Oh, Blakes 7
Thunderbirds
UFO
Space 1999
Buffy/Angel
I couldn't stand it. Nor The Outer Limits.
The top 25 SF TV shows of all time list
- Thread starter RAMA
- Start date
Oh, Blakes 7
Thunderbirds
UFO
Space 1999
Buffy/Angel
I couldn't stand it. Nor The Outer Limits.
It's a very good tv series, but is it sci-fi? Only a few of the episodes are blatantly sci-fi. Most of them seem to be supernatural fantasies to me.
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There were actually two APES tv-shows: a live-action show which, alas, only lasted one season. And an animated series that ran on Saturday mornings. And, yes, Mark Lenard played the villainous General Urko, (Which means Lenard played a Vulcan, a Romulan, a Klingon . . . and a talking gorilla.)
Nostalgia: the APES tv show aired on Friday nights, along with KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER, which also debuted the same fall (and also only lasted one season.)
For brief time there, back around 1974, Friday nights were pretty great!
So I posted this list elsewhere on social media and the feedback I'm getting is that it's too early to put some of the shows on the list. In the past, I rarely did this, but I feel the quality of the shows warrants their inclusion..it's a fluid 16 year old list, which I update 2-3 times a year with the main update at the end of every year. As noted there have often been stretches of years with no changes at all, and if some of the shows turn out to be weaker than evidence suggests (the Expanse for example is every bit as good as the award winning book, and 2 of the 4 episodes are Hugo Award worthy in my opinion already) they will fall. I'll re-evaluate it after 10 episodes. Other shows that were ranked higher and fell include Babylon 5, Heroes, BSG, Star Cops (off the list completely and it was on for many years). Remember being in the top 25 anywhere is an honor because there are 400+ that didn't make the list. :-)
Other shows of note...and recall there are over 400 SF shows out there...Continuum, Enterprise, Flash, Dune mini-series, Star Cops, Blake's 7, Eleventh Hour, Orphan Black, Flash Forward. those would be somewhere between 25-35.
Shows that I dislike and will never be on the list: X-Files, Farscape (hated it, not even in the Expanse's league), Falling Skies, Defiance, Space:1999, Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
Shows that are ok but didn't make the list: Warehouse 13 (I enjoy it as a comedy), Firefly (didn't really like it when it first aired but I upgraded my opinion to tepid on it since), Stargate (Atlantis was my favorite of the series), ST Voyager (the weakest of the Trek series), Surface, et al.
Notes:
Babylon 5 has ranked higher, but I always had a few issues with it, acting is one, cheapness is another. The Expanse has elements of Babylon 5 for certain, which
include the conflict with Earth and it's colonies as well as a big, secret, overarching mystery to solve...but Babylon 5 is amateur hour compared to the production of the Expanse. I have no qualms in suggesting it's better and will wind up ahead of Babylon 5 when the series is over. I also think it will win more Saturns and Hugos than B5, as it has been renewed as of yesterday already.
These are specifically live-action shows, as mentioned in the intro.
Play nice, have fun, and happy New Year. Remember, 2016-17 brings Foundation and a new ST series to TV!
RAMA
Other shows of note...and recall there are over 400 SF shows out there...Continuum, Enterprise, Flash, Dune mini-series, Star Cops, Blake's 7, Eleventh Hour, Orphan Black, Flash Forward. those would be somewhere between 25-35.
Shows that I dislike and will never be on the list: X-Files, Farscape (hated it, not even in the Expanse's league), Falling Skies, Defiance, Space:1999, Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
Shows that are ok but didn't make the list: Warehouse 13 (I enjoy it as a comedy), Firefly (didn't really like it when it first aired but I upgraded my opinion to tepid on it since), Stargate (Atlantis was my favorite of the series), ST Voyager (the weakest of the Trek series), Surface, et al.
