Charity in Science Fiction

Charity, in the form of debt-relief, medical clinics, etc. is very absent from television science fiction and the spirit of charity is also often quite absent. In TV sci-fi, the good guys are good because the programmers say they are good, or because they happen to rescue a planet of miners with their fancy laserblasters, but not because they are actually good people as a whole. Blake's 7, Firefly, and Farscape are much more realistic in this regard, as all three series show the "good" guys often rejecting charity for expediency, like people do in real life. I think the most moving acts of charity in TV sci-fi are probably Steven Franklin's repeated efforts to help the populace of Down Below. Babylon 5 is one of the few TV sci-fi shows to portray the full weight of poverty on a population, and Franklin represents the decent humanitarian impulse we wish we had. None of these programs, again with the exception of Babylon 5 and to a lesser extent BSG, come out in favor of the governmental palliatives we know are the only true solutions to poverty and want.