (the stories) — rather than the films' reason to exist. It's also noteworthy that none of these classics go overboard on the VFX shots, in stark contrast to modern blockbusters, where elaborate and overstretched CG sequences often exist for their own sake. (Hollywood doesn't seem to have realized that making shorter movies would be an excellent way to shave some dollars off the bottom line.)

But while eye-popping visuals undoubtedly require great stories, the opposite isn't necessarily true. History is packed with amazing sci-fi films that dare to explore strange new worlds without spending tens of millions of dollars on window-dressing — and they don't necessarily have to sacrifice production values to do it.

Duncan Jones' "Moon" used its claustrophobic set, painstakingly crafted model work, and its brilliant two-hander between Sam Rockwell and Sam Rockwell to tell a compelling tale of isolation and betrayal. Vincenzo Natali's "Cube", meanwhile, redressed a simple set again and again to create the illusion of a labyrinth of lethal traps. In other words, resorting to "Dark Star"-style beach ball aliens is not the only option for cash-strapped auteurs.

Television, meanwhile — historically the big screen's poor relation — has more often than not had to make less look like more. Even the biggest hitters in sci-fi had to mix things up when churning out 20-plus episodes per year was the norm, inserting the occasional "bottle episode" (small cast, limited locations, go easy on the VFX) to save money for something awesome elsewhere.

So while "Star Trek: The Next Generation" was once the flagship of small-screen space opera, even the episodes you remember as action-heavy (Borg classic "The Best of Both Worlds", for example) confine most of the action to starship interiors. Some of the show's most beloved episodes — such as "The Inner Light", in which Captain Picard lives a whole life in 25 minutes, and learns to play the flute — keep the sci-fi razzle-dazzle to an absolute minimum.

"TNG" was never alone. All-time classic "Battlestar Galactica" also had a knack of saving its cash for those big moments, while the 70s/'80s Brit hit "Blake's 7" never let its infamously wobbly sets stand in the way of classic status. Interstellar sitcom "Red Dwarf" has delivered many of its best moments from the confines of a TV studio, often in front of a live studio audience.

The question is, now that everything looks like a blockbuster movie — and anything a writer can imagine can be realized on screen — can we ever go back to the old days? Has this embarrassment of visual riches guaranteed that any story told on a smaller canvas is doomed to feel unambitious in comparison?

"Doctor Who" showrunner Russell T Davies was clearly considering this question before returning to the show in 2023, armed with a bigger budget after Disney+ signed up as the BBC's production partner.

"Even before they approached me [to return as showrunner], I had already said in various interviews, 'I think "Doctor Who" would have to become a co-production, there's no way the BBC is going to fund that'," he told the Firecrotch & Normcore: They Like to Watch podcast in 2024 (via Radio Times). He added that it would be a "real shame" if the show wasn't among the "big hitters" of sci-fi TV, and what he said next was particularly interesting — especially now, with the show's future uncertain after the recent season 2 (41 if you're old school) finale.

"If Disney collapsed tomorrow and we had to go back to making 'Doctor Who' on a normal BBC budget, we'd all rally round and make it, and suddenly stories would become claustrophobic ghost stories, and a lot of people would like that very much. So I'm not saying you have to have [the move to more effects-heavy episodes] happen, but while it's happening elsewhere, I think it's unfair that it doesn't happen to 'Doctor Who', and it does open up stories that are now sometimes on a vast scale."

As much as I love watching spaceships performing tricks no one has seen before — giving me an excuse to buy that bigger TV — my favorite episode of the Ncuti Gatwa era was the comparatively low-key "73 Yards", an ingenious slice of folk horror that could have been told at any point in the show's history. I'm also a big fan of Tenth Doctor episode "Midnight", in which an unseen monster (one of the best "Doctor Who" villains) terrorizes people trapped in a single claustrophobic set. Does "Doctor Who" even need to compete with "Star Wars", Marvel, and "Stranger Things" for scale? Or would it be better served by prioritising the format's versatility and perpetual capacity for reinvention? The latter feels like a more Doctor-appropriate response to the challenge.

None of this is to say that you can't have both. Exceptional shows like Alien: Earth, Foundation, and Andor have shown that you can have amazing sci-fi TV with movie-level visuals, but none of those shows are great because of their visuals; they’ve captured our imaginations with memorable characters, strong writing, and powerful ideas.

But, rewatching "Jaws" for its recent 50th anniversary is a reminder of how an infamously temperamental shark prop resulted in a better movie, as — necessity being the mother of invention — Steven Spielberg improvised numerous ingenious workarounds to scare the hell out of us. Even in 2025, when photoreal CG is practically the standard, the stuff you don't see remains much scarier than the stuff you do. Leaving your mind to fill in the blanks — whether it's with a lethal monster or a stunning alien vista — can be much more powerful than anything you see on screen. It's a trick books have been pulling off pretty well for centuries.

There is a wealth of great sci-fi shows out there right now, including Foundation, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and Alien Earth. These shows can be found on Apple TV+, Paramount+, and Hulu/Disney+ respectively