What's Left to watch?

[startrekwatcher]

Startrekwatcher why you so down on Who/

The only decent sff on the air currently in my opinion is The Vampire Diaries. Falling Skies might be interesting this summer--other than that there isn't anything. And most of the sff in the last decade isn't worth one's time--Caprica, Surface, Invasion, Life on Mars, V, Flash Forward, The Event, The Gates, The 4400, Smallville, post S1 Heroes, True Blood, Warehouse 13, Flash Gordon, Andromeda, Torchwood, Eureka, SGA, SGU, Haven, Dr Who. The only ones I can think of that are decent are BSG S1/2 and LOST but it ends up a mess. You might try Supernatural--I'd recommend S1, 2 and 4. Fringe is a wildly uneven show--S1 is slow for half the season then gets really good(S1 is its best), S2 is uneven then picks up towards the end, S3 was good for the first eight episodes then middling for the rest of the season--I lost interest.

Too bad Doctor Who isn't just better than the bulk of those shows you listed....it's better than most of them COMBINED. Doctor Who is great adventure and good fun.

I'm perfectly aware that there are many fans of Dr. Who and knew I'd probably get people complaining that I dare call it crap but that's the way I feel. I sampled it when Rose and the guy from Heroes was in it and watched about a full season of it before I bailed on it. It was just too silly and childish. I don't have a problem with sci-fi meant for the whole family to watch--TNG is one of my all time favorite shows but TNG took itself seriously and didn't feel like Sesame Street.

I hate camp--I couldn't stand Hercules, Xena, Buffy because of that. I also don't like the silly aliens they come up with and the stories I thought were lame.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Big-ass list.

Yeah, there is more sf/f coming up than I can find time to watch, personally (especially since there are actually non-genre shows that interest me, too). You missed Star Wars: The Clone Wars but then again there are plenty of other sf/f shows on the Cartoon Network as well. That's the only one that jumps out at me as being worthy of mention.

Wish there was more good space opera in that list, tho. We've got two shows about "fairy tales in the real world," which is a pretty esoteric topic, so why is space opera being so roundly ignored? Yeah I know, costs too much to do well, and to see it done badly is too depressing...

I'm really rooting for Powers and Locke & Key. Both sound like they could be very good. Locke & Key's pilot was reportedly sensational but either it's too scary for FOX (not a minus in my opinion) or FOX just didn't have room for it on their schedule (they didn't just go through a bloodbath like ABC and NBC). Cable is really the right place for that show - AMC, TNT, FX, HBO or Showtime, or A&E if they want to continue to buff up their degraded brand image, but I hope they refuse to return skiffy's phone calls.

Sigh, 17th Precinct is not making it to series.

Yeah that sucks. I really want to see that pilot to see what went wrong. Just the cast alone should have got it at least a "retool for midseason" order. Also Wonder Woman and Reconstruction (still unsure whether that had genre elements). Oh yeah and Poe, which may not have had genre elements but done correctly certainly should have. Maybe someone else will pick up the bare idea and do it right this time.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Might I recommend Being Erica which can be seen on Hulu? I'd describe it as a Sci-Fi/Drama, and many liken it to Early Edition.

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

Oh yeah and Poe, which may not have had genre elements but done correctly certainly should have. Maybe someone else will pick up the bare idea and do it right this time.

According to script reviews I've read, Poe had supernatural elements.

 

[DevilEyes]

Startrekwatcher why you so down on Who/

The only decent sff on the air currently in my opinion is The Vampire Diaries. Falling Skies might be interesting this summer--other than that there isn't anything. And most of the sff in the last decade isn't worth one's time--Caprica, Surface, Invasion, Life on Mars, V, Flash Forward, The Event, The Gates, The 4400, Smallville, post S1 Heroes, True Blood, Warehouse 13, Flash Gordon, Andromeda, Torchwood, Eureka, SGA, SGU, Haven, Dr Who. The only ones I can think of that are decent are BSG S1/2 and LOST but it ends up a mess. You might try Supernatural--I'd recommend S1, 2 and 4. Fringe is a wildly uneven show--S1 is slow for half the season then gets really good(S1 is its best), S2 is uneven then picks up towards the end, S3 was good for the first eight episodes then middling for the rest of the season--I lost interest.

Too bad Doctor Who isn't just better than the bulk of those shows you listed....it's better than most of them COMBINED. Doctor Who is great adventure and good fun.

