When it came to TV shows in the 90s, did viewers now want a slightly different speculative fiction than they had in the 60s?

Everything goes, if not cyclical, there�s a wave. The original Star Trek and the subsequent Star Trek series were all very military and had a hierarchy that was very comfortable and understandable. It was always very much us against them.

Then because of those series and what they�d established, other television creators like myself and Chris Carter and Joss Whedon have tried to take that and curve it the other way. So a show like X-Files has a darker, more conspiracy-minded vision, or there's Buffy which can have a great deal of humour but also has a real edge to it.

Farscape, I hope, does the same, as it�s a more in-your-face experience. I think all these shows are direct reactions to the science fiction template that Star Trek created in each of its incarnations.