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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.
I completely agree with Sliders. I really loved the series. But at the time Prof. Arthuro died it went downhill, fast. At a certain point it was only about those "aliens". A real shame.
Slashdot is not a place for a reasonable discussion of Sci-Fi shows. This might hurt someone's karma...
I have freaks! I did something right...
Dr Who was relegated to number 8 while Stargate got number 6?! Something is very wrong with this list.
Seriously-- there can't be 50!?! I'd be impressed if that many were ever made, even with the Sci-Fi channel... maybe non-English ones should be counted? Who can list that many? Pilots don't count... and neither does Mork & Mindy.
Wah??
Moore's better baby did pretty damn well.
I'd say more, but my guild is raiding.
There are better sci fi shows than Farscape, but there aren't 50 sci fi shows better than Farscape. What a horrible omission from that list.
Come on, they put the Thunderbirds in front of Futurama... That's just wrong.
It only lasted a single season but I really liked Space, Above and Beyond.
I don't think I could name 50 sci-fi TV shows I'd call "good". Sure, there are some I'd call great, but 50 good ones? Most of them are an inch from green monsters from Mars and space-whores. I'll let you guys guess an inch in which direction that is.
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Ask me about my sig.
Doesn't get much better than a show with smart ass comments about others.
/. to get my fill
Exactly what we all do in life
Hell, now I have to log onto
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They have a pretty weird definition of science fiction. I mean, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.? Mystery Science Theater 3000? Tales from the Crypt? Avengers? Batman? Buffy? Why not Friends while you're at it? I mean, a New York without any colored people?
Je ne parle pas francais.
Buffy the vampire (s)layer a sci-fi-show? I suspect they pulled this list out of their ass..
I'm sorry, and I'm sure this is beating a dead horse, but Superman, Batman, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, et als. are not SCIENCE FICTION. Granted, there may be a correlation between the viewership of said shows, but these shows don't even pretend to be futuristic, or contain a science element at all. Batman, maybe, but I hate it when people lump these things all under the "sci fi" umbrella. This is why we have all this horror shlock on the Sci-Fi channel and things like Farscape get cancelled.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
But have you seen the list?
A lot of those shows aren't Science Fiction.
The top ten of this list I can agree with. Lost isn't even close to sci-fi, but man, how do you leave off Lexx from this list? Nothing grabbed my attention(and made me cover myself with a pillow) more than that show did.
I really hate Dan Patrick.
I watched it once, it was too alien to me.
Synapsis: This head alien interrogates others like it regarding its numerous abuses by Man. Freaky episodes about the aliens' fashion, body morphing in their latter life stage, even discussions about how they can get their alien race to win the Presidency.
Eerie.
Um, they ranked the new BSG #2.
Talk about a show before it's time. Max Headroom's one of the few shows from many years ago I can watch today without it feeling extremely dated.
Yeah, I liked the original Star Trek, but truthfully, I can't watch it anymore. It just seems so... well, old.
New Battlestar is #2, second only to Star Trek: TOS.
Greatest 50, my arse! Where's The Prisoner?
the amount of science in these "sci-fi" shows is about .00000001 per cent.
I agree with that completely. Snooze fest revolving around interpersonal problems of rather boring beings.
How else do you explain Buffy the Vampire Slayer coming in lower than Wonder Woman? Ok, granted Linda Carter's breasts were bigger than all of the combined breasts of every female Buffy cast member but I don't think that should be the deciding factor.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Hands down, Farscape. Well-thought-out, well-scripted, believable aliens, and an interesting ship. 'S a crying shame that the SciFi channel pulled the plug. I really miss it. It made cable tv worth the money - that, and F1 racing.
:( #6 just refused to cave in, and he won... or did he?
Next best is an oldie: The Prisoner. If you're under 40, you likely missed it.
Lemon curry?
RTFA. The new Battlestar Galactica came in #2, behind only the original Star Trek.
Greatest American Hero, Lois & Clark, Batman, Adventures of Superman, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Wonder Woman, Tales from the Crypt, Xena, Lost and Twilight Zone have nothing to do with science fiction. Not even in the most remote and lax sense of the word or genre. Since when is adventure, horror or comedy science fiction? Vampires are not scifi. Superheros in tights are not scifi. Xena and Hercules are not scifi characters or stories. Shows with a unique twist at the end (Twilight Zone, Crypt) are not scifi - hell, we usually call things that have unexpected twists at the end MYSTERIES.
And how is 3rd rock from the Sun or My Favorite Martian a scifi show? They're comedies that just happen to have an alien there. The alien/scifi part is almost entirely non-existant. ALF is more scifi than either of those two.
And considering the crap they have on here (Wonderwoman, but no Hulk?!) they couldn't at least be bothered to include Farscape, Lexx or First Wave?!
And yes, it also pisses me off when the Sci-Fi channel has Chucky or Wishmaster on. What do those have to do with sci-fi? Those are horror flicks. And bad ones at that.
Oh, and "'Star Trek Voyager' started off slow but ended as one of the better 'Star Trek' spinoffs" is not necessarily a compliment.
I can't believe no one seems to have mentioned this yet, slashdot is not normally short of firefly fanboys. Not that it actually deserves top spot, that should belong to Babylon 5, with Blake's 7 in second, but IMO firefly should still have made top 10
I don't see why a sci-fi series shouldn't have a soap-operatic quality to it. Babylon 5 (and, on its heels, DS9) showed other sci-fi writers that a long-term, overarching plot is well-received by many sci-fi fans. Witness Voyager, on the other hand, where the only thing tying the shows together was this "Oh Noes, We're A Bazillion Light Years From Home" thing, while five minutes before the end of every episode they pushed the Magic Reset Button to solve their problem and restore the plot to the way it was when the episode started.
These days, every episode of Stargate SG-1/Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica (some of the most popular current sci-fi) is based on the entire series up until that point (in fact, the first line in most episodes of SG-1 these days is Chris Judge saying, "Previously, on Stargate SG-1...").
Besides, the soap operatic plot of most sci-fi shows holds up to scrutiny a lot better than most actual soap operas: "I love you, but.... I have amnesia!"
Red Dwarf
I don't think I saw Blake's 7 or H2G2 in their either, so it's more a top 50 US Sci-Fi, rather than a general top 50.
Xena, though a fine show, is hardly a science fiction. It has none of the technology, exploration of current social problems, or even exploration of various cultures. Pretty much it just a medeival cop show.
Sliders was not ahead of it's time. It was just another huckleberry finn, star trek, docotor who knockoff with none of the redeeming factors. It is quite suitable for the adolecent maile, with a good role model, a pretty girl into geeks, and trivial story line. However, there are no layers that might make it interesting to an adult. The writing was woodden, even by scifi standards.
One contemporary scifi show that is seldom mentioned is 'The Cape'. Based on reality, good exploration life, and how we might move forward. Much more interesting than anything I saw on that list, though the show only works if you ignore current reality, as is true for most scifi.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Seriously. Where is "The Invaders"?
BSG2005, their number 2 pick, certainly has more "soap opera" elements than DS9 had. And DS9 is of much much higher quality in writing and acting than Star Trek Voyager which is about 15 on the list... I don't like the list - some of the stuff on the list isn't even really scifi!
Funny how one geek's trash is another geeks treasure..
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
If 20,000 decibels doesnt sound like much, you havent heard it :)
Storm
ST:TOS deserves to be #1, because that's what has brought more people into SciFi than anything else.
And while I liked the Man from U.N.C.L.E., I hardly consider it SciFi, even if he did have a communicator the size of a pack of cigarettes (later built into a pen).
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
...does that count?
Denham's Dentrifice, Denham's Dentrifice, Denham's Dandy Dental Dentrifice, Denham's Dentrifice Dentrifice Dentrifice.
I didn't realize there WERE 50 science fiction shows. Star Trek, Space 1999, Battlestar Galactica - can't be more than a few more than that,
The new BSG is at #2.
Funniest Wikipedia article ever. The image there should have been labeled more along the lines of "We THINK this is a woman, but are unable to confirm."
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some on the list, i wouldn't have considered 'pure' scifi...
/.'d and get all the geeks and nerds in the world to hit 50 page views each with NINE advertisements on it.....
3rd rock yes, ok, but no mork & mindy then? come on!!
how about dark angel? mst3k? knight rider? earth^2? seaquest? dark shadows? (my ex's favorite), and no ds9..
and if "v" was there (a miniseries), why not wild palms http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106175/
and with their stretching the definition of scifi a bit, why not the 10th kingdom? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0207275/
sheesh.. me thinks this was just some ploy cooked up by the globe to get
I agree, Stargate is much better than that.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
What is the question? What are our 50 favorite Sci-Fi shows? Honestly.
Why are lists like this compiled? I'm sure some people like to watse time in that way, but when you put together a geek list, just don't publish it.
:)
And, for the record, Sabrina Lloyd was the reason to watch Sliders.
Retired from software... maybe. Sort of.
XENA better than futurama and firefly? you must be joking?
:D
and under the mountain is not even on the list!
oh well, if nothing else it will make for some great discussion here on slashdot!
--- blackironprison, where ignorance is bliss....
Hey, Boston.com, there's more to good SciFi than Jeri Ryan's boobs. (Like Kaylee....:-D)
Batman, Wonderwoman and Xena Warrior Princes in a sci fi list? They're fantasy, not sci-fi.
1. Post list of top 50 things a geek cares about.
/.
..., just straight profit from the geeks clicking through 50 pages of ads.
1a. doesn't matter how accurate or well researched the list is
2. Make list available one item per time on a page heavy with ads
3. Post link to
4. There is no
IANAL, but I play one on
You do realize that arguing about this list makes you sound like the Comic Book Guy on the Simpsons, right? I'm serious. Just read some of the threads in his voice, and it sounds like a custom-made script, a soliloquy of unrequited geek passion.
These lists are just an excuse to cram 50*4 ads in front of the user as he clicks "next" "next" "next" "next"
OMG ST:A GOT 4TH NOT 1ST.. BLOOD!
Ok, why is this in Ask Slashdot? There's no question being asked, unless its the implied: "Yet another bogus 'best of list' has been posted. How shall we flame it?"
And to avoid being modded off topic, this list was pretty lame. They can't even get the name of the main character in Space: 1999 correct. Hint: John Koenig was the name of the fictional commander on Moonbase Alpha, Walter Koenig is an actor.
Putting Voyager on that list, is like putting N'sync on a list of the best opera.
Surely you meant Voyager? What a load of crap that show was. Just because 7of9 was a hottie in tights... Oh wait, that's one of the reasons Buck Rodgers made the list...
ST:E wasn't bad, though it took me a few attempts to get into it because the characters/actors were so sterile the first season.
"The area of penetration will no doubt be sensitive." ~ Spock
..and they missed the best fantasy show of them all.
Where is The Prisioner? I mean it's not exatly Sci-fi, but neither is this list, and at least it was innovative.
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)
#5 Battlestar: Galactica (new) ...is not worth reading any further IMO. The only arguable point in my mind is whether BSG should actually be ahead of The Outer Limits. My feeling is it probably will be, and could even beat out ST:TOS in the end, but for now it's where it should be.
:)
#4 The Outer Limits (original)
#3 Star Trek TOS
#2 Stargate SG-1
#1 Babylon 5
And don't bother disagreeing, you are wrong
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
Futurama 41st greatest of all time?!?!?!
When the Humanoid-Carrot revolution of 2120 comes, you'll understand how far ahead of its time this fantastic show really was.Just as irrigation is the lifeblood of the Southwest, lifeblood is the soup of cannibals. -- Jack Handy
The only good Star Trek was TNG - and that's only in comparison to the other Star Trek spinoffs. Otherwise, comparing Star Trek series is like comparing the color of different shits. Yes, there are slight differences, but they're all still steaming turds.
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Battlestar Galactica (original)
The Prisoner
V
star trek (original)
Just kind of surprised Seaquest DSV didn't make the list. It had it's flaws, but at a time when every other Sci-Fi show seemed to be about Outer Space, it made exploring the Earth exciting.
Introducing Microsoft Vacuum 1.0 The first Microsoft product that doesn't suck.
Man go Troll somewhere else. Me thinks you couldnt spot quality from a parsec away. If you can't follow the story and see the interweaving plots, etc..then its YOUR imagination and comprehension that are at question.
