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Top 50 Science Fiction TV Shows
pbaumgar writes "Boston.com is running an article discussing their top 50 Sci-Fi TV shows of all-time. What are some of your favorites?" From the article: "Number 10 -'Sliders. 'Sliders' should have been a widespread hit, but it was ahead of its time. The show was about a wiz-kid genius Quinn Mallory, played by Jerry O'Connell, and his band of three companions who slide among Earth's alternate realities. Toward the end of the series, the show quickly slid in quality as three of its stars - O'Connell, Sabrina Lloyd and John Rhys-Davies - departed and were replaced by others. A tragic demise to a fine show." They don't even give a nod to greatest-trek-of-all-time DS9, so I don't know about this list.
Um, they ranked the new BSG #2.
From scovetta.blogspot.com:
50. 'Earth - Final Conflict'
49. 'The Wild Wild West'
48. '3rd Rock From The Sun'
47. 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century'
46. 'That Was Then'
45. 'The Greatest American Hero'
44. 'Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman'
43. 'Nowhere Man'
42. 'Science Fiction Theatre'
41. 'Futurama'
40. 'The Thunderbirds'
39. 'The Man from U.N.C.L.E.'
38. 'Batman'
37. 'Space 1999'
36. 'The Bionic Woman'
35. 'Battlestar Galactica' (Original)
34. 'The Avengers'
33. 'Lost In Space'
32. 'My Favorite Martian'
31. 'Alien Nation'
30. 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea'
29. 'The Six Million Dollar Man'
28. 'Adventures of Superman'
27. 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'
26. 'Stargate Atlantis'
25. 'The Jetsons'
24. 'Wonder Woman'
23. 'Tales from the Crypt'
22. 'Andromeda'
21. 'Quantum Leap'
20. 'The Hitchhiker'
19. 'Dark Angel'
18. 'V'
17. 'Firefly'
16. 'Flash Gordon'
15. 'Logan's Run'
14. 'Star Trek Voyager'
13. 'The Outer Limits'
12. 'Xena: Warrior Princess'
11. 'Lost'
10. 'Sliders'
9. 'Mystery Science Theater 3000'
8. 'Dr. Who'
7. 'The Twilight Zone'
6. 'Stargate SG-1'
5. 'Babylon 5'
4. 'The X-Files'
3. 'Star Trek: The Next Generation'
2. 'Battlestar Galactica' (New)
1. 'Star Trek' (Original)
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
Also, oddly they say it ran from 1963 to 1989...
Hmmm, you know... I could swear I saw something on BBC 1 called Dr. something a short while back.. I wonder what it could be.
Also, as a strange side note.. some of the shows they listed can hardly be described as "Sci-Fi", I'd say they thought: "Let's make a top 50 list of the greatest sci-fi shows ever!" and then kinda got bored half-way through and just started adding shows they liked as kids regardless whether they be sci-fi or not.
"I like SF. I love intelligent SF," Rhys-Davies says in his deep basso voice. "When you come across good writing, and I think 'Scorpion' was finely written, it's a wonderful thing. I had just come through a period where the contractual nature of my job obliged me to take scripts that frankly wouldn't get past Writing 101. We had the most wonderful series concept with Sliders, but we did everything that had been done before and we did it every damned episode. We did Species. We did Tremors. We did Twister. We did War of the Worlds. We did The Island of Dr. Moreau. It was out of control, just out of control.
"I think Tracy did a nice job early on. We had our differences and we fought occasionally. In the end, Sliders wasn't the worst experience I ever had. I was just disappointed. Again, I love SF. I'm a passionate believer in Sliders. The series could have been great. The public always understood the of Sliders. The public understood that you could go anywhere in the galaxy. The writers, though, would try to graft a Law and Order story, or something they had done or seen before, onto Sliders and just make the characters work around it."
