I just wanted to get this group started by talking about some of the shows I personally like and giving you some idea of the range I personally think the group should have. I would like to see this be as inclusive of a group as it can be without totally losing its focus.
I don't see myself as watching a lot of television, but when I list them all I'm amazed at how many science fiction or related shows I've watched over the years. Here are a few shows and a brief opinion of them. Don't feel unwelcome if you don't agree with me on these. Science fiction people tend to be both individualistic and generally tolerant.
Star Trek (original) - I didn't see this first time around, but I have seen it reruns. At its best this was very good in spite of cheap sets and graphics that look dated. On the other hand there were a good number of really poor episodes
Star Trek Next Gen - We watched this religiously as a family. Again the episodes were uneven in quality, with a few genuinely bad ones, a few absolutely great ones, and a goodly number where they set up a situation and then teched their way out of it.
Babylon 5: I tried unsuccessfully to get into this a number of times before I finally decided I liked it. At first the stiff acting put me off and I found it difficult to understand what was going on. Finally one of my friends sat down and gave me enough background to understand what was going on. Once he did that, Babylon 5 became one of my favorite shows. Babylon 5 is difficult to get into because it has a four season story arc. It was originally supposed to be a five season story arc, but it appeared that the show would be cancelled after 4 seasons so the stories of season 4 and 5 were compressed into season 4. The show was then renewed, and the producers had to come up with a season 5. They did their best, but season 5 was obviously an afterthought. Babylon 5 has some of the most intricate space battle scenes I've seen on television, though Battlestar Galactica may do better because the amount of computer power available is much higher now than when Babylon 5 was around.
Dr. Who: I watched many of the original episodes and generally enjoyed them, with Tom Baker as my favorite doctor and either Leela or Ace as my favorite companion. I enjoy the new series as well.
Firefly: I never got to see this on television, but I bought the DVD and I'm glad I did. There is an absolutely classic scene in one of the episodes where you see the captain sitting on a rock in the middle of a totally barren desert looking off in the distance, apparently stark naked (side view thank god). He nods and says, "Yep, that went well." You then flash back to 14 hours earlier. It is a great episode. If you haven't watched Firefly, it's worth the effort.
Battlestar Galactica: Excellent first season. A mixture of good and mediocre since then.
I'm also a Buffy/Angel fan. I didn't start watching Buffy until the sixth season because of the silly name, but once I watched a few episodes I was hooked. I loved Tru Calling for the one season and six episodes it was on. I'm starting to get into Heroes, though that one snuck in under my radar until lately. I've watched quite a few Stargate episodes, though I don't set time aside for them. I haven't been able to get into Lost yet, but Lost fans are certainly welcome here.
In any case, that's what I'm interested in. I would love to hear about your favorite shows, episode, obscure stuff you've found and love, and anything else you want to say about science fiction television.
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Comments: 19
I do love Firefly and I think that has a lot to do with the combined Buffy and Western feel of the show - two things I adore.
I had a small love affair with Star Trek: TNG some time ago and second season Dark Angel because of Jensen Ackles.
Not SciFi but close - Supernatural is my favorite and it's made by many people from The X-Files, so if you liked that show you should give it a try.
Cynthia: I caught a few episodes of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Land of the Giants in reruns, but not enough to really get into the shows. I actually like both versions of Battlestar Galactica. The original started out serious, but gradually took on a kind of campy tongue-in-cheek quality that was kind of fun. The new version is much darker, as you pointed out. I do like the in-depth characters and the fact that the show will take turns that are logical once they happen, but seem to come out of the blue. That being said, I haven't watched it as much lately because it has gotten too dark for my tastes.
So, you're a Buffy fan too? Great. I never watched the show until sixth season. I saw the movie, wasn't overly impressed, and thought that the TV show would be the same thing with a lower budget. Finally one of my friends brought over the first episode on DVD and I was immediately hooked.
I go back and watch episodes from the first couple of season once in a while and realize all over again just how good they are. There were great episodes in all of the seasons, but once Angel started I think the talent got spread a little too thin between the two shows. I still love all of the Buffy seasons, and I miss getting to see new episodes. I was hoping that they could do a spin-off with Faith as the heroine after Buffy ended. It would have been a darker show, but it could have been fun.