My no. 1 show, Farscape , isn't even on the list. And Futurama at no. 41? Um, ok. I'd also have included some anime, such as Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Neon Genesis Evangelion. I guess this list if only for American programs, with Farscape being an Australian production.
Futurama would of been higher up if they hadn't cancelled it. I mean with community sites like "Can't Get Enough Futurama" organizing signature drives in the 10k's and sales of the DVD compilations setting records for sales it would be madness not to do something more with the franchise than comic books. The rumored direct to DVD movie coming out in 2007 will hopefully see a return of the series if it sells well enough.
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Maybe you don't have to rate DS/9 as the best of the Treks (though I think it was ). It was certainly infinitely better than the "lost in space meets Star Trek" that was ST: Voyager. To not even list it in the top 50 just blows my mind, especially when you consider some of the shows that did make the list. You can argue as to whether DS/9 should be high or low on the list, but if you are going to list the original Battlestar: Galactica (which was awful) you better list DS/9.
Lexx, Farscape, and MacGuyver. I mean, MacGuyver is not strictly SF, but it did define science geek gone cool. Other than flimsy plot devices, Sliders, Quantum Leap and a few others had little to no science in their fiction.
What I found odd was SG:Atlantis making the list so high. Almost smacks of paid advertising. It's a good show, but fairly cookie cutter w/ some interesting ideas.
"The area of penetration will no doubt be sensitive." ~ Spock
I kinda enjoyed the old BSG, but I have to agree, I find the new one fairly unwatchable.
Flamebait (-1)
-Vendal Thornheart
Agreed, i've always thought DS9 was the lamest Star Trek, it was all about the drama. Weak. Not what i'm looking for in a sci-fi show.
I'm pleased that classics such as Dr. Who and Babylon 5 were on the list but...whoever compiled it definately needs a reminder as to what sci-fi is... If they did a sci-fi movie list, I wouldn't be suprised to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Lord of the Rings up there with Dark City and Wing Commander. As for DS9, they did mention it in the Babylon 5 segment as a cheap rip-off. *shrugs*
Farscape was brilliant.
I'm not sure how buffy counts as sci-fi, and yet farscape does not.
Oh WOW! Star Trek is number 1... didn't see that coming.
But seriuosly.... Voyager was 14 and Xena 12...thats some serious BS!!
Voyager had its slow moments, but season 3 and on was awesome scifi. NextGen doesn't hold a candle to it. I've never seen Dr. Cursher on the level of Holo-Doc trying to retake a stolen fedration ship from romulans (so funny). (It's ironiclly the only time I found andy dick funny too.)Plus, Picard is wuss captian, solves most all his problems by sending worf, riker and data to deal with it. Whilst he sits and attempts to have witty conversation with Crusher. But Janeway drove her ship into the temporal time ship to end a temporal loop, Picard causes them left and right.
Next Gen was pathetic in its presentation. Picard mostly was the problem. Spineless captain, with no "fight it out" ability. He was no Kirk... but I give Next Gen some things, Data, Q, and the borg. Only redeeming parts of the show.
(Go ahead you next gen zealots... mod me a troll... but secertly you know right!)
A bullet sounds the same in every language. So stick a fucking sock in it...
Well we (you and me too) are all here on a Saturday afternoon reading (and replying to) Slashdot, ya know. That's already pretty nerdy and kinda implies we don't have too much of a life to begin with.
If Superman and Buffy are categorised as science fiction, I don't see a single reason why Spongebob Squarepants should be left out.
I agree that plot continuity, and even a little bit of soap operation, can work well in sci-fi, but DS9 entirely lost any sci-fi interest, and was entirely 100% soap opera, just in a sci-fi setting.
Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.
I use to watch this as a kid...all my geek friends were always which was better, Lost in Space or....http://www.thetimetunnel.com/The Time Tunnel
"DS9 wasn't a sci-fi show. It was a soap opera, except for the first couple seasons..."
You have to ignore an awful lot of episodes to claim DS9 wasn't a soap opera.
"Derp de derp."
The article is nice and all, but how can we even dispute the ranking of shows without knowing what criteria were used to decide?
How important is, say, originality, compared to character depth?
Is each show measured against its peers of that era in TV? Or is the ranking independent of time?
Sure, it's a qualitative ranking, but give us slashdotters something to work with!
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Well, this is slashdot, so how about some lists of ones that should have been on there but weren't. I've seen a few good ones mentioned already, but I'd like to know if I've missed any classics. There are quite a few I'd swop out to replace with any of these:
Planet of the Apes (TV Series)
Survivors (BBC 80s series)
The Invaders
The Transformers should definitely be in this list. Even if it was a toy commercial in the form of a cartoon. Transformers was about machines that overthrew their organic masters. Became sentient. Learned to Transform into vehicles. The storyline goes as far back 9 million years where we first see Orion Pax become Optimus Prime.
Come to think of it Robotech should have been in there too.
DS9 was superior to all of the Treks. You can't beat the Dominion War arc that spanned the last 3 seasons. All the characters were great, though I was disappointed they killed off Jadzia and replaced her with Ezri. Though I'll admit maybe they overdid it with Vic's sometimes, the one where they have to put the jack-in-the-box away was pretty good. Ronald Moore writes great storylines.
Voyager was pretty bad, I thought. I can't believe they put that in the top 50 and not DS9. Too many episodes about the doctor or how holograms have taken over their ship. I mean, how many times did Voyager get captured by aliens in the delta quadrant? I remember one episode in particular about how they had an opportunity to return to the alpha quadrant via a wormhole, but a couple of Ferengi in an inferior ship outsmarted the Voyager crew and they ended up not being able to return home themselves. And don't even get me started on that one episode where Paris mutates into a frog and impregnates Janeway...
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When will these Sci-Fi "critics" finally live up to their lofty edifice and recognize Lost Saucer as one of the greats?
Someday, Ruth Buzzy and Jim Neighbors will get their due.
I am just amazed that Twin Peaks isn't on this list.
Does eat oates and little lambs eat ivy.
d. Taylor Singletary,
reality technician techra.el
Apparently they missed the new show with Christopher Eccleston - they just mentioned the old one.
The new show got tremendous ratings, so it surely should have been in the top 10.
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and it sounds like a custom-made script, a soliloquy of unrequited geek passion.
Reading your post while imagining the Comicbook Guy's voice is even more fun.
The Internet is generally stupid
I meant to say 'sci fi', not soap opera. (Haven't had my coffee yet.) I guess either statement is true. :)
DS9 was a good blend of the two. One of my favorite episodes was about Ben Sisko getting 'trapped' in time. His son spent the rest of his life trying to figure out how to retrieve him. It was a wonderful episode because it used a sci-fi event to bring out something very near and dear for characters that fans of the show cared about. I remember a lot of chatter about that episode shortly after it aired.
There have been some comments to the tune of "it was just a soap oprea!". Ooo kay. Maybe if you focused in on Odo's pursuit of Kira and filtered out a lot of the events that couldn't have happened to a regular soap opera you could say that. It would be like me taking a handful of things about Babylon 5 that I simply couldn't stand and saying the show was utter shit. I'd sound stupid to somebody who enjoyed the show.
DS9 was a great show. It was quite satisfying to a large group of fans. Some people didn't like it. Whoop-de-fuck. I didn't like Farscape and there are people that agree with me. Was the show bad, or is it simply a matter of "to each is own"?
"Derp de derp."
How in the crap can the Jetsons beat Futurama? Futurama should have been in the top twenty at least.
Heh you'll get modded down for that.. going against the groupthink.
I forced my self to watch 4 or 5 episodes then gave up... it was painful. The old series was much better.
Oh come on,
"Star Trek was the first science fiction show to ever envisioin there would be black people in the future"
(from Whoopi Goldberg, on why she was on STTNG)
I kinda enjoyed the old BSG, but I have to agree, I find the new one fairly unwatchable.
I've never seen the old one but I totally agree about the new one. How do ANY of these shows except the X-Files beat out SG-1? They're the two longest running (currently tied for length) so how do any of the others even compare?
Considering that the list is full of the usual shit I as a fan consider it an honour that Dark Skies isn't on it :)
Dark Skies - for those who think The X Files is way too shallow and incoherent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Skies
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Don't get me wrong, Enterprise jumped the shark on occasion (alien Nazis), but at least Enterprise had a little humor, characters with personality, and story arcs about characters you actually cared about. They were just occasionally a little too far-fetched.
DS9, by contrast, when it wasn't devolving into wormhole fantasy and pseudo-spiritual Bajoran mythos crap, could just as easily have happened in 20th century Earth if you substitute the Chunnel for the wormhole and convince the military to fly jets through it. There was nothing futuristic about it. It was just a protracted war with an enemy who was basically evil by design rather than actually a war over something tangible like territory. It's basically the war on terror, only with an even less well-defined objective.
The characters were wooden, the story lines boring, and the whole Dax changeover ranks right up there with the whole baby switching thing. The whole series read like gratuitous verbal masturbation by Berman and Friends. If DS9 is the best Trek has to offer, the franchise should just die now and for all time.
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I wouldn't necessarily put it in the top 50, but I really enjoyed Time Trax for the year or two that it was on Sci Fi. Not a terribly original plot, but the stories were pretty good and overall quite entertaining.
I won't complain about the possibility of a Sci Fi being a soap opera.
Babylon 5 was not a soap opera. Babylon 5 was a story. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. Towards the end of B5 you can definitely see all of the pieces being moved off of the board one by one.
A soap opera is not going anywhere. Things just keep happening. You can keep it up for as long as you want. Characters can come and go. The basic direction can change. This is very different than a novel, or Babylon 5.
DS 9 might be a soap opera. (I quit watching after 2nd season due to liking B5 better and had insufficient time for both DS9 and B5.) I don't know if DS9 was a soap opera. Was the story working its way towards any overall conclusion?
This brings me to the new Battlestar Galactica. I wonder if it is like B5 in that there is a distinct conclusion that they are heading towards? Maybe so, but maybe they don't have a plan for getting there? Will they drive off into the ditch along the way and never get to the conclusion. I sure hope not. I would be very disappointed in investing time to watch it.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
A casual glance reveals two types of shows; popular hits and "gems." I'd assume these results were glarked from respondants to a survey, who likely were either writing in to sound off like the rest of the herd or champion their pet one-season, brilliant-but-cancelled show. They obviously didn't bother to choose a definition of what "science fiction" meant, but instead relied upon the respondent's personal definition, casually moderated by the compilers of this list.
Lord, deliver us from politicians, pop-psychobabblers and other users of imprecise terms in their "research."
Or not, as you seem to be on vacation this time of the eon.
To the public, possibly because of the Sci-Fi channel, perhaps because of willful ignorance, and most likely a brilliant (sarcasm) combination of both, anything that is not straight slice-'o-life in content is "scifi."
As to clearly delineating what science fiction is and isn't, I read one helpful definition, dependant on the prescence and quality of Suspension of Disbelief. While mainstream literature doesn't need it, and Fantasy demands it, Science Fiction sets itself apart from other brands of imaginative literature in attempting to create it, foster it and encourage it.
But until a sufficently clear definition, like the above, is adopted, "science fiction" will remain a label for marketing and advertising, unworthy of the enterprise it describes.
ok lets put one show per page, how fracking stupid can they be, just show us the lamo list you retards!
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
I always called Voyager "Lost In Trek" for exactly that reason. (And get a load of the comment a thread or two back, about their "magic reset button"! Dead on.) DS9 was the only one of the STs that didn't revolve around the Planet of the Week, which frankly had got old back in the 1970s.
I remember the original BG. Lordy, was that painful. Yeah, it got a bit better toward the end, but I'd still use it to anchor a "50 worst" list rather than a "50 best" list.
But this list was about visitor impressions and advertising dollars, not about SF. The list was clearly whatever several mundanes could recall off the top of their heads, somewhat tempered by their idea of which shows were the most popular, or which ones they remembered from their childhoods.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Maybe all those nuclear wessels made them put the wrong name?
Giving Star Trek #1 is like giving Smells like Teen Spirit number one on any music countdown. It's not the best song ever written, nor is it really anyone's favorite. It's only there because it was a standard..
If every "N Greatest Whatevers" list instead said "N Great Whatevers", it would be way more honest, way more accurate, and would generate way less controversy. (People would still say "I can't believe X isn't on the list", but it would have more the tenor of "how weird that these people don't like X that much" rather than "this list is totally not authoratative since it doesn't have X". Yes, the list isn't authoratative. It's just an opinion. Stop posting to slashdot telling us it's not authoratative because it doesn't have X.)