I'm perfectly aware that there are many fans of Dr. Who and knew I'd probably get people complaining that I dare call it crap but that's the way I feel. I sampled it when Rose and the guy from Heroes was in it and watched about a full season of it before I bailed on it. It was just too silly and childish. I don't have a problem with sci-fi meant for the whole family to watch--TNG is one of my all time favorite shows but TNG took itself seriously and didn't feel like Sesame Street.

I hate camp--I couldn't stand Hercules, Xena, Buffy because of that. I also don't like the silly aliens they come up with and the stories I thought were lame.

Dr Who doesn't feel like Sesame Street, and it feels less silly and childish than TNG often did exactly because Dr Who has a sense of humor, wit and self-irony, which makes the silly elements so much more acceptable than in a show that comes off as preachy and trying to be show how it's So Serious.

Buffy started with some camp elements but just enough wit and irony to be a smart show, and then it showed that it actually was a very serious drama, and about 10 times more complex and deeper than TNG was. There were just a few times when I felt I was being preached to on Buffy, and even less times on Dr Who, while I felt that way all the time while watching TNG.

 

[startrekwatcher]

Dr Who doesn't feel like Sesame Street, and it feels less silly and childish than TNG often did exactly because Dr Who has a sense of humor, wit and self-irony

Well we'll agree to disagree because I don't find DW clever, funny or witty. The aliens are stupid--a farting pig alien trying to infiltrate British government and take over the world for instance, the Daleks are dumb etc. The Doctor is an over-the-top clown I can't take seriously. And I simply don't think the writing is nearly as strong as TNG.

Buffy started with some camp elements but just enough wit and irony to be a smart show, and then it showed that it actually was a very serious drama, and about 10 times more complex and deeper than TNG was.

Again I disagree. Buffy's adversaries were corny. I didn't care for most of the cast and the show was uneven. Like I said I realize both DW and Buffy have their zealous fans who love love love those shows which is why I sampled them due to all the praise--but I couldn't see what they saw in them so I stopped watching.

That doesn't mean that I begrudge those fans who enjoy those shows--they just aren't my cup of tea.

 

[Gaith]

What's Left to watch?


Dunno... any of the dozens of shows with hundreds of hours available from Netflix that don't suck balls?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Oh yeah and Poe, which may not have had genre elements but done correctly certainly should have. Maybe someone else will pick up the bare idea and do it right this time.

According to script reviews I've read, Poe had supernatural elements.

That's the right idea! Now if only they had remembered that Poe can't plausibly be some Hollywood hotty and you need to cast some guy like Michael Emerson in the role, and the elements of alcoholism and melancholia from his life cannot be deleted and still have a personally recognizable as the historical figure, and they might have had a show worth rooting for.

 

[FordSVT]

Startrekwatcher why you so down on Who/

Too bad Doctor Who isn't just better than the bulk of those shows you listed....it's better than most of them COMBINED. Doctor Who is great adventure and good fun.

I'm perfectly aware that there are many fans of Dr. Who and knew I'd probably get people complaining that I dare call it crap but that's the way I feel. I sampled it when Rose and the guy from Heroes was in it and watched about a full season of it before I bailed on it. It was just too silly and childish. I don't have a problem with sci-fi meant for the whole family to watch--TNG is one of my all time favorite shows but TNG took itself seriously and didn't feel like Sesame Street.

I hate camp--I couldn't stand Hercules, Xena, Buffy because of that. I also don't like the silly aliens they come up with and the stories I thought were lame.

Dr Who doesn't feel like Sesame Street, and it feels less silly and childish than TNG often did exactly because Dr Who has a sense of humor, wit and self-irony, which makes the silly elements so much more acceptable than in a show that comes off as preachy and trying to be show how it's So Serious.

Buffy started with some camp elements but just enough wit and irony to be a smart show, and then it showed that it actually was a very serious drama, and about 10 times more complex and deeper than TNG was. There were just a few times when I felt I was being preached to on Buffy, and even less times on Dr Who, while I felt that way all the time while watching TNG.

I hated Buffy but love Doctor Who, funny how we all have different opinions of quality entertainment. I can definitely see why some people think Who is cheesy and a bit silly. It quite often is, to be quite frank, it's not 100% awesome 100% of the time. You should try to frame your opinions as your opinions and not try to use them as a rebuttle in an argument in an attempt to prove someone else's taste wrong (and entertainment is clearly a matter of personal taste).

