Top 50 Sci-Fi shows of all time

[tygirwulf]

I bought DVDs at Best Buy, watched the entire first season in about 3 days time, and then the week after that, Sci Fi had a marathon of Season 2 up to that point. Maybe you will luck out, indeed. I think they will likely have another one detailing the first half of Season 2 before they go back on air with the new episodes in January.

Granted, I have not watched every sci fi show ever made, but that list is kind of wonky. No Farscape at all, anywhere? It's not as good as BSG imo, but it's a far sight better than Andromeda, which should burn.

 

[KoshFan]

Wait, Buffy was on there? I've never classified it as sci-fi. Definitely the best horror/fantasy show on TV for a good while, but its sci-fi elements were pretty small compared to the stronger mystical magical demonic themes.

 

[LondosHair]

There's a hairline between fantasy and sci-fi already, and it's made even thinner by the fact that you just don't see many fantasy shows on TV to begin with. This is why you see booths for Xena and Hercules right next to Star Trek and Doctor Who at the cons. The audience for one tends to watch a fair deal of the other as well.

 

[Recoil]

Yeah I kinda regret not watching it from the beginning. Season 1 in on my Netflix queue but disc 1 is listed as "very long wait," surprise surprise. Hopefully I can watch season 1 and sci-fi will re-broadcast season 2 before season 3 starts.

If you have an HDTV and access to a channel called "Universal HD" or UHD you might be in luck.

After Season 1 of BSG ended on Sci-Fi channel, UHD ran the episodes in order a couple days a week for several weeks...in nice 1080i format. VERY easy on the eyes.

They will do the same with Season 2 I have been told. What I don't know is if they are going to wait for ALL of season 2 to be done, or if they will start airing them now, because the show just had their "mid" season cliffhanger and there won't be new episodes till January. There's a chance you can catch the first half of Season 2 this way --- which is highly recommended.

 

[darth_librarian]

Saw Pegasus last night, it was just superb, I even dug the prog-rock soundtrack some. Now I have to wait to January to see what happens...

 

[GKarsEye]

Thanks for the tip Recoil, I believe I do have that channel, I just never use it.

Of course I'll have to watch sesaon 1 first and I really don't want to buy the DVDs. Stupid netflix...

 

[Sindatur]

Well, GKE, you can always tape (or other method of recording) them, and wait to watch until you've seen season 1. I imagine SciFi Channel will likely start rerunning season 2 first 1/2 this coming Friday.

 

[PillowRock]

There's a hairline between fantasy and sci-fi already, and it's made even thinner by the fact that you just don't see many fantasy shows on TV to begin with. This is why you see booths for Xena and Hercules right next to Star Trek and Doctor Who at the cons. The audience for one tends to watch a fair deal of the other as well.

I don't consider the difference between "science fiction" (science and technology) and "fantasy" (magic and super-natural) to be a "hairline". I consider it very significant and noticable, although occassionally you see something that has both.

To me, making a list that is titled "science fiction" and then including pure fantasy is a lot like making a list of "movie musicals" and then including stage musical productions because they tend to have a lot of audiance overlap. You just aren't listing what you claimed to be listing.

I have no problem with the idea of combining science fiction and fantasy into one list, but then title your list appropriately ..... possibly "speculative fiction". If you *say* "science fiction" then actually follow your own implied rule.

 

[GKarsEye]

ew... tape...ew

 

[StarForBram]

I know this is going to be hard for many to accept, but I always thought Star Trek/Next Gen was kinda lame. I guess I always had trouble with the Patrick Stewart love scenes and fight scenes. To have it rated ahead of B5 seemed unfounded to me.

 

[hypatia]

A lot of people who loved Star Trek TNG loved it because it was often more of an "interesting drama" than a "science fiction" show in their eyes.

I clearly remember it was the first time I could talk about current science-fiction fare with many people who normally didn't like the genre.

So I can easily see how the same aspect of it, particularly, might not appeal to others.

 

[PillowRock]

Good science fiction *is* interesting drama ..... about real issues (whether personal or societal).

There isn't a distinction. (Aside from the occassional comedy.)

Unfortunately, there seem to be a lot of people who get so hung up on "wierd" trappings of the setting that they are generally too distracted to notice the story and characters.

Edit to add: But most of the first season or 2 of TNG was kinda lame.

 

[hypatia]

Good science fiction *is* interesting drama ..... about real issues (whether personal or societal).

There isn't a distinction. (Aside from the occassional comedy.)

Unfortunately, there seem to be a lot of people who get so hung up on "wierd" trappings of the setting that they are generally too distracted to notice the story and characters.

Edit to add: But most of the first season or 2 of TNG was kinda lame.

Yea, I'd tend to agree about the good sci-fi being good stories. And yea, a lot of "sci-fi" fans just thought there wasn't enough "sci-fi" in it. Actually, it's one of my two favorite incarnations of Trek.

I would find it difficult to find a fan who didn't agree with the "most of the first two seasons were not very good" statement. What on earth let this series live?

I mean, it started off with some very bad writing, pacing, uh... whatever. The first season seems quite corny now, in retrospect. And the "empire" of star trek on t.v. hadn't been established yet. What on earth got that show renewed?

Even Patrick Stewart said something about how he didn't unpack his bags for the first (few?) weeks, he was so convinced this series would be cancelled quickly.

And then season 3 hit.