The actress (I can't remember her name) went on to play Tru in Tru Calling. That was an excellent show too, though I kept expecting Tru to kick butt the way Faith would have.
Firefly is a big favorite - I watched the DVDs with one of my sons, and we loved Serenity. We used to watch Stargate together too. And I watched Dark Angel with another son. Star Trek, any series, I catch when I can. And I've been watching Farscape on DVD.
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea - I remember watching that. But I don't think Land of the Giants ever made it to England - I used to buy the books cheap in Woolworths. I used to buy books about Barnabas Collins too - was that an American series?
My Mum says I should watch Taken sometime. Do people recommend it?
Barnabas Collins was part of Dark Shadows I believe. I watched an episode or two and thought they were fun, but the series ran at a time I usually couldn't watch it.
I'm sorry, I haven't seen Taken yet.
One of the things I like best about Medium is that Patricia Arquette doesn't have a perfect size-2 figure. She looks so real - the way actresses look in British tv a lot of the time. I love any kind of movie/television that doesn't kowtow to the sickos in the fashion industry. (That 's probably why I'm such a sucker for foreign films...)
Also, I've been getting a kick out of The Dresden Files. I love the premise, and the story lines are good. Sometimes the dialogue is a bit amateurish, but the writers are improving. This may soon appear on my list of favorites.
Here's my guilty pleasure: Kyle XY, starting a new run tonight. It's so odd, and the kid (Kyle) is so appealing. He gets all my maternal instincts going. (Seems to do something distinctly different to my 15-year-old daughter, but she's hormonal...)
Cathy
I have a 15-year-old daughter too. Maybe I shouldn't mention Kyle XY around her. Then again, if she's going to drool over somebody it might as well be a fictional character.
Thanks
Dale C.
You haven't watched Medium? I'm so hooked - have been since the very first show.
Cathy
All: Anybody here watch The Prisoner? I guess it really isn't science fiction for the most part, but it edges into science fiction territory at times. I watched it on DVD a few months ago, and that was one strange show, especially the last two episodes.
Anywho, Strek Classic was on too late to watch when it first ran, so I mostly saw it in the 70's. I've always enjoyed the series, but it did have a lot of low points (most of the third season, for example). The later Streks also were highly variable – though it was usually in their first season or two that they were the worst, rather than the last.
I have a theory that the popularity of the Strek series varies inversely with how much hair the captain has. Classic didn't do well until long after it's original run – by which time Shatner was wearing a toupe. NG did very well indeed, under its balding Patrick Stewart Captain. Deep Space Nine (which, yes, I do believe the concept for was stolen from B-5) was only so so until Avery Brooks shaved his head, then it became probably the best Strek series. Kate Mulgrew cut her hair short, and Voyager did much better. And on Enterprise, Scott Bakula was just too hair-endowed to draw much of an audience.
Ah-hem, anyway...
Babylon 5 is still probably my favorite SF series, not for the least reason it was actually Science Fiction, which is rare for TV Sci Fi. It also helps that I followed its creation for years before it got on the air thanks to JMS going to panels at SF cons I went too. Heck, I remember when his entire output for the series was a set of artist sketches and a thirty second clip of the B-5 station test footage! It's a real pity that the follow ons “Crusader” and “Rangers” didn't make it. They are doing some Direct to Video movies of it, so that's good.
With Battlestar Galactica I watched the original series, though I was never impressed by it (that's just how desperate for SF on TV I was back then). I remember after watching the pilot with a friend, him turning to me and saying “this used the same kind of effects as Star Wars, why is it such crap?” Because of that, I never got into watching the new series – and now I've missed to much to just jump into the middle (or end, if rumors are true). I'll probably get the DVD collection and watch it that way.
The 70's and 80's had a bunch of attempted series that lasted five or six episodes and then disappeared. Most titles have fallen out of my head by now (of course, some were so bad that they were pushed...), but I remember one which had a small crew of Rangers in an equally small ship that solved problems in their little chunk of the universe. In feel, it could have been ancestral to both B-5 and Firefly.
Firefly is another of my favorites – and if Fox had, oh, I don't know, played the episodes in order, it might still be on. But then, Fox has screwed up almost every show they've ever had, with the exception of X-Files (which jumped the shark all on it's own) and The Simpsons (without which Fox probably never would have made it).
