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Best Sci Fi Currently On Television?
A few months ago a friend recommended Farscape, and I started watching. The first season was flat, but the current season is absolutely amazing. So I started watching Lexx just because I had hope in TV sci fi. (I blame Voyager) I'll run a poll on this later, but I'd like to just throw this out: what is the best sci fi on TV? What do people like? Why? I like Farscape because the plot this season has been really interesting (and I even dig the device where the split the main char so they could have silly episodes interspersed with serious ones) and Lexx... well Lexx is just seriously bizarre: I love the wacky humor and terrible B effects. (thanks to everyone in Germany that recommended it. Wow! You werent kidding). Are there any other nuggets of joy out there that I'm missing? The scary thing is that the Sci-Fi channel has finally edged out Comedy Central and Cartoon Network on my Tivo for disk space.
Hear, hear! Damned right! B5 is the best Sci-Fi TV ever. It is a series that can be watched from end to end several times in a row (all 110 episodes) and you will *still* catch something new, or understand some obscure bit of foreshadowing that originally you missed. I have seen the series several times over, and I still find myself finding new gems. The continuity of the series is great; my biggest pet peeve of ST:NG (my second favourite SF TV show) was how the events of the episode would only affect the crew for *that* episode, and would never affect them afterward.
As well, it is a very believable sci-fi series. The humans are not the most powerful race in existence. The future is dirty, dingle, and jerry-rigged; not some utopian paradise. The science is believable: Star Furies act as how spacecraft *should* act. And I love the space battles; just the little details like the space debris keeping the inertia, the way streams of pulse cannon fire missing missing hitting missing targets.
B5 is the premiere science fiction series. If you haven't watched it, and want to know how good it is without knowing anything of the story line, I would suggest watching "In The Beginning", the made-for-cable movie that relates the events of the Earth-Minbari war.
"Don't mind me cutting myself on Occam's Razor"
Since B5 ended (am I the only one worried about the Rangers?) there've been three series that are not just good; they're great.
Lexx is great. Stargate has gone from okay to excellent. But far away ahead of them all is Farscape.
I don't know how much you Americans have seen, but I've been watching it on DVD and I'v seen up to about half way through the second series. It's taken a fairly old plot (old before Voyager used it) and the traditional format (individual episodes, occasionally two- or three-parters, the rare reference to previous plots), but managed to be truly excellent.
The reason it's so good? IMO, it's because it avoids cliches. On several occasions (I still haven't learnt), I've groaned as ten minutes into an episode it looks like it's going to be one of those ridiculous Trek episodes that make us all cringe. But I've invariably had to apologise (mentally, anyway) to the producers by the end of the episode.
It may not have all the strongest plot lines, but it avoids cliche. And that's a rare and wonderful thing.
The movie and early episodes were occasionally painful to watch as a writer tried to include some pseudoscientific nonsense, but they seem to have put that past them.
The benefits of Stargate SG-1?
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
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Thank you for the amazing breakdown. I myself am a Huge Fan of this series, and was watching since GROPOS. It's a must-see. Infact, the only series to actually come close to its glory has been Farscape, but still has not beat it just yet.
Some good sites to go to for Babylon 5 information and discussion:
The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5. A great reference source. It has THE most comprehensive episode guide for the series, it's movies, and its spinoff, Crusade. They Include a Synopsis, Notes, Comments from JMS, and other related information. The site also includes a B5 term encyclopedia, which can be beneficial for those who don't understand a term.
B5 Tech Reference. This site, while containing large amounts of fictional information, is a decent reference for anyone seeking information on the spacecraft of Babylon 5.
FirstOnes.com. While this is a shameless plug, If you want to talk with other babylon 5 fans, go there and visit the forums. You'll meet some interesting people from around the world. While it's primary mission has been abandoned (to raise the Babylon 5 Space Combat Simulator, Into the Fire, from the dead), it is being transformed into a source for everything Babylon 5. (well, that's the plan, at least =) )
Hyperspace Ship Guide. Another great reference page for the spacecraft of babylon 5. This has less fanfiction than Babylon 5 Tech, but less information as a whole. It has some great images, though.
The Down Below Sound Archive. This Page has a sound bite of just about anything you could want from this show. It's a great place to go if you want something along those lines.
Babylon 5: The place to be. This is another great site, loaded with 3D art and the models to make your own! Check it out sometime.
The Music of Babylon 5.. This is another great Babylon 5 Resource. It's webmaster posts various soundtracks from Babylon 5 on a regular basis. Most recently, the site had put up Battle Sequences A-F, the Sampler tracks for the music in Babylon 5: Into the Fire. Take a few minutes and listen to it.
The Shadow Information Office. A great page dedicated to correcting the popular belief that shadows are evil monsters. Rather, it shows that they have a very incolved culture, and exist for the sole purpose of assisting the other races. Check it out.
I hope these links are put to good use. There is a lot of information on the web. most of it bad. This should clear up some of that. Sanfam Out.
Agreed 100%. Although Doctor Who had B-grade special effects, the thing that made the show work was the intelligent and witty writing. When you have that, you can live without the big budgets. But without it, all the effects in the world won't do any good.
Speaking of British sci-fi, I'd also like to mention Blake's 7 and Red Dwarf. I especially tip my hat to the latter. The humor will have you doubled over with laughter.
On the American scene, Stargate SG-1 is still doing quite well, although I was a little disappointed with last Friday's episode. The Outer Limits is also an interesting show to watch. Psi Factor was also good when it first came on the air, back when it was divided into short stories. I haven't seen it much in the last few years, though.
That light you see at the end of the tunnel might be from an oncoming train.
Stargate SG-1 airs at 10 PM on the east and west coast feeds. Since my cable provider normally uses the east-coast feeds, I get it at 8 PM.
If you're seeing it at midnight, you're either on a tape delay or in the CTZ but getting the west coast feed for some reason. Either way, you should complain to your cable provider.
(If I had to guess, this is to "protect the children" from the nudity and sexual situations in their late-night programming. Heaven forbid we expect parents to monitor what their children are watching on TV in the late evening.)
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Most days of the week SciFi does several hours of 'scifi-world, ____ land", like fantasy land or horror land or whatever, they'll show 4 hours of a particular series from about noon to 4 or 1 to 5, I forget. I just happened to catch S:A&B on wednesday of this week (I think), but the schedule appears to be random, on thursday they showed Fantasy Island. An excellent show, I agree, and I watched it when it was first on several years ago.
Communication is only possible between equals
Even though I don't own a tele, I've seen a large number of Lexx shows. A friend works on the German side of things, and they fly him to Toronto and some studio in the wilds of Nova Scotia (his words) from time to time. Much of the talent in front of the camera is Canadian, with the exception of Eva & Xenia. Behind the camera is a mix of Germans and Canucks. Most of the young, sexy bit-part actresses are German.
Since I spend wayyyyy too much time in hotel rooms, I do get to see Lexx on both sides of the atlantic. There are two different versions, the European/Canadian shows tend to be more sexy and edgy, the U.S. gets a very edited down version so the Sci-Fi channel doesn't get kicked from too many cable stations as pr0n.
When my friend first told me of Lexx, it was being sold to various investment groups and production support companies as a way to attract a large number of hard-core geeks. By analyzing the only successful elements of recent trek shows [7of9], the first season working title was Sexx. The mini-capsule was "Trek meets Xena in a Blue Velvet universe". With a tag like that, its not hard to see why CmdrTaco likes Lexx, as well as Farscape.
I like Lexx, but I wish all four seasons would come out on DVD or tape, or some fan would digitize every episode into mpeg and share them on gnutella.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on