This is true even when N=1, say Time's Man of the Year (or of the Century, and s/man/person/ as preferred). It's the opinion of Time's editor. I once participated in a conversation where people were debating who should be the Person of the Century. That's totally fine, and it's great if they can marshall arguments about why somebody was more important than someone else. But, guess what, when Time finally announces their choice, that doesn't make you right. That just means that a bunch of opinionated S.O.B.s happened to have the same opinion as you. Accurately predicting Time's choice is way less interesting than having actual knowledge and opinions about the nominees.
Then you've got omissions like "Farscape", "Blake's 7", "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy", "Star Cops", "The Tomorrow People", "Smallville", "UFO", "Crusade", "Captain Scarlet" (old or new version), "The Incredible Hulk", "The Invaders", "Lexx", "Red Dwarf" amd "VR.5". Are seriously telling me that "Batman", "Lost In Space", "The Jetsons" and "Logan's Run" are better than all of those?
It's a pathetic list if you think about it - cooked up by someone with no knowledge of TV science-fiction (woefully lacking in non-US shows as well - I count only 3, yes three, from the UK). Even the most novice list compiler would check another list on another site as a reference point - for example, why didn't they go to tv.com's large alphabetical list of "all science-fiction shows" (no, it's not all of them, but it's a reasonable starting point)
Now I've tried it(Battlestar Galactica). Thanks to some of these people, I've watched MANY episodes of it, and I understand it less each time. How can even average-smart people put up with such terrible writing? Such stupid plots and stupider plot holes? Such transparent and flacid attempts to be edgy and gritty? Such... lack of immagination?
(edit mine)
In contrast to the origional series aka Wagon Train in Space staring Lorne Greene? A boy and his mechanical dog? And evil inverse video goat man? Making it a point to create perfectly reflective robots without regard to lighting resulting in having to use colored filters so you couldn't see the crew? Recycled special effects from the movie which employed recycled special effects. Not to speak of Galactica 1980 who had a group of kids farm with their super strength or play baseball and win to avoid detection from the goverment. Or worse yet "You're pregnant? How is this possible? Must have been devine intervention!" Can you say a transparent attempt to prevent kids from finding out where babies come from?
I know there are fans of the old series who might be offended, but let's face it BSG 1979 had some awful moments and the new series in many regards is an improvement. I agree it shouldn't get a #2 spot. It's too new and hasn't had long enough to prove itself.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
It's MUCH better than Xena which ranked 12.
Now this list is seriously flawed if not for:
More subjective, the order is warped and not from this planet.
Where's Earth 2?!? Shame it didn't last longer... This list needs some work.
Someone should perhaps tell them the differences between sci-fi, fantasy, comedy, and drama. Seriously, Xena? While a decent fantasy show, it hardly qualifies as science fiction by any stretch of the imagination. Just the fact that the author(s) seemed to have no idea what constitutes science fiction is enough to invalidate the entire thing for me. Better luck next time.
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.
Absoultely. DS-9 started off weak, but once the long plot lines were developed (more than one) the show became a great ones. Not only that, the magic reset button can totally ruin a show (mucking about with time for example to reset for example. SG-1, for example, has done this at least twice, and both times they did not fit well with the rest of the plot.
In a book, that's what can make a great book, is a well-defined plot line that goes from start to end. We should expect that of a series (any, not just sci-fi), not just the individual shows that make up a series.
Sliders was a show that had a magic reset button (the slide at the end) but tried to develop a long plot line (besides the slide home) , but didn't quite succeed. I have heard that network executives also got involved to be able to switch the order of the shows, which is why after the first couple shows you never saw the lead-in to the next show. You instead, possibly got a tease starter or ender: hints about what happened on the previous planet, but wasn't an episode or hints about the next planet, also not an episode. That plus the main characters leaving were a sure demise.
Stargate and Stargate Atlantis don't focus on that underlying plot line, but it is there. Not necessarily linking every show, but it does provide some development of the characters. Case in point, the 'two hour season finales' for both the past two weeks. Two one-hour shows, the second of which was a finale. Little linking, between them.
Battlestar Galactica focuses on it, where nearly every show depends heavily on the previous one. Makes you need to see each episode when it runs.
So true about actual soaps' reset buttons. At least the sci-fi resets are a little more plausible (though I still hate most of the time travel ones).
Our founding fathers removed the guys in charge. Be American. Vote incumbents out.
I think that it has been quite a while since we had this quality of sci-fi on the tube. In my opinion (and a few others) I entirely think it is worthy of a number two spot. As an "ensemble' type cast, it can't be beat for scifi on television. I have lost interest in pretty much other TV shows because of galactica.
Also, I think that it is better than the Star Wars prequel movies made by George Lucas.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
...but I think Babylon 5 should have been left off. I'm sick and tired of "tough guy/girl" scifi. If the future is populated by assholes who would rather "kick ass" than apply intellect to solving a problem, then I really would rather hope all sentient beings nuke themselves before then. We should all be striving for intellectual perfection and the abandonment of all violence, selfishness and greed. That's why the best of the Star Trek series (TOS, TNG and Voyager) are happily on the list. The one abberation is DS9. Too much strife and war. And "tough guy/gal" antics. I can't stand that shit. The world isn't made of people who "kick ass".
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Come on! Hehe :)
Old men in baby carraiges? The birth of "shazbot"? Travelling through space in a giant egg?
You all know you watched it. And enjoyed it. And think fondly back upon it. Sure beats the hell out of Buffy.
Glad to see Quantum Leap in the mix, though
What happened to these two, starring Patrick McGoohan?
DS9 is the Star Trek with the most unrealized potential. The concept worked, just look at B5. Unforntunately, after the first season or two the only thing it excelled in is working faster than Ambien.
Voyager wins the prize for being lamest. That's why they brought in 7of9, the show needed something to make it interesting. (and yes, I hated Janeway)
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. -- Harry Truman
Maybe this show is too new, but Chalie Jade is great and must be included in this to 50.
i ler.mov
It's a Canada/South Africa production.
Preview : http://www.charliejade.com/multimedia/video/CJtra
Web site : http://www.charliejade.com/
Take a look.
ST:DS9 was fucking "Neighbours" in space. It was boring as shit crap about characters and love-lives, might as well have been set in the caribbean gulf, with the wormhole a canal built by proud and mystical Inca or whatever linking to the pacific.
ST:TNG was the last decent Star Trek that was actually SCIENCE FICTION, instead of soap opera with a "future" theme.
Red Dwarf (the original british version) was the best science fiction TV series. Yes, it wasn't a "serious" series. But it was also mostly hard science fiction. Doctor Who comes a close second, followed by futurama, not a serious series either but full of hard science fiction.
Now, if only someone talented would make Banks' "Use of Weapons" or "Consider Phlebas" into a series. Of course, the chances of someone in america making a series about godlike commies from space who are the good (or at least slightly less bad) guys is perhaps slim, but you can't deny that Consider Phlebas would make good watching. Even if the horror of "Use of Weapons" and what exactly it was that the Chairmaker did might be a bit harder to translate to screen, I reckon it could be done (just so long as they don't resort to a sucky "BladeRunner"-style narrative to pound it into viewers skulls)
no DS9...futurama in 41st place....voyager all the way up to 14... but luckily they did some things right too... no farscape. the reason they didn't include farscape? probably that episode where john imagines he is going "insane" and sees everybody as cartoon characters (read: lame)
it may have not been american but it sure as hell was better than some on that list!!! I loved red dwarf
With one show listed per page, and surrounded by ads, this is a click troll. Somewhere, somebody is getting pay per click payments for this turkey.
...is Sci-Fi.
An alien from an advanced civilization who's planet (Krypton) was destroyed comes to earth as a child and exibits extrodinary strength and superhuman powers.
He grows up to become a hero, and a guardian of truth and justice...saving the earth and it's people many times over both from themselves and from other superhuman and outworldly enemies.
In some versions of the story, Superman has some of Krypton's tech to rely on....see the Fortress of Solitude.
Sounds like pretty reasonable Sci-Fi to me.
If you think of Batman's story, it starts off as more of a drama..really a sad story but it quickly incorporates Sc-Fi elements. I'd definitly consider it to be Sci-Fi on it's own...more so that Batman often crosses over with Superman.
wbs.
Huh?
Fritz Lang's 1927 Metropolis. Probably the best science fiction movie in history.
Sig: I stole this sig.
Red Dwarf wasn't even mentioned! Whoever came up with this list is a complete and utter smeghead.
Invader Zim!!! It features a hostile alien force trying to destroy our planet, but get this, he's the star!! And we're meant to identify with him! It may just be a cartoon, but it explores more areas of science fiction that half of that list combined. Oh and Spaced, while technically not a real science-fiction series, again more seriously discusses the human condition in an imaginitive context than, well, again half of what's on Boston.com's list.
I just loved Sliders, but after a few seasons alot of characters got replaced or died. :(
Eventually Quin Mallory himself got replaced or died (I forgot, sorry), and the show just went on without him... After that the show just wasnt as good as before
What I hate the most is when an already introduced character just gets replaced with a different actor without any reason, I mean do you really think the viewers wont notice!? I'm not sure if it was the case with Sliders, but ive seen it in alot of TV shows.
Missing option:
Space Above and Beyond - there is a thread up higher
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
"The Jetsons" makes the list, but DS9 doesn't? What kind of crack did these guys buy from CowboyNeal?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Let me just say how happy I am that "Mystery Science Theater 3000" made the top 10. It was, and still is, my favorite TV show of all time, and I've felt that it's always been underappreciated. I always thought it was brilliant. Hopefully though, thanks to efforts like the MST3K Digital Archive Project, it will have some life for some time. Also, there's quite a few torrents available.
Its a fav of mine. Seriously, looking at this list, dont they realize how badly all of the earlier show hold up? I mean they are embarrasingly bad. Buck Rodgers? Hey, I was as big a fan of Erin Gray in a tight jumpsuit as anyone, but they play it late on Scifi and it is bad. really really bad. Here's my list of 'you will be in pain watching these': 47. 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century' (makes comic books look well written- oh and 'Hawk!') 40. 'The Thunderbirds' (does not hold up well) 38. 'Batman' (okay as a comedy) 36. 'The Bionic Woman' (actuallly thought this was better the 6M$Man) 35. 'Battlestar Galactica' (Original) (saw the 'beings of light' episodes recently- w/patrick mckneeewww) 33. 'Lost In Space' 29. 'The Six Million Dollar Man' (answered the immortal question: whats up with bigfoot?) 24. 'Wonder Woman' (really really embarresing) 16. 'Flash Gordon' 15. 'Logan's Run'
I dont do meaning of life questions.
It also happened to be a bit comedic and sappy at times! ;)
No! It's a *SIG*. Keep the Special Interest Groups away! (Con joke!)
...but at least it made the cut. That was one of our favorite shows. Too bad only a few others on the planet appreciated it too.
Two glaring omissions: Blake's 7, and DS9--two classics that certainly merit recogintion.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
This isn't really a story; its just a bunch of blurbs about show plots with actually no commentary whatsoever. I clicked through fifty pages of that nonsense hoping to find some meat to it, but I hath been led down a path of ad impressions and wasted time. From now on I'm boycotting all thigns Boston, except when the Sox play the Yankees, and then only to root for the Yankees. Thats right Boston.com, I said go Yankees.
On a slightly more relevent note, I just marathoned like seven episodes of the new Battlestar Galactica on my DVR, and I think it might actually be the best show on TV, including those edgy shows on cable where they show boobies. Its that good.
don't get me wrong....i loved SG-1...it was great...
but the last few seasons weren't really what it used to be...let's face it, RDA was one of the reasons it was a great show....i love Farscape, and Ben Browder, but he doesn't seem to fit RDA's shoes...
Atlantis, after a season and a half hasn't proven to be a great show...i'm still waiting...
but BSG....i mean...come on.....the directing, the plot, the characters....i just love everything about it...i watch an episode of BSG, and then one of SG-1 and compare them....usually i can guess how an episode of SG-1 will end after the first act (maybe two)
and the hole story is just repetitive: new enemy...try and kill him...he get's more powerfull...plot twist/new weapen....enemy get's killed, another one, more powerfull appears
BSG on the other hand surprises me every time (not only each episode, but the show's plot as a hole, too)
Andromeda at 22? Someone actually expects us to beleive Andromeda is better than Earth Final Conflict, Buffy, Angel, or Futurama?
ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
They put Batman and Superman in, but miss "The 4400"?
Bleh.
This list just got totally discredited...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088591/
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Blakes 7
The Time Machine
Farscape
Space: Above and Beyond
This show, more than anything else, caused me to pursue a career in engineering. The whole idea that science and engineering could restore a man who lost two legs, an arm and an eye to full function convinced me that the way for me to make a difference in the world was to learn how to design electronics and robotics. I'll admit that 30 years later, we still haven't created technology equal to that depicted on the show, but that doesn't change my opinion that the only way to improve the human condition is through intelligent application of engineering.
I am not a crackpot.
Generally, Voyager seems to be unfavourably compared to DS9, and rightly so in my opinion. I realise that opinions differ, but to have Voyager at 14th, and DS9 judged not good enough for the top 50, is a travesty.
Farscape should have been in the top 10, but it wasn't even in the top 50. What idiot made this list? DS9 has no place in the list whatsoever, so they at least got that right. It was a total ripoff of B5, and a pale shadow of B5 at that. (In fact, JMS pitched B5 to Paramount originally. They said "not interested", then put out DS9 on their own.) Voyager barely belongs on the list. A lot of the crap on the list is pure camp or not even sci-fi. Given some of the garbage they've included, I have to wonder why they skipped Mork From Ork?
Oh yeah, where's Blakes 7?
Deep Space 9 and Farscape, but also The Prisoner and Sapphire and Steel.
:)
Also, I suppose it was unavoidable to have a list focuse on English-language productions, but I would NEVER leave out Raumpatrouille, a superb German series from the sixties.
I would also remember Star Maidens, although I might not put it among the best 50...
The list doesn't make sense, because it includes fantasies such as Xena, and spy dramas such as The Avengers and The Man from UNCLE, neither of which can by any stretch of the imagination be categorized as science fiction. Even including the X-Files is pushing it. Buffy (great show) doesn't belong on the list either. Right now, I've got to go to work, so I don't have time to pick apart this list. But, since that would be a waste of time anyway, I'm better off.
Make your own list. It doesn't have to be good enough, for anyone else but you.
Besides, B5 is better than Star Trek.
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
since when are super hero's considered 'sci fi'?
looks like they had to pad the entries to try and come up with 50 that were worth describing...
Gekido's Lair
It's really that good. This is no hokey 1970's drama that turns into an episodic and then silly claptrap.
It just finished it's second season with an incredibly riviting story, some of the best acting I've seen recently and drama so intense you can cut it with a knife.
It's hard hitting enough that it's had warning about mature and violent content... and they were damn right to warn people of it. As a metaphor for today's society and culture, the new Battlestar:Galactica is heads and shoulders above the crowd.
It makes you think.
Your entire species is on the threat of anhilation and you've captured some of the enemy toasters. They are, for all intents and purposes, human. And their military treats their prisoners like that? And you all of a sudden wonder if the Colonials are the bad guys.
Seriously, watch the last episode of this season. It will knock your socks off at ten paces.
No! It's a *SIG*. Keep the Special Interest Groups away! (Con joke!)
A lot of this will be echoing the comments of others, but here are my gripes. . .
I don't see how some of these shows even remotely qualify as science fiction. I mean. . . Xena? Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman? Buffy? Tales from the Crypt? Weeding these out, even if it meant reducing the list to a top-30 list, would have given us something more focused.
I would also weed out "anthology" shows just on principle, like The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, and even Mystery Science Theater 3000 (cool tho it was).
For another thing, I don't understand what the criteria for ranking the shows could be. As somebody else said. . . Farscape may not be the best SF show ever, but it definitely belongs somewhere in the list. I would even put Planet of the Apes above some that are on the list. At times they seem to be picking out good-but-overlooked shows (i.e. Sliders, Logan's Run), but other times they seem to be following the guideline of mass popularity.
Futurama should definitely be ranked WAY higher than 41.
Looking at this, I'm reminded of just what a science fiction wasteland TV is. It's very hard to bring science fiction to TV successfully for a number of reasons. The economics are against it, for one thing, due to the cost of sets, props, special effects. It's much cheaper to produce another cop show, or another sitcom, or another reality show.
Another problem is that most TV SF is produced by TV people who aren't really into science or science fiction, aren't familiar with SF literature, and they are reaching for a mass market who largely share those same traits. It's not made by SF fans and it's not aimed at SF fans.
Add to that, TV is not a medium well suited to getting across complicated explanations. Time is constrained, extended dialog is often considered tiresome, and you can't afford to lose a bunch of viewers just because they missed an episode or two. Therefore most TV shows have to stick with the familiar (and tired) concepts that their viewers already understand.
And the result is, a list of SF movies would produce far more gold than a list of TV series, and a list of great SF novels would have even more potential than a list of movies.
Absolutely - but who in their wrong mind could rank The Outer Limits # 13, behind even such garbage as Xena and Flash Gordon? TOL was almost the only real SF on the whole list besides the Twilight Zone! Space operas and open-ended "series" are ALL crap if you plug in your frontal lobes. Mere entertainment, sometimes with belabored pretentions to serious thought - but that's all.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
A lot of those shows aren't Science Fiction.
Agreed. I can't believe Farscape didn't make the list while shows like Wild Wild West, the Man from UNCLE, and the Avengers did. The Prisoner was far more SciFi than the Avengers, and that didn't make the list either. While I liked the other shows, they were not science fiction. While the original Star Trek probably deserves the top spot, the only other show that had fans actively protesting and trying to reverse its cancellation was Farscape.
no thanks. torrents, please.
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
The first Star Trek series where the Federation wasn't the only superpower in the galaxy, where there's no black and white and you can't force others to do the "right thing", but instead have to deal and negotiate with others and sometimes accept other cultures and different behaviour that you don't like
;-)
I understand that this isn't very popular in the US
Why nerds have yet to take over the world:
They were too busy arguing over what sci-fi. Especially Star Trek.
One thing about BSG is the effortless casting of women in numerous powerful roles. President Ross is a middle aged woman with terminal breast cancer. The toughest good guy is Kara Thrace, a female. The toughest bad guy is #6, a female Cylon. The traitorous Boomer is female Cylon. Katy Sakhoff (Kara Thrace, callsign Starbuck) is simply an amazing. Imho.
If they have Stargate SG1 on there, and left off DS9, then yeah, something is outta whack. I wouldn't say DS9 was totally the best ever, but at least it did Next Generation proud.
Now, I gotta jump on SG1 with both feet:
every episode of Stargate SG-1/Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica (some of the most popular current sci-fi) is based on the entire series up until that point
Is THAT what's wrong with SG-1? I watched a few episodes of that show, and MAN did it suck! So I guess I had to be in from the beginning to like it? I doubt that would matter. I loved the movie, but Richard Dean Anderson should have quit acting after McGuyver. I know this doesn't add anything intelligent to the discussion, but it HAD to be said: At least IMHO, Stargate SG-1 is the cheesiest, hokiest, most poorly put together SCI-FI show ever. Yet there it is, number eight or six or whatever it got. What a stoopid list!
blah blah blah
Fry got the shaft - no way 'The Thunderbirds', and BSG TOS should be rated higher than Futurama
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
There was more story line in the opening sentence of episode 1 of Babylon 5 than all of the new Galactica combined.
SG-1 and Babylon 5 are the two best sci-fi series EVER. Oh well, at least they placed in the top ten...
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
They must have some really good shit up there in Boston. No Farscape? No DS9? And the new BSG better than TNG. Not to mention all the non-sf shows in their best sf shows of all time list.
Now, I'm not trying to start a flame-war here, but I have a serious question: What is it about the new BSG that everybody loves so much? I don't mean critics, I mean regular eight-sided-die-owning, j. random geeks. Seriously, I really want to know. I really want to like it, but I just can't get into it.
Maybe it's just that it's shot in Zapruder-Vison. I understand the reasoning for the hand-held camera look, I just don't like it. Especially in the space battle scenes.
So please, somebody out there, one of "us", explain the new BSG to me.
P.S. God help me, but I'm gonna burn my karma here in the hopes that I'll get a real answer.
Does the name "The Village" mean anything to you?
Maybe you should take some time and re-watch "The Chimes of Big Ben".
EVERYTHING in that series was tied back to society and how many of the people in charge were directly tied to the people running The Village.
You should also re-watch the first episode so you can listen for the phrase "serve my new masters".
In that series, society was shaped by the people who used the technology to convert/control other people who then moved into positions of authority in regular society.
It was just a cross section of genre shows a good share were either a stretch to call scifi or were outright fantasy. Alot of actual good shows were ignored where as some of the worst shows ever made it well up into the list. The list order also seemed random other than maybe the top ten and even then some ranked higher than they should have. Very bad, like I say pointless, list.
>
*cough*Firefly*cough*
E pluribus unum
Number 27: 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'
Number 12: 'Xena: Warrior Princess'
Xena better than Buffy? Both sci-fi?
While i dont agree about TNG (I too think Enterprise while slow in its first two seasons, managed to come to its own the last two even if the beebs fucked the pooch with the ending.) I do aree about DS9. It was anything but Star Trek.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
They don't even give a nod to greatest-trek-of-all-time DS9, so I don't know about this list
the article says:
Number 5 'Babylon 5' 'Babylon 5' is arguably one of the best sci-fi shows ever made. Some may compare it to 'Star Trek DS-9' but with a better plot and cast - you be the judge. In the meantime, we'll give 'Babylon 5'; a thumbs up showing in the No. 5 spot.
That could be a nod and maybe a nod & a wink.
This is just stuff off the top of my head. I'm sure others can come up with other examples.
-- $SIGNATURE
MST3K in the top 10? Please, do not get me wrong on this. I love Crow and Tom like they are my own children, I watched religiously, I have shirts, posters, laser discs and DVDs.... But in the top 10? It's not even sci-fi but we may as well skip that concept altogether or we would be looking at the top 20 list if we discounted all the crap in there.
And to have Twilight Zone at a (imho) lowly 7. If anything Zone should have been #2 at least, I can give merit to the social implications of ST:TOS but Zone is where it's at. While not always sci-fi based it had tons of great sci-episodes and it gave writers that would have gained little more than a "pulp" standing a mainstream outlet.
Speaking of TZ, where the fuck is Night Gallery? If Xena is more sci-fi than NG I'll bite my own ass not to mention that again NG was also another great outlet for fringe writers to make it to the TVs and minds of the viewing public.
I don't even want to mention stuff like Lexx, Seaquest, Red Dwarf... these people need to pull their heads out of their asses.
I would even go as far as to mention Cosmos since Sagan had conjecture about scenerios involving life beyond this planet. Certainly more sci-fi than the fucking Jetsons.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Only aired two episodes, but they were good. Google search for Harsh Realms
Before I part with'em: two pennies weigh ~4.996+/-0.014g, have a zinc core, and the face of Lincoln. You can keep 'em.
Like most of the intended audience for this article and subsequent discussion, I thought I wasn't going to have anything to do tonight (Saturday).
Slashdot and Boston.com to the rescue!
Bush is a cylon.
I already raved once, I know. I'm looking more for how people feel about a fine show but I'm cautious to call it sci-fi....
That show is, of course, In Search Of. Spock was kicking out the old campfire yarns about every unexplained event ever. To even hear the theme music today would send a chill down my spine. But is it sci-fi? I'd just like to hear some thoughts since the show hasn't been mentioned (I think).
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
And yet they left off Farscape and Blake's 7. Crazy.
That show could possibly be my favorite sci-fi series yet, even better than the new Battlestar... Did anyone watch it through? It had some of the deepest content about real dilemnas that would be faced by a society with futuristic technology that I've ever seen. Admittedly, I haven't seen many anime series, but that one really struck me as amazing. They had Futurama, Thunderbirds, and several mini-series, so I'm not sure why anime would be ruled out, either.
They must be outta they're frelling heads...Farscape is one of the most original, well written sci-fi shows of the last decade. It was waaaay ahead of "Voyager" and its "temporal anomaly of the week" storylines and I would go so far as to say its as good as or even better than DS9. As for the new BSG being #2 on the list, that seems pretty fair, although I think a few years from now, we'll remember it as being number one.
