Man, everyone's always big on dystopia ... wish people would create a show about the future that doesn't suck. You can still have drama and danger in such a future without the whole world being a cesspit.
I think reality set in somewhere between the 70's - 80's.
We had space keeping us excited for a while, as we sat back and waited for the explorers to solve everything from cancer to hunger. But we've reached a point where even light-speed looks unattainable. And competitive business has completely abandoned 'better' in favor of 'cheaper,' becoming a hindrance to progress instead of a boon. Technology often only gets developed if it can be used to reduce the number of workers needed to perform a task (thereby destroying lives in the process).
Sure, you 'could' do a drama in a Jetsons world, but few would watch it. The psyche of the audience would just dismiss it as childishly naive.
TV shows are also bound by the 'cheaper' vs. 'better' rule. A crappy future is easier to depict because you can go into any modern city and shoot it with minimal changes. 100 might go beyond this though, depending on how they depict the spacecraft. Something
positive? Most of it would have to be fabricated (or modeled for a virtual set, and therefore it's more expensive).
