What would an alternate timeline where a TV show with space travel become mainstream during the 2010

Imagine a world where George R R Martin writes an epic science fiction series. It actually isn't all; that hard. Martin has written sf with a series of short stories about a much taller Mary Sueish version pf GRRM named Haviland Tuf. So Martin expands his sf series and foregoes his fantasy. The series gets picked up by HBO and enjoys great popularity and then hits a speed bump after five years because Martin can't bring himself to finish the damn story. Whereupon the name George R R Martin becomes anathema to a whole generation of sf fans and no one wants to see his beard, his hat or his suspenders ever again.

So the whole alternative future would be entirely unlike our current one, where George R R Martin wrote but hasn't finished a fantasy series.