Science Fiction TV Series

What good sci fi series are out there? I love science fiction shows but I get the feeling there aren't any really great ones anymore. I've recently started watching Blood and Chrome because I was really into Battlestar Galactica, and I've been enjoying it so far but it's hard to really get into something with 10 minute episodes. I've seen some of the classics like Star Trek (and its spin offs) and Battlestar Galactica as well as some lesser known ones like Firefly and Farscape, so what might I be missing? What are your favourites?

I loved Babylon 5 back when it first aired, but I'm not sure it'll be worth revisiting, the overarching stuff is kind of fascinating, but a lot of the episodes are less than stellar. Farscape is ok, good for breakfast or lunch, but not really something to sink your teeth into. Dr who is fun, especially this guy

, but that might be 100% nostalgia on my part.

edt: oh, you've seen farscape... You could try lexx, but I found it too corny. Red Dwarf is cool.

I rather enjoyed Stargate Universe. Its on netflix, not a fan of the other SG series though. Also, Outcasts, only 8 episodes but I thought it was well done. Flash Forward is a nicely contained series, cancelled after the first season but I wouldn't want to watch more than that anyhow.

There's always the Twillight Zone and the Outer Limits, a lot of classic sci-fi to be found there.

x files!!!

the twilight zone comes to mind

and definitely the x files

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(spoiler tags are messing up)

Odyssey 5 is cool but it didn't get much of a finish

Fringe is somewhat decent. It got better as it progressed. Alternate dimensions, mind-transfers, LSD and assorted "fringe science". John Noble as the crazy scientist is a highlight. It's sometimes a little hokey, but whatever. Its last episodes are going to air in January.

I would say Fringe as well but the budget noticeably got slashed this season.

Tron Uprising, The Clone Wars are also good

X-files

Dr. who

Fringe (depends on the season though, some were rough to watch)

Stargate SG1

Sliders

caprica

there was more that i liked but cant remember right now.

X-files, without a doubt. What a programme it was.

no.

For me Babylon 5 was the dogs danglies one of the first scifi series to use extensive computer generated effects.

Never really gave Babylon 5 much of a chance because it reminded me of Deep Space 9 too much. Maybe I should go back and revisit it. I've never seen Fringe but a friend of mine is really into it and he compares it favourably to X-Files, which is interesting.

Would you rate Lost as science fiction? It doesn't strike me as an obviously sci fi series, although there are some elements of it throughout the show.

X-files is much much better than fringe, don't listen to your friend.

yeah, seriously. it may be they same production company but Fringe has nothing on X-Files. in fact, nothing really does. lol

some of my favorites:

Star Trek : the Next generation

Star Trek the original series (changed the game of scifi tv forever, visually and aesthetically resembles Lost in Space but with much more intellectual plots)
Star Trek : Voyager (not the best one but worth watching for the hologram Dr centric episodes alone)

Star Trek : Deep Space Nine ( i didn't love this one, but it's a fan favorite)

X-files (obviously, season 3-5 are especially strong, probably the best straight run of a TV series ever it jumps the shark hard in Season 8 though, and seasons 1-2 are noticeably low budget and haven't aged too well)

Millennium (not overtly scifi, more supernatural but has the same tone as the X-files but darker, it is a spin-off of the X-files series, seasons 2 is pretty much flawless)

Farscape (more novelty than headdy scifi but still very well done and visually impressive for a TV show)

Red Dwarf (sort of monty python meets hitchikers guide to the galaxy, classic show)

and of course the classic Outer Limits and Twilight Zone. The 80s Twilight is pretty good, the 90s Outer Limits less so but a handful of the episodes are pretty great.

Re-watching the X-Files (planning to stop after S6) has been both entertaining and rewarding.

Caprica was just getting quite good when it was canceled and hurried along to a semi-resolution, but it was expanding upon some of the metaphysical logic holes in BSG, and I really liked it for Alessandra Torresani's bum that.

Dollhouse, especially after it got over its early "adventure of the week" format, was also very good. Hugely underrated show, there.

Fringe is fun and I'll keep watching until the end, but it's not great SF or great TV by any means.

Awepittance is correct: Millennium S2 is nearly perfect. This out of nowhere, amazing, self-contained season.

ST:TOS and ST:TNG are obviously classics and I love them (I love the problematic, uneven, worst-last-episode-ever TOS more, though). Could never get on with the later Treks very much.

I've watched every episode of SG1 because my girlfriend is a fangirl, and I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy myself. Stargate: Atlantis was crap. Stargate: Universe felt like SyFy wanted to shoehorn a cheaper-to-make BSG into a preexisting universe with a built-in-audience, but it was much better than Atlantis.

edit: "Babylon 5 is a big pile of shit."

