What's your fave sci-fi TV series so far and why?

[Shr'eshhhhhh]

Impossible to rank, so in no particular order.

Babylon 5,
Doctor Who,
New Battlestar Galactica,
Blake's 7,
Doomwatch (showing my age now),
Sapphire And Steel,
Red Dwarf,
Farscape,
Firefly (sob),
Star Trek (mostly the original series but I loved some episodes of the later incarnations),
Quatermass,
Cold Lazarus (when will this ever get a DVD release?)
Season one of Space 1999 (it just got too silly after that).
The Invaders (it scared me witless as a kid)
A For Andromeda (Both the original and the remake, though the remake doesn't count as a series)
The Changes (another wonderful show that the BBC seems to want to bury, why isn't it available on DVD?)
And though not really science fiction it does contain elements of sci-fi in it, Edge Of Darkness definitely one of the best television series ever made.

[Marcase]

Lochley Lover

Hm, my SciFi favs?

Babylon5 - the writing, the characters, the stories...
Farscape - the DRAMA!
B5: Crusade - the writing, the characters, the stories (that could've been...)
Firefly - the humor, I cracked myself up. Too bad about Serenity.
Battlestar Galactica - the new series - yes it's capital-C Cool.
Star Trek: Voyager - WITH 7of9 - admit it, those are the best written eps.
Blakes7 - Dated, cardboard sets, looooong. But I'm a Servalan junkie.

[KoshN]

I tried Keen Eddie, I really really liked Keen Eddie, but it didn't last long enough to convince me there was more to it than police farce and the dopey family of clue-nots that kept reappearing. The last ep I saw, I think something with an opera diva in it, had me looking forward to it a lot more - then poof, gone.

It only had 13 episodes, 7 aired on FOX, but is out on DVD (with some replaced music ).

Brimstone, eh, pass.

That's too bad. I love that show.

Oops, re. Brimstone, I was wrong. It is airing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brimstone_%28TV_series%29

Chiller begin airing Brimstone on Saturday July 28, 2007. 'New' episodes will then air Saturdays at 7PM Eastern with replays the following Monday at 8PM Eastern.

BTW, there are no "new" episodes, just the existing 13.

[Lunan]

well number 1 is easy
1. Doctor Who (i make no distinction between "classic" and "new" ecc's first season was season 27 as far as i am concerned)
2. ok here we get fuzzy, i'd have to say DS9
3. B5
4. Next Gen

then we get into the realm of current tv
5. Real Time with Bill Mahr
6. Stargate(both of em)
7. Smallville

classic tv
8. Dick Van Dyke Show
9. Get Smart
10. alfred Hitchcok presents
11. Twilight Zone

cartoons
12. He-man/She-Ra
13. Thundercats
14. Jayce and the wheeled Warriors
15. Justice League(and unlimited)
16 Transformers
17. Voltron
18. Spawn

ok thats enough

[Radhil]

Wonderfalls is a favorite of mine, as well. Then you should try Keen Eddie. ...and Brimstone (too bad it's not airing, now, and isn't out on DVD).

I tried Keen Eddie, I really really liked Keen Eddie, but it didn't last long enough to convince me there was more to it than police farce and the dopey family of clue-nots that kept reappearing. The last ep I saw, I think something with an opera diva in it, had me looking forward to it a lot more - then poof, gone.

Now I remember Karen Sisco too. Another show I wanted to love but just didn't last long enough. And there's another show hovering at the back of my head but I can't pluck the name. Nuts. Guarantee I remember it at 3AM.

Brimstone, eh, pass.

[KoshN]

Barring that list and pushing aside the whole genre thing, I also have fondness for Wonderfalls (still, always), the new Dr. Who (how can sci-fi fluff be THAT good...), I still love Lost (and I'm hoping I still will), I'm revisiting Boomtown lately (which was awesome while it lasted), and in a crystal ball of revelation, I see Pushing Daisies (fall, ABC, no I'm not a plant) jumping onto this list quite soon.

