OT - Good sci fi TV shows?

[Grandpa Kim]

Originally posted by DavidG:
IMO if you want good Sci-Fi forget the TV, get a book or even better, a magazine like Analog

Absolutely!! Hollywood is at least 50 years behind what is being written for book publication. Do you think anyone in Hollywood has the guts to produce "Stranger in a Strange Land" for the motion picture audience? And that was published in 1962!

Kim

[Cheeze]

Maybe I'm getting my shows mixed up, but Taken was a 10-episode miniseries. It had its good points, but with a great deal of interesting build-up and mystery I felt kind of disappointed by the wrap-up and ending. It seemed to fall short.

I had a similar reaction to the conclusion of Babylon 5's Shadow wars saga. Not necessarily the entire series, but that significant part ended on an odd and somewhat underwhelming note. And much as I liked the show, the story seemed to lose punch without that focus, but it did find interesting ways to recover. Much as I liked the 'rangers' concept, you didn't think that one human would have pointed out that the name of this elite covert Minbari group came from an ancient Earth novel? I might have liked that better if they were named the Rangers by some humans and had kept some other Minbari name.

Stargate becomes more enjoyable the more I watch it, and Farscape is awesome....but some of those wacky episodes from the previous new episode release Last year were far out there. I was lucky, I caught up with Farscape during a two-week period where they seemed to play every most-exciting and pivotal episode, so I think I caught up on the action just as they went into a new season. And I still have some season 1 stuff I'm sure I haven't seen yet.

Andromeda is fun, but a little too silly sometimes. I'll keep watching it. Earth: Final Conflict had me hooked, but somewhere in the end of the Taelons I just didn't keep up. Enterprise is one of the few shows I consistently watch.

I can't get enough of the Star Treks, although I miss much of Voyager. As much criticism as Roddenberry's vision gets, I rather like the idea that in the future we haven't just progressed in technology but that humanity has become better. That kind of optimism is rare in entertainment and current sci-fi, and it is refreshing.

[Atrocities]

I wish him well on his new project. To make himself look like a Death-Star. It is coming along nicely. Soon he will not be able to leave his own home, and will spend his days playing his level 60 necro on EverQuest.

"No Luck, The Force is not with you! Do not attempt to penatrate this new Death Stars exhoust hole!"

10. Star Blazers

Good cartoon but like almost all Jap Cartoons, hooky in many ways.

VOYAGER = bad tv. I command you to stop putting it on your top 10 lists!

[ February 13, 2003, 08:26: Message edited by: Atrocities ]

[QuarianRex]

[quote]Originally posted by javaslinger:
What's that god awful series wehre people crash land on some planet. There some kind of underground race there called diggers?
[quote]

Are you talking about Earth2? IIRC the premise of the show was that a small group of volunteers were sent to colonize a virtually earthlike world. The aliens were a mix of gaia-loving druid meets Swamp Thing who would stad around and do some choral moaning before dropping back into the ground. It got a little wierd/sappy when the kids who were 'techno-sick' got better by communing with nature and walking through the dirt themselves.

Another show I liked was Earth: Above and Beyond. A large part of it was actually a war story but it had some good backstory. And the final episode was pretty interesting when you found out the real reason for the war with the 'chiggs'. I always wondered where they would have gone with that.

I was also fond of Invasion America. A surprisingly good american cartoon (or perhaps not so surprisingly since it was done by Spielberg).

As far as books go, I have to say that Dan Simmons Hyperion series is one of the best I have ever read. If it was ever to be made into a movie, and made right, I would crap an eggroll in joy.

[ February 13, 2003, 09:01: Message edited by: QuarianRex ]

[gregebowman]

After I posted Last night, I remembered a couple of more good shows that I enjoyed and haven't seen mentioned: X-Files and Quantam Leap. Can't forget these shows.

I'm all for reading books. I think I spend more time in a week reading than I do watching TV (mostly because the wife has her hand on the remote control!!!). I read mostly sci-fi, but I'm hooked on Stephen King, Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler books also. Unfortunately, due to the costs of even paperbooks, there are a lot of sci-books I haven't had the chance to read, and probably never will. Like the Hyperion series just mentioned. I have to work on teh weekends, so I don't have the chance to go to flea markets and garage sales, which used to be a major source of my book collecting in the past.

