Your top 5 franchises?

[CorporalCaptain]

Star Trek
Star Wars
Middle-earth
Sherlock Holmes
Poirot

Runners up:
Marvel big tent
DC big tent
James Bond
Jack Ryan
Dune
Columbo
Thunderbirds
2001
Foundation (with Robots and Eternity)
Robby the Robot (OK, this one's a cheat, but there it is!)
The Closer/Major Crimes
Law & Order
MASH
Bugs Bunny

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

*Also, I'm assuming we're not counting the Double-Oh English Secret Service guy from England as Skiffy?

I don't think it matters. I put this thread in the SF/F forum because I assumed that the vast majority of people's answers would fit in that genre but I don't think that should limit your answers. Besides, there are enough 007 movies that are enough on the cusp that I think they qualify.

I watched the first few episodes of H2O after I found out that the two girls from The Originals were in it. The Originals is one of my favorite shows, so I just couldn't resist seeing them working together in such different roles.
I thought it was pretty fun, it's a kids show, so it's obviously not the deepest or darkest show out there, but I thought most of the episodes were enjoyable. I haven't seen any Mako Mermaids yet, but from the bits I have seen, it looks like it goes a bit deeper into the world's mermaid mythology than H2O did.
I watch tons of stuff with Aussies and Brits, so at this point I'm almost as used to their accents as American accents.

I watch a lot of British stuff, so I'm used to their accents. But I don't actually watch that much Australian stuff. And, looking back on it, I think that, even when legit Australian actors play Australian characters on American TV (like Catherine Sutherland on Power Rangers), their Australian accents are different than they are when surrounded by other Australians.

Speaking of The Originals, I never watched that or The Vampire Diaries. It's one of those things that I kept meaning to get around to but never did simply because I watch so little modern TV. Should I give it a go? Should I start from the beginning or is The Originals the better show?

 

[Sparkle Fabulosa]

@The Borgified Corpse Definitely start with The Vampire Diaries! It would be like watching Angel before Buffy.

 

[Vger23]

1. Star Trek

2. Star Wars

3. Alien

4. Indiana Jones

5. Terminator

It's amazing how much I don't give a shit about the superhero / comic book stuff, Harry Potter, or Hobbits given their massive popularity.

 

[Snaploud]

Speaking of The Originals, I never watched that or The Vampire Diaries. It's one of those things that I kept meaning to get around to but never did simply because I watch so little modern TV. Should I give it a go? Should I start from the beginning or is The Originals the better show?

At a minimum, watch seasons 1 through 4 of The Vampire Diaries (when Klaus Michaelson leaves the show to start the spin-off The Originals). The quality of The Vampire Diaries drops considerably after season 4 as the best writing/acting seemed to move over to The Originals.

 

[JD]

Yeah, a lot of the relationships and history of the characters is established in The Vampire Diaries, so you'd lose a lot of the backstory if you didn't watch it first.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

@The Borgified Corpse Definitely start with The Vampire Diaries! It would be like watching Angel before Buffy.

Point taken. Although I did actually watch Angel before Buffy. Way back in the day, I did catch a bits of a handful of early Buffy episodes when they first aired on the WB, often just catching the tail end of certain episodes. (I can't recall why I was even watching the WB at all at that point. I think maybe the local affiliate was rerunning old episodes of TNG right after Buffy was over or something.) But I didn't become a full-on fan until late in the 2nd season of Angel, and that was kinda accidental because Angel had just been moved to the Monday night timeslot that had just been vacated by Roswell when it moved to UPN. I watched Angel religiously during its last 3 seasons and it wasn't until towards the end of that when I started to go back and properly watch the first 5 seasons of Buffy.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I watched the first two seasons of Vampire Diaries in a weekend.

Quite a trip, once you get over the "oh god they are all so damn young, can the young people stop being half naked thank you" and "why are they wearing so much fricking make up?"

The newest series in the Vampire Diaries franchise is a good parody of the Original X-Men.

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[Jayson1]

1 Star Trek=Not sure I would be a nerd if I didn't discover TNG in high school. Saved me from a terrible life of world famous popularity who dates super models and vacations on the moon or I assume that is how things would have played out differently if I hadn't decided to give TNG a chance. I love all of Trek to some degree or another even the stuff I dislike. That means I even love Code of Honor and Discovery and Shades of Grey and Profit and Lace to some degree. Of course I also love the Trek show that is canon in my heart in Orville.