Wonderfalls is a favorite of mine, as well. Then you should try Keen Eddie. ...and Brimstone (too bad it's not airing, now, and isn't out on DVD).

[Truth66]

Obviously I'd have to say Babylon 5 because it was so well written. There's a lot of sci fi out there which is true garbage. Much of it is also the same old idea rehashed a Bazillion times.
I like Sci Fi that tries to break away from the norm while at the same time being well written. Space: 1999 definitely broke from the norm and season one was fairly good with season 2 going way down hill, no wonder it was cancelled.
Stargate SG-1 is defintely up there because for once there was no starship traveling to different worlds. However, I think the original idea for the motion picture of Stargate was stolen from an early episode of Star Trek TNG season 2 called Contagion, where the Iconians travelled through "Gateways" to other worlds.
I'm hoping for another well thought out Sci Fi series to be created to fill this void in my life. JMS help us.

[Token]

1) Babylon5
2) Crusade
3) Now and Again - everyone should see this show
4) Voyager
5) Red Dwarf
6) The Prisoner
7) New Battlestar Galactica
8) Doctor Who
9) Lost
10) Firefly
11) Sliders
12) Andromeda
13) The Next Generation

[Shabaz]

Hmm, let's see.

X-Files. Used to watch this religiously as a teenager, then completely stopped when it moved it to a later timeslot that made it harder for me to watch. Right around the time it went downhill apparently, so most of my memories of the show are really good.

Babylon 5. Well, some of you here may have heard of it.

Star Trek, first 3. I grew up with TNG, and for a long time, TNG and television SF were the same thing to me. Love some of the stuff DS9 did, and TOS is a classic. Voyager and Enterprise, not so much.

Farscape. I adore the sheer alien-ness of the show, and there is some wonderful character based stuff in here.

Doctor Who, both old and new. Caught Ecclestone's series a few years ago, and got hooked to such an extent that between then and now I also watched a good deal of the old stuff.

Battlestar Gallactica, new. Great storytelling, that set out to redefine television scifi, and actually did a pretty good job in achieving their goals. I'm really behind on my episodes though.

Space: Above and Beyond. To be honest, I shouldn't really include this, since it is so long ago since I saw it, that I can't really remember any specific plot point at all. But this was on roughly around the same period as B5 was in the Netherlands. And I can remember watching both in a strange sort of awe, thinking to myself how different it was from Trek, and that I didn't know television SF could be this too.

[Babylon5fan07]

1. Babylon 5
2. Star Trek (All of them)
3. Babylon 5 (both of them)
4. Firefly
5. Starman (the series-only lasted a season or so)
6. Alien Nation-The Series and movies
7. War of the Worlds-Series and the movies
8. Earth 2
9. Seaquest.

..that's just roughly all I care about..or least can think of

I know they aren't sci fi but I also like Chips, Knight Rider, Airwolf just to name a few....there are a few others out there but can't think of them

Alex

[Radhil]

Wow, my original list on here was all completed old shows, and of my add-ons, two failed to stay good (Alias, Joan) and the other one (Wonderfalls) failed to stay on.

So let's re-do the list. In no particular order:
Babylon 5
The original, still the best, Twilight Zone
Battlestar Galactica (dark as it is, I would have given up hope of any good new sci-fi long ago without it)
Farscape (which I finally completed a collection of)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Firefly/Serenity

Barring that list and pushing aside the whole genre thing, I also have fondness for Wonderfalls (still, always), the new Dr. Who (how can sci-fi fluff be THAT good...), I still love Lost (and I'm hoping I still will), I'm revisiting Boomtown lately (which was awesome while it lasted), and in a crystal ball of revelation, I see Pushing Daisies (fall, ABC, no I'm not a plant) jumping onto this list quite soon.

EDIT - I'll also just toss in the fact that while I'm ashamed of what they became, both the first seasons of Alias and 24 I consider landmarks in their own right. I have a few other seasons of each I'll eventually ditch on some poor sob, but the first's, I keep.