WTF? The show was trash. More than half the time the "alternate earths" were so implausible as to shetter suspension of disbelief within the first 10 minutes. Sample plot synopsis: "a parallel earth where all is the same as now...only there's no medicines". That's right, identical except for lack of antibiotics and such. I wanted to suggest reading Connections by James Burke to the genius who wrote that episode (plus smack him in the head). Good science fiction it wasn't.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
No Sapphire & Steel? This list sucks.
Da Blog
a list without Farscape and the 4400 where even Xena came in.. forget it.
exit();
Episode 1 introduces the balloon-like Rover, guardian of the Village. No technology like it existed then or now. Later in the episode, #6 is given an "electropass" which, by inferrance, amounts to a low range wireless transmitter, which emits a "key" signal to Rover, telling it to ignore the bearer. This is not dissimilar to current technologies which didn't exist in 1967 (such as bluetooth or WiFi).
Episode 3 (A B & C) features "dream viewing" technology, something far beyond the grasp of even current technology.
Episode 5 (The Schizoid Man) mentions and Episode 6 (The General) features an advanced AI in charge of predicting complex social patterns and forming brainwashing strategies. It is presented as being capable of answering any question, with the exception of one, insoluble by man nor machine.
Episode 6 also features a concept called "speed-learn," a process by which a person can quickly absorb large amounts of information via a television broadcast. It is presented as giving a full 9-week class in the space of 30 seconds.
Episode 12 (A Change of Mind) fatures a non-invasive form of neurosurgery, using highly focused soundwaves. Although the device is not used on #6, its functionality is demonstrated. Technology such as this did not exist in 1967, and likely does not exist now.
Episode 14 (Living in Harmony) features a combination of hallucinogenic drugs and audio stimuli which produces an impossible effect with any known drugs.
Many elements within the series are used frequently, including implied mind-control rays/beams/lights/sounds which induce instant paralysis, the precise location of The Village, and the unknown function of the teeter-totter device.
And if the final episode (Fall Out) takes place in this universe, I want to know how.
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
I refuse to succomb to the view-more-ads format required to click through all 50 entries, so do not know if the UFO (Harlington-Straker, etc.) series or the original The Outer Limits are on the list. If not, they should be.
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
Space 1999 is the second most psychedelic TV series I've ever seen, (#1 being the Prisoner of course). Planets were typically orange, green, yellow, or pink, and the worst the aliens could do was make the crew have some bad hallucinatory trip. Way cool!
"In our tactical decisions, we are operating contrary to our strategic interest."
What about "The Time Tunnel"? The list has "Quantum Leap" and QL is simply an updated TTT. Both were pretty much the same thing except QL overlayed a social commentary on the time jumps that TTT didn't.
Hey, any idea when the next season is coming out ?
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Uh, try John Koenig. And Andromeda as 22! These guys must be on crack!
Silicon & Charybdis McLuhan Kildall Papert Kay
Oops, sorry. Was there some complaint about Firefly's demise that I never heard about? Have I managed to offend some other minor, unappreciated SciFi community akin to Farscape fans? :)
How the hell does babylon5 beat sg1? BS. Stargate is the top 9th most searched word in isohunt.
The human race is artificial intelligence created using object orientated programming.
Let me throw The Starlost onto your list. Earthship Ark has got to be the largest vessel built by humans on any TV show.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
The list isn't terrible, there are some great shows in there that I'd forgotten about: Sliders, at least the first few seasons of it, Alien Nation, Babylon 5, MST3K), but Stargate: Atlantis? I liked the original series basically only because of Richard Dean Anderson, but Atlantis has just got nothing. It's like comparing CSI and CSI:Miami, the former has great characters in fairly improbable situations, the latter has a bunch of dull characters in poorly-written, completely improbably situations. They also kill a lot more people in both Atlantis and CSI:Miami, I guess that's supposed to make the show more exciting. Also Farscape missing is a crime.
Dr Who is only a number 8? This list, needs to be bombed and the person who wrote it needs to be tortured- the worst punishment is watching 24 hours, back-to-back episodes of the Simple Life...
Funnily enough, I think that's the first think Zonk has said or done which I wholeheartedly applaud ;)
I realy missed some:
Space: Above and Beyond VR5
Angel = Hey! If xena is on that list....
www.aleo.no
I've always liked UFO although it hasn't been broadcast recently.
It'd probably suck if I were to watch it today (much like Get Smart and Quark.
Those of you who are less than 30 years old have been spoiled.
I realy missed some:
:(
Space: Above and Beyond
VR5; Not sure if this one realy where any god.. so long ago
Angel; Hey! If xena is on that list.... BTW making arowns dosnt work in posts
www.aleo.no
They left out SeaQuest too. I can't quite believe that SeaQuest wouldn't make a top50 of SciFi series.
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
Stargate SG1 had a lot of fans screaming for Michael Shanks to be brought back on the show. I know, not quite the same, but the point is that there have been other shows about which fans have been very vocal.
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
Farscape should have been in the top 10, AT LEAST. On *my* list it would be number one. I am glad to see MST3K, Twilight Zone, and ST:TOS made the list.
The parent did not deserve to be modded troll. He was correct -- the politics, the fact that the exact same storyline could happen on earth now, the religious crud, and the wooden characters all made it a soap opera that dragged on slowly rather than an exciting vision of the future. The only troll-ish part of his post was the final two sentences.
Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.
Why has the parent been modded Troll? It makes some damn valid points. Perhaps I don't agree with all of them, but DS9 damn sure was BORING. It had a static setting and didn't do anything to change it.
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
I thought it was the consensus here that it was the other way round? I'm not sure, since I never saw the last couple of seasons; when they began routinely defeating the Borg, I quit watching. I saw the final episode because I was curious as to how they'd get back, and it really was on par with an average Enterprise episode. I mean, Voyager got in the top 50 and DS9 did not?
And Futurama on 41? What are they smoking? I'd really like to know, so I can avoid it myself. Not that I smoke, but just on general principles.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
While we're remembering British shows, let's not forget UFO, a short-lived show that aired about the time of Space 1999. Pretty decent sci-fi. I believe there are still people trying to revive it.
You forgot to mention X-Files, which they ranked above Babylon 5, even, in the number four spot. That was fantasy, damn it. You can call it post-modern fantasy if you want, but it doesn't change the fact that Carter et al. had no gorram clue what The Truth actually was, so that the mytharc turned to shit by season six.
(Daren Morgan, however, was still fuckin' brilliant.)
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Whaaa-waaaa--wwwwaaattt?????
no Salvage, Blue Thunder, Airwolf, Knight Rider, Automan, Max Headroom or The Prisoner????
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
I don't know who these people think they are, trying to make money. They should get with the new times and give everything away.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Chris Carter's Millenium ranks in my top 10 list of best Sci-Fi shows that I have seen. Lance Henriksen does an incredible job and the show had some of most powerful moments I have ever seen on any type of screen (the plague scene where Lance takes his daughter and his wife up to a cabin in the woods to wait it out - still send shivers down my body). so basically, WTF!
where the hell is Lexx? it makes my top 50 easily so does
Time Tunnel, Land of The Giants and The Invaders
There are a bunch of good SciFi series out there that far outranks some of the ones that made the top 50 -
I love Linda Carter as Wonder Woman, but give me a break as SciFi it does not even rate a number IMHO !
gimme a momment, I'll fix that definition to suit ME!
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Dood ... they missed one of the very best skiffy shows EVAR, Kolchak: The Night Stalker . X-Files creator Chris Carter cites Kolchak as key inspiration ... run down the five-DVD set, turn off the lights, and prepare to be creeped out, starting with the scariest theme song in the history of TV.
I clicked through the whole 50 just to make sure that Lexx wasn't in the list.
dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
I guess that makes Peabody's Improbable History also sci fi.
Yes - lets put the Muppets in there...
dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
I bid one site.
Yes, TNG, with its whiney Mary Sue Crusher, didatic dialogue, reliance upon technobabble to create and solve problems, and increasingly toothless villains, is clearly better than DS9.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
Not to mention every other Star Trek spin-off. Having caught a couple early reruns of TNG recently, I have to wonder how bad SF television was in 1987 to make us think this was the good stuff.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
Totally agree that Battle Star Galatica is on track to being #1. It is an incredible show. A lot of powerful episodes, especially when they recombined the fleet. That was some great stuff there. Looking forward to what happens with the Pegasus.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
Come on! Wonder Woman, Batman and Two Supermen (None are Sci-Fi AFAIAC) but no Incredible Hulk?
This is completely wack! This person needs their nerd credentials revoked.
--fatboy
Enterprise and Star Trek TOS were the only shows in the genre where people acted like real people instead of one-dimensional politically correct cardboard cutouts. Battlestar Galactica belongs at number 1, but the fact that it actually made it to number 2 on this list was surprising, given the crap that got high rankings.
Vote for Pedro
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
Science fiction made its broadcast debut long before television. Hundreds of shows have been preserved, largely by the fan community, which thrives now more than ever thanks to mp3s and the Internet. Many shows were scripted by the classic sci-fi authors of the day, or were dramatizations of their published stories. Some are way better than TV.
Related article on sci-fi.com
A few of the many sci-fi/weirdness shows:
2000 Plus
2000 X
Atom Man
Beyond Our Ken
Beyond Midnight
Beyond Tomorrow
Buck Rogers
Ceiling Unlimited
Dark Fantasy
Dimension X
Exploring Tomorrow
The Fifth Horseman
Hall of Fantasy
Inner Sanctum
Journey Into Space
Orbit One Zero
Planet Man
Space Patrol
The Strange Dr. Weird
Superman
Tom Corbett, Space Cadet
The Unexpected
Weird Circle
Witch's Tale
There is a lot of stuff they left out that could have bumped some of these other guys off....
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
You can't get to #1 without hitting 11 pages. Nice ad impressions there. Better if you hit all 50 pages. Just wanted to hear myself complain out loud. I'm feeling mighty bitchy today and this article just irritated me.
What in the world are they thinking? It's closer to soft-porn than sci-fi.
The Outer Limits was. I do not think UFO was.
to rant about the ones they left out! I mostly agree with the order, except for a few places...but where are these in the list?
in no particular order:
Red Dwarf: Comic genious, in SPAAACE! The Cat alone deserves to make the list!
Farscape: Better than BSG(new) IMHO, Not #1, but it shoulda been there SOMEWHERE, and higher than BSG(new).
ST: DS9: My LEAST favorite trek series, but still deserves to be on the list. MMMmmmm... Dax.
The Prisoner: I've only seen one episode and it was good enough to make me belive it ought to be on the list.
SeaQuest DSV: Campy writing, but cool SFX and fun to watch. Definately better than Flash Gordon, but not better than The Thunder Birds.
Logan's Run: Oh, wait! They included it, cool!
UFO: Space 1999, The ThunderBirds, but no UFO? balls.
Thats My 2 cents.
A Call For A New Slashdot Moderation Level!
Pity. UFO was pretty cool for its time. Intriguing story line, more or less plausible technology, believable aliens. The special effects were grade "B" and the characters sorta thin, but good entertainment nonetheless.
And some pretty hot babes, too! Sorry, couldn't resist.
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
Us Firefly fans got a feature film. That's, like, Star Trek level success. ;)
(Not that I have anything against Farscape. That show rocked.)
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Sad thing is it was the best of new Trek. About the only shows I watch again are original Trek. Yeah, they're goofy and cheesy in some spots but there were some really good stories from time to time.
I drank what? -- Socrates
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.
They could have used a Cary Grant to their Katharine Hepburn in Voyager. Sorta' Star Trek meets Philadelphia Story.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Nuff said.
And where's The Starlost???
I cannot believe that they missed the prisoner... How many of these shows have their own society that meets where the series was filmed... How many series can still blow your mind the way that #6 and his fellow prisoners did...
oh well
I'd put CSI up there - all their evidence gathering & sleuthing uses science & some form of logic reasoning. Add in the fictional characters and plots & you get Science Fiction. Oh, and it is entertaining - a big plus!
Since when are comic book adaptations considered sci-fi? Superman, Batman, Lois and Clark, and Wonder Woman? If any comic book adaptations made the list, it should have been the animated X-men series or The Incredible Hulk. At least, David Banner was a scientist. Also, where the heck is Quantum Leap? Another show with a scientist. I also echo the outcry about omitting Red Dwarf (should have made top ten) and Blake 7. Also, the more recent version of The Outer Limits was actually better in many ways than the original. Overall, the list is pretty lame.
