[Interference]

I wonder if anyone writes sf anymore.

Gene Roddenberry had the good sense to recruit true sf writers on Star Trek, something the Next Gen et al producers might have considered once in a while. In its day, TV gave us Twilight Zone and Outer Limits as well as Lost in Space and Land of the Giants. Speculative fiction had a chance.

Now, Hollywood sees the popularity of sf - and it's largely the Star Trek Franchise that made them realise the market they'd been missing - and now every studio treats something that was once only for kiddies as mainstream adult fare. But do you think there's a single one of them that would sack the writers they know in favour of a writer who knows the genre? No. "Type fast, use off-the-shelf plots, and put this season's favourite spin on it" is about as much of a brief as any of them is likely to get.

Nobody writes sf anymore - not in film or television, anyway.