 

[Loburian]

Good science fiction *is* interesting drama ..... about real issues (whether personal or societal).

There isn't a distinction. (Aside from the occassional comedy.)

Unfortunately, there seem to be a lot of people who get so hung up on "wierd" trappings of the setting that they are generally too distracted to notice the story and characters.

Edit to add: But most of the first season or 2 of TNG was kinda lame.

Yea, I'd tend to agree about the good sci-fi being good stories. And yea, a lot of "sci-fi" fans just thought there wasn't enough "sci-fi" in it. Actually, it's one of my two favorite incarnations of Trek.

I would find it difficult to find a fan who didn't agree with the "most of the first two seasons were not very good" statement. What on earth let this series live?

I mean, it started off with some very bad writing, pacing, uh... whatever. The first season seems quite corny now, in retrospect. And the "empire" of star trek on t.v. hadn't been established yet. What on earth got that show renewed?

Even Patrick Stewart said something about how he didn't unpack his bags for the first (few?) weeks, he was so convinced this series would be cancelled quickly.

And then season 3 hit.

You have to remember that in 1987, when the Next Gen. started, all the Trek fans were frothing at the mouth for a new series. That means that the new show most likely received very high ratings. Also, fans were more patient because they were so happy it was on TV again.

One other thing, there was no competition for a science fiction show in 1987, that I remember anyway.

 

[PillowRock]

That means that the new show most likely received very high ratings. Also, fans were more patient because they were so happy it was on TV again.

One other thing, there was no competition for a science fiction show in 1987, that I remember anyway.

First, no there wasn't really any other SF on American TV at the time.

Second, "very high ratings" is a relative thing. Remember, TNG was a syndicated show (there was no UPN yet). Independent stations were picking it up and filling gaps in their schedule with it. Where I live, the time slot that I remember was weekends at noon. How high did the ratings really have to be for it to be a "success" in those time slots for those stations? They would have absolutely *thrilled* to have had the ratings that got Enterprise (a prime time show on a network, albeit a somewhat smaller one) canceled.

 

[Sindatur]

"There was no UPN Yet"

Technically that may be true, but, I think it's the details are debateable to a degree. ST:TNG started on PTN, which was the same numbered channel as UPN ended up, and had the same programming UPN ended up with. I'm pretty sure PTN was Paramount Television Network, so, PTN morphed into UPN, I believe.

 

[PillowRock]

Paramount may have had the minor beginnings of a netlet. But it was nothing remotely close to national.

The channel that showed TNG is *now* the local UPN affiliate. However, that happened years later when there was a shake-up in the station affiliations in the Detroit market.

For much of the run of TNG, that station was the Detroit Fox affiliate. Several years ago the old CBS affiliate jumped to Fox, the old Fox station went to UPN, and CBS ended up picking up one of the smaller independents that had spent half of their time being "the Arab voice of Detroit" (and doing massive upgrades to that station's transmitters etc.).

The original point was:
There was no network making renew/cancel decisions. It was working in the old syndication model, which has largely disappeared with the advent of Fox, UPN, and WB (effectively taking away the market, in terms of independent stations, for syndicated shows).

----------------------------

Wait a minute. When you said PTN, did you mean PTEN (which was the netlet that just had a few shows, including Babylon 5)? PTEN was part of Warner Bros., not Paramount. No Paramount run netlet would *ever* have picked up B5. When WB and UPN started toward the end of the run of B5 (and PTEN simultaneously ended), and it looked like there would be no S5 of B5 ..... that was because WB wasn't an option because internal politics at Warner Bros. meant that WB would never take a PTEN show, and UPN was not an option for B5 because they were too invested in Trek to give new life to a rival SF show.

In Detroit, the station that was the PTEN station became the WB affiliate when those new networks started up.

 

[Sindatur]

HM, I had DS9 and Babylon 5 back to back on PTEN ch. 44, which is now UPN. Seemed to make sense, I thought UPN came around before then. Thanks for the correction.

 

[vacantlook]

PTEN, Sindatur? PTEN, or Primetime Entertainment Network, was the syndication package name that Warner Bros. constructed to sell to miscellaneous stations (as syndicated shows are done), which Babylon 5 was only a part of.

It was because of other shows that were to be part of PTEN not being ready to go that Babylon 5 as a series wasn't put into production until a year after they did "The Gathering;" B5 was ready to start doing the series within only a few months after "The Gathering" but had to wait around for the other shows in PTEN, which is what caused the contracts with the actors to expire and why we lost Dr Kyle, Lyta, and Takashima between "The Gathering" and the series itself.

Star Trek wasn't ever part of the Primetime Entertainment Network; however, because PTEN and Star Trek were both syndicated back then, your local channel that bought the various syndicated shows could very easily have decided to buy and broadcast both.

Where I live, it took forever to get a local UPN station. So once Star Trek went all-UPN and no longer syndicated after like the first couple seasons of Voyager, I was then no longer capable of watching Star Trek as my local NBC station no longer was able to get it through syndication and had no acces to cable being so rural.

 

[RW7427]

It was because of other shows that were to be part of PTEN not being ready to go that Babylon 5 as a series wasn't put into production until a year after they did "The Gathering;" B5 was ready to start doing the series within only a few months after "The Gathering" but had to wait around for the other shows in PTEN, which is what caused the contracts with the actors to expire and why we lost Dr Kyle, Lyta, and Takashima between "The Gathering" and the series itself.

I didn't know that!