Babylon 5, though I would say only watch seasons 1-4, the last episode of season 5 ("Sleeping in Light"), and the movie "B5:In the Beginning". The only decent actually-filmed-in-season-five episode is the Gaiman-penned "Day of the Dead".
Oh, and you owe it to yourself to see the BSG miniseries and the first season (13 episodes).
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ShogunHair long; money long; me and broke wizards we don't get alongRegistered Userregular
edited March 2007
This may not count but on Christmas Eve I somehow watched a gargantuan marathon of the really old black and white Twilight Zone episodes. I was suprised at how good many of them were. I really enjoyed them enough that I wanted to buy the 42-disc DVD set but I didn't want to shell out for it at the time. The crazy part is that the presenter dude, Rob Sterling wrote every episode. I couldn't believe it.
If you haven't seen them check some out they really are great.
Firefly's a so-so show in my opinion. But, it's short. If it were any longer I probably wouldn't recommend it. Farscape's good for the first season or so. It starts to go downhill from there, though. At least watch the first season, and if you can stand it going down from there, keep watching.
Watch Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis. Both excellent shows.
Watch the BSG mini-series and first season. It starts to get progressively worse from there. Season 2 started good, but went downhill, season 3 started great, and has been nothing but fillers since. The mini-series and season 1 were great, however.
Red Dwarf is good, but it's old, and it's British, so you may not get all of the humor.
Also, Eureka and The Room maybe? They're not space sci-fi, but still good.
These are just my recommendations as a young'un, so take it with a teaspoon of salt.
If you decide to watch Farscape, it's what my avatar is from.
The new Battlestar Galactica and the new Doctor Who are both fantastic. While Lost isn't distant future sci-fi, I'd argue that it's definitely science fiction all the same, for reasons beyond the superficial conventions of the genre (lazor guns, aliens, etc).
Pheezer on
IT'S GOT ME REACHING IN MY POCKET IT'S GOT ME FORKING OVER CASH
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
If Lost can be considered sci-fi (and I don't see any reason why not) then so can X-Files, which is also worth watching up until the last season. (It jumped the shark when Duchovny left.)
If you like conspiracy theory type stuff, Nowhere Man was an underappreciated show. It's about a man whose identity is erased by a government conspiracy - he wakes up one day with no ID and everybody who used to know him including his coworkers and family act like they've never met him before.
Edit: My friends are all crazy about the Star Wars Clone Wars animated series. Never watched it myself but I've heard good things.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
I want to reiterate the new Doctor Who. It's pretty light in general, and might make a nice diversion after watching something like Babylon 5 (seasons 1-4, as others have said) or the new Battlestar Galactica, which can be emotionally exhausting.
No love at all for Andromeda or Earth: Final Conflict? They're both the brainchildren of Gene Roddenbury so you might like how his ideas pan out outside of the Star Trek universe. The Outer Limits is also pretty enjoyable, very much like the various Twilight Zones and its ilk.
A lot's been mentioned here, but here's a few that I didn't see.
- The Dresden Files
- EUReKA
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars (it's two movies, but it's still good and worth seeing)
- The Lost Room (recent miniseries on SciFi)
- The Pretender
This may not count but on Christmas Eve I somehow watched a gargantuan marathon of the really old black and white Twilight Zone episodes. I was suprised at how good many of them were. I really enjoyed them enough that I wanted to buy the 42-disc DVD set but I didn't want to shell out for it at the time. The crazy part is that the presenter dude, Rob Sterling wrote every episode. I couldn't believe it.
If you haven't seen them check some out they really are great.
I second this whole-heartedly.
The Twilight Zone is one of those shows that really mess with your head and always left a chill in your spine. It was just so cleverly written and presented with strong, capable actors that every episode is a pleasure to watch.
Two episodes I would recommend are The Midnight Sun and Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder.
It was the thinking man's show back in the day, and still is for those who discover it.
The Stargate shows are crap. Remember those TOS episodes where they encounter some static culture that's been alone on a planet for ever and have to overcome some hurdle to wrap up the show and move on? That covers just about every episode of Stargate, except that they tacked on crappy story arcs about ancient gods who are really aliens living out an intergalactic soap opera.
