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Favorite or Interesting Short Lived Scifi Series

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Gotham Central

Vice Admiral
Admiral
I've been watching a number of short lived scifi series lately. Most of them date back to the scifi "gold rush" of the 1990s. There are a lot of interesting ideas out there and I wonder which were your favorites.

Lets be clear, by short lived I mean lasting a season or less. Some of them were so short lived that many folks think that they imagined them or that no one else remembers them.

These types of shows fall into 3 categories:

1) Cancelled after one complete season (Ex: The Lone Gunmen, Total Recall 2070, VR5, The Flash, Terra Nova, The Chronicle, Special Unit 2, Nowhere Man, Strange Luck, Journeyman, Charlie Jade, Crusade)

2) Cancelled midseason or after only a few episodes (Ex: Space Rangers, Mercy Point, Veritas, Zero Hour, Century City, Jack & Bobby, Defying Gravity)

3) Never got beyond the pilot or converted into a TV movie (The Osiris Chronicles (Warlord), Island City, River World, Knight Rider 2000/2010, Virtuality, Time Tunnel (2002), Genesis II/Planet Earth)

What were your favorites or which do you remember?
And since we all know its going to come up...lets just acknowledge the brilliance that was Firefly...now lets move on ;)
 
I still think "The Chronicle" had a lot of potential. It was perhaps slightly ahead of the curve when it came to light-hearted Syfy shows like "Eureka" or "Warehouse 13."

And the pilot episode had at least one great line that is burned into my brain to this day:

"The Antichrist is full of crap!"
 
Oh, VR.5 was excellent. Well, imperfect, but intriguing. The Flash was cool too, though it had trouble settling on a tone. I'm a huge fan of RoboCop: The Series too.

Century City was promising, but barely got a chance. It was on Hulu for a while, and I kept meaning to watch the whole series at last, but I never got around to it and now it's gone.

I like the Roddenberry pilots -- I have Genesis II, Planet Earth, and The Questor Tapes on DVD. TQT is my favorite of the three (here's my recent blog review). Never seen Roddenberry's supernatural pilot Spectre, though.

Island City was kind of interesting -- mediocre story, but it starred Kevin Conroy, so it was cool to see Batman in live action. I rather liked Knight Rider 2010, although the title was misleading, since it had virtually nothing to do with Knight Rider; it was more of a Mad Max dystopian future in which the protagonist's homemade armored car had the digitally preserved consciousness of his murdered girlfriend installed in its computer. (The girlfriend was played by "Heidi Leick," who would be later and better known as Hudson Leick, Callisto from Xena.)

The Time Tunnel remake pilot was quite good, and I'm disappointed it didn't go to series.

Some failed pilots deserve to fail, though. Here's one I just reviewed on my blog.
 
Yeah, "Starhunter" kind of doesn't fit into the described criteria ...since it got a second season technically, but I just tossed it in there because I loved it so much :)
 
Admiral_Young said:
1. "Firefly"
2. "Space: Above and Beyond"
3. "Starhunter"
Click to expand...
Thumbs up to all of these and I'll toss in Charlie Jade

Also, the nuBSG Spinoff Caprica. Although, the pacing of the Arc elements was not handled well early on, I think by the time it finished up, it was really becoming something great, and I would've loved to see that Coda played out over another season or 2.
 
The Adventures Of Brisco County Jr.
The Prisoner
Battlestar Galactica
The Flash
Quark
 
Gotham Central said:
I've been watching a number of short lived scifi series lately. Most of them date back to the scifi "gold rush" of the 1990s. There are a lot of interesting ideas out there and I wonder which were your favorites.

Lets be clear, by short lived I mean lasting a season or less. Some of them were so short lived that many folks think that they imagined them or that no one else remembers them.

These types of shows fall into 3 categories:

1) Cancelled after one complete season (Ex: The Lone Gunmen, Total Recall 2070, VR5, The Flash, Terra Nova, The Chronicle, Special Unit 2, Nowhere Man, Strange Luck, Journeyman, Charlie Jade, Crusade)

2) Cancelled midseason or after only a few episodes (Ex: Space Rangers, Mercy Point, Veritas, Zero Hour, Century City, Jack & Bobby, Defying Gravity)

3) Never got beyond the pilot or converted into a TV movie (The Osiris Chronicles (Warlord), Island City, River World, Knight Rider 2000/2010, Virtuality, Time Tunnel (2002), Genesis II/Planet Earth)

What were your favorites or which do you remember?
And since we all know its going to come up...lets just acknowledge the brilliance that was Firefly...now lets move on ;)
Click to expand...

I wasn't really a fan of Firefly, and thought Serenity was 'okay.'

There are some who gush as if it was the second coming of sci-fi, but I just don't see it.

However, I did find Day Break with Taye Diggs and Moon Bloodgood interesting. I was able to meet one of the actors, John Rubenstein, at my alma mater two years ago...and even though I seen him in shows like Wonder Woman (and various guest parts in shows from the 1970s, 80s) I recalled his part in Day Break. He told me to the effect, 'I owned Los Angeles!'

:lol:

Another that was somewhat interesting was Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Other notable mentions: Ark II, Space Academy, Jason of Star Command, Space Precinct, UFO.

(Note about the 'notable' mentions: I am looking to watch these classics soon. Some of them I haven't seen since I was little, and some - Space Academy, Space Precinct - I've heard about and seen bits and pieces of, but haven't watched entire episodes).
 
Sindatur said:
Also, the nuBSG Spinoff Caprica. Although, the pacing of the Arc elements was not handled well early on, I think by the time it finished up, it was really becoming something great, and I would've loved to see that Coda played out over another season or 2.
Click to expand...
Eh ... That series was so mismanaged that by the time it finished up, I think it was just becoming functional. Still, it had a lot of potential and I certainly would have tuned in for a second season, especially after what the coda teased us with.
 
Oh, and how could I forget, The Babylon 5 Spinoff Crusade, which despite TNT doing everything in their power to destroy, still turned out half decent, and the unfilmed scripts (And remaining Arc synopsis) that have been released were really looking great.

Also, although The babylon 5 proposed Spinoff, Legend of the Rangers Pilot, has some major problems, I would've really liked to see where it would've gone. I thought the cast was a great assemblage of characters, and i didn't believe "The Hand" was as presented, I believe there it was a front, and I really would've liked to see the answer to that mystery.
 
I really loved "Good Versus Evil", it ran for 22 episodes on USA then Sci-Fi Channel around 2000. Had a great sense of humor and really kinetic visuals with this cool retro 70s vibe.
 
I go with "Firefly". A pity that it got cancelled after just one season. But at least it had a decent ending, thanks to the movie.
 
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Alien Nation. It was revived in the form of five TV movies, but they weren't the same as having the series back.

I have Crusade on DVD. It was a clunky show in many ways, but Gary Cole was fun in the lead.

Firefly is an easy pick, although given how Serenity sucked all the joy out of things, maybe it's better things ended when they did.

The Lone Gunmen was a little silly, but I loved that those guys got their own series.
 
Hey, GVSE and Brimstone are on You Tube!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz6-2brzHlk

Brimstone was another flawed but interesting show. John Glover was great as the Devil.

And from the Lost bubble, there's also Invasion and The Event.

Anybody remember FreakyLinks? It was a comedic X-Files-esque series from 2000.
 
Firefly
The Flash
Lone Gunmen
Space Above And Beyond
Star Cops
Crime Traveller (well, OK that was actually crap, but I was gonna write for the second season if it had happened, so I'm biased)
arguably The Prisoner (I mean the original, not the remake)
Moonbase 3
UFO
The Chronicle
 
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