What are the top sci-fi shows for space adventure lovers?

[dodo]

If the OP (QuarkCharmer) is still listening, and if s/he's anything like me, s/he (darn political correctness... can't we invent a neutral article?) will like the first two seasons of Andromeda. Here was a well written show on the good Trek tradition... unfortunately the main writer went away and the series degenerated quickly after the first two years. As a taster, you can give a glance to Angel Dark, Demon Bright and The Knight, Death, and the Devil; if that gets you hooked, go at the series from the beginning.

 

[chhitiz]

firefly

 

[FlexGunship]

firefly

 

[DrClapeyron]

DS9
TNG
Voyager
Farscape
the original Sliders
Quantam Leap

I want to get into Firefly and Babylon 5 but I am not convinced it is worth the cost of buying the dvds.

Everything on Sci-Fi channel since they canceled Farscape is absolute crap. A coworker watches Eureka, had it on at the office, and I just couldn't understand what it was about. Much like SG-1 it featured too much techno-babble talk and a lot of fast pace scenes to advance plot holes.

Good science fiction shows are not always available but I think the 1990's was the best decade in the modern era.

 

[johanw]

DS9
I want to get into Firefly and Babylon 5 but I am not convinced it is worth the cost of buying the dvds.

Well, there are cheaper methods to get them on various p2p networks.

Good science fiction shows are not always available but I think the 1990's was the best decade in the modern era.

I agree.

 

[turbo]

I want to get into Firefly and Babylon 5 but I am not convinced it is worth the cost of buying the dvds.

Everything on Sci-Fi channel since they canceled Farscape is absolute crap. A coworker watches Eureka, had it on at the office, and I just couldn't understand what it was about. Much like SG-1 it featured too much techno-babble talk and a lot of fast pace scenes to advance plot holes.

Good science fiction shows are not always available but I think the 1990's was the best decade in the modern era.

Get the complete B-5 set (including the "movies") and be happy. In the beginning narration, G'kar says "nobody here is what they seem" (or some such) and that is true for the whole series. There are so many wrinkles and back-stories... If you can't afford to buy the series, subscribe to Netflix and rent it little by little. I should warn you that the first year's episodes (with a particularly wooden station commander) are a bit slow, but by the time Bruce Boxleitner shows up, the series really takes off.

 

[QuarkCharmer]

FWIW, I started watching Enterprise after creating this thread. It's actually not half bad. Working on Farscape now, but season one isn't panning out, and there is all sorts of Jim Henson muppetry afoot...

 

[bm0p700f]

BSG the new version is the best Sci fi that has been done for years. I used to like Startrek TNG but got bored of it along with Voyger. Enterprise was O.K.

Sky Altantic are doing a re run of BSG at the moment which is good. Defying Gravity was one show I really liked but it got canceled along with Caprica and Stargate Universe. In fact I was surprised the BSG lasted as long as it did given it was so depressing.

 

[arabianights]

while staying in a ski lodge last week, i tuned the TV to Syfy channel, playing all day low budge horror movies

 

[feathermoon]

Really, Firefly is probably worth the cash. It really great.

I'm surprised this hasn't come up, but AMC's The Walking Dead is really entertaining, as long as you aren't afraid of zombies.

 

[Crake2]

Yes, firefly is indeed great. Sadly, it got canceled, just like many others.

You also have the stargate series (Stargate SG1, Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe).

There's also Eureka and Sanctuary (both canceled, viva syfy!)

 

[Khuratokh]

FWIW, I started watching Enterprise after creating this thread. It's actually not half bad. Working on Farscape now, but season one isn't panning out, and there is all sorts of Jim Henson muppetry afoot...

Towards the end of season 1 Farscape really hits it's stride with the introduction of Scorpius. I don't understand why people are so hung up about the puppets, as they provide the possibility of showing aliens that are truly alien and not just humans with rubber foreheads.

Although it does have a larger story arc, the show is more character driven and after a while you'll see Rygel and Pilot more as fleshed out characters and less as puppets.

Don't expect to see any hard science though.
as the main character John Chrichton points out:
"we break the laws of physics every time we go out for groceries."

 

[GregJ]

I am enjoying Star Trek: Voyager at the moment (just started season 03 the other day). I like the premise and the characters are actually pretty good. A huge bonus, is that there isn't much blab (for now at least) about Starfleet's prime directive.

I may read through this thread again soon to find my next series, as right now I am drawing a blank.

 

[Stevo_tred]

Eureka was a cool show, wish we had some of those 'toys' in real life

 

[jbunniii]

There was an article recently at SFGate (that's San Francisco [Chronicle], not Science Fiction):

Sci-Fi TV through the years
http://blog.sfgate.com/dwiegand/2012/09/13/sci-fi-tv-through-the-years/

Passable list of recommendations in the slide show, but see the comments section for a lot more.

 

[Nstraw]

Fringe i guess is good one

 

[Calabi_Yau]

Fringe and Lost, 'nough said.