Babylon 5 was pretty great, although it can get pretty tedious at times in seasons 4 and 5. But when it comes to thoughtful writing and intelligent, original ideas, B5 reigns supreme.
Firefly was cool and is worth checking out, but it's very overrated, so don't expect to find the holy grail of contemporary scifi. The concept worked much better as a comic book/movie than it did as a TV show.
Farscape is right up there with Babylon 5, but with a little less depth. It's definitely the bravest scifi show ever made, simply because it revolved around continuity and made no attempt whatsoever to forgive anyone who had missed an episode. If you liked the way The Shield handles continuity, with story arcs that go on for years and constantly referencing seemingly random past events, you'll love Farscape.
Battlestar Galactica is good, but cheap to the point of being annoying. They dragged out season two by adding in a lot of one-off episodes, and did a little more in of that in season three, and it's irritating as hell. CGI shots are also constantly reused; shots from the miniseries are still worked in on a regular basis without even bothering to re-render them from other angles, and it's much more obvious than it was when Star Trek did it. But the writing is great, the acting is great, and the way they use it all as a skewed reflection of the Iraq war and the Bush administration makes for killer TV.
The new Doctor Who is excellent, especially the second season. The original Twilight Zone series features some of the best scifi ever televised. Both Outer Limits series are great. SciFi's Dune miniseries were both good. X-Files is worth getting on Netflix, but has so many shitty one-off episodes that the DVD sets are a ripoff. And for the ultimate in great nerdy TV, Buffy was our queen.
Stargate Atlantis if you haven't already moved onto it. Stargate SG1 is good, even past Season 8, people just need things to bash into because they fear change. Firefly of course.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
edited March 2007
CRYPTIC
Numb3rs - all the science in that it entirely fictional.
No love at all for Andromeda or Earth: Final Conflict? They're both the brainchildren of Gene Roddenbury so you might like how his ideas pan out outside of the Star Trek universe. The Outer Limits is also pretty enjoyable, very much like the various Twilight Zones and its ilk.
Andromeda is pretty bad. It had some pretty cool ideas, but it was just way too cheesy and low budget to ever be interesting. It's not something I would actively seek out since there are so many other good or at least average sci-fi shows out there.
Sorry to get off-topic but wtf happened to Eureka anyway? Due to my short-term loss of long-term memory, I remember watching and loving it, but it just kind of petered out and while I always have the sci-fi channel on in the background while gaming, I haven't seen any trailers for upcoming episodes.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Sorry to get off-topic but wtf happened to Eureka anyway? Due to my short-term loss of long-term memory, I remember watching and loving it, but it just kind of petered out and while I always have the sci-fi channel on in the background while gaming, I haven't seen any trailers for upcoming episodes.
Firefly is amazing. The biggest problem is that it was cancelled after one season so the only closure for the series is the movie.
I'm a huge BSG fan. Seasons 1 and 2 are amazing, but they're starting to rely too heavily on filler rather than focusing on moving the main story along. That being said it's still one of the best shows on tv.
Sorry to get off-topic but wtf happened to Eureka anyway? Due to my short-term loss of long-term memory, I remember watching and loving it, but it just kind of petered out and while I always have the sci-fi channel on in the background while gaming, I haven't seen any trailers for upcoming episodes.
I love LOVE Eureka. One of the best new shows of 2006.
As well, I follow alot of SciFi shows: Stargate SG1/Atlantis, Dresden Files, BSG, Lost, Doctor Who, Torchwood and surprisingly Supernatural are all good ongoing shows (well, SG-1 is just finishing up now)
Shows that are readily available in DVD form that I love: FIREFLY, X-Files, Farscape, Buffy (for something different), Angel, Sliders, and I was impressed by Invasion and Surface, although they had short runs. I think you can get those shows on DVD.
I couldn't get into B5, no matter how I tried. I dunno why, I just couldn't.