Notes:
Babylon 5 has ranked higher, but I always had a few issues with it, acting is one, cheapness is another. The Expanse has elements of Babylon 5 for certain, which
include the conflict with Earth and it's colonies as well as a big, secret, overarching mystery to solve...but Babylon 5 is amateur hour compared to the production of the Expanse. I have no qualms in suggesting it's better and will wind up ahead of Babylon 5 when the series is over. I also think it will win more Saturns and Hugos than B5, as it has been renewed as of yesterday already.
These are specifically live-action shows, as mentioned in the intro.
Play nice, have fun, and happy New Year. Remember, 2016-17 brings Foundation and a new ST series to TV!
RAMA
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It's both, depending on the episode. There's no shortage of fantasy and horror to be sure, but there's also plenty of episodes about aliens, robots, space explorers, alien worlds, and post-atomic wastelands, etc.. Indeed, many of the best-known episodes are outright sci-fi.
Just off the top of my head:
"To Serve Man," "Time Enough at Last," "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street," "The Lonely," "I Sing the Body Electric," "Third from the Sun," "The Obsolete Man," "Steel," "The Invaders," "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?", "The Midnight Sun," "Eye of the Beholder," "People Are Alike All Over," "The Shelter," "Two," "Death Ship," etc.
Heck, the very first episode, "Where is Everybody?" involves an astronaut who returns to Earth to find everyone missing.
I struggled with Mr Robot on the list. Ultimately, I decided there were no SF elements to it, and at best it's a psychological techno-thriller. If I were to rank it, it would be number one on this list. I thought it was the BEST show of the year.
As for the Expanse, see above.
RAMA
Twilight Zone is possibly the best series of all time but for it to appeal to younger viewers you have to ween them off the expectation of explosions or gun fights every thirty seconds. TZ is big on delayed gratification and the modern attention span can't necessarily handle it.
Most of the time with older TV shows I have trouble with the camp factor. Other than Twilight Zone and Star Trek.
Can Expanse be streamed online at Syfy?
Most of the time with older TV shows I have trouble with the camp factor. Other than Twilight Zone and Star Trek.
Can Expanse be streamed online at Syfy?
At least most of the episodes are only thirty minutes long.
(We'll forget the ill-conceived fourth season, where the hour-long eps do feel padded . . . .)
I'm 52 and no particular fan of zaps and bangs. I just thought it sucked.
There may well have been excellent episodes, but I saw more than enough bad episodes (well, started to watch anyway) to give up entirely as not worth the effort.
For me it would be
1. Battlestar Galactica (the reimagined version, also the best TV show of all time in my opinion though I know most people will disagree here)
2. Star Trek TNG
3. Star Trek TOS
4. The X Files
5. Quantum Leap
6. Firefly
7. DS9
And that's it. I could include Space 1999, Buck Rodgers, the original BSG, Farscape etc but they're not shows I think of as particularly good, there are really only these seven that I would consider as being great shows.
1. Battlestar Galactica (the reimagined version, also the best TV show of all time in my opinion though I know most people will disagree here)
2. Star Trek TNG
3. Star Trek TOS
4. The X Files
5. Quantum Leap
6. Firefly
7. DS9
And that's it. I could include Space 1999, Buck Rodgers, the original BSG, Farscape etc but they're not shows I think of as particularly good, there are really only these seven that I would consider as being great shows.
I'm not sure if I can even get to 25 shows, but the ones I liked in order:
really the first Trek series I watched as a teen/adult.
Ok, so I couldn't get to 25. 15 is a nice number.
You might be able to get to 25 if you considered stuff made before 1987.
Just saying.
I'm only 31, and I did include Star Trek.
Oops. I overlooked STAR TREK. Sorry.
In general, however, it's always good to remember that "of all time" extends beyond the movies and TV shows of our own generations.
I confess this is a personal hobbyhorse of mine. Just a few weeks ago, I saw a list of "The Greatest Movie Soundtracks of All Time" which seemed to assume that "All Time" began somewhere around 1990. And don't get me started on that article about "The Ten Best Vampire Movies of All Time" . . . on which the oldest movie was The Lost Boys . . . .
