For reference, here are the North American SFF (broadly defined) live action one-hour shows that were one-and-dones ordered chronologically:
What's your source? That's a pretty thorough list, as far as I can tell.
I kinda liked this one, though it was pretty goofy. David Rappaport starred as a supergenius inventor who'd given up building military weapons to become a toymaker, although he was teamed up with an FBI agent or something and they solved crimes and weird-science cases together. I'm not sure if there's ever been another TV drama/action series with a Little Person lead actor -- that just announced HBO series being developed for Peter Dinklage is the only other one I know of.
This was a weird one, created by
Incredible Hulk producer Nicholas Corea. Rod Taylor, Richard Roundtree, William Lucking, and a couple of others starred as Old West marshals who got zapped into the 1980s by a naturally occurring time warp and became private detectives. It didn't really have any genre elements beyond the one-time temporal displacement.
This was Ira Steven Behr's first SF series, and it lasted all of three episodes. It was a fantasy about a comic-book superhero coming to life in the real world and discovering that right and wrong weren't so simple here. I think it failed to find an audience because the premise suggested a wacky comedy but it was actually a serious if offbeat drama. I've always regretted that they pulled the show before airing the fourth episode, because it would've featured Adam West as an actor who'd played the superhero in an old TV series and was suing the real hero for stealing his act.
This was a novelty, a series co-created by Isaac Asimov. Parker Stevenson was an eccentric, reclusive scientific genius who solved scientific mysteries with an assistant (Ashley Crow) who provided a humanizing influence. Kinda like Pertwee-era
Doctor Who, or a more sciencey
Elementary.
Something Is Out There (NBC)
This was a miniseries first. Maryam d'Abo starred as an alien cop who partnered with a human detective (Joe Cortese, I think), with all the usual alien-fish-out-of-water stuff and sexual innuendo you'd expect (on her planet, they have no nudity taboo!). It wasn't that great, but hey, Maryam d'Abo!
Hard Time on Planet Earth (CBS)
I kinda liked this one, though it was cheesy. Martin Kove as an alien criminal sentenced to do community service on Earth. His "probation officer" was a crudely CG-animated floating robot called Control, who was a lot like Booster Gold's Skeets, and whose catchphrase was "Negative outcome -- not good."
Another short-lived show I really miss. From the producers of
The Flash, based on the Carmine Infantino comics character and immensely more faithful than the recent Mark Valley version. I thought it was very good, with innovative special effects and some nice psychological exploration of the lead character (played by Rick Springfield). But it only lasted seven episodes.
This started as a pilot movie from Sam Raimi and Sam Hamm, which was pretty good, but the network was uncomfortable with how African-American-centric it was. So they completely retooled and rebooted it for the weekly series, which was abominably awful.
Here's my blog discussion.
Wonderful, wonderful show from Michael Piller and Bill Dial, starring Richard Dean Anderson and John DeLancie. Basically, "What if Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla had become steampunk crimefighters?" I guess the world wasn't yet ready for an idea that awesome.
Ohh, I remember this one -- a series Leonard Nimoy co-created. Video game villains come to life in the real world and their creator must defeat them. With Christopher Lloyd as the main villain and Cynthia Gibb as the female lead. Goofy but kind of fun.
My father was a really big fan of this show, though I was more lukewarm about it. It was smart, but not really my cup of tea genre-wise (and the Moon was full
every single damn night!).
Tarzan: The Epic Adventures (Syndicated)
Actually one of the better syndicated action-fantasy shows that proliferated in imitation of
Hercules/Xena. Relatively faithful to the Tarzan books' mythos, albeit much more respectful toward Africans. Actually filmed in South Africa, which made for a mismatch between the scenes shot in the real African savannah and those shot in the fake soundstage jungle that's unlike any real African biome. Unfortunately, after one season, the backers decided it was cheaper to do a "second season" consisting of repackaged reruns of an earlier half-hour Tarzan series that hadn't previously aired in the US, rather than making any more new episodes. That was frustrating, because the earlier series was pretty dumb.
This was a really good show, starring a young Heath Ledger, along with John Saint Ryan, Vera Farmiga, Sebastian Roche, and Lisa Zane. It was from Shaun Cassidy, who also did
American Gothic. A historical fantasy set in Roman-occupied Ireland.
The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne (CBC)
Wasn't crazy about this one. It was supposedly about the young Verne having the adventures that inspired his fiction, but it rarely had any connection to any of Verne's real works, and often delved into supernatural and fantasy elements which the real Verne would have looked on with scorn. Plus their "Verne," Chris Demetral, had a very American accent and was quite bland. But I did like Michael Praed as "secret agent Phileas Fogg," and I really, really liked Francesca Hunt as his sister Rebecca, essentially a Victorian Emma Peel.
Queen of Swords (Syndicated)
Oh, some of these just make me laugh to remember them. This was a distaff Zorro with a really gorgeous star, Tessie Santiago. This stunning, raven-haired noblewoman who's good with a sword shows up in the colony and clashes with the corrupt authorities, and almost immediately thereafter a stunning, raven-haired masked swordswoman begins battling those selfsame authorities, and nobody suspects a connection? Even though her lacy mask does little to conceal her striking features? It was preposterous. And I think it was sued out of existence by the Zorro copyright holders.
Oh yes, the WB's attempt to
Smallville-ize Tarzan -- set in New York City with Jane Porter as a policewoman, and with John Clayton only once referring to himself as Tarzan. It was actually better than you'd think. Although it was retooled on an almost weekly basis for the first half of its 9-episode season, with a new direction being set up in one episode and then negated or reversed in the next, it nonetheless managed to hold together as a surprisingly cohesive narrative, and came to a satisfactory conclusion in episode 9, so that it worked as a limited series. Plus Sarah Wayne Callies was a captivating Jane.
An underappreciated gem. The first 5-6 episodes were pretty lame, so people tuned out quickly, but then it got so very much better after most of its audience had fled. A real shame, but it's available on DVD now, so I like to sing its praises when I get the opportunity:
http://christopherlbennett.wordpres...-overview-or-why-this-show-is-worth-watching/
The Middleman (ABC Family)
Does it need to be said how awesome this show was? It's getting a new graphic-novel sequel which crosses its characters over with their counterparts from the original comic book.