  On 12/13/2012 at 12:39 AM, Awepittance said:

Star Trek : the Next generation

Star Trek the original series (changed the game of scifi tv forever, visually and aesthetically resembles Lost in Space but with much more intellectual plots)

Star Trek : Voyager (not the best one but worth watching for the hologram Dr centric episodes alone)

Star Trek : Deep Space Nine ( i didn't love this one, but it's a fan favorite)

You didn't like Star Trek: Enterprise with Scott Bakula? I thought it was quite good apart from the (extremely) cheesy opening tune.

i didn't like it. I can't put my finger on exactly why but i just felt it was too contradictory to star trek cannon on top of the cheesy opening song and sort of forced characterizations. The fact that the captain had a dog and they had like a really extreme southern sounding dude and a super-hot vulcan just didn't ever work for me. I think i was turned off from the very first episode where they showed one of the crew lotioning up an almost naked vulcan hot lady like in a soft porno.

Baph, I was pretty turned off by Voyager when it first aired, was having trek wihtdrawls and found dvds at ameoba for like $10 a season used. So i started watching it and found myself surprised at how strong certain episodes were. Especially the DR centric ones, which is basically a continuation of the Data theme but in some ways more compelling since the Dr isn't struggling to be more human, he just wants to be respected as a sentient being.

edit: good example is 'Author, Author' which is all about the Dr, as strong as some of the best episodes of TNG easily

The Doctor completes work on a holonovel that depicts the crew of Voyager in rather unflattering roles as they abuse and scorn the Emergency Medical Hologram. When the holonovel is published without his permission, the issue of The Doctor's legal rights is brought into question.

Barclay from TNG also is in a bunch of episodes, one of which was a crossover episode of TNG and VOyager where he becomes friends with holographic versions of the Voyager crew to escape his depressing lonely life. Troi features in it mainly trying to ween him off of his addiction to the holodeck.

the best Voyager episodes are as follows:

Episode 19: Projects, the doctor has a delusion that he is an actual flesh and blood man

Episode 24: the Persistence of vision: a generally psychedelic 'the whole crew is hallucinating' episode reminiscent of TNG

Episode 31: Threhold, Voyager modifies the warp drive to break the warp threshold to get home faster, but it has unusual side effects

Episode 37: Deadlock, involving a duplicate/cloned voyager ship that doesn't realize it's a clone

Episode 50 & 51: Future's End, a 29th century time ship sends Voyager back to 20th century earth, they have to stop a corporate CEo from stealing the design of the time ship

Episode 53: The Q and the Grey: Q visits voyager to try and stop a civil war in the Q continuum

Episode 57: Coda: Janeway is trapped in a time-loop, ending each time with her own death

Episode 60: Darkling: the Dr attempts to upgrade his personality, causing an evil split personality

Episode 64: Family: the DR creates a virtual suburban family in the holodeck including wife and kids to take care of

Episode 81: Waking Moments: the entire crew have the same recurring nightmare

Episode 105: Latent Image: the dr discovers that he is either having a paranoid delusion or the entire crew conspired against him to lock certain inaccessible memories

Episode 112: Course: Oblivion: the crew slowly discovers that they and their ship are becoming disjointed matter and slowly falling apart into particles

Episode 124: Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy: the Doctor adds day-dreaming to his program

Episode 130: Pathfinder: Barclay from TNG becomes obsessed with holographic recreations of the voyager

Episode: 152: Inside Man: Barclay from TNG is sent as a holographic projection to Voyager to help them get home

Episode 166: Author Author: See above

Doctor Who.

  On 12/13/2012 at 12:35 AM, Frankie5fingers said:

yeah, seriously. it may be they same production company but Fringe has nothing on X-Files. in fact, nothing really does. lol

i can't believe people are even mentioning fringe. isn't that just a hack of x-files? i couldn't even finish the pilot episode.

ds9

  On 12/13/2012 at 1:09 AM, Awepittance said:

i didn't like it. I can't put my finger on exactly why but i just felt it was too contradictory to star trek cannon on top of the cheesy opening song and sort of forced characterizations. The fact that the captain had a dog and they had like a really extreme southern sounding dude and a super-hot vulcan just didn't ever work for me. I think i was turned off from the very first episode where they showed one of the crew lotioning up an almost naked vulcan hot lady like in a soft porno.

I know what you mean about T'Pol and the whole lotioning up thing, they played the soft porn card a few times... And yeah, it's a bit strange that no-one has a problem with the captain bringing his pet beagle on board to explore the galaxy. I don't agree with you about the southern dude though - Gene Roddenberry has often made a point of having multicultural and minority characters, so I didn't find it very surprising or odd that Enterprise had a british tactical officer, a japanese coms officer and a southern chief engineer. On the plus side, I thought the series had some interesting ideas and plotlines: the birth of the Federation, eugenics, the impatient captain that isn't sure what to do (a stark contrast to the usual Star Trek captains), the Romulan cold war, the less than amicable relations with Vulcan... Star Trek: The Romulan War book kind of develops the Enterprise plotline and characters to a conclusion, I loved reading it. I agree with you about them trying to play on sex too much from time to time and it took me a while to get over the theme song, but I think it had potential for another 2 or 3 seasons if the writing was good. It was the only Star Trek franchise to be terminated by the network and not the writing staff, I think.

And yeah, Voyager was great