SPOILERS for Star Trek Enterprise potentially
I was noticing it was tough for me to get into shows that started after the 2000s, and talking to someone I mused about how it must be because of 9/11. I was watching Enterprise at the time, on the season just before 2001, and sure enough, the episodes after 9/11 had a complete shift in tone, the show becoming basically 24, sci-fi War on Terror immediately. It's like a parody of 'if Starfleet had to make the hard choices to make America safe from space Al Qaeda' or something. Overall the show is better than I was expecting though, still got me hooked on the trekness.
It was clear there was a cultural shift after 9/11, especially in the mainstream US media. It was interesting to be able to see it so distinctly in a show that went from the pre- to post- era. Does anyone else have any good examples of that happening in shows that spanned that shift?
Farscape, and it handled it in a very interesting and unconventional-at-the-time way. 9/11 happened about midway through its run. The main character John Crichton is a human "IASA" (generic-brand NASA) astronaut who's shot through a wormhole into some unknown distant part of the universe. The series arc is about him coping with the wild and wondrous and dangerous greater universe and trying to find his way back home.
Big spoilers below, don't read if you're planning on seeing it, which I highly recommend doing as it's a great series.
Later in the series, John and his shipmates and Moya make it to Earth. John finds the jingoism in wake of 9/11 in the US both distasteful and grimly funny, as he's seen horrors far beyond what humans do to each other. To him our earthly concerns are laughably minor. He's especially saddened by the nationalistic turn by his own retired-astronaut father. In the end he decides to leave Earth permanently and go back into the universe.Big part of that is being an Australian show. No US produced show could ever, wouldn't even be considered.