Favorite Sci-Fi Series (TV)

POSTED BY: millernate
UPDATED: Friday, July 4, 2008 14:56
VIEWED: 18498
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MILLERNATE

Friday, August 2, 2002 5:56 AM

Now I'm not sure how many people here are big Sci-Fi fans (I'd guess a lot but one never knows...) but I think it would be interesting to list some of our favorite Sci-Fi television series (and, if you'd like, a reason *why* you liked them).

Mine are (in no particular order):

Quantum Leap - The only thing that really hurt this series was that it relied overly much on its core formula. That having been said the core formula (Sam leaps into someone, adjusts, and rights the wrongs) was incredibly strong, as an added bonus this series had one of the best track records in regards to production quality (I for one can't think of an error on it) among shows. Sci-Fi is apparently planning a remake, which does not bode well...

Star Trek: The Next Generation - I never liked the original series (my massive dislike for William Shatner may have something to do with it) which might explain my feeling for this show. Because, in my mind anyway, this show did what the original did but without the cheesiness and bad acting that hamstrung the original. Granted, the first season was pretty bad and parts of the last season as well but inbetween it was pretty darn great.

Twilight Zone (Original) - I've recently gotten into this in cable and I must say that, from what I've seen, this is one of (and possibly *the*) the best written series. Social commentary, intelligent scripts, good acting for the time, etc. It was so good that when they tried a revival with the help Harlan Ellison and J. Michael Straczynski (certainly men who understood sci-fi) it is considered poorly compared to the original.

Its pretty late where I am so I'll be far briefer in listing my other favorites: Nowhere Man, The Prisoner (I really need to rewatch this to consider it more fairly), X-Files (its first three seasons or so had the best use of atmosphere on TV, plus this was before the series devolved in front of everyone), Babylon 5 (I haven't seen alot but I've loved what I've seen and what I've heard intrquises me more), The Chronicle (a *mostly* successfull attempt to do to Sci-Fi what Buffy did to Horror/Fantasy, it doesn't quite compare to the heavy hitters here but it was never less than enjoyable and was occasionally somewhat deep),I'd also list Dark Skies if I remembered it at all but all I remember was liking it...

Anyone can feel free to list their own or mock mine , which ever is easier for you.

Nathan
"Being popular and well liked is not in your best interest. Let me be more clear; if you behave in a manner pleasing to most, then you are probably doing something wrong." - Janeane Garofalo, from "Feel this Book"

SADGEEZER

Thursday, September 26, 2002 11:14 AM

Mine are, LEXX, Red Dwarf, Aeon Flux and Babylon 5

Each in their own right are classics I think.

LEXX is scaryly weird. Sometimes I just think the writers were doing it for a bet. But in the end they were totally inovative in their approach to telling a story.

Red Dwarf makes me laugh when I'm down and no other show can do that for me. The science was complete bollocks, but strangely believable. I wander if it was just that we were prepared to overlook it because of the humour

Aeon Flux was also scary coool. The whole concept of Bregna and Monica was facinating and the two main protagonists Trevor and Aeon were thrilling to watch. It had lots and lots of gratuitous in it too. Which is always good I think.

And the classic show, Babylon 5. The only true sci fi show which had a decent story arc. I remember the chills going down my spine when I saw Shadow battleships flying over Centauri Prime - this was a dream that Londo had two seasons earlier. It wasn't just a throwaway scene either, it was integral to the first three seasons. It was a sci fi drama of epic scope. We don't get many of those anymore. (only bad thing was the crappy Lyta and Byron thing).

SadGeezers Guide to Firefly
http://www.sadgeezer.com/firefly

DAKOTASMITH

Thursday, September 26, 2002 1:26 PM

I used to like a lot of the usual SF -- Star Trek in particular.

Then I became a Non-Aggression Principle philosopher, and it became impossible to watch most media SF. They uniformly portray nothing but bleak, oppressive, fascist, communist, socialist, or totalitarian future.

Even Star Trek, which was the most hopeful SF on TV of its time, is ultimately the SF poster boy for communism.

I couldn't watch it any more.

Literary SF, similarly, disgusts me. The first book I ever read was Foundation by Isaac Asimov -- and I quickly gobbled up every other SF book in the library. I then spent the next nearly thirty years accumulating a library that now takes up all four walls of our guest bedroom.

Then I became a Non-Aggression Principle philosopher, and realized that damned near everything in the library was fascist, communist, socialist, or totalitarian.

The only literary SF I could stand to read was Heinlein. The only literary SF about which I'm actively enthusiastic is that of L. Neil Smith, particularly his "Galactic Confederacy" series. I also enjoy Niven's "Known Space" series, though I wish his later works had a bit more of the capitalist bent that the earlier ones did.

On TV ... well, there's not a damned thing I can stand to watch. I'm told Farscape might appeal to me, but having not followed it, it's hard to step into the middle of a story arc. Now that it's been cancelled, I may rent the DVDs from the start and see if it appeals to me.

I'm cautiously optimistic about Firefly. We'll see. Whedon's notions that big government can sometimes help people is obviously ludicrous, but he's clearly offsetting it by making them largely the jack-booted, power-mad thugs they are in real life.

So we'll see. It couldn't be any worse than, say, Andromeda, which seeks to bring government to the unenlightened masses. Or B5, which sought to replace one set of power-mad pig-rapers with another.

I'm hopeful. We'll see. I would like there to be a future on TV that I can actually look forward to.