Or maybe it was a typo: we all make mistakes when it's been a long day. His fingers reached for TNG, but some strange cosmic force changed it to DS9. Obviously this was in error. Can an admin go up and fix that please?
-Vendal Thornheart
Um, they ranked the new #2 at BSG.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Comment removed based on user account deletion
1969 was a 'stranded in time, need to get back.'. No reset button.
In 2010, we entered in 2010, and the plot was 'send something back to 'the present' to change history. Arguably that's a reset button, but that was rather the plot.
WoO was a classic 'time loop' episode. You could argue there were a very large number of reset buttons in it, but I think that's rather required in a time loop episode. (And sci-fi shows are required by law to do time loop episodes.)
In the Atlantis episode, we learn that this is the second timeline, and what happened in the first time. No reset button.
In the SG-1 season ender, we have SG-1 go back in time and screw up the timeline so bad that the the Stargate program doesn't even exist, leaving only a video recording of themselves.
So the team members that should have been in SG-1, who get shown the video, go back and screw up the timeline even more, so much that not only does the original timeline come back, but altered in such a way that SG-1 doesn't have to go back in the first place. (Hence the title 'Moebius'.)
So, in eight and a half seasons of SG-1, and one and half seasons of Atlantis, let's see..
If by 'reset button' you mean 'altering the timeline and then altering it back where no one remembers it', we've had...one. Although, technically, the original SG-1 still died in the past, as did later did their replacements. The new SG-1 doesn't remember because they didn't do it, although they do have a tape recording to tell them what happened.
If by 'reset button', you mean 'events got out of control and the solution was to alter the past', the only episode that did that was 2010, and that was rather obviously the solution in the first place, as skipping 10 years of history would be a silly way to continue the show.
I don't really know which reset buttons you are talking about thtat didn't fit with the theme.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I agree there's no particular reason for the strong characters to be male in sci-fi, but there are plenty of examples of strong female characters in recent shows. I'd extend your list somewhat:
Babylon 5 Ivanova (possibly the best female character in sci-fi ever) Delenn Elizabeth Lochley Star Trek + spin-offs Kira Nerys Kathryn Janeway Firefly Pretty much the whole female cast SG-1 + Atlantis Sam Carter Elizabeth Weir BSG (the new one) Starbuck Dr Who Rose TylerThose are the first few that come to mind, all of them not just strong female characters, but main fixtures of the biggest sci-fi series in recent years.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
So, it's a list about Sci-Fi, and they put "Wild Wild Wild West" and "Xena: Warrior Princess". Sorry guys, those aren't Sci-fi. Ones a western. The other's fantasy. And "Lost"... that's a drama. Likewise, "Hitchiker" was horror, as was "Tales from the Crypt." "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," was... well... crap, but it too is horror/creature feature. I'll give you pass on "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." for its science elements, but "Nowhere Man" belongs nowhere on this list.
Meanwhile, no "Farscape", no "Lexx". "ST:DS9" and "ST:Enterprise" get punked. Where's "Space: Above and Beyond"? "Seaquest DSV"?
This is what happens when journalists, armed with not a clue but an uncanny ability to search the IMDB, try to write an article.
I really like the concept, and watched the first season religiously.
After that, it just wore thin. Then when it became a 'put chicks in tank tops, and keep them running' show, my viewing tapered off. If I wanna see that, I'll watch the 590's...(DTV, doncha know)
Imagine for a moment a world without hypothetical situations...
It was marred by several things:
Getting home is a nice premise. But do not screw with us. (If you watched Sliders, you know what I'm talking about. Creaky gate, anyone?)
Blatant ripping off of other shows and movies.
Attempting to continue without the damn actors.
Some good things:
The mix of 'sci-fi' worlds and 'normal' ones. Some worlds had some weird technological advance, some had normal science and weird social structures (The one with no America, where illegal Canadians got smuggled through the Mexican border.), and some were near identical to ours.
What I would do:
Longer on some worlds. Four or five episodes sometimes. Or even repeat worlds.
'Systems' of worlds. One magic world? One world with ESP? One world where humanity evolved differently? One world where time ran slower and it was still 1980? Come on. The great thing about Sliders is that we can have a premise, and explore it in one direction, and then explore it in a completely different direction.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
The authors of that list had better keep a close eye on their cats.
eg.
The Tomorrow People
Sapphire and Steel
I was completely shocked by that list when I got up to number 2, obviously Star Trek was going to be 1, and they left The Prisoner off. Allowing for varying tastes, that should be top five on any SF fan's list (I figured it for one or two). Also, echoing what has been said elsewhere, I'll take DS9 over voyager, and both over some of what is in 25-50 (though both the Bionic Woman and Six Million Dollar Man are a little underrated). Max Hedroom, Blakes 7, Red Dwarf and Mork and Mindi should also edge some of that stuff out (at 15ish, 40ish, 4, 20ish for my personal rankings of those). Dr Who being 7 was also disappointing. Should be top five, expecially given what was...
There was another BBC comedy, that would float in the 45-50 range of my personal top fifty, that had the lady that played Mrs Slocumb accidentally (?) launched into space that was somewhat funny. Anyone recognise it from that? Takeoff on an children's novel that also escapes me where some woman goes to mars (Mrs Pickrell or something like that?).
Because everybody has their different tastes. However, there are some things that are perhaps a bit more possible to make objective, and that's worth getting even voted opinions on.
In particular, it's often clear with SF/Fantasy shows that sometimes we have a show that "gets" the genre, and sometimes we have a show that is hollywood people doing SF. In both cases you can have better and worse. After all there are good non-SF hollywood people and they can make good SF from time to time, but sometimes they will just throw in something that is plain stupid, and shows that they don't understand SF.
Shows that get the genre can also vary in quality, but in this case it will be more a question of the usual variations of quality. And when they are excellent, they will be the best.
To make a top 50 list, a show should have few episodes that make you turn away in disgust, and also have many excellent shows. There are shows on this list (and shows I have seen people claim as favourites) that don't make this cut, and thus we will argue.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Sliders?
List invalidated.
next season
And its spiritual follower, "Adventures of Brisco County, Jr." was even more so.
I do agree Xena isn't. It's clearly fantasy, not Sci-Fi, not that that means much really.
Lost is a borderline case. There is dramatic Sci-Fi, and if you read the stuff on the next of what people have figured out (I recommend you don't, BTW, it spoils it), it's probably Sci-Fi.
Lexx sucked. Not sure why people keep calling for that. Hell, "Cleopatra 2525" was better than Lexx and I wouldn't put it on the list either.
Dark Angel sucked too, how that made the list, I dunno.
What a mess this list is.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
My good ole Mozilla extensions must be blocking that tripe well.
Nothing but content on my LCD, baby.
They stuck in a lot of shows that are hard to justify as true sci-fi, or are hard to explain other members of the franchise if they are (Xena at 12 but Hercules nowhere on the list at all, when several members of the Trek franchise made the list, showing it's not about only one to a franchise). A show like That Was Then makes the list of 50 best, but they left out so many others, including Time Tunnel, Land of Giants, Men in Space, even the obvious classic The Invaders. Nowhere Man made the list but Menenium did not, nor did Harsh Realm, but I keep coming back to see that That Was Then is in the list, and not even in the bottom 10. It wouldn't take long to come up with a couple dozen other shows that much more deserve to be on this list than many of the choices that they came up with. It would have been better titled "50 Sci-fi shows I can list without much thinking and write a small blurb on each to get a paycheck", the intent sure wasn't to really come up with a list of the 50 best sci-fi shows by any standard.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I think the point is that by the standards of the list itself the Prisoner would have to be on the list long before (and much higher rated) than The Man From Uncle or Wild Wild West. Personally I wouldn't include any of these shows in a Sci-fi list, but to include the ones they did and leave out The Prisoner makes no sense at all.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
since when are super hero's considered 'sci fi'?
You're kidding, right? Which part of Kal-el's parents sending him to Earth on a spaceship and growing up to fight Lex Luthor's legions of James Bond-esque gadgets isn't Sci-fi? And Batman's gadgets versus the Joker's gadgets? The only one I'd argue is Wonder Woman unless you want to count the CIA's talking supercomputer made from Christmas lights as Sci-fi.
WoO was a classic 'time loop' episode. You could argue there were a very large number of reset buttons in it, but I think that's rather required in a time loop episode. (And sci-fi shows are required by law to do time loop episodes.)
I am amazed that there are people like you who don't call those episodes "time loop" instead of "Groundhog Day". But the groundhog day episode was certainly one of the best of sg-1, if you want to find out what is so good about sg-1 compare their groundhog day episode to those of other series.
PS: i definitely prefer a series where each episode the makers just try to tell the most interesting story they can think of, from beginning to end and don't care much for a bigger plot. i think st:tng got the balance right, they had a few great episodes with a bigger plot but the majority of episodes just tried to be good in itself, even taking a rather liberal view on established canon. if you can't tell your best story because it does not fit the setting/bigger plot then you have sacrificed a good story for a plot that only a fraction of the viewers will follow. (remember: the hardcore "have to watch all episodes" viewers are only the tip of the iceberg of the viewer market, they just happen to be much more vocal about their desires than the masses)
[i have an opinion and i am not afraid to use it]
I didn't think of it, someone else on here did.
But it's clearly worthy. Go back and watch it. Some episodes did suck a bit, but overall, the show was incredibly foresightful about the growth of the news media and television in general.
Edison Carter: "Since when is news entertainment?"
his editor: "Since the beginning."
And definitely "The Time Tunnel" would have to be mentioned before you even think of "Sliders".
If "Man from U.N.C.L.E", "The Avengers" and "The Prisoner" make it because of gadgets, then "Get Smart" should be there too. It had way more gadgets.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Honestly, was it too hard for them to check IMdB for the little details?
FTFA: Space: 1999 - Led by the valiant Commander Walter [sic] Koenig (played by Martin Landau).
I mean, really... I suppose I'm expecting too much from modern "journalists".
You can't take the sky from me!
The magic reset button I had mentioned in my earlier post is where events occur in an episode, but at the end some miraculous solution occurs, and afterwards, the events of that episode never again have sway over future plot (and any attempt to write those events into later plot would seem incredibly contrived). (Who shot J.R.? Who cares! *bzzt*)
As for SG-1 (and Atlantis to some degree), the writers have actually surprised me by the frequency with which they will make references to past events, including ones that at the time seemed like standalone episodes of little importance. And I'm not talking clip shows here, either, where the mention of past events is token so that they can insert a clip of the earlier episode (though they have had several clip shows... ugh) - even obscure past events crop up every now and then in dialogue or even in an event which furthers an important current plot. For example (spoiler warning!), the episode where Osiris is captured by SG-1 seemed to close a plot thread, until one of the writers realized, hey, wait, her ship is still cloaked in orbit. It became the vessel (pun intended) for another entire plot thread involving rogue NID elements on Earth.
But as far as the time travel episodes go, yes, only Moebius really pulled a magic reset button on us. Maybe they'll surprise me and make those events important again sometime later. 1969 and 2010 were both interesting perspectives on the past and the potential future of the Stargate program and the heroes of the story (and even of Earth in general). 2010 wasn't a magic reset button episode because the whole point was to deliver the note into the past to warn the SGC about the Aschen - a plot point that came back later in a great episode where the suspense was built around the fact that we, the viewer, knew the events in 2010 and the Aschen's nefarious plans, while the main characters didn't.
And Window of Opportunity is a fan favorite, not because of the magic reset button, but because it gave a chance for some great character development by giving the viewers the opportunity to see their humorous side. It told us something important about the Ancients - namely, that they were fallible, and though they were incredibly advanced, they weren't gods any more than the Goa'uld were. And while it borrowed heavily from Groundhog Day, the difference was that instead of looking at a man given the unique opportunity to make so much more of himself, it looked at the plight of a man who created a time loop because he was afraid to let go of the past. Probably some of RDA's best acting, especially in the scene at the end where he convinces that man to deactivate the loop.
was a good show, and I think Star Trek, TNG, X Files, and B5 are at the top of MY list....
This list is a joke designed to get people to eyeball ads on Boston.com.
I like the new Battlestar Galactica, but there is now way that it is in the same leagues as Babylon 5 and the original Trek.