2 Stargate=Really liked the the movie in 1994 and all 3 shows. Universe is underrated. McKay might be my most favorite genre tv character of all time.

3 Star Wars=Always enjoyed the classic movies but what's really put it over the top recently has been The Mandorian and The Clone Wars and Rebels cartoons. Also liked a few of the Disney movies. The Force Awakens, Rogue One, sort of okay with Solo and I liked Revenge of the Sith with the prequels. Also not canon but I also loved the Family Guy version of the movies as well and also Spaceballs.


4 I love the Kevin Smith New Jersey universe movies that basically can be spotted with the Jay and Silent Bob character. I am not even someone who does drugs or stuff like that but I just love these movies.


5 The MCU universe. Which I also include some tv shows like Agents of Shield and the Netflix shows.


There is other stuff I love but I have a hard time calling them a franchise. Back to the Future and Cornetto Trilogy by Edgar Wright. Or Mystery Science Theater 3000 stuff.

The Batman franchise
X Men franchise
The DC universe
Buffy/Angel
Lord of the Rings/Hobbit
Spiderman franchise
Transformers

are stuff that make honorable mention



Jason

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

The newest series in the Vampire Diaries franchise is a good parody of the Original X-Men.

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Wow! Yeah, not even trying to hide the X-Men element even a little bit. I mean, the headmaster has hair and can walk but the differences end there.

BTW, is The Secret Circle part of the Vampire Diaries universe or was that just a similarly themed show?

Stargate=Really liked the the movie in 1994 and all 3 shows. Universe is underrated. McKay might be my most favorite genre TV character of all time.

I'm not sure if Dr. McKay is my all-time #1, but he's certainly up there, right next to Kira Nerys from DS9 and Kenzi from Lost Girl. I was pretty miffed when Universe seemed to totally squander their Dr. McKay cameo. I really wanted to see McKay & Dr. Rush go ego to ego but they never had a single scene together.

BTW, I met Amanda Tapping at a convention a few years ago and she is absolutely the sweetest person in the universe!

 

[Guy Gardener]

Secret Circle was a set of books written by the same Author, but they are different universes.

Phobe Tonkin, the dark haired Mermaid from H2O was in Secret Circle, The Vampire Diaries, the originals, and we saw her for 4 seconds in the trailer for Legacies, because her 16 year old is the witch/vampire/werewolf trybrid hero of the series.

There were a couple time jumps in the story telling.

No Cable-like future children coming back in time... I think?

 

[Sparkle Fabulosa]

I really liked The Secret Circle. I wish there had been more than one season.

 

[Qonundrum]

Lost Girl
Futurama
Red Dwarf
Doctor Who
Star Trek

 

[Nerys Myk]

I watched the first two seasons of Vampire Diaries in a weekend.

So you had a vampire weekend?

 

[Cyrus]

1. Star Trek
2. Stargate

Star Wars used to be #2 but too many disappointing movies have removed it from the list. I used to love Marvel comics when I was a kid and I was very excited for their first few movies but now I have completely lost interest.

 

[Velocity]

Buffy
Farscape
Star Trek
Primeval
Dr. Who

 

[JD]

Wow! Yeah, not even trying to hide the X-Men element even a little bit. I mean, the headmaster has hair and can walk but the differences end there.

Other than involving a school that is meant to protect people with special powers, I don't really see X-Men in it at all.
The people with powers are secret, it's based around magic rather than science, there's no evil group lead by the headmasters former friend, and the character's don't really line up at all.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Mine (in exact order):

1. Doctor Who
2. Star Trek
3. Star Wars
4. G.I. Joe
5. Gundam

Sure, there are things in all of these franchises that I don't particularly like and I haven't always agreed with some of the creative and/or business decisions taken by them all, but I tend to view these five far more positively overall than not.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Lost Girl
Futurama
Red Dwarf
Doctor Who
Star Trek

Lost Girl just barely missed my Honorable Mentions list by virtue of:
1. Not really being a franchise, since it doesn't have any spin-offs, movies, or even a lousy tie-in novel.
2. It got really bad during the last 2 seasons. And I can't really put my finger on why. Normally, when a show jumps the shark this bad, there's usually some major cue to let you know that it happened, like a cast departure, network change, or really dubious plot point. But with Lost Girl, the writing just got really crummy all of a sudden. There would be good episodes occasionally and nearly every episode at least had potential. But they were just, for the most part, very badly written.

 

[Guy Gardener]

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