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?
Not an answer to your question, but man, the fucking torture scenes from that era! Even Enterprise had at least one where the Vulcan woman gets sci-fi tortured.
I know 1984 is bad and anti-communist but I do credit the Ministry of Love sequence with helping make me viscerally, gut-level anti-torture.