The top five should read:
1) Star Trek: Original Series
2) Babylon 5
3) Star Trek: The Next Generation
4) Farscape
5) The X Files
Deep Space Nine belong in the top 15--it really got better toward the end when they started using story arcs. If Buffy counts as SF, it should be moved up, along with Futurama. It's downright bizarre that The Prisoner is left off the list. It belongs in the top ten too.
People will always come up with different lists, but the folks who created this list have a shallow familiarity with science fiction.
The main problem with sliders happened towards the end.
When sci-fi picked it up it suddenly had to have a solid and specific enemy. So they made goofy looking nazi's to hate.
I always liked the idea that anyone could die in the series and be replaced with another one of themselves from a slightly alternate reality.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
I actually agree that the article is flame-bait. Take the description from Babylon-5. Babylon-5 is #5, the article states that it can be compared to DS9 and 'arguably' with better plot/characters. That being the case DS9 should be there somewhere. Disclaimer: Love B5, didn't think much of any Trek. Personally I think if those guys had seen the new Dr. Who then that would be a few places higher.
I set my VCR to record this episode last night, but for some reason it aired an hour earlier than usual.
Be seeing you!
From the Babylon 5 entry: "Some may compare it to 'Star Trek DS-9' but with a better plot and cast - you be the judge." I am no fan of DS9, but I would never compare even my worst enemy unfavorably to Babylon 5! Bleh!
This was a great British show that was syndicated on Nickelodeon when I was a kid... ok, maybe it really sucked and I am really just remember it was childish nostalgia. I don't know, but at the very least I thought that someone should bring it up.
Nevermind the fact that they left off a lot of really good shows (Farscape, DS9, etc.) and put some really good shows behind other crappy ones (Xena?), it's their OPINION of the 50 best Sci-Fi shows yet.
What they really did wrong though, is that over half of the entries were missing air dates, another couple only had the beginning air date. For Doctor Who they didn't even mention that there's a really great new season that just aired. They didn't point out that for e.g. in Earth Final Conflict, William Boone was replaced in the second season and the replacement played for 4 seasons. Some summaries were utterly short (Futurama for one) and others were almost full blown reviews.
[Nitpicking] How much trouble would have been involved in porviding links to the shows' home pages in www.epguides.com or the (evil) www.tv.com. Besides the author could've have gotten most of the information above form those sites really easily. [/Nitpicking]
I'm willing to bet that the author decided to create a list of his top 20-25 Sci-Fi shows and added a few more to not have everybody mad at him for exluding their favourite show. Then he realised that this would take him more than 2 or 3 hours so he decided not to research anything at all, but just o everything from memory.
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.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
Anybody that thinks star trek and any derivative of it is decent science fiction needs to be shot. Star trek inc was the worst scifi ever made it put a bad light on science fiction and its only recently been shaken. The show was blatently unrealistic, took no account of reality and was the most horrible travesty ever to be broadcasted. The fact that therre are allot of people who are so stupid that they actually liked it is shamefull. Anyone who likes star trek is a moron with no concept of reality and they should be sterilised to ensure that they don't reproduce and polute the gene pool.
Here is my list of the top 10
1) Xfiles
2) milenium
3) space above and beyond
4) Battlestar galactica
5) Farscape
6) Stargate SG1
7) Babylon 5
Im to tired to remember any other shows.
First the person that wrote this list needs to step away from the bong or stop having 6 martini lunchs. For one there is way too many, what I would call "fantasy" or "comic book" titles among the 50. Secondly to miss out on DS9 or Red Dwarf or well the titles have been covered.
But here's an interesting twist. I couldn't help but notice that Battlestar Galactica took 2 spots (#35 & 2), the Bionic Man and Woman each got a place (#36 & 29), Star Trek comes in with 3 shows in the top 50 (#14, #3 & #1..no DS9?????)
And then we see number 8, Dr Who. Which they say it ran from 1963 to 1989. The list totally dissed the new Dr Who (Christopher Eccleston).
But, here's the twist, if Star Trek and the other shows can take multiple spots in the list, (same name, different cast) then Dr. Who should also take multiple spots. Who wouldn't agree that Dr Who (Tom Baker)deserves a top 10 spot on the list. But would you honestly put Dr Who (Peter Davison) in the top 10? Probably not. But I have to remember that this writer included Xena in the top 15. Oh bother!
Boston.com wouldn't know Sci Fi if it beamed into thier tighty whities and gave them a wedgie.
If you think that DS9 is the first Star Trek series where the Federation wasn't the only superpower in the galaxy, where there's no black and white and you can't force others to do the "right thing", you really need to go back and watch TOS, TNG & ST:E.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
The show was definitely ahead of its time. The writing was brilliant. The acting was brilliant. The story arcs were compelling. It also rewarded the viewer who kept his brain in gear - such as the plague scene you mention. We all see Frank's wife leave the cabin - and that's it. We do not need to see her die because we know she has died. Brilliant directing.
http://one-salient-oversight.blogspot.com/
This just screams out for a list of Top 50 Overrated Sci-Fi Shows. Number one on this list will be Babylon 5. It includes all the essentials ingredients to make it really, really bad: 1) "Intricate plot" is nothing more than the usual space opera crap you once liked in HIGHSCHOOL 2) Bad actors. The biggest problem with most sci-fi shows. They are designed to run say 5 seasons. So you need to sign actors on 5 year contracts. Actors which can, say, act, or actors who have the X-factor like Shatner (note the mutual exclusive here), don't sign these contracts. They want to be available for stuff like movies. Babylon sports a parade of totally bland actors. I don't remember any of them except for blandless. All the new Star Trek etc. series have the same problem. Picard is the only one I remember. I don't wanna watch these bland people each week. 3) Telepaths. Sometime, somewhere, someone decided if you think up a future in a sci-fi series, it surely much sport telepaths. What?? I left highschool long, long ago, take your sorcery and magic elsewhere! This is ridiculous. 4) Cheesiness all over. Cheesy clothing. Cheesy animations. Need I go on? Still it goes on and on here on Slashdot what a great series it is. This is not surprising looking at the horrible crap on this list. Number two on my list, for instance, must be Stargate SG-1. Again, bad, real BAD actors. Boy they're glad they can support the family with their 5 year contracts. But look at this series. It's based on a movie. This movie was a B movie. It was pulp. Good fun, but pulp. It had two good actors, one pulp actor (Russel) but he has the X-factor you'll never see in a sci-fi television series. (This is the first and last time I hail the actor Russel). It's a movie where you can almost hear the moronic Universal (or whatever) producer tell the scriptwriter: "Hmm nice concept, but what about throwing in some Egyptian stuff, duuuude?" So on this crap, they base a tv-series. Which on it's turn gets in the top 10 of all time sci-fi series. So everything under that, must be even worse utter crap? So it's fair to conclude that everything under the original Star Trek is crap. And you know what the original Star Trek is... Look, I was a huge sci-fi fan as a kid and still am, but most stuff is just utter crap, and I can't believe the crap people keep seeing, and even more surprising, hailing, just because they're sci-fi fans? (Movie wise is not much better, just look at the Matrix for instance, which is essentially a stolen mix of Neuromancer vs tech singularity concepts gone bad by cheesy scriptwriting. I can't believe no one ever tells these Matrix fans with their crap ever that the concept of a computer fighting a human by generating characters and have game like fights within computer generated environments and if the human wins, the computer is, like, defeated duuude! is a really, REALLY stupendous concept.)
I have nothing against these shows and there is nothing wrong with them, but from what I could see, these were not Sci-fi, at least to me. These are more categorized as Comedy, Action, Drama, Horror, or Fantasy. Granted, Sci-fi to some extent has these elements in it. But Tales from the Crypt doesnt exactly scream Sci-fi to me.
Now, shows that should of been included: Red Dwarf, Farscape, Lexx, and SeaQuest DSV.
When in doubt mumble, when in trouble delegate -Murphy's Law-
Are => you <- sure?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Contrib/SciFi/Blakes7/e pisodes.html
I believe actor Gareth Thomas (Blake himself) went AWOL for (at least) the second series due to Royal Shakesperae Company commitments.
And Jacqueline Pearce as Servelan has to be the horniest Sci-Fi woman in the whole of SF TV and cinema history!
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
How is 'Lost' a Sci-Fi Show? ... nevermind. That list is just a Web-Columnist on a budget at work I guess. ... you know the drill. There's nothing like it. When this german TV show ran in the early sixties the street were empty. ;-)
And Raumpatrouille isn't even mentioned.
Raumpatrouille! Yeah!
RÜCKSTURZ ZUR ERDE, baby! , Alphaorder, "Starlight Casino",
No, there's no doubt: 'Raumpatrouille' is the original. Everything else is just a rippoff.
Curiously original ST is at position 1 and it's arguably strongly influenced by Raumpatrouille.
Signed
Tamara Jagolowsk
Galaktischer Sicherheitsdienst
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Well, at least #1 was the original Trek, and not some crap like Andromeda or Firefly or Babylon 5 or Battlestar Galactica (new), which I don't watch.
Ok, I can see them wanting to punish "Enterprise", but was it really worse than Logan's Run: The TV Show"? I actually watched that show every week until it went off the air. And even if so, was DS9 as well? Once the Quark-n-Kira circus act got going it wasn't too bad.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
It's not the policital stance of Fox News I'm parodying, it's their level of reporting. You know, the way they dumb everything down, and what isn't dumbed down is either factually incorrect or just plain made up.
Fox aren't the only ones (all US news networks we get here in the UK are bad), but they're the worst offenders.
Maybe I'm just being spoilt by the BBC.
That they simply asked an intern to draw up a list of every scifi show s/he could think of, then they went down the list, grabbing ones they'd heard were cool and throwing in the ones they were sure they'd get yelled at for not including (Dr. Who, Firefly, Star Trek, Buffy, and Xena may have made it on that way -- not saying they are or aren't good, but that they'd have the "yelling" factor.)
I mean, it doesn't look like any devoted scifi fans were asked, and it seems clear that some stuff was thrown on there just because they couldn't think of something better. I mean, to include The Bionic Woman and The Six Million Dollar Man, to include Buffy but not Angel, to include Firefly but not Farscape, to include The Greatest American Hero but not Mork and Mindy, to forget The Prisoner, Space Above and Beyond AND Earth 2 but remember Atlantis and Voyager? Heck, to put in Voyager, TNG, and the original Star Trek but not DS9 -- that shows nothing more than sloppiness. I blame Arts/Entertainment editors who just wanted something that'd get Slashdotted.
(also, it looks like some of their comments were written by "someone who cares a lot about this show" and others were written by "the guy who's in charge of writing 45 words about every TV show ever written")
It was a watershed in both special effects at its time and in the exploration of deeper philosophical ideas.
While I hold everything you just stated as fact, somehow I found myself enjoying DS9 more than its other ST contemporaries.
Although I'm sure I didn't realize it at the time DS9 was still in active production, I've come to believe that-- for my tastes-- science fiction is best used as merely a static canvas upon which to paint a story. If you bring the SF content too close to the foreground, making the audience suffer through technobabble and dubious explanations, then you've lost me as an audience. Suspension of my disbelief is easiest when the SF content retains an element of mysticism, and is left reasonably unexplained. But as soon as the writers start trying to explain their pseudoscience in rational terms, cognitive dissonance sets in and my disbelief-suppression field collapses...
(The introduction of 'midichlorians' into the Star Wars mythos is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.)
Anyway, I always viewed DS9 as the Berman response to B5. Based on what little I watched, B5's science-fiction was relegated to precisely the role I've described above as ideal: Plot was carried mostly by intrigue and believably-flawed actors, and the SF was just context. Alas, I didn't watch it regularly, so I found it hard to get into it when I didn't know the backstory.
Perhaps Berman & Co saw B5 as a threat to their franchise and tried to adapt. I initially scoffed at the "to boldly stay where no one has stayed before" idea, but I definitely wish that some of DS9's continuity and plot development had crossed over more into the other ST shows.
For me, the franchise became "Star Drek" about the time Voyager ended. I never bothered with Enterprise.
HSJ$$*&#^!#+++ATH0
NO CARRIER
Red Dwarf was lovely. But then it never aired in the US, so it didn't really exist, right?
The Hitchhiker's Guide appears to be missing as well.
And if they count Buffy, Batman and Xena as science fiction, they might as well count Grim & Evil, too. Completely useless flab, the whole list. They obviously just put their thumbs in their mouths and drooled until they could think of 50 shows to put in. Not worth the hits they collect.
37. 'Space 1999'
I remember vaguely liking this as a kid.
