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SciFi/Fantasy TV Recommendations/Challenge

Have you tried Rick and Morty (seasons 1 and 2 on Hulu) or Being Erica (season 1, 2, 3, and 4 on Hulu)?

Yes, I was going to recommend Being Erica. Four seasons were produced and its mysterious doctor/therapist network was quite interesting. Quite an original premise. The deeper one gets into this show, the more interesting it gets.
 
Actually The Good Place is very much a fantasy show.

True. It's certainly not a normal 'sit-com' by any stretch of the imagination. It's too bad you got spoiled on the twist, but it's still very much worth watching.
 
Actually The Good Place is very much a fantasy show.

True. It's certainly not a normal 'sit-com' by any stretch of the imagination. It's too bad you got spoiled on the twist, but it's still very much worth watching.

Yeah, I'm having a hard time with this one. I think a legitimate argument can be made (for both sides) on whether it deserves to be on the list or not. But I side toward it being more standard far with a unique setting, and between that and already knowing the twist means I'm still not putting it on the recommendations list. That's not a statement of its objective quality, though. It just doesn't quite match and since I already know the really big moment I just don't think it should be on the list.
 
Just a heads up -- the two-part pilot of "Quantum Leap" is rather boring.
Good score by Mike Post though.

A number of the season one episodes can be tough to sit through. "The Color of Truth" being an exception.

Season two is better and has one of the series' best episodes, "Jimmy".

I started (slowly) re-watching it recently. I'm still in season two. It's been probably twenty years since I've seen the series apart from an episode here and there.

Hulu requires you to have Hulu+ (a paid service) to see any episode. NBC.com has them up for free (with ads).
 
I have a paid subscription (the cheaper one, with ads) to Hulu, and (quickly checking) I can watch Quantum Leap just fine, so if that ends up getting picked I'll be able to watch it. As for the episodes, the first three are what I have to judge a show on. assuming QL is one of the three that gets picked, it will live or die based off how its starts, like how people watching it back in the day would have judged it.
 
Stitchers is something a little different. It centers on Kirsten Clark, who is a Caltech grad student who is recruited into a covert government agency to be "stitched" into the brains of recently deceased. Using the deceased's memories, the team investigates murders and deciphers mysteries that otherwise would have gone to the grave. Cast: Salli Richardson-Whitfield (Eureka), Emma Ishta, Allison Scagliotti, Kyle Harris, Ritesh Rajan, Damon Dayoub.
 
Stitchers is something a little different. It centers on Kirsten Clark, who is a Caltech grad student who is recruited into a covert government agency to be "stitched" into the brains of recently deceased. Using the deceased's memories, the team investigates murders and deciphers mysteries that otherwise would have gone to the grave. Cast: Salli Richardson-Whitfield (Eureka), Emma Ishta, Allison Scagliotti, Kyle Harris, Ritesh Rajan, Damon Dayoub.

I'll put it on the list. Although when it comes to being something different, it does seem similar to iZombie. Obviously there are differences, but they both involve using deceased peoples memories to solve crimes. That's not a knock against anything, I just find it to be an interesting similarity between the two.

Skip the episode after the two-part pilot and watch "The Color of Truth" -- it's a better way to judge the series.

You know what, ok. A lot of shows have weak first seasons, so I guess it would be more fair for episode 3 to not be episode 3. But, of course, this all depends on if it gets picked.

In case anyone didn't read the (admittedly long) first post, this is all going to a poll. Tomorrow I'll take the recommendations, let people vote (three choices a piece) and the top 3 voted for shows I'll watch the first 3 episodes of (or first 2 and another episode if QL wins), and choose at least one to watch a whole season of. I'm doing it like this so I don't have to choose between all the recommendations, and its a bit more entertaining for me, anyway.

In case anyone is interested, here are the shows on the list so far:

Trollhunter
Altered Carbon
Stranger Things
Wynonna Earp
iZombie
Almost Human
The 4400
Being Erica
Supernatural
Quantum Leap
The Originals
Haven
Helix
Stitchers

If anyone has other suggestions, regardless of whether they've given me any before, you can bring them up until I make the poll tomorrow.
 
Yeah, I'm having a hard time with this one. I think a legitimate argument can be made (for both sides) on whether it deserves to be on the list or not. But I side toward it being more standard far with a unique setting, and between that and already knowing the twist means I'm still not putting it on the recommendations list. That's not a statement of its objective quality, though. It just doesn't quite match and since I already know the really big moment I just don't think it should be on the list.
The Good Place is very, very, very much a fantasy show. Hell, it's more of a fantasy show than Quantum Leap is SFF. Almost every episode has crazy, fantastical stuff happening. There's an episode with giant shrimp flying through the neighborhood, one with a giant hole that starts swallowing the town, there's a story where they "kill" and reset Janet, their...a... yeah I'm actually sure what you'd call Janet.
The last episode had the characters being tested by an omnipotent Judge.
Quantum Leap did eventually introduce an evil leaper, but other than that there is very, very little fantastical stuff besides the leaping.
 
