Determining what is the best science fiction television series?

[Captaindemotion]

When I was a little kid I was a big fan of the first two years of Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea. Didn't see the movie until years later.

I liked Time Tunnel as a kid, and even watched Land of the Giants regularly. I have only dim memories of Voyage and Lost in Space.

True story: several years ago, I attended a licensing meeting for the new Lost in Space movie. At the meeting, a studio spokesman (who shall go nameless) grandly declared that there were three great science fiction franchises: Star Trek, Star Wars, and . . . Lost in Space.

Seldom have I had to bite my tongue quite so hard . . . .

Can you still talk?

 

[JWD75]

Star Trek : Deep Space Nine
Twilight Zone TOS
Carnivale
The X Files
Star Trek TOS
The Walking Dead
Firefly
Supernatural
Star Trek TNG
Doctor Who

 

[Too Much Fun]

Have never seen an episode of Dr. Who.

Me neither.

I can't believe those guys left out "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine". And you know it's not because they forgot, since they mentioned it in their description of "Babylon 5". I bet they're obnoxious "Babylon 5" fans who like to be all territorial and piss on DS9 for being a 'rip-off', so they excluded it just to be petty dicks.

My Top Ten
1) "Star Trek: The Next Generation"
2) "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
3) "The X-Files"
4) "Star Trek"
5) "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine"
6) "Futurama"
7) "Battlestar Galactica" (2004)
8) "Angel"
9) "Xena: Warrior Princess"
10) "Firefly"

I don't know if it would be considered sci-fi, but if so, "Batman: The Animated Series" would be my number one. It's my favourite show of all time. Since nobody else listed it, I assume it doesn't qualify for this list. If I had another spot, I'd add "Dollhouse". People are already calling "The Walking Dead" one of the best sci-fi shows of all-time after only SIX episodes? And they weren't even that good. Come on, this isn't "Firefly"!

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Maybe they just didn't like DS9. Even most Trek fans didn't stick with it for seven years.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Maybe they just didn't like DS9. Even most Trek fans didn't stick with it for seven years.

 

[Alex1939]

1) BSG (Ron moore's)
2) Firefly
3) TNG
4) ToS
5) DS9
6) The Outer Limits (90s)
7) Futurama
8) Dollhouse
9) The Outer Limits (60s)
10) The Walking Dead

Notes:

I'm not sure "The Walking Dead" should really count on this list, but since it's been listed several times I threw it in.

It appears (out of those that have voted at least) that no one enjoyed The Outer Limits (1995-2002) or Dollhouse as much as I did.

I also considered Angel, Charmed, and Supernatural, but I'm lukewarm to all those shows. The top5 were easy, the last 3 were difficult to choose.

 

[label]

Maybe they just didn't like DS9. Even most Trek fans didn't stick with it for seven years.

Not sure what you're talking about.......even looking through this thread more people ranked DS9 higher than all other Treks. I'd say based on my experiences on this board and in talking with my friends, DS9 was most people's favorite Trek.

Personally I love DS9 and TNG, am nostalgically fond of TOS, think Voyager is largely dren and Enterprise wasn't much better.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Maybe they just didn't like DS9. Even most Trek fans didn't stick with it for seven years.

Look up the ratings. Well over half the audience that DS9 started out with - about equivalent to TNG's at first - was gone by year seven. The decline was steady, year by year, and accounted for the studio's decision to tweak the show more than once to no real effect (in terms of wooing back viewership).

And I'm playing fair by not including the DS9 premiere week ratings, which were higher than TNG had managed. They dropped back to TNG levels almost immediately, of course (premieres being what they are) and quickly declined below TNG's, but starting from that height would be a bigger drop.

When you say "most people's favorite Trek" the most that you're saying is that it has the most vocal fan base on a Trek board a decade later. That's not at all the same thing as having been the most popular with people who've actually watched Star Trek on television over the decades. None of the post-TNG shows touch either TNG or TOS.

 

[Kegg]

The articles in question pretty much reflect a more mainstream view of Star Trek television, where Deep Space Nine was indeed the red headed step child. In the hermeneutically sealed world of the Trek BBS DS9 is pretty well regarded, not so in a wider scan.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

The articles in question pretty much reflect a more mainstream view of Star Trek television, where Deep Space Nine was indeed the red headed step child. In the hermeneutically sealed world of the Trek BBS DS9 is pretty well regarded, not so in a wider scan.

And while Voyager seems to have been on the radar of more folks in the wider audience, its ratings were generally on a par with or somewhat below DS9's; Enterprise picked up the decline even further along the curve and finally bottomed out a couple of million viewers below Voyager.

Here's a partial ratings graph that shows the decline across all series except TOS; I believe there are more complete ones floating around on the net but I can't put my hands on one right now. The more detailed numbers don't alter the trend lines though.

This one also doesn't show the DS9 premiere, which would have been at about 18, and it's missing what looks like season two data for Voyager.

 

[Greg Cox]

It could also just be that they didn't want the top ten list to be too Trek-heavy. Always a problem when discussing sf on tv; you want to cast a wide net and not spend too much time on the umpteen incarnations of Star Trek . . . .

I know I was reluctant to put more than two Trek series on my list.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Yeah, I thought a bit before adding TNG. It seemed, however, fairly compelling.