 

[Greg Cox]

Dr Who.

Warehouse 13 is decent enough - and getting a spinoff series about HG Wells.

Which I'm definitely looking forward to.

Frankly, I'm amazed that nobody has been talking about that yet.

So what if Wonder Woman and V got killed? H. G. Wells is getting her own series . . . .

 

[Temis the Vorta]

You should try to frame your opinions as your opinions and not try to use them as a rebuttle in an argument in an attempt to prove someone else's taste wrong (and entertainment is clearly a matter of personal taste).

Why don't you take your own advice and just accept his personal taste, and not try to prove him wrong? He said what he thought about the show and explained why. There's nothing more to say.

When somebody says, "I don't like X because it is Y and I don't like Y," and you know that, yes, show X is Y, it's time to just move on to more fruitful topics.

A show about HG Wells would be fun, except if it's in the same style as Warehouse 13, count me out. This reminds me of that abortive Poe pilot that ABC didn't pick up. Loved the initial idea, but what they did with it in terms of casting and expanding the premise to make it a "19th C Castle," yerg. Dodged a bullet there.

 

[the_wildcard]

Certain sub-genres of SFF, particularly space opera, have declined, but there are still plenty of SFF shows on the air.

The 2011/2012 season on the US broadcast networks will offer:

Supernatural season 7 (CW)
Chuck season 5 (NBC)
Fringe season 4 (Fox)
The Vampire Diaries season 3 (CW)
Alcatraz season 1 (Fox)
Awake season 1 (NBC)
Grimm season 1 (NBC)
Once Upon a Time season 1 (ABC)
The River season 1 (ABC)
The Secret Circle season 1 (CW)
Terra Nova season 1 (Fox)
Touch season 1 (Fox)

SFF shows on cable this summer and into the 2011/2012 season:

Alphas season 1 (Syfy)
American Horror Story season 1 (FX)
Eureka season 4 (Syfy)
Falling Skies season 1 (TNT)
Game of Thrones season 2 (HBO)
Haven season 2 (Syfy)
Merlin season 4 (Syfy)
Sanctuary season 4 (Syfy)
True Blood season 4 (HBO)
The Walking Dead season 2 (AMC)
Warehouse 13 season 3 (Syfy)

Plus Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome (Syfy) and Powers (FX) if they're ordered to series, Locke & Key if it gets a cable buyer, and a possible continuation of Camelot (Starz) if it's renewed. You also have British SFF shows like Doctor Who, Torchwood, and Primeval.

Thanks for the suggestions! Hmm gotta do some google searches now.

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

Which I'm definitely looking forward to.

Me too. It'll be good to have a steampunk series on the air.

 

[Greg Cox]

When somebody says, "I don't like X because it is Y and I don't like Y," and you know that, yes, show X is Y, it's time to just move on to more fruitful topics..

Generally, a good idea. Where it gets tricky, of course, is when someone says X is Y, and you really don't think X is as Y as they think it is. I admit, it can be hard not to respond if you think a favorite show is being misrepresented, as in:

"NEBULA FORCE is just a a kiddie show . . ." or:

"SPACE VIXENS is nothing but porn . . . " or:

"ZOMBIE FUZZ only appeals to morons and gorehounds," etc.

When everybody knows, of course, that ZOMBIE FUZZ is an Emmy-winning examination of the inhuman condition and NEBULA FORCE is one of the most sophisticated and witty shows on the air . . . .

 

[Whofan]

The criticisms of Doctor Who by Temis and Startrekwatcher are valid only for the first season (Would you base say, Star Trek TNG on a similar precedent?). While Christopher Eccleston was a good actor, the first season did have problems (Hence why Eccleston left) but eventually got stronger writers and production effects and in Tennant and now Smith, a better Doctor. The Slitheen, for instance, only appear in the first season as a villain (Although they made the ocassional cameo in later stories) and didn't work, so they ended up on a spinoff (The now defunct Sarah Jane Adventures). Apart from season 2's "Love and Monsters" (Which is a hated episode) there hasn't been much toilet humor in the show since. Plus there's a new more mature producer (Russel T. Davies sort of remains a controversial figure in Who fandom like his predecessor John Nathan Turner, but fares somewhat better as he brought back the show to critical acclaim whereas JNT got the show cancelled) who's been working on the show for the past two seasons who wrote some of the stronger episodes of the Eccleston/Tennant years.