This may not count but on Christmas Eve I somehow watched a gargantuan marathon of the really old black and white Twilight Zone episodes. I was suprised at how good many of them were. I really enjoyed them enough that I wanted to buy the 42-disc DVD set but I didn't want to shell out for it at the time. The crazy part is that the presenter dude, Rob Sterling wrote every episode. I couldn't believe it.
If you haven't seen them check some out they really are great.
Serling didn't write every episode, but he did write 92 out of the 156 episode run and he think he may have directed some of them too. Dude was a beast, no doubt.
but yeah, Twilight Zone is a must for great sci-fi/fantasy.
Catch up on NBC's Heroes, it's surprisingly good, has a free tie-in comic on the website, and when it comes back to finish it's season in April: It's going to be amazing.
I'll add a vote for Firefly as well, as if it needed another vote.
Babylon Five
Farscape
Battlestar Galactica
Firefly
Red Dwarf
Hyperdrive
Non-Spaceship Sci-Fi
Sliders (only seasons 1-3, and maybe not even 3)
Stargate SG1 (only with Richard Dean Anderson, not Ben Browder)
Quantum Leap (sci fi, but really 80s quaint)
Doctor Who
Heroes
I always loved Farscape. Kinda gets way far out there and dark though, but it's damn good. I've only seen the first season and half the second, but it's all ranged from pretty good to great. Show's driven mainly by very strong and like-able characters. Crichton's Earth-isms are always worth a chuckle.
SG-1 always seemed a bit bad, bland, and uninteresting to me, but I never started at the beginning, so YMMV.
BSG is one of the better things out there I suppose, but I got started in the middle and my impression was that it aspired to a certain degree of greatness that was not totally present in execution. The writing could have been a lot tighter, and some aspects intrigued me while others annoyed me. I found a lot of the drama and clichés very obvious, jumping in without much of an introduction. I hear the miniseries has a lot higher production values, and is well worth watching, though I haven't gotten around to it as yet.
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Mario Kart DS: 3320 6595 7026 5000
Firefly.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Go watch Firefly.
YES
If you haven't seen them check some out they really are great.
Shogun Streams Vidya
Watch Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis. Both excellent shows.
Watch the BSG mini-series and first season. It starts to get progressively worse from there. Season 2 started good, but went downhill, season 3 started great, and has been nothing but fillers since. The mini-series and season 1 were great, however.
Red Dwarf is good, but it's old, and it's British, so you may not get all of the humor.
Also, Eureka and The Room maybe? They're not space sci-fi, but still good.
These are just my recommendations as a young'un, so take it with a teaspoon of salt.
If you decide to watch Farscape, it's what my avatar is from.
Battlestar Galactica (the new one, not the 70s show unless you feel like cheesy old sci-fi, and for the love of God NOT its spin-off Galactica 1980).
Farscape, I loved.
Babylon 5, I loved as well.
Stargate SG-1, if you must, but stop after Season 8.
Overall, I'd rank them as such:
(Firefly = BSG) > (Babylon 5 = Farscape) > Stargate SG-1
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
Firefly is really spectacular. Battlestar Galactica is also fan-fucking-tastic.
SG1, Atlantis. The new seasons of SG1 are awful, though.
Did I mention Battlestar Galactica twice yet?
most of all, most of all
someone said true love was dead
but i'm bound to fall
bound to fall for you
oh what can i do
If you like conspiracy theory type stuff, Nowhere Man was an underappreciated show. It's about a man whose identity is erased by a government conspiracy - he wakes up one day with no ID and everybody who used to know him including his coworkers and family act like they've never met him before.
Edit: My friends are all crazy about the Star Wars Clone Wars animated series. Never watched it myself but I've heard good things.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
- The Dresden Files
- EUReKA
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars (it's two movies, but it's still good and worth seeing)
- The Lost Room (recent miniseries on SciFi)
- The Pretender
I second this whole-heartedly.
The Twilight Zone is one of those shows that really mess with your head and always left a chill in your spine. It was just so cleverly written and presented with strong, capable actors that every episode is a pleasure to watch.
Two episodes I would recommend are The Midnight Sun and Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder.
It was the thinking man's show back in the day, and still is for those who discover it.