EDIT2 - Now my brain keeps working on this, I have to mention Heroes, and that while I love it, it won't make any of my lists yet... not until it proves Season 2 will be just as good or better than Season 1.

[Jan]

Talk about re-animating a dead thread!

True, but it is a fun one. I'm just moving it to Off-Topic since the beginning of the thread (I think) pre-dates Ranger1 and I as mods.

As for the question...I don't recall if I answered it before but here goes:

Babylon 5
Star Trek TOS
Jeremiah
Dark Shadows (well, it did have aliens once! And Frankenstein is SF, right?)
Battlestar Galactica - new - until I couldn't stand the darkness anymore
Dr. Who - new

That's all I can think of for now.

Jan

[KoshN]

Talk about re-animating a dead thread!


Babylon 5
Crusade
Red Dwarf
The Twilight Zone (original, and some of the 80's version)
Stargate SG-1
Stargate Atlantis
Star Trek TOS
Star Trek Next Gen.
Battlestar Galactica (2003+)
The 4400
The X-Files (Seasons 1 thru 5, and a few episodes from later seasons).

[Lope de Aguirre]

1) Firefly (+ Serenity)
2) Babylon 5
3) Farscape
4) Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
5) Battlestar Galactica (2003)
6) Star Trek: Enterprise

[colonyearth]

*Sniff* You don't care about a straight, middle-class American like me.

I guess you have to be on the other side of the fence to really get that...it's admittedly a stereotypical, connotational meaning. I felt it fit in this case. No slam intended...hell without the straight, middle-class (or any class for that matter) there wouldn't be anyone around to make more of us "mo's"

Not a yuppie, though!

There's hope for you yet then.

As for the Maquis thing...they dropped the ball with that. They could have done more with tension and any number of things. But it was like they forgot they were Maquis after a while.

They've dropped the ball, period.

I liked everything about DS9, pretty much. The humor was great, to me. But you are right about the 2-D stuff. But that is ST in general. Everyone from the Federation is a communist-esque hive member. Michael Eddington goes so far as to tell that to Sisko in other terms. "You're worse than the Borg!" That is why I liked Eddington and Garak and Quark...they had something. And despite DS9's difference from other Trek, it still got a bit too preachy. But I still liked the preach eps. "Past Tense" good, but the message was transparent, and even Ira Behr has admitted it. "Far Beyond the Stars" was great, but also transparent, although about a more legitimate issue in its context. There was the female kiss, which I don't think was as much a statement as it was eye candy for ratings. But make no mistake about it, I liked the show, I liked the dialogue, I liked the characters. Miles was probably my favorite human, along with Sisko, and Bashir a close third. Most interesting was the doctor and Miles' relationship, of which some have mistakenly labeled as vaguely homosexual. When in this "homophobic" society are we going to learn that loving your buddies is not gay? I have told my best friend, who is a Marine veteran, that I love him.

2D characters and too much bland dialogue written in such a way as to make me not care to hear it. I'm not being moved to like or care about ST characters. Other shows are simply doing it better...period.

Yes, two str8 guys can be close and not be gay. People just like to try to find things that appeal to them or look for heroes where sometimes there are none. (Especially in the ST universe where neither exists anymore.) As for the female kiss...that was a cop-out and a ratings grabber. If they really wanted to tackle the gay issue in Trek, they would do what Gene wanted to do before he died...put a full-time cast member in the show that's openly gay.

I didn't like Jadzia, though. My mom did. She was just not well written. All of her episodes were stand alone science concepts. Mostly. [/B]

Loved Jadzia, liked Quark and Garak and O'Brien (a carryover from TNG I remind you), but it wasn't enough to keep me for the entire run. A few decent characters aren't enough...how about some good writing and story and better character developement all the way around. Make me love your characters. I said it above...other shows are simply doing it better.

CE