It was already going hill and that's why John Rhys Davies left. He wanted Sliders to continue to be good science fiction and venture into more solid, hard science fiction whereas the rest of the powers that be wanted the show to be more light and fluffy and typical crap that qualifies, these days, as scifi. So, he left.
I've always liked him, but after that decision, I gained a lot of respect for him as a professional. And the fact that they couldn't keep a solid cast stringed together afterward just shows how important he actually was to the series. I mean, every week it was a different person out of the cast and another in. Including the two O'Connell brothers.
But at least the show had the super hot military chick. Yum.
50. 'Earth - Final Conflict'
49. 'The Wild Wild West'
48. '3rd Rock From The Sun'
47. 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century'
46. 'That Was Then'
45. 'The Greatest American Hero'
44. 'Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman'
43. 'Nowhere Man'
42. 'Science Fiction Theatre'
41. 'Futurama'
40. 'The Thunderbirds'
39. 'The Man from U.N.C.L.E.'
38. 'Batman'
37. 'Space 1999'
36. 'The Bionic Woman'
35. 'Battlestar Galactica' (Original)
34. 'The Avengers'
33. 'Lost In Space'
32. 'My Favorite Martian'
31. 'Alien Nation'
30. 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea'
29. 'The Six Million Dollar Man'
28. 'Adventures of Superman'
27. 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'
26. 'Stargate Atlantis'
25. 'The Jetsons'
24. 'Wonder Woman'
23. 'Tales from the Crypt'
22. 'Andromeda'
21. 'Quantum Leap'
20. 'The Hitchhiker'
19. 'Dark Angel'
18. 'V'
17. 'Firefly'
16. 'Flash Gordon'
15. 'Logan's Run'
14. 'Star Trek Voyager'
13. 'The Outer Limits'
12. 'Xena: Warrior Princess'
11. 'Lost'
10. 'Sliders'
9. 'Mystery Science Theater 3000'
8. 'Dr. Who'
7. 'The Twilight Zone'
6. 'Stargate SG-1'
5. 'Babylon 5'
4. 'The X-Files'
3. 'Star Trek: The Next Generation'
2. 'Battlestar Galactica' (New)
1. 'Star Trek' (Original)
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
Unless you have a particularly narrow definition of Science Fiction, most of those fit. For example, The Avengers had invading plants from space, killer robots etc. How can you not call it Science Fiction?
" They have a pretty weird definition of science fiction"
i on_on_television:
The media industry, in deciding what genre a show is, can't slice the pie too fine, or the definitions become useless. They are more likely to define the genres according to audience, since that's what advertisers want to see. So, no Horror-fantasy, Horror, High Fantasy, or Historical Fantasy genre labels for us.
Given that the media industry has so much influence on public perception of things, is it surprising that people slowly change how they label things to fit the media labels?
From http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Science_fict
"There is some ambiguity as to what exactly "science fiction" covers in terms of television. In recent years, the term has come to cover any programme that deals in the fantastical or even merely the horrific, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed or Angel. More accurately these programmes are not science fiction as they don't involve any real scientific element, and are perhaps more comfortably covered under the generic term "telefantasy"."
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Us Brits were just lucky I guess. Blake's 7 was the ultimate anti-Star Trek. Here Blake and his dubious crew of criminals and freedom fighters/terrorists took on the all-powerful Big-Brother-esque Federation.
In the first episode our hero is set up as a post mind-wipe former rabble rouser that witnesses the mass murder of a secret meeting of dissidents. The authorities have him set up as a child molester, destroy him and his reputation and then ship him off to a penal colony (after having his lawyer and the lawyer's wife killed off because they were getting in the way).
Dark enough for you? That's just the first episode. Written by Terry Nation, mind behind the better Doctor Who stories amongst many other things, this series has all the depth and tension that you could possibly hope for. Of course the special effects look very dated and they seemed to find every last disused quarrry and scrap of wasteland left in England to film in.
