best TV/SPACE effects..

[Captaindemotion]

When I saw the crappy effects for ENCOUNTER AT FARPOINT, which were made over ten years after oldBSG, I could only laugh...heck, TOS's effects were better!!!

Now that's exagerating.

No, I'd agree. I never really cared for the look of early TNG and always thought that the SFX would date really badly and quickly. Ditto those in Babylon 5. I think the models used in TOS have stood the time pretty well by comparison, given the technology and budget they had to work with.

By and large though, SFX have simply gotten better with time and money and it's not really fair to compare 1960s shows like Lost in Space or low budget shows like old Dr Who or Blake's 7 with your BSGs, SG1s or ENTs. And in another 10 years or so, today's crop or the recent crop of shows will also look pretty dated and shabby compared to whatever is airing in 2019.

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

Still, to this day, the best effects ever put on television were in Space: 1999. That's what outer space is really like.

 

[Mr. B]

I don't see anyway around giving nuBSG the crown here. Older shows like Deep Space Nine were pretty amazing in their day though.

 

[Kegg]

Still, to this day, the best effects ever put on television were in Space: 1999. That's what outer space is really like.

I'm very partial to these too. At least, they've aged spectacularly well - most early CGI and all of the B5 franchise's CGI can't hold a candle to it, for one thing.

 

[Harvey]

Some of the larger battles on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, when the money was there, still look spectacular (if only they had been rendered in HD!). Some of the effects work on Battlestar Galactica (2003) is similarly impressive, especially the battle of New Caprica.

The visual effects on Star Trek: The Next Generation don't hold up well, on the other hand, especially those from the first two seasons, which were finished on video (and look crappy even compared to later work on the series). Babylon 5 looks abysmal, especially since all the visual effects on the DVDs have been cropped to widescreen from full-screen, non-HD images. It's a shame that, outside of the spin-offs, the best visual effects for that series can be seen on The Gathering, since it's the only episode of that series that hasn't had the effects cropped.

 

[RobertScorpio]

Some of the larger battles on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, when the money was there, still look spectacular (if only they had been rendered in HD!). Some of the effects work on Battlestar Galactica (2003) is similarly impressive, especially the battle of New Caprica.

The visual effects on Star Trek: The Next Generation don't hold up well, on the other hand, especially those from the first two seasons, which were finished on video (and look crappy even compared to later work on the series). Babylon 5 looks abysmal, especially since all the visual effects on the DVDs have been cropped to widescreen from full-screen, non-HD images. It's a shame that, outside of the spin-offs, the best visual effects for that series can be seen on The Gathering, since it's the only episode of that series that hasn't had the effects cropped.

Oh I agree..the effects for The Way Of the Warrior and Sacrafice of Angels are STAR TREK TV's best ever..IMO...

Rob

 

[Trubinator]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Farscape. That show had some very good vfx if memory serves.

 

[RobertScorpio]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Farscape. That show had some very good vfx if memory serves.

I am going to start watching farscape this weekend, so I will chime in on these effects later..

Rob

 

[Kegg]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Farscape. That show had some very good vfx if memory serves.

It doesn't.

I just finished rewatching all four seasons and the Peacekeeper Wars a couple days ago. Farscape continues to be a pretty awesome series this many years down the line, but the CGI in the series is still pretty obviously CGI and does not quite compete with BSG, Firefly, or Enterprise. The Peacekeeper Wars is admittedly a lot closer, but I don't think it's quite top of the line as far as these things go.

When it comes to best realized aliens the show still takes the cake, of course, even if it's notoriously hit-and-miss as far as aliens/muppets of the week are concerned. Also, Rob, enjoy. All told, I'll probably rewatch the whole thing again a couple more years from now and off-hand I can't recall many other series I've ran through from start to finish twice over. So I do like it quite a bit.

 

[Harvey]

I thought the visual effects on Farscape improved noticeably as the series progressed, but the whole thing has such an alien feel to it that's it hard to look at the series and say, "oh yeah, that's photorealistic!"

But I'm obviously a fanboy.

 

[Kegg]

Well, I'm just comparing the detail on the CGI spaceships to comparable detail on other CGI spaceships. It looks nice to be sure, and I'm a fanboy too, but it's not as realistic or as detailed as some of the other examples cited here.

The episode where Aeryn is

Spoiler: Season 3

mourning the death of Moya Crichton on that alien world of the dead

is a good example of CGI landscapes that don't look real for a second, also.