Dakota Smith

No human being has the right -- under any circumstances -- to initiate force against another human being, nor to advocate or delegate its initiation.

POSSESSION

Sunday, October 6, 2002 7:15 PM

So, it only lasted two seasons, despite the huge fan support and being one of the top shows on the station. My favorite was "The Invisible Man." No, no, not the movie, the series on the Sci-Fi Channel. It was smart, it was funny, and most of all... it kicked ass.

LIVINGIMPAIRED

Sunday, October 6, 2002 7:46 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Possession:
So, it only lasted two seasons, despite the huge fan support and being one of the top shows on the station. My favorite was "The Invisible Man." No, no, not the movie, the series on the Sci-Fi Channel. It was smart, it was funny, and most of all... it kicked ass.

I second that. The chemistry between Fawkes and Hobbes was amazing. It was like a scifi buddy film. And witty...

I'd also like to add the first season of Roswell for consideration. The last two seasons were lame-o, but the first season was very well done. I think that the problem with this show was that it was not as well thought out as the Whedonverse shows... Joss has ruined me for other tv.

I'd also like to add The Predender. This show was a perfect hybrid of the formulaic episode format and the serialized episode format. That may seem a contradiction, but once you've seen the show, you get it. Fabulous acting. Intriguing characters. I miss it terribly.

Yeah. I also liked B-5, Quantum Leap, and TNG. Crusade could have been great if it'd been given a chance.

________________

"You still don't get it. It's not about right. It's not about wrong... It's about Power." —Morph-O-Monster, "Lessons"

ASTRO599

Tuesday, October 8, 2002 5:51 AM

I like Farscape, but my all-time favorite is Dark Angel. I know it was cancelled, but there are still campaigns running to bring it back. If you wanna check it out, type "save dark angel" into your search engine, and you should get about 72,000 matches.

KALIMAC

Wednesday, October 9, 2002 2:52 PM

It looks like I'm alone here, but far and away my favorite SF show was Deep Space Nine.

It still shared Roddenberry's optimistic vision of humanity, but instead of showing us that somehow everything worked out all right, it showed us how we still have to struggle to make everything work out all right. Plus it was rough and often morally ambiguous. Easily the best Trek in my book.

I very much enjoyed shows like Quantum Leap and Dark Skies. My favorites, though, tend to be more fantasy than SF. Vampire shows, quirky supernatural shows, etc. I think The Pretender counts more as fantasy than SF, surely?

Keep Flying

QUILL

Wednesday, October 9, 2002 3:54 PM

Dakota: you might try Lois McMaster Bujold's sci-fi, except perhaps for Falling Free and Ethan of Athos.

My favorite series...

Space: Above and Beyond still takes the cake for me. Incredible characterizations, terrific plots for the most part, and a really intriguing, complicated, different story. Of course it was cancelled.

The Wizard--anybody remember this one? I guess it was more fantasy than SF, but it was very well done, and funny, and something I would be comfortable letting kids watch. David Rappaport was amazing; such a loss.

Prey--okay, some rubber-ball biology, but on the whole a refreshing take on the possibilities of the near future, and again some really good characterizations. Again, cancelled.

I thought Farscape had a lot of possibility but never watched enough of it to say much about it, except that it didn't deserve to be preempted by Stargate SG-1, which has a much more limited scope.

Blake's 7--and I've said enough about it elsewhere on these boards!

Doctor Who--the special effects were laughable until late, the plots were often absurd, but the Doctor possessed an unmatched dignity and whimsey, and the Daleks broke ground in visual SF. Taken as a whole the series was very special, and if the fans have anything to say about it, it ain't dead yet.

Inside every cynic there's an idealist desperately yearning to be let out, and when they are let out they're usually a real pain and cause all sorts of trouble. --Chris Boucher

THENIGHTMAN

Wednesday, October 9, 2002 8:05 PM

Here are some of my nominees for (I assume it's live action on US TV?) science fiction shows:

1). Star Trek DS9: I have to say I like this one better than TNG in that, once it got going, you had a plotline that was interesting and that kept the show's focus beyond the next episode. That, and I liked the cast they had for it.

2). Babylon 5: The epic science fiction show of all time, this one showed what one could do with a rack of computers and a clear story to tell.

3). Blake's 7: In many ways, this show was Firefly's predecessor. It was the first on TV to have the dystopic Federation type universe, and much of its spark came from the fascinating characters on both sides. What strikes me about this series as well is the daring of the writers in the way they sent Blake off on his journey, an example of life imitating art in the most disturbing way.

GTHING

Friday, October 11, 2002 2:02 AM

One of the best shows on television right now is the Showtime series Odyssey 5. It is about five astronauts who are humanity's only survivors after Earth implodes. They are rescued by an entity called the Seeker and he sends their consciouses into their bodies five years in the past. The series follows their struggle to find out what destroyed the Earth and how to stop it from happening again.

All five characters get a chance to live the last five years over again. Everything they do affects the time line some way. There are also these life forms of artificial intelligence called Sentients. They can mimic human form using some kind of bio-technology. Our protagonists believe they must be responsible for Earth's destruction.

It frequently seems like a huge unsolvable mystery. Individual plots are a lot like episodes of The X-Files. The characters have compelling story arcs. There is also a lot of action and clever plot twists. Though the show is not intended for pre-teens to watch, I think every sci-fi fan should watch it eventually.

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