Even if you're not much of a sci-fi fan, I highly recommend it.
Also from Wikipedia;
So it seems I'm not alone in regarding it as science fiction.
J.K.
If they just hadn't made that fourth season, Lexx might have made the list. The first season's four movies were great, showing the result of the four creators fleshing out their story, characters, CGI artwork, and background details for over a decade. Every idea they had went into crafting that universe, and it showed. The movies were good enough to get the series picked up for at least two more seasons, but by then they were out of ideas, and the 2nd and 3rd seasons were abyssimal.
To get the series funded they were forced to bring in an investment group from Germany. There was too much interference by their German investors, who insisted on making the characters more into extreme cariactures, putting lots of T&A into every scene, and attempting to be a german star trek rip-off. The Stanley character became too annoying and lost any depth that was present during the movies.
The fourth season was unwatchable, I've only been able to stomach about three of the episodes, and have relied on friend's opinions to keep me well away from the rest. Its what happens when a series has jumped the shark so far they know they have nothing left to lose and just shamelessly stole every movie cliche but forgot to add anything to the process.
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
Wrong. This is the best SAAB website: http://www.cyberpursuits.com/heckifiknow/saab/defa ult.asp
They have one of the finest Multimedia sections I've ever seen for any show. Full downloads of the entire soundtrack, a HUNDRED video clips... this is just a motherload of content.
This show is everything that the new Battlestar Galactica is (#2 on their list). SAAB was truly ahead of it's time with it's long story arc, outstanding characters you really cared for, fantastic special effects, a realistic, gritty feel, and so many of the episodes were written like award-winning sci-fi short stories. Great, great show.
UNIX: A computer user is defined as a programmer. WINDOWS: A computer user is defined as a consumer.
Uh, try John Koenig. And Andromeda as 22! These guys must be on crack!
Silicon & Charybdis McLuhan Kildall Papert Kay
Whaaa-waaaa--wwwwaaattt?????
no Salvage, Blue Thunder, Airwolf, Knight Rider, Automan, Max Headroom or The Prisoner????
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
Star Trek TOS did the alien Nazis first. Remember Spock giving McCoy the scientific method of putting on his overtight boots - "point your toe and push"? For that matter,they did 1920's gangsters, the Cooms vs. the Yangs, and Ancient Rome never fallen too. TOS wore that theme out, even using the unlikely "parallel evolution" multiple times.
In case you folks haven't I'll Karma-whore the whole list out.
1) Star Trek (TOS)
2) Battlestar Galactica (new)
3) Star Trek (TNG)
4) X-Files
5) Babylon 5
6) Stargate SG-1
7) The Twilight Zone
8) Dr. Who
9) Mystery Science Theater 3000
10) Sliders
11) Lost
12) Xena: Warrior Pincess
13) The Outer Limits
14) Star Trek (VOY)
15) Logan's Run
16) Flash Gordon
17) Firefly
18) V
19) Dark Angel
20) The Hitchhiker
21) Quantum Leap
22) Andromeda
23) Tales from the Crypt
24) Wonder Woman
25) The Jetsons
26) Stargate Atlantis
27) Buffy the Vampire Slayer
28) Adventures of Superman
29) The Six Million Dollar Man
30) Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
31) Alien Nation
32) My Favorite Martian
33) Lost in Space
34) The Avengers
35) Battlestar Galactica (Original)
36) The Bionic Woman
37) Space 1999
38) Batman
39) The man from U.N.C.L.E
40) The Thunderbirds
41) Futurama
42) Science Fiction Theater
43) Nowhere Man
44) Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
45) The Greatest American Hero
46) That Was Then
47) Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
48) 3rd Rock From the Sun
49) Wild Wild West
50) Earth: Final Conflict
DS9, Earth 2, First Wave, Space Above and Beyond, Crusade, Enterprise, Max Headroom, Farscape they missed some major ones, and included some totally non-scifi ones.
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