I think the Expanse is very good, but it's also only been four episodes; I wouldn't be putting it on any rankings personally until the first season was over.
Expanse, the novel series, is indeed not reinventing the wheel of the science fiction novels, but there's really very little quite like the TV show - there are few sci-fi shows that aim for a vaguely hard depiction of space travel, and of those I can think of none that have the kind of cinematic look Expanse has.
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You might be able to get to 25 if you considered stuff made before 1987.
Just saying.
I'm only 31, and I did include Star Trek.
Oops. I overlooked STAR TREK. Sorry.
In general, however, it's always good to remember that "of all time" extends beyond the movies and TV shows of our own generations.
I confess this is a personal hobbyhorse of mine. Just a few weeks ago, I saw a list of "The Greatest Movie Soundtracks of All Time" which seemed to assume that "All Time" began somewhere around 1990. And don't get me started on that article about "The Ten Best Vampire Movies of All Time" . . . on which the oldest movie was The Lost Boys . . . .
I draw the line at Space Patrol. Science Fiction Theater wasn't bad though!
RAMA
You might be able to get to 25 if you considered stuff made before 1987.
Just saying.
I'm only 31, and I did include Star Trek.
Oops. I overlooked STAR TREK. Sorry.
In general, however, it's always good to remember that "of all time" extends beyond the movies and TV shows of our own generations.
I confess this is a personal hobbyhorse of mine. Just a few weeks ago, I saw a list of "The Greatest Movie Soundtracks of All Time" which seemed to assume that "All Time" began somewhere around 1990. And don't get me started on that article about "The Ten Best Vampire Movies of All Time" . . . on which the oldest movie was The Lost Boys . . . .
I was intending my list to be subjective. If I was making a general list I would have included Twilight Zone and did some research on great sci fi before my time. I know there's so much sci fi out there I've missed but my list did cover pretty much my entire life and I still contend the 90s much such an exciting time to be a sci fi fan, even more so than now. Now it's mostly comic book fandom beig happy.
People often say how BSG made the scifi channel but they are incorrect, many of us know even if we didn't see the show first time we know how productions like Farscape made Syfy or the Scifi Channel. Another thing people need to learn when ranking media shows is how to look at something objectively, put down your favorite book for a moment and just rank the show as a well respect objective critic might. Step outside yourself and examine the series, for example there is much of Dr Who I just don't like, sometimes I feel its a great show but other times I don't like it, I don't like its cast changes, I didn't like it when Terry Farrell left the show to give us a different Jadzia Dax on DS9 and I still don't like the idea now...however I appreciate Dr Who some of the actors who have played 'the Doctor' are very, very good and this British scifi always has fantastic and fun writing.
One of the reasons I rank Daredevil and Into the Badlands miles ahead of the Expanse is not only do I find these shows better I find the main characters on the tv screen in Expanse to be poor, sometimes really poor and maybe that's a tv writing thing. People who have read book upon books might connect with the characters but I have no reason to connect with these characters at all. It had one very good episode that is episode four but I would still rank the show near the level of Dark Matter. Shows like like Star Trek were lucky to have people like Shatner, Stewart, Nimoy, Levar Burton and others star in these series. The Expanse has a weak main cast but a very good supporing cast, I like the Miller viewpoint, its a written stereotype this detective but the actor does a good job playing a Detective like Harrison Ford's Deckard in the classic movie I liked the pill-actor maybe Lopez? Supporting cast is fantastic, the interrogation scenes were very good but as a whole the Expanse is kinda weak. As soon as you seen shows like Daredevil or Twin Peaks or whatever you knew the show had strong leads and I think shows needs strength, leads and direction if they are to be good shows, picking up old shows on DVD and examining them...as soon as you saw an episode of Twin Peaks you knew this show would be great.
