What a popular Sci-Fi show can teach us about reality vs fiction
Realism beyond the Magic Window: From The Expanse to TikTok
Mindlessly scrolling through gadget adverts and other clickbait masquerading as “news,” I came across a story that attracted my attention. The title was mysterious and informationless: “This 10-Year-Old Masterpiece With 95% on Rotten Tomatoes Was Hailed as 1 of the Most Realistic Sci-Fi Shows Ever Made.” In true “10 ways you can make more money, number 5 will blow you away” manner, the only way to find out what they were talking about was to click. And so I did. The headline turned out to refer to “The Expanse”, a wonderful and innovative Sci-Fi show that I binged breathlessly.
The Expanse is set hundreds of years into the future and features technology, and even physics that don’t exist (yet). The story-lines are based on “historical” events that have yet to take place. In The Expanse, people who live on Mars, for instance, have plenty of reasons to distrust those on Earth, and vice versa. None of this can be seen as predicting anything, and yet, the article claimed that this is the show viewers find most realistic. Does that make sense? It does to me.
Reality versus Realism
At first glance, it seems pretty obvious: some things in the media are real, others are not. When we see footage of Prince Charles arriving at the Church where he is about to marry Lady Diana, that’s real. When we see Lady Mary marry Matthew in Downton Abbey, that is obviously fiction.
And yet. Watching Downton Abbey, it is pretty easy to assume that a real wedding in Edwardian Britain might have looked very similar. Many viewers are likely to experience not reality, but realism. Comparing the Downton Abbey wedding to, say, Shrek’s wedding, isn’t the same level of fictitious. What is going on?
The “Magic Window”
Realism is easiest to understand when we approach it via what is sometimes called a “magic window” perspective. If we see a CEO give a press conference in response to a scandal, it does not matter whether we view the images on CBS, Fox, YouTube, or, years later, in a documentary. The viewer assumes that the event actually occurred and that everything happened exactly as it appears in the images. But that is where it stops being easy.
My friend Rick Busselle, a professor of communication at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, has spent a significant part of his career exploring realism issues. Much of what I am telling here is influenced by his thinking.
Not all news is based on a Magic Window approach. Sometimes, no footage is available. In those cases, newsmakers may opt for a schematic, a diagram, or even a re-enactment of what happened. When an Army UH‑60 Black Hawk helicopter collided mid-air with an American Airlines regional jet in January 2025, many on TikTok, for instance, took refuge in creating graphics to explain what had happened. This is where it gets interesting. Even though we don’t see any real images, we still assume we are being informed about something that really happened.
Newsmakers don’t only use images to make up for a lack of real footage. Visuals can help explain ideas that are not as clear when conveyed solely through words. In the New York Times’ award-winning “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek”, from 2012, one of the many visuals shows the different paths taken by various skiers in the moments before an avalanche caused havoc. In crime reporting, it isn’t uncommon to see diagrams showing the placement of objects or victims to illustrate spatial relationships that neither a regular photo nor a journalist can explain as clearly.
Realistic Science Fiction
OK, fine, so the news can show reality even if it doesn’t show real images. How does that get us to people who think stories about the future are “realistic”? And we are not talking about a show that extrapolates from the current state of knowledge and technology to try to visualize what traveling to Mars might look like ten years from now. The Expanse is not that. And what about “For All Mankind”, that, first, shows an alternative history of what could have been in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and then clearly veers into Sci-Fi that no longer resembles the world we know? Or “The Man in the High Castle”, in which the Nazis and the Japanese have won the Second World War and have occupied parts of the United States? Like it or not, some viewers (myself included) would happily call these shows “realistic”.
Busselle has several other concepts that help us make sense of this. A story can be experienced by viewers as “realistic” if its elements seem possible. So, yes, it may be a fictional story about an imaginary LAPD detective (say, Harry Bosch), but if enough elements seem possible, or plausible (another of Busselle’s concepts), it can become believable. As viewers, most of us know that what we are watching isn’t real, but the story works because we think it could happen.
Social Realism
Horror movies or science fiction can look “realistic” to us for another reason. What happens in the story may not seem possible (in horror movies) or probable (in science fiction), but what it tells us about human nature can feel authentic. You may have noticed how often political pundits or commentators bring up “The Hunger Games” in apocalyptic views of political reality. It seems that many perceived the Hunger Games movies as telling us a fundamental truth about human behavior (both good and bad).
The Logic of the Story
Rick Busselle and the many people he collaborated with over the years have much more to say about realism, but I will conclude with what might be the most extreme view. The perception of realism can also be seen as a form of authenticity. If a whole world is created, be it Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, or The Expanse, that world depends on an internal logic. If, like me, you are someone who enjoys being sucked into the fictional world of audiovisual storytelling, you start to care about some characters, and briefly forget this is just fiction. Busselle (and others) refer to this as being transported into, or immersed in, the story. That is what makes watching so enjoyable. As long as the storytelling is good, and everything makes sense, we continue to enjoy it.
I try to avoid spoilers, so I’ll have to be vague, but even in the great shows I have mentioned, there have been instances where the online fan world erupts because something happened in the story that made no sense, even in that world, or for that particular character. In other words, stuff that happens in science fiction or fantasy can be literally or figuratively "out of this world", but if it is "out of their world," we get frustrated as viewers.
Perceive Realism Changes over Time
If you’ve ever seen an old black and white gangster movie, the violence appears to be laughable. A bad guy wearing a fedora draws a small snub-nosed revolver and shoots another guy wearing a fedora. The tiniest of holes appears on the victim’s white shirt who then grabs the wound, no blood visible, stumbles for a few more steps, and then topples over (never backwards): dead. That way of depicting homicide only changed with movies like Sam Peckinpah's “The Wild Bunch” (1969), where guns caused massive bleeding and people died in the most spectacular ways. Peckinpah meant it as a commentary in an age where the Vietnam War brought (real) news footage of violence and its aftermath into every living room every evening. Some reports suggest that viewers, accustomed to the old black-and-white approach, initially thought it was “unrealistic.” But audiences enjoyed this level of retribution more, and depicting fictional violence would never be the same again.
What we perceive as “realism” is not set in stone. It changes over time. Audiovisual production continually explores new approaches as storytelling methods become too predictable. Consider a show like NYPD Blue, which used a handheld, shaky camera (a technique that, in earlier times, would have been seen as a sign of poor camera work) to suggest realism: the stories resembled documentaries more. Or think about that brief time when the Peckinpah change reached its peak: somebody shot with a pump-action shotgun would be lifted off their feet, perhaps even catapulted through a window or a door. In the bidding war between realism inventors that was seriously next level, even though the laws of physics dictate that every action should have an equal and opposite reaction. In other words, the shooter should be catapulted backwards as well.
Back to The Expanse
So, is The Expanse the most realistic Sci-Fi ever? That would have to be a personal decision. The writer of the CBR piece certainly seemed to think so. He applauded what we can now refer to as the social realism of the show: its portrayal of human nature and political maneuvering. At the very least, the show has a strong internal logic. For instance: I loved the creolization of English among the people living furthest from Earth: it sounded possible, plausible, and probable. Put a bunch of people from different countries and nationalities together, far away from the rest of humanity, and their use of words, grammar, and accents would change. Fast. I buy it.
It’s a topic I return to often in my teaching and writing: not just what’s real, but how we decide something feels real. Media literacy is not only asking “Is this true?” but “Why does this feel true?” And here’s my question for you: what’s the most realistic piece of fiction you’ve ever watched or read, something that stuck with you because it felt not just entertaining, but true?