Babylon 5 was pretty great, although it can get pretty tedious at times in seasons 4 and 5. But when it comes to thoughtful writing and intelligent, original ideas, B5 reigns supreme.
Firefly was cool and is worth checking out, but it's very overrated, so don't expect to find the holy grail of contemporary scifi. The concept worked much better as a comic book/movie than it did as a TV show.
Farscape is right up there with Babylon 5, but with a little less depth. It's definitely the bravest scifi show ever made, simply because it revolved around continuity and made no attempt whatsoever to forgive anyone who had missed an episode. If you liked the way The Shield handles continuity, with story arcs that go on for years and constantly referencing seemingly random past events, you'll love Farscape.
Battlestar Galactica is good, but cheap to the point of being annoying. They dragged out season two by adding in a lot of one-off episodes, and did a little more in of that in season three, and it's irritating as hell. CGI shots are also constantly reused; shots from the miniseries are still worked in on a regular basis without even bothering to re-render them from other angles, and it's much more obvious than it was when Star Trek did it. But the writing is great, the acting is great, and the way they use it all as a skewed reflection of the Iraq war and the Bush administration makes for killer TV.
The new Doctor Who is excellent, especially the second season. The original Twilight Zone series features some of the best scifi ever televised. Both Outer Limits series are great. SciFi's Dune miniseries were both good. X-Files is worth getting on Netflix, but has so many shitty one-off episodes that the DVD sets are a ripoff. And for the ultimate in great nerdy TV, Buffy was our queen.
CRYPTIC
Numb3rs - all the science in that it entirely fictional.
But seriously, has anyone mentioned Heroes yet?
I really liked the book.
Andromeda is pretty bad. It had some pretty cool ideas, but it was just way too cheesy and low budget to ever be interesting. It's not something I would actively seek out since there are so many other good or at least average sci-fi shows out there.
13 episode run.
Not sure if it's being renewed.
I'm a huge BSG fan. Seasons 1 and 2 are amazing, but they're starting to rely too heavily on filler rather than focusing on moving the main story along. That being said it's still one of the best shows on tv.
Season 2 starts in July
As well, I follow alot of SciFi shows: Stargate SG1/Atlantis, Dresden Files, BSG, Lost, Doctor Who, Torchwood and surprisingly Supernatural are all good ongoing shows (well, SG-1 is just finishing up now)
Shows that are readily available in DVD form that I love: FIREFLY, X-Files, Farscape, Buffy (for something different), Angel, Sliders, and I was impressed by Invasion and Surface, although they had short runs. I think you can get those shows on DVD.
I couldn't get into B5, no matter how I tried. I dunno why, I just couldn't.
Serling didn't write every episode, but he did write 92 out of the 156 episode run and he think he may have directed some of them too. Dude was a beast, no doubt.
but yeah, Twilight Zone is a must for great sci-fi/fantasy.
Eureka (the Sci-Fi channel one, not Eureka Seven, which is some anime thing)
If you want to watch Babylon 5 for free (legally duh), In2TV will let you. Yeah, I know, it's AOL, but it's also free, which is a pretty sweet deal.
I'll add a vote for Firefly as well, as if it needed another vote.
Babylon Five
Farscape
Battlestar Galactica
Firefly
Red Dwarf
Hyperdrive
Non-Spaceship Sci-Fi
Sliders (only seasons 1-3, and maybe not even 3)
Stargate SG1 (only with Richard Dean Anderson, not Ben Browder)
Quantum Leap (sci fi, but really 80s quaint)
Doctor Who
Heroes
OHWAIT!
SG-1 always seemed a bit bad, bland, and uninteresting to me, but I never started at the beginning, so YMMV.
BSG is one of the better things out there I suppose, but I got started in the middle and my impression was that it aspired to a certain degree of greatness that was not totally present in execution. The writing could have been a lot tighter, and some aspects intrigued me while others annoyed me. I found a lot of the drama and clichés very obvious, jumping in without much of an introduction. I hear the miniseries has a lot higher production values, and is well worth watching, though I haven't gotten around to it as yet.
Don't watch Andromeda. It's pure pain.