[dogscoff]

Anyone else remember Alien:Nation? There was a bunch of refugee aliens living in some American city, and the story follwed a Tenktonese cop teamed up with an initially xenophobic human.

There were a few films of it, but the series was best. The best bits were the explorations of Tentonese culture - they got drunk on sour milk and had all these strange biological functions only ever hinted at.

[Omega_Prime]

Originally posted by Atrocities:
VOYAGER = bad tv. I command you to stop putting it on your top 10 lists!

Oh I agree. "The Janeway Gambit" never failed to piss me off.

She would do something retarded and it would be just the trick. She could defeat the borg at will, and repeatably. I mean, she would not flinch at sidling Voyager up to a borg ship. (The fact that her ship's name is too appropriate for the thin premise of the show was bad enough by its self.)

They TALKED an advanced borg into being "good". They destroyed the "borg nexus". (The idea of a borg nexus, really should have begged the question, "Why is there still a Federation?")

The show was an exorcise in mis-use and abuse of plot device. A black-eye on the face of sci-fi, if it can even be called that.

Of course, the borg can travel through time too. In fact they are so powerful, they never won a battle.

It's a wonder sci-fi has survived that drivel.

Rodenbery has done worse though.
Earth: Final Crap-fest.

Jesus Rodham Christ. This show was more "Trekie" than TREK! It didn't just ignore past seasons, it could actually ignore the very Last episode, change its history at will, and cycle through main characters as fast as bad Japanimation.

Alternate twin universe, evil twin, new tech mentioned just in time to be used for today's story, mumbo-jumbo in the guise of sci-fi...this has Rodenbery stink all over it.

UPDATE: Let me just add, though, that the first season of EFC was pretty watchable, if not on the edge of entertaining.

[ February 13, 2003, 15:11: Message edited by: Omega_Prime ]

[Omega_Prime]

10 most awful sci-fi TV shows ever.

1. Earth: Final Conflict
2. Voyager
3. Farscape (After it started sucking)
4. Cleopatra 2525 (watchable on mute)
5. Lost in Space
6. Andromeda
7. Highlander: Raven
8. Enterprise (is there a petition to kill this?}
9. Greatest American Hero
10. Manamal

ten best:

1. Stargate SG1
2. B5 (Though very dry chemistry wise)
3. Sliders (first season at least)
4. Battlestar galactica
5. X-files (early on)
6. Night Stalker (horror/mystery/scifi)
7. Twilight Zone
8. 6 million dollar man
9. Farscape (Before it started sucking)
10. Outer Limits

I didn't mention shows like Scorpian/Nightman/Manta because they are pretty much the same bad show, with different actors.

[orev_saara]

Did somebody claim that Stranger in a Strange Land was a good book? Maybe I am a stranger in a strange land, but it seemed to me that Heinlein was just indulging in some of his odd fetishes a little too much in that book. Don't believe me? Read Glory Road or Job: A Comedy of Justice. Good writing occasionally, but the man had issues. If you're looking to read good sci-fi, I recommend Asimov or Cherryh. Or Zelazny, for something a little wierder. Or Card. And Saberhagen sci-fi ain't bad.

[Baron Munchausen]

Omega Prime, you missed the 'revival' Galactical 1980 on that list of the worst SciFi of all time. It belongs at the TOP of the list, too! The Buck Rogers series follows closely behind it.

Orev Saara wrote:

Did somebody claim that Stranger in a Strange Land was a good book? Maybe I am a stranger in a strange land, but it seemed to me that Heinlein was just indulging in some of his odd fetishes a little too much in that book. Don't believe me? Read Glory Road or Job: A Comedy of Justice. Good writing occasionally, but the man had issues. If you're looking to read good sci-fi, I recommend Asimov or Cherryh. Or Zelazny, for something a little wierder. Or Card. And Saberhagen sci-fi ain't bad.

Yes, Heinlein re-wrote the same book(s) many times over. Stranger in a Strange Land is nearly identical with Friday, for example. Too bad he didn't know when to quit.

[ February 13, 2003, 17:48: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]