Why should Farscape rank as one of the greats? You need to go back and look at it historically. Nobody and I mean nobody was doing scifi well on tv, you had two big shows Star Trek and Babylon-5 and that was it. Two B-movie giants of the industry come along Rockne S. O'Bannon...he wrote old scifi like Alien Nation and this other giant guy Henson...the Muppets family, Labyrinth (Bowie, Jennifer Connelly) they have a shoestring budget, they quickly get a team and fly half way across the world to places like the backlands outside Melbourne, Brisbane and inside stages of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia and on a tiny budget the start putting together a really great show. The Jim Henson Company and O'Bannon get all these B-list actors and Australian soap actors and just go for it, the cast, the script writers all rise to the challenge and they make a really great show for peanuts and I mean peanuts if you compare how much it costs to make Two and a Half Men, Bionic Woman, Terra Nova or some romcom like Friends...the series Farscape was typically pumping out an ENTIRE SEASON of tv for what it costs to make a single episode in L.A and this is when 'a season' was a full on season and wasn't 8-9 episodes, for a season of tv you had to do half plus half, cover two halves 3months plus 3months = 6 months something like 20-24 episodes! their work rate for such a shoestring budget was crazy
Also if you look at Farscape's production quality compared to blockbuster movies and big scifi productions in Hollywood like armageddon, 12 monkeys, universal soldier, demolition man, alien ressurection, I think oftentimes Farscape's quality was better, in every episode you had an alien universe, Farscape was a top production was FX and costumes and aliens just like the Obi Kenobi fight at the Mos Eisley Tarvern Cantina in Star Wars where Greedo shoots at Han first!! Farscape was a huge huge thing for the Skiffy
It's a pity people don't watch scifi from overseas, I think some other nations have some amazing scifi to offer...I suppose subtitles puts American audiences off
One of the reasons I rank Daredevil and Into the Badlands miles ahead of the Expanse is not only do I find these shows better I find the main characters on the tv screen in Expanse to be poor, sometimes really poor and maybe that's a tv writing thing. People who have read book upon books might connect with the characters but I have no reason to connect with these characters at all. It had one very good episode that is episode four but I would still rank the show near the level of Dark Matter. Shows like like Star Trek were lucky to have people like Shatner, Stewart, Nimoy, Levar Burton and others star in these series. The Expanse has a weak main cast but a very good supporing cast, I like the Miller viewpoint, its a written stereotype this detective but the actor does a good job playing a Detective like Harrison Ford's Deckard in the classic movie I liked the pill-actor maybe Lopez? Supporting cast is fantastic, the interrogation scenes were very good but as a whole the Expanse is kinda weak. As soon as you seen shows like Daredevil or Twin Peaks or whatever you knew the show had strong leads and I think shows needs strength, leads and direction if they are to be good shows, picking up old shows on DVD and examining them...as soon as you saw an episode of Twin Peaks you knew this show would be great.
Why should Farscape rank as one of the greats? You need to go back and look at it historically. Nobody and I mean nobody was doing scifi well on tv, you had two big shows Star Trek and Babylon-5 and that was it. Two B-movie giants of the industry come along Rockne S. O'Bannon...he wrote old scifi like Alien Nation and this other giant guy Henson...the Muppets family, Labyrinth (Bowie, Jennifer Connelly) they have a shoestring budget, they quickly get a team and fly half way across the world to places like the backlands outside Melbourne, Brisbane and inside stages of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia and on a tiny budget the start putting together a really great show. The Jim Henson Company and O'Bannon get all these B-list actors and Australian soap actors and just go for it, the cast, the script writers all rise to the challenge and they make a really great show for peanuts and I mean peanuts if you compare how much it costs to make Two and a Half Men, Bionic Woman, Terra Nova or some romcom like Friends...the series Farscape was typically pumping out an ENTIRE SEASON of tv for what it costs to make a single episode in L.A and this is when 'a season' was a full on season and wasn't 8-9 episodes, for a season of tv you had to do half plus half, cover two halves 3months plus 3months = 6 months something like 20-24 episodes! their work rate for such a shoestring budget was crazy
Also if you look at Farscape's production quality compared to blockbuster movies and big scifi productions in Hollywood like armageddon, 12 monkeys, universal soldier, demolition man, alien ressurection, I think oftentimes Farscape's quality was better, in every episode you had an alien universe, Farscape was a top production was FX and costumes and aliens just like the Obi Kenobi fight at the Mos Eisley Tarvern Cantina in Star Wars where Greedo shoots at Han first!! Farscape was a huge huge thing for the Skiffy
It's a pity people don't watch scifi from overseas, I think some other nations have some amazing scifi to offer...I suppose subtitles puts American audiences off
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Well, I've been giving it some thought, and I've come up with the following list of my own. It's very hard to stop at 25 actually, there are a good few that I would want to include but the others just edge them out. A top 50 might have been good for me. Ah well... There are a few in here that are borderline sf for me, but made it in here due to their sheer quality and enough sci-fi elements to be worth counting.) Oh yes, and I've only compiled my list from series, so not including any one-off plays, tv movies or individual serials.