Watching recent reruns, I started to suspect that my parents kept me heavily sedated throughout my childhood...snooze city! Severely bored actors standing around waiting for their next gruesome line of dialogue to come along ever so slowly.
After the premier that "stunt" loses all meaning.
Have you seen the new BSG? As a kid I was a huge fan of the original series, and as one of maybe 5 people on the planet that thought that the Sci-Fi Channel version of Dune was an utter abomination I had serious concerns that they were going to turn a beloved part of my childhood into a polished turd.
I've never been so happy to be wrong. The changes made from the original series were clearly not a gimmick, but were done both to open up new avenues and plot possibilities. To claim otherwise is to unfairly marginalize the new series as a simple copy of the original.
It's an absolute masterpiece, and as much as I adored the original I seldom give it a thought when watching the new version. The two shows have the same basic premise, but tone of the show and the plot lines and character development that are explored are so different that it's impossible to have a meaningful comparison between the two. The creators, IMHO, are respectful of the genesis of their show, but don't generally have the original in mind when writing it. Their focus is on making their show the best they can, and I think that what they're turning out is a jaw-dropping success.
Frankly Stargate SG:1 is good science fiction, perhaps the best adaptation of any movie to the small screen.
You may be right, but I think that Buffy the Vampire Slayer would be a strong contender for that title.
Also missing, but borderline, is Project Bluebook.
Thanks for the flashback! I'd completely forgotten about that show! It was possibly the first sci-fi I'd ever been exposed to.
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
While the original Star Trek probably deserves the top spot, the only other show that had fans actively protesting and trying to reverse its cancellation was Farscape.
The only other show? Hardly. These days, any genre show that has fans gets at least a letter-writing campaign when it gets cancelled, unless there's a sense that it's time has come (i.e. Babylon 5 completing its 5-year story arc, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer completing seven years with its spin-off still going.) Unfortunately this means that studios pay less attention to the letters, because they figure it's just something that happens when you cancel a show.
Admittedly, the only shows I can think of in the last decade or so that had successful campaigns are Farscape and Firefly. With Farscape it was mainly a matter of keeping the interest visible while studio politics worked things out. (A big issue was that the Jim Henson company was owned by some media conglomerate that didn't want to pay up for a fifth season, but then the Henson family bought the company back. And another copmany entirely put up the funding based on the fans' visibility. Sci-Fi Channel just bought the broadcast rights after the whole thing was done.) With Firefly, the big thing that landed the movie deal wasn't a diret result of a campaign -- it was that the DVD set sold phenomenally well. (This of course, came from fans introducing the show to friends, who would then go out and buy their own copies, show them to other friends, etc.)
It's never just the letter-writing.
As the topic says, how the hell is a myth based episodic series set in the era of ancient Greece qualify as Sci-fi?
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction_on_te levision.
There's nothing wrong with mirrors of Wikipedia content, and laborlawtalk acknowledges Wikipedia as the source of the material so it is compliant with the GFDL, but people here might want to add to the article, and they can only do that at Wikipedia and not at a mirror.
Ah, but they are important. Because of SG-1 and then non-SG-1's meddling in the past, Ra left the ZPM on earth. Non-SG-1 and the original Dr. Jackson recovered it and buried it, along with a record of what happened, where it was dug up in present day, causing much confusion to SG-1, who were about to go into the past to get it, only to discover they'd already done so twice.
That ZPM is currently powering Atlantis.
They have not addressed the fact that the entire team of SG-1 died 10,000 years in the past, or the fact that non-SG-1 died 9,995 years in the past.
And because of their meddling, they now have three time machines laying around on earth, the original, which actually came from another planet, the copy that's been sitting around for 10,000 years, and the copy of that which was also left 10,000 years in the past, again.
What's an even weird possibility is if non-SG-1 got a time machine working (either one) and took off with it. They could arrive any day now.
In any other show, I would assume those time machines had vanished. Not this one.
And, yes, it's nice how Stargate has amazing continity. You get the feeling they grab new writers and stick them in front of seasons 1-8 DVDs before their pen hits the paper.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Took the words right out of my mouth. BSG 79 was total crap. BSG Millenium Edition is the exact opposite, total mind warp associating both these series with the same name. Can't wait for continuing eps of the new BSG.
My personal preferences would include in the top 10 (no particular order cos I can't decide between some of them): Outer Limits (original), Twilight Zone, B5, Blake's 7, X-Files (yeah I know, but I reckon it's SF), SG-1, Dr Who, Battlestar Galactica (new). OK too hard now, too many I want add. I'll call it quits with some blank spots.
Bitter and proud of it.
Ah, yes, the ZPM. I forgot all about that. And the time machines - maybe I should reassess my take on that episode. Somehow it left me feeling unfulfilled, but perhaps that was because of the whirlwind timeline munging and the sheer confusion that created :)
And, yes, it's nice how Stargate has amazing continity. You get the feeling they grab new writers and stick them in front of seasons 1-8 DVDs before their pen hits the paper.
Part of it is that Martin Wood and Peter DeLuise (among other writer/director/creative consultants) pay such amazing attention to detail. They're just a couple of the people who really go above-and-beyond on the show. They know the fans would catch all sorts of things if they weren't so careful, because they're fans of the show, too.
I am totally pleased with Battlestar Galactica in number 2.. the new one that is.. It is more than the Next Gen of the BG universe... The story lines are great.. If you have not had a chance, check out the podcasts... I just listen to them on the bus after I have seen the show.. it is great insight...
Ok, it's obvious some freak and not some geek wrote this! Anyone that puts Lost in Space at number 33, includes WonderWoman at all and forgets the original Battlestar Galactica completely obviously doesn't know there ass from a "Red Dwarf"!
Jay Dale "If you're not living on the edge then you're taking up too much space!"
Are they insane? Stargate SG-1 at six? That programme is terrible: they took a bad film, added even hammier acting and produced an even worse series.
Your mention of the magic reset button reminded me of something that we figured out throughout all of the Star Trek shows. It was something like this:
Original Series: "Don't worry cap'n, the writers'll get us outta this one too!"
The Next Generation: "Don't worry, captain, I'll just reconfigure something!"
Deep Space Nine: "Don't worry, commander, the particle du jour is just what we need!"
Voyager: "Not to worry, captain, pluck and Borg technology will get us out of this one!"
Enterprise: "Oh, crap! Run!"
Now as to the original Battlestar Galactica, I don't think it was bad, given its era. It was very cheesy due to budget, and it had a lot of the same flaws as every show written in the '70s, but overall it was a very good idea, done as well as possible given its limits. Like all shows that ran too many seasons, the story fell apart at the end, but all in all, it stands that it belongs on a best 50 list, or at least a top 100. Besides, who could resist raster-scan monitors full of little triangles?
The new BSG deserves its slot because it's what BSG would have been if TV back in the '70s would have allowed it. I always thought that the biggest problem with the original show was that it was way too lighthearted, that Starbuck was not nearly mentally damaged enough to have the reputation he had, and that everything looked a little too neat, clean and friendly for a "ragtag, fugitive fleet" that was always running low on food and fuel. Darker colors and darker plots have won me over, even if there are plot holes, because realistically how many sci-fi films or shows are perfect as regards continuity?
Virg
Amen! DS9 has got to be the most boring sci-fi I have ever witnessed. Go ahead, Trekkies, mod me down.
http://www.bynarystudio.com
For some really stupid reason I said ST:E. I had meant to say ST:TNG wasn't bad, though slow to start. There was something irking me about my post all through the preview process...
What's funny is that the same comment can be applied to all of the treks, though I think DS9 was a bit more accessible due to Worf and Colm Meany carrying over from TNG.
Anyway, I didn't want posterity recording that I liked ST:E.
"The area of penetration will no doubt be sensitive." ~ Spock
I won an Emmy for Best Miniseries, for cripes sake.
-- Boycott Shell
I'm guessing the only reason Odyssey 5 (from Showtime) was left off of the list because most nobody ever heard of it! I noticed that nobody mentioned it yet on this board. Maybe I am the only one that enjoyed it?
;) So... am I truly alone in remembering and admiring this short-lived sci-fi show? I really hope this show makes it to DVD someday; I just wish it lasted longer. :(
Anyway, for those of you who don't know what I am talking about... it was a series starring Peter Weller that ran for two seasons on Showtime a couple of years ago. Here is the plot summary that I snatched from imdb:
"The astronaut crew of a space shuttle looks on in horror as they witness the violent destruction of the Earth. However, they are given a chance to change humanity's fate when a sympathetic alien sends them five years into the past. Their mission--find out who's responsible for the plot to destroy the planet. Can they deal with their own pasts while saving the world from the mysterious organism known only as 'Leviathan?'"
The show was fantastic and was easily boosted by the fact that it was on pay-cable television; it added to the gritty quality of the dialog and the more mature subject matter that could only make it on cable.
~Kat ^_^
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
I'm shocked that Farscape didn't make the top 10 much less top 20. Nice to see Battlestar Galactica receive such high praise. It is deserved!
In addition to other neglected shows I also noticed two others worth mentioning, Ultraman and Automan. I love Lucy Lawless but what did Xena have to do with Science Fiction?
DS9 had one (that I can remember) saving grace - Trials & Tribblations - perhaps the single funniest fen shows ever aired. They had the DS9 crew time travel back to the "Trouble with Tribbles" episode of the TOS. They even had great fun with the "why Klingons look different" problem.
I watched the show in its entirety (unless this phantom second season exists somewhere) three times. Great show - it's too bad it never took off.
I never said the original Star Trek was great. But after all this time it still has a bunch of crazed fans, and as you said, it was genre-defining. That's why it deserves the top spot as much as any other SciFi show.
First off, there is 3rd rock, BUT NO RED DWARF????!?!!!!?!!?
Not only should 3rd rock not be on this list, but Red Dwarf should be the first in terms of sci-fi comedies. It's a trajedy this was left off.
Another thing is that pure CRAP like Firefly made this list, but Patrick McGoohan's GREAT series, THE PRISONER, is nowhere to be found. Another PATHETIC omission.
This lists sucks, and isn't even worthy of Ask DumbDots, let alone Ask Slashdot. NEXT!!!
What's that?
There's nothing you have that they can't take away: Absolute zero, Gentle Jack, bottom line.
Hmmm... Well, maybe it is actually one season that was spread out over two years, then. You may be right. imdb shows it as being on from 2002-2004, so that may have thrown me. I also simply remember Showtime airing new shows about a year after the first batch, so I may have been confused and thought it was a second season.
:)
Another interesting thing about this show that I noticed... it has two entries on imdb. Weirdness!
Anyway, it's nice to see that I wasn't the only person on the planet that watched and enjoyed this show.
~Kat ^_^
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
That was a classic.
The first show that came to mind when I saw the headline. Out of 50 SF shows I'm sure B7 would rate well above some of the ones they included.
Maybe the list was compiled by an american.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
This list is total crap. I mean seriously, in a list of the top 50 SCI-FI shows of all time, what the hell is Batman doing on the list? Not to mention Superman and Xena? And how the hell did Alien Nation get on the list while DS9 and Farscape didn't? I mean, seriously...did ANYONE like Alien Nation? I thought it was complete crap....and I thought Time Trax was decent back in the day, proving that my standards aren't all too high. V makes number 18 on the list, outranking Lois and Clark, Superman, Wonder Woman, Andromeda, Stargate Atlantis, just to name a few of the 32 shows it was apparantly better than. The only show I'd rate lower than V on this list is Alien Nation. TOS takes the top slot, the new BSG takes second, and TNG takes third. Reverse that order and you'd be much closer to the truth. Finally, Six Million Dollar Man, Bionic Woman, and Man From UNCLE all made the list. Get Smart didn't. And I doubt anyone who has ever seen Get Smart would rank it below the likes of Tales from the Crypt or Xena. I think Boston.Com just wanted to anger the whole sci-fi community with this completely bullshit list. The only good thing about it is that it gives Sliders some measure of respect - the first two seasons were brilliant and awesome. After that it jumped the shark and bad.
While Im happy that Quantum Leap somehow made it, since so many others did not (we have an almost all Sci-Fi request in our house), it bothers me that a non-sci-fi fool made this list. Maybe we should find him and send him to a far far away mean mean place....
Captain Adam Quark http://www.snowcrest.net/fox/quark/ and the UGSP are available to haul this list away AS garbage.