U.S. television science fiction

U.S. television science fiction is a popular genre of television in the United States that has produced many of the best-known and most popular science fiction shows in the world. Most famous of all, and one of the most influential science-fiction series in history, is the iconic Star Trek and its various spin-off shows, which comprise the Star Trek franchise. Other hugely influential programs have included the 1960s anthology series The Twilight Zone, the internationally successful The X-Files, and a wide variety of television movies and continuing series for more than half a century.

The first popular science-fiction program on American television was the children's adventure serial Captain Video and His Video Rangers, which ran from June 1949 to April 1955. Within eight months of Captain Video's debut, two other landmark series were launched - Tom Corbett, Space Cadet (8/50 - 6/55) and Space Patrol (3/50 - 2/55). ABC attempted to cash in on the burgeoning television science fiction market with a small screen version of Buck Rogers in 1950, but failed within months. Another series of the fiftes, Rod Brown of the Rocket Rangers broadcast live Saturdays from April 18, 1953, to May 29, 1954. The show was eventually cancelled due to a copyright infringement lawsuit based on the shows conceptual similarity to Tom Corbett.

Although it was not a very sophisticated program by later standards, this series took advantage of many newly developed technologies, such as luminance key effects to create superimposition, although it also fell back on such older techniques as using stock footage from film libraries to cover scene breaks. Its reported budget for new props was just $25 per episode.

Nevertheless, Captain Video proved to be very popular, drawing audiences of 3.5 million at its peak, a more than respectable number for television at that time. It fired the imaginations of many of its young viewers, who had never before seen science fiction outside of cinemas, and had never been able to follow the same characters in a science-fiction setting over a prolonged period of time. The financial crisis of the DuMont Network eventually led to the cancellation of Captain Video, and soon the collapse of the entire network itself. However, the program had made its mark, and other science-fiction shows followed during the 1950s.

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