What do you want out of a sci-fi?

[bigdaddy]

I'd like a space ship TV series and an Earth based TV series.

Space ship like Firefly, B5, something grand, and sprawling.

I want an Earth based show that redoes history, something more sci-fi-ish than Fringe, which is amazing. Something like Odyssey 5 where the world is still the one we live on, but it's so much more complicated than we can dream. Something liek Dark Skies, retelling the history of the Earth with UFOs and how they have affected us.

 

[psikeyhackr]

Babylon 5 is the best thing done to date.

http://blog.deimel.org/2010/05/lost-loses-babylon-5-retains-title.html

Deep Space 9 had better production though not as good a story line but it was stolen from B5. LOL

Stuff like Star Wars and Buffy the Vamp aren't even science fiction.

What I was thinking is some people from the Mirror universe in Deep Space 9 should steal 4 Federation starships with their crews. But something goes wrong and the 4th ship blows up during the transition and this antimatter explosion creates an energy barrier between the universes will take a century ti dissipate so three ships are permanently stuck in the Mirrorverse. The fun can ensue from there.

Can 3 ships get a Federations started?

psik

 

[MichaelDornFan]

Other than the obvious writing/characters/etc:

-Set in space!!! Earth-based is okay...but that's all we've had lately, so I'm ready for space again.
-Evil, tyrannical government. I love dystopian societies. The Federation being portrayed as a utopia always annoyed me... That's boring. Give me the Alliance from Firefly any day.
-Robots and aliens... I like them, but they aren't necessary.
-Good music!
-Good special effects, but I want creative and artistic battles. I don't want to see the same ol' "ships shooting at each other" again and again. In Exodus (BSG), seeing Galactica drop down to New Caprica as Vipers flew out and then FTL'ing out before it hit the planet was awesome (though I'll admit Pegasus' suicide was great, too). At the end of Serenity, the Reaver fleet coming out of the cloud was my favorite part of the battle, even though they weren't actually fighting yet. The Enterprise model of having lots of small space battles is bad. Save up the special effects budget for ~2 amazing and well done battles, please.

 

[I am not Spock]

1) More space opera SF on TV. Preferably a new Star Trek series

2) Strong characters, season or multi-season-long arcs.

3) Joss Whedon to write it

4) The involvement of at least one impossibly hot chick

 

[lennier1]

Actually I'd like to see two different flavors and all shades of grey between them:

1. A new adventure series that tells an entertaining futuristic story but doesn't necessarily take itself too serious (Farscape, O'Neill-era SG-1, Doctor Who, BUGS...).

2. Good writing that avoids using effects as a crutch and instead offers interesting characters with short-term and long-term story lines. And ideally it has pre-planned season goals and an all-encompassing story as well (Babylon 5, nuBSG season 1, ...). Something in that category doesn't necessarily have to play in space but could explore the other facets of science fiction (This Is Not My Life, The Man From Earth, Exam, Being Erica, Odyssey 5, Fringe, Eureka, Dark Skies, ...).

 

[Deckerd]

There are so many shows like that for me, which seem to have some promise, yet ultimately disappoint me. The Battlestar Galactica reboot is another example.

I'm beginning to wonder if it is possible to maintain high quality science fiction over a sustained length of time. BSG aimed much higher than Star Trek in its wholehearted investment in a world of brutal reality. The bar was set high from the start and I think the writers just couldn't keep it up. Much has been heaped on the writers' strike for ruining the development of BSG and I suppose that must shoulder a portion of the blame, but the standard was already slipping.
The Star Trek series were all more lighthearted, which doesn't mean they didn't explore serious topics but there was no overall goal for them, if you ignore the apparently similar objective of Voyager, which turned out to be a 5-minute blip at the end of 7 years. DS9 I suppose had its Dominion War but the ending of that was also a very notable drop in quality.

 

[BlobVanDam]

What I like in scifi shows-
-A bit of humour. SG-1 and Warehouse 13 do this perfectly.
-A well built up history/mythology that they develop over time, often based on reality with a twist. SG-1, Warehouse 13 and Sanctuary all do this to a degree.
-Cool made-up technology and fictional scientific theories. See Star Trek and SG-1.
-Preferably set in current times to keep it relateable, although that's not a necessity.
-Not dumbing down the show for casual viewers. I like a show that rewards viewers for watching it every week.

What I don't like in sci-fi-
-Pretentious confusing crap stretched out over forever
-Shows that seem ashamed of being scifi and instead feel like dramas that happen to be set in a scifi setting.