The Good Place is very, very, very much a fantasy show. Hell, it's more of a fantasy show than Quantum Leap is SFF. Almost every episode has crazy, fantastical stuff happening. There's an episode with giant shrimp flying through the neighborhood, one with a giant hole that starts swallowing the town, there's a story where they "kill" and reset Janet, their...a... yeah I'm actually sure what you'd call Janet.
The last episode had the characters being tested by an omnipotent Judge.
Quantum Leap did eventually introduce an evil leaper, but other than that there is very, very little fantastical stuff besides the leaping.

Well, not that it really matters at this point, but I think the constant shifting setting adds to the Sci Fi/fantasy element of QL, along with the concept. Like I said, there is a legitimate argument for The Good Place, any maybe if I hadn't been spoiled I would have put it on the list, but being uncertain about if it counts or not along with being spoiled about it was enough to not count it.
 
If you're not interested that's fine, I just want to make sure that your lack of interest isn't do to a misunderstanding of the nature of the show.
 
I'll be honest, when I started Quantum Leap I was a bit disappointed it wasn't more SFF. It pretty much just uses the Leaping as a way to do a dramatic anthology series dealing with social issues, and only a small handfull of episodes actually play up the SFF elements.
It's a good show, but if you're looking for something where the focus is the SFF elements, I'd don't know if I'd recommend it.
 
If you're not interested that's fine, I just want to make sure that your lack of interest isn't do to a misunderstanding of the nature of the show.

Yeah, the argument for it is definitely there, and it probably would have been on the list regardless of my feelings if I hadn't been spoiled by the big twist because it had a strong enough argument. For me, getting spoiled was what ultimately kept it off the list, since I put stuff on the list based on the recommendations and not based on what I thought sounded particularly good.

I'll be honest, when I started Quantum Leap I was a bit disappointed it wasn't more SFF. It pretty much just uses the Leaping as a way to do a dramatic anthology series dealing with social issues, and only a small handfull of episodes actually play up the SFF elements.
It's a good show, but if you're looking for something where the focus is the SFF elements, I'd don't know if I'd recommend it.

Well, first it has to win a spot on the poll, and even then I only have to watch three episodes because I only have to watch a full season of one of the three shows that wins the poll. So, if it wins on the poll but it turns out to no be what I'm looking for, at most I've spent 3ish hours on it which isn't a huge deal.
 
Ok, so after a tie in the poll the shows I'm going with are:

Stranger Things
Quantum Leap
The 4400

I'll discuss them as I go in this thread. I have to watch three episodes then choose at least one to watch at least the whole first season. To be fair, since the season lengths are 8 (ST), 9 (QL), 5 (4400), it won't be a big deal even if I end up not being a huge fan of any of them.
 
The thing about a poll is that they're immediately going to discount those that aren't as well-known or popular. Like Being Erica, for instance, which is a lesser-known show, but not any less brilliant. My suggestion is to try them all out. You might surprise yourself and find yourself liking something you weren't expecting. A poll is nice and all, but nobody's going to be able to decide what you like and dislike, especially when the poll in question is very specific in its nature.
 
The thing about a poll is that they're immediately going to discount those that aren't as well-known or popular. Like Being Erica, for instance, which is a lesser-known show, but not any less brilliant. My suggestion is to try them all out. You might surprise yourself and find yourself liking something you weren't expecting. A poll is nice and all, but nobody's going to be able to decide what you like and dislike, especially when the poll in question is very specific in its nature.

Well, I'm just looking for another Sci Fi/Fantasy show. I am watching other things, mostly new ongoing shows like Black Lightning, but I just want a Sci Fi/Fantasy show to go along with other stuff. So, I can always keep the other suggestions in trhe back of my mind for later, but right now I really just want one show. I might take more if two or three of the shows that won the poll are especially compelling, but its not like I have the time to try everything on the poll anyway.
 
Ok, so, I got through the three episodes of Stranger Things. Not because I liked it, but because after episode 1 I couldn't stand the thought of stretching it out.

I have no nostalgia for the 80s (I was born in 1990), and I think that movies like The Goonies and ET suck. So, these episodes were pretty intolerable. I was bored out of my mind when I wasn't annoyed, and its quite possible I got distracted and paid less and less attention as it went on. The kids sucked, the adults were idiots, and by the end I was just hoping that whatever ate the first kid would eat literally everyone else. This was terrible. Hopefully The 4400 and Quantum Leap will be better. It would be hard for them to be worse.
 
Ok, that's it

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I'm removing any thing about me having to watch a whole season. The 4400 is just as bad as Stranger Things, with the "bonus" of being ultra predictable. If Quantum Leap is good I'll watch more of it, but if not I refuse to watch any more of the shows. I really hope that QL isn't as bad as ST or The 4400. At least I'll probably like Scott Bakula in QL, which would be one more good actor/character then ST or 4400 had.
 
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