 

[Riemann Metric]

Stargate??

My mom watched this show a lot, and I must say it is part of what got me into not just physics but science in general. Awesome series.

 

[brenan]

Stargate-SG1 suprised me at being so enjoyable. They did a good job on that one for sure. I hated voyager and predicted enterprise would be canceled pretty quick even
before it started.

I'm still p* off they canceled the sarah conor chronicles just so (it seems to me)
they could do another crappy and pointless movie.
That series was far superior to the last movie in every respect.

Actually I'm becoming paranoidially (is that a word?) convinced that hollywood
puts the knife in somehow every time a really good looking TV series gets going
that shows up their multi-million dollar budgets as nonesense.

I still think LEXX is the best SF show ever produced (well - some of it) and Farscape
kicked in really well after a while. (I'm in agreement with the above comments about scorpius and the puppets)

Currently we only seem to have Warehouse13 here - and I can't say I'm a fan of
endless regurgitations of the X-files under different names.

 

[Fredrik]

I saw the new V and Battlestar Galactica, I tried to watch the originals of those two, but they are too dated for my taste. Obviously I have seen Firefly too. What are some other great space-adventures that aren't too terrible? What are your favorite scifi shows? I need something to watch!

I realize that you posted the question in 2011, but the thread is still active, so I just have to say that I hope you didn't dismiss the original miniseries V just because it looked dated. It's definitely worth watching. It's just 5 episodes, and a few orders of magnitude better than the reboot. Unfortunately they decided to follow it up with a series that was very very bad. You should definitely not watch that one.

Stargate-SG1 suprised me at being so enjoyable. They did a good job on that one for sure.
...
I'm still p* off they canceled the sarah conor chronicle

I agree with these comments. T:TSCC was the most annoying cancellation in the last few years, along with Stargate Universe.

Since this is a recommendation thread, and no one has mentioned Continuum yet, I will. It's a Canadian show about a police officer (Rachel Nichols) who finds herself in the past (i.e. our time) when a group of terrorists use some weird technology to escape from prison. It's really silly, but still pretty entertaining. Season 2 is expected to start in April 2013.

 

[Riemann Metric]

SG-1 was just plain awesome: longest-running North American sci-fi series ever! I wish they'd done Universe better, though, since that could have gone on as long as SG-1 did, with all the new things they could have added...

 

[brenan]

Since this is a recommendation thread, and no one has mentioned Continuum yet, I will. It's a Canadian show about a police officer (Rachel Nichols) who finds herself in the past (i.e. our time) when a group of terrorists use some weird technology to escape from prison. It's really silly, but still pretty entertaining. Season 2 is expected to start in April 2013.

I havn't seen it but if it has Rachel in it ...

Mentioning her reminded me of Alias - not really SF but the whole Rambaldi thread
was good fun and made the entire show stand out. It could be argued that made it SF.

As someone mentioned Lost I've always said the pilot was stunning TV but it was clear
the writers had no concept at all about what they were going to do after that. The only thing lost were the writers. That made it very quickly unwatchable for me.

 

[Fredrik]

I really enjoyed Alias at the time, especially season 2. Season 3 was OK but not good. Season 4 was pretty bad. Season 5 was the worst kind of garbage. Alias is one of three shows I like to mention as examples of an enormous drop in quality after the best season. The other two are Prison Break and Heroes.

I thought Lost was watchable until just before the end, but that ending...by far the worst in TV history. It ruined the earlier seasons for me. I still get angry when I think about it.

 

[R_beta.v3]

My favorite science fiction shows are, in order, Babylon 5, Farscape and Stargate SG1. I tried watching Sanctuary and Falling Skies but I didn't enjoy them. Continuum is fun.

In my opinion, if there is one sci-fi series you have to watch, it should be Babylon 5.

 

[Riemann Metric]

Sanctuary wasn't too bad, but I'd have to draw the line and say it was more of fantasy than actual science fiction...

 

[Fredrik]

I have tried to watch Sanctuary. The first time I couldn't even make it through the pilot. A few years later, a friend recommended it, so I decided to give it a shot. But I couldn't take it for very long. At the exact moment things were starting to get a little bit interesting, they killed off the character that made things interesting.

Some other shows in the sci-fi/fantasy genre that I gave up on are Lost Girl, Haven and Farscape. Haven was terrible, so I gave it up after two episodes. This year I've been seeing a lot of comments online about how great it is, so I watched a few more, but I couldn't make it to the end of the season. There was no hint of an arc, the standalone stories were boring, and for some reason I don't really like Eric Balfour.

 

[vemvare]

I once tried to watch Andromeda, out of loyalty to my sci-fi nerdness.

Had to stop.

I just had it after captain plywood kissed an initially skeptic character played by a very bad actress the third episode in a row. The whole show is like some kind of "in" joke, "lol, our viewers will watch it anyway"... The horror the horror.

 

[DennisN]

Firefly! (only 14 episodes ) And Futurama; "Good news, everyone!"