 

[mimic]

1. Buffy
2. Doctor Who
3. Supernatural
4. Lost
5. Angel
6. Farscape
7. Battlestar Galactica (new)
8. Carnivale
9. Fringe
10. Firefly

 

[Jack Bauer]

putting them in order is too brain taxing for me so in no particular order:

Lost
The Twilight Zone
Star Trek
X-Files
Doctor Who
Star Trek Deep Space Nine
Firefly
Battlestar Galactica (the remake)
Stargate SG-1
TNG

I decided not to include shows still on so no Supernatural or Fringe. I'd like to see how they end first (story and qualitywise).

 

[Vendikarr]

For grins, I loaded the lists into a spreadsheet, assigning a point value based on ranking (first listed = 10 points). If you said you listed them in no particular order, I still used order listed.

If a list didn't have ten, ranking ended with last listed.

The top ten so far are:

Star Trek Deep Space 9
Star Trek
Star Trek The Next Generation
Babylon 5
Battlestar Galactica (new)
Firefly
Farscape
Doctor Who
Twilight Zone (original)
X-Files

Lost, Buffy and Futurama would be the runner ups.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Maybe they just didn't like DS9. Even most Trek fans didn't stick with it for seven years.

Not sure what you're talking about.......even looking through this thread more people ranked DS9 higher than all other Treks. I'd say based on my experiences on this board and in talking with my friends, DS9 was most people's favorite Trek.

Personally I love DS9 and TNG, am nostalgically fond of TOS, think Voyager is largely dren and Enterprise wasn't much better.

Ratings aren't really the issue here, since this is a list of what people like or don't like, and that doesn't map very well to ratings.

I haven't checked out the whole list (below #20, it devolves pretty quickly into forgettable crap) but there's no way any sane person could rank nonsense like Andromeda and Xena: Warrior Princess above series like DS9, Futurama and Farscape. Therefore the people compiling the list are either insane or their knowledge of sci fi on TV is woefully incomplete.

PS, the graph of Trek's ratings over the past 20 years isn't keyed to the quality of any given series so much as it reflects the larger trends in TV: the death of syndication; the migration of the audience to cable (which now represents half of all viewing); and the fact that sci fi has become unviable on network TV at this point (Lost was the last hurrah) because cable has balkanized the audience to such an extent that only the broadest, mass-taste series types can hang onto survival level ratings on network TV.

It's a business thing, not an audience thing or a series thing. Debating matters of quality is really missing the point by a mile.

The articles in question pretty much reflect a more mainstream view of Star Trek television,

I expect a list of top 100 sci fi series to be a lot geekier than that, if they expect to have any credibility with the folks who will be reading such a list; mainstream - pffft!

 

[Greg Cox]

there's no way any sane person could rank nonsense like Andromeda and Xena: Warrior Princess above series like DS9, Futurama and Farscape.

Er, I never really watched Andromeda, but I'll defend XENA with my dying breath. In fact, I believe I ranked it #4 on my list . . . .

That was a great show. Funny, dramatic, emotional, action-packed . . . sometimes all at once! Great production values and music, too.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I liked Xena.

 

[Too Much Fun]

Xena was too silly and melodramatic at times and I guess that's why some people dismiss the whole thing as junk, but when the comedy and drama was done right on that show, it was just transcendent. I'm surprised by how popular "Babylon 5" and "Farscape" are. I assumed they were just very niche shows with very small fan bases. I've never seen an episode of either show, and until I came here I'd never really heard of them, aside from seeing the occasional commercial for one while waiting for one of my favourite sci-fi shows to come on.

 

[Skellington]

Preferences can and do change, but my choices at this point in time are as follows:

1. Doctor Who. This is almost unfair, because at the rate that this show changes staff it's almost a genre unto itself, with a new show every few years.
2. Star Trek. This show provided us with some classic TV over a mere three-season lifetime; not to mention perhaps being the most socially relevant Sci-Fi TV show.
3. Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Superhero fiction and TV fiction in general get a post-modern, post-X-Men reinvention. What Hercules and Xena started, this "little show that could" runs with and makes its own thanks to Joss Whedon and his accomplices.
4. Firefly. Shiny.
5. Star Trek: The Next Generation. Paved the way for Farscape, Firefly, Stargate etc in addition to DS9 and Voyager. This had great characters, great relationships and a fine line in standalone tales, while not neglecting the need to develop its own ongoing storylines. Episodes such as Déjá Q, Relics and Tapestry still provide viewers with much to appreciate.
6. Angel. Buffy's more "street" spin-off show was one hell of a ride, keeping the viewer on his/her toes at all times and frequently pulling the rug out while never losing its sharp sense of humour for very long.
7. Babylon 5. While it didn't have anything like BSG's verisimilitude or production values, this wipes the floor with it in terms of the novelistic story structure. It had its fair share of memorable dramatic moments and riveting dialogue too.
8. NuBSG. Wonderfully realised in every single department but suffered from serious issues regarding planning, continuity, plausibility, character relationships and plot ramifications. This has got to be the most frustrating and challenging work of fiction on TV and may well be the most beautiful.
9. Red Dwarf. Classic comedy.
10. Farscape. I didn't really follow this while it was originally airing, but have been catching up lately and am looking forward to the Blu-Ray release.