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.

Comments

Re:I call shenanigans...

[bryce1012]

Um, they ranked the new BSG #2.

Full Listing

[scovetta]

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)

Re:Sliders

[JamesD_UK]

I've heard John Rhys-Davies in person speak about his leaving sliders. It was several years ago and so I'd probably not even try and quote what he actually said whilst I was present, the gist of it was that he left because although he loved the concept of the series he saw it already going downhill before he decided to leave. I think he's been quite public about this and I managed to find this quote.

"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."

Doctor Who: 1963-2007 (at least)

[pauljlucas]

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.

Doctor Who was resurrected in 2005; 2006 is in production, and has been green-lighted through 2007.

Re:Science Fiction?

[Red Flayer]

" They have a pretty weird definition of science fiction"

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_ficti on_on_television:

"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"."

Crap list...

[psykocrime]

Whaaa-waaaa--wwwwaaattt?????

no Salvage, Blue Thunder, Airwolf, Knight Rider, Automan, Max Headroom or The Prisoner????