Mentioning no names for fear of retribution

 

[lennier1]

-Shows that seem ashamed of being scifi and instead feel like dramas that happen to be set in a scifi setting.

A rather broad interpretation of "drama". Some cases have dropped to the level of bad soap operas.

 

[Silvercrest]

I'm beginning to wonder if it is possible to maintain high quality science fiction over a sustained length of time.

It's really hard to maintain high quality anything over a sustained length of time. I suspect this is a corollary to Sturgeon's Law.

 

[Deckerd]

Only if you think Sturgeon's Law is correct. There are long-running shows which have maintained their high level of excellence. They are few to be sure. I just can't think of a science fiction one. I bear this in mind when people bemoan the early death of Firefly. It never had a chance to become a travesty of itself. Only the good die young.

 

[LitmusDragon]

Babes don't hurt either.

I hate it when sci-fi panders to a perceived adolescent demographic.

No wonder TV people can't produce anything worthwhile, with contradictory instructions like that.

Well lets just say as far as my opinion goes Transformers did a number of things wrong in underestimating it's audience but the inclusion of Megan Fox was not one of these things.

 

[lennier1]

It depends on how it's done and whether the woman playing her is actually worth calling herself an actress. Could you imagine Firefly without Morena Baccarin, SG-1 without Amanda Tapping or nuBSG without Katee Sackhoff?

 

[LitmusDragon]

It depends on how it's done and whether the woman playing her is actually worth calling herself an actress. Could you imagine Firefly without Morena Baccarin, SG-1 without Amanda Tapping or nuBSG without Katee Sackhoff?

TNG without Marina Sirtis (actually a lot of people can imagine that, but I tend to think she's essential)

 

[psikeyhackr]

The Science in Science Fiction

http://www.concatenation.org/articles/hocking~science~sf.html


If the science gets too bad or stupid than it is not science fiction.

psik

 

[lennier1]

It depends on how it's done and whether the woman playing her is actually worth calling herself an actress. Could you imagine Firefly without Morena Baccarin, SG-1 without Amanda Tapping or nuBSG without Katee Sackhoff?

TNG without Marina Sirtis (actually a lot of people can imagine that, but I tend to think she's essential)

Wesley and Deanna were a waste of airtime, so that would've actually improved the show. Her biggest achievement was being handed the keys to the ship and crashing it a few minutes later.

 

[saturn5]

It depends on how it's done and whether the woman playing her is actually worth calling herself an actress. Could you imagine Firefly without Morena Baccarin, SG-1 without Amanda Tapping or nuBSG without Katee Sackhoff?

TNG without Marina Sirtis (actually a lot of people can imagine that, but I tend to think she's essential)

Wesley and Deanna were a waste of airtime, so that would've actually improved the show. Her biggest achievement was being handed the keys to the ship and crashing it a few minutes later.

True but arguably worth it to have Will Wheaton on The Big Bang Theory "Suck on that Sheldon Cooper!"

 

[Deckerd]

Katee Sackhoff a babe? I don't fink so. She was essential to the show for sure but Grace Park or even Tricia Helfer were more babelike, shurely?

 

[RandyS]

We need another Babylon 5.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Good special effects, but I want creative and artistic battles.

Same here! I don't usually think of myself as placing a high priority on fights, but when I think about it, I appreciate creativity in this regards.

DS9 was great in presenting big-ass space battles with multiple allies on both sides, yet ratcheting the story down to the personal dimension so it didn't feel abstract and too big to relate to. Having battles turn on a surprise decision by Dukat or Damar, for instance - that's the way to write a big-ass space battle!

Heroes disappointed me in how little cleverness there was in the superpower fights (to the extent we even saw them!) The right way to do it: Peter vs. Sylar, Peter tries using invisibility, but Sylar counters with using TK to send glass shards in all directions and kill Peter (temporarily - hitting the back of his neck was just dumb luck). Possibly Sylar could also have used superhearing to hear Peter's heartbeat. Howcome they hardly ever did anything like that?

In an S2 episode of The Clone Wars, I was suddenly struck by the realization that for the first time, since ROTJ, I actually cared about the outcome of a lightsaber duel. That's because it was Ashoka vs. Berris.

Sure, I knew Ashoka was very unlikely to be killed - that's the trouble with fights where a main character is involved - but if she was forced to kill Berris, there would still be major repercussions for her. Having something at stake for a character who matters is crucial to a fight. The PT threw one fight after another at us, where the outcome was obvious and/or didn't matter.

 

[Whofan]

^Doesn't Beriss show up in some form in ROTS?