I also enjoyed Alien Nation when it was on, watched V simply to see how much of Pasadena they were using that episode (“Visitor Headquarters” was actually Ferdinand Marcos's mistresses mansion in the southern part of Pasadena. It burned down not long after V stopped filming).
I like all the Stargate series – though watching the season one DVDs of the first series, it's amazing how much better they've gotten.
I've also watched a lot of SF animation. Until Sailor Moon and Pokemon, almost all Japanese anime that got over here was SF – and that was good (if somewhat giant robot-centric) – and there's been a few good American made SF animations too. I liked Galaxy Rangers (though now it seems a bit hokey to me) and if it didn't inspire some of Firefly's feel, I'll eat my DVDs of it. The cgi version of Starship Troopers was excellent, managing do ditch all the bad parts of the movie (which, admittedly, was most of the movie), while going back to the Heinlein book to grab some good stuff.
And, of course, I've got to give a shout out for Thunderbirds – and have to give Jonathan Frakes a punch in the nose for screwing up the movie of it so much – I still enjoy watching it as much today as I did when I was five...though I admit I rarely write “Thunderbird 6” on my paper airplanes any more...
Dr Who and I have had a long standing friendship, from Pertwee to Tennant – though I feel Eric Roberts as The Master in the movie was perhaps the worst piece of casting ever. The series has almost always been able to transcend its BBC-budget limitations.
I'm one of those people who loved Firefly, but had mixed emotions about the movie, Serenity. I would have far preferred another season or two or three of Firefly.
By the way, have you heard of a show called Brimstone? One of my friends loved it during its very short run a few years ago, but apparently it never made it to DVD, and I missed it when it was on TV.
I agree on Fox and messing up shows. They fund innovative concepts, then just yank them before people have a chance to find them. And then of course there is the micro-management that destroyed Firefly's chance of catching on. I wish SciFi would pick Firefly up, though it is probably too late now.
I remember sorta watching "Brimstone." It was okay, but it wasn't really my type of show - here's what a quick websearch found out about it:
"I was a cop. My wife was raped, I caught the guy who did it, and I killed him. Two months later I died, and went to Hell. 113 of the most vile creature escaped."
The high concept of this story is that Detective Ezekial Stone was sent to Hell for the murder of his wife's rapist. He spends 15 years in Hell, until 113 souls managed to escape. The Devil needs someone to send them back to Hell, but can't do much on the physical plane. So he sends Ezekial after them, with the promise that if Stone recovers all 113, he'll win permanent freedom from Hell. And if he fails, he's damned for good.
All of the escapees as well as Stone are supernaturally indestructible, except they can inflict pain on each other. The only way to send someone back to Hell is to destroy their eyes, the "windows of the soul." Worse, some of the escapees spent centuries, if not millennia, in Hell and have developed great power - little of which Stone, a relatively recent prisoner, has himself.
Each week, with a little help (and the occasional hindrance) from the Devil, Stone typically tracks down another of the escapees and sends them back to Hell. He is tattoed with the names of each one, and when he sends them back the appropriate tattoo burns itself off. Meanwhile, Stone's ex-wife still believes him dead, but Stone can't resist checking in on her from time to time.
This series only ran 13 episodes on Fox, but has a devoted cult following and is rerun from time to time on the SciFi Channel.
http://www.tv.com/brimstone/show/204/summary.html
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As far as Fox "fund[ing] innovative concepts, then just yank[ing] them before people have a chance to find them," heck, some of the stuff with the best potential doesn't even get on the air. Check out "Heatvision and Jack" an unshown (until Youtube) pilot by Ben Stiller with Jack Black (!) as...Jack. Very silly send-up of "Hulk" and "Six Million Dollar Man" and other similar shows.
I started watching Battlestar Galactica again this season. I'm kind of reserving judgment on it. I loved the first season. Didn't particularly like the one where they were planet-bound as a Zylon social experiment, though I stopped watching after a couple of episodes.
I found all but one of the episodes of Brimstone on YouTube. The quality is bad, but I got a feel for what the show is like. The episodes I've seen are worth watching, though I'm not as big of a fan as my friend is.