1. Doctor Who (all of it - 1963 to the end of time probably...)
2. Blakes 7
3. Sapphire and Steel
4. Space: 1999 (should have been higher if season 2 wasn't there to drag it down...)
5. UFO
6. Babylon 5
7. Star Trek
8. The Prisoner
9. Timeslip
10. Quatermass
11. The Twilight Zone (original)
12. Farscape
13. Star Cops
14. Star Trek Deep Space Nine
15. Space Patrol
16. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
17. Star Trek The Next Generation
18. Thunderbirds
19. Survivors (original)
20. Alien Nation
21. Battlestar Galactica (original)
22. The Incredible Hulk
23. The Invaders
24. Clangers (original)
25. The Outer Limits (original)
1. Doctor Who (all of it - 1963 to the end of time probably...)
2. Blakes 7
3. Sapphire and Steel
4. Space: 1999 (should have been higher if season 2 wasn't there to drag it down...)
5. UFO
6. Babylon 5
7. Star Trek
8. The Prisoner
9. Timeslip
10. Quatermass
11. The Twilight Zone (original)
12. Farscape
13. Star Cops
14. Star Trek Deep Space Nine
15. Space Patrol
16. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
17. Star Trek The Next Generation
18. Thunderbirds
19. Survivors (original)
20. Alien Nation
21. Battlestar Galactica (original)
22. The Incredible Hulk
23. The Invaders
24. Clangers (original)
25. The Outer Limits (original)
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I see lots of mentions of 2015 shows on these lists, and rightfully so, as it was a really good year for genre and sci-fi television. (Especially when you count the superhero stuff like Daredevil and Jessica Jones as sci-fi. Tons of good superhero stuff this year, with Flash and Agent Carter, and SHIELD now being consistently good.)
But of all the 2015 stuff people have been naming, where's Humans? I thought that show was fantastic, almost as good as Mr Robot. (Which certainly wasn't sci-fi, though at times you had to wonder if it was going to veer in that direction. And with such an unreliable narrator, who knows what the future may hold.)
edit: oh yeah, besides Humans, what about Ash Vs Evil Dead? That show is awesome!
But of all the 2015 stuff people have been naming, where's Humans? I thought that show was fantastic, almost as good as Mr Robot. (Which certainly wasn't sci-fi, though at times you had to wonder if it was going to veer in that direction. And with such an unreliable narrator, who knows what the future may hold.)
edit: oh yeah, besides Humans, what about Ash Vs Evil Dead? That show is awesome!
And since this thread is talking about 100 different tv shows, can I politely request a YES or NO on the following 4 new shows? I haven't watched a second of any of them, but for the folks that have, would you recommend these:
-Childhoods End
-Second Chance
-Colony
-Tripped
(No need to rank 'em or split your votes, if you want to give 4 yes's or 4 no's that's fine. Though I doubt more than a handful of folks have watched all 4.)
-Childhoods End
-Second Chance
-Colony
-Tripped
(No need to rank 'em or split your votes, if you want to give 4 yes's or 4 no's that's fine. Though I doubt more than a handful of folks have watched all 4.)
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