I wrote a topic a while back (Weeping Angels=Who's Borg) about the episode where I basically compared the Slitheen to the Ferengi-an attempt to create a new nemesis which faltered in execution; and a later nemesis introduced in the show-The Weeping Angels-sort of fit a similar role to the Borg in which they were finally something in the new show that matched the classic Daleks and Cybermen or to put a Trek analogy, Romulans and Klingons (and surpassed them in many ways, since they weren't robots).



Plus the latest episode was written by Neil Gaiman and has gotten rave reviews. I would suggest giving it another shot, it's on in about four hours on BBC America.

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

I much preferred Eccleston to Tennant. I know I'm in the minority on that, though.

 

[Tyson]

Doctor Who is pretty much the only sci fi currently airing new episodes that is worth a damn. Everything else is crap or retreads of crap at best. These are dark times if you're looking for a quality show.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The criticisms of Doctor Who by Temis and Startrekwatcher are valid only for the first season (Would you base say, Star Trek TNG on a similar precedent?).

Why not? I did.

I watched a couple episodes of TNG's first season and gave up. To this day, I haven't seen S1 and S2. Most likely, I never will. I did see some of the other seasons, at least partly, but overall it's too bland and safe for my tastes. DS9 is more my thing.

You can talk yourself blue in the face, but once I sample a show and reject it, I rarely go back to check it out again. Most of the time, when I do, I find it's not worth the effort. (Like with TNG; it got better but not really all that better.) The two shows that I've picked up after rejecting are The Clone Wars and Chuck, both of which have their pro's and con's, but I've decided that the pro's outweigh the con's.

After looking at the recent pilot season, I've realized that next year, there will be 23 shows I'm at least going to check out. That means I'll have to find a way to reject at least half of them because there's no way I have time to watch all that.

All this means, I give shows very short shrift. There are too many to watch. If a show gives me an excuse to reject it, I will take that excuse and move onto the next one. That's why I can't believe the premise of this thread, that "there's nothing to watch." Well right now, pickens are slim, but that just gives me time to rest up this summer before the deluge.

And when I do get some time to sample a rejected show, the next one on my list is Supernatural. That's been on for what, ten years? That's going to take up a good chunk of my time, assuming I ever get around to it. It gives me a headache just thinking about it. TV shows shouldn't be work.

 

[Greg Cox]

I gave up on X-Files and Babylon-5 early on, but gave them a second chance when friends whose judgement I trusted insisted that I was missing out on some good stuff. Turns out they were right.

And, yeah, one of these days I need to check out Supernatural as well . . . .

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Certain sub-genres of SFF, particularly space opera, have declined, but there are still plenty of SFF shows on the air.

The 2011/2012 season on the US broadcast networks will offer:

Supernatural season 7 (CW)
Chuck season 5 (NBC)
Fringe season 4 (Fox)
The Vampire Diaries season 3 (CW)
Alcatraz season 1 (Fox)
Awake season 1 (NBC)
Grimm season 1 (NBC)
Once Upon a Time season 1 (ABC)
The River season 1 (ABC)
The Secret Circle season 1 (CW)
Terra Nova season 1 (Fox)
Touch season 1 (Fox)

SFF shows on cable this summer and into the 2011/2012 season:

Alphas season 1 (Syfy)
American Horror Story season 1 (FX)
Eureka season 4 (Syfy)
Falling Skies season 1 (TNT)
Game of Thrones season 2 (HBO)
Haven season 2 (Syfy)
Merlin season 4 (Syfy)
Sanctuary season 4 (Syfy)
True Blood season 4 (HBO)
The Walking Dead season 2 (AMC)
Warehouse 13 season 3 (Syfy)

Plus Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome (Syfy) and Powers (FX) if they're ordered to series, Locke & Key if it gets a cable buyer, and a possible continuation of Camelot (Starz) if it's renewed. You also have British SFF shows like Doctor Who, Torchwood, and Primeval.

Thanks for the suggestions! Hmm gotta do some google searches now.

Keep an eye on the TV & Media forum next week. The upfronts week usually means we start getting trailers for the fall shows and someone will be posting them (me, if nobody beats me to it.)

Falling Skies on TNT debuts in June.