worst sci-fi TV series of post 1964

Do you remember Invasion America?

 

I found Amerika incredibly slow and boring (it count as Sci-Fi, right?).

 

Yeah, as far as I know there was never any possibility of Discovery being on the CBS TV network. The only reason the shows exists is because they needed something to draw people to CBS All Access. If it wasn't on All Access, then it wouldn't exist at all.

 

Not at all. A series that played a central role in the collapse of a franchise is a terrible production. A series that routinely played revisionist history with ideas, designs and/or events--as a TOS prequel--is a terrible production, and seemed to disrespect the only reason there was a "Star Trek" at all. Its no shock that its most celebrated episode was "In A Mirror Darkly" which made a full-on jump right back to TOS (with the exception of the horrible CG Gorn)--because it was not only the ST fans wanted t see, but it sent a message that standard ENT was not what they desired. That level of deliberate, wrongheaded damage--actually a wrecking ball to a franchise--makes it one of the worst sci-fi series, and no amount of production values, cash invested, or the existence of other terrible series helps its cause.

War of the Worlds had potential, but in the end, failed to live up to said potential.

 

There was absolutely no way a show made from made in 2001-5 was going to stay true to a show made back in the 1960s, and to expect it to is ridiculous. I think pretty much every prequel, especially one made so long after the original, has retconned the shit out of the original.

 

Even the worst STAR TREK series is nowhere near being "the worst sci-fi tv series." Craftsmanship and execution and entertainment value matter. ENTERPRISE is nowhere near my favorite Trek series (although I never lost sleep over any so-called "revisionist history"), but it's not an incompetent mess like, say, BLACK SCORPION or the live-action CONAN series from the nineties. If I was stranded on a desert island and had to choose between ENTERPRISE and, say, BAYWATCH NIGHTS, I'd choose ENTERPRISE in a heartbeat.

If we're going to throw around a superlative like "worst," let's not waste it on merely lesser Trek. Otherwise we might as well claim that THE FINAL FRONTIER is a worse movie than GALAXINA or STARCRASH or whatever.

Let's not completely lose perspective here.

 

Your gonna disagree with Trek God!!!

 

Kirk disagreed with Trek gods all the time.

 

Usually kissed their women too. And kissing is the 60s equivalent of sleeping with

 

Especially if the screen then discreetly fades to black or cuts to another scene . . ..

 

Hyperdrive was crap. "Hey, let's replace Red Dwarf with this!"

M.A.N.T.I.S. at least had a final episode and could be revived.

 

How

Spoiler

given the main character is killed

?

 

Someone rediscovers it in their search for the old research

 

Okay, I gotta ask, why 1964?

There's no clue in the OP from 2011 that's referencing an article from 2005 that doesn't exist anymore.

 

Time Trax was amazing just like Babylon 5 was (and both were a part of the PTEN [Prime Time Entertainment Network] syndication package that was set up in the wake of Paramount's unofficial syndication network, which itself was a kind of version of the old planned-but-never-executed Paramount Television Service and the late 40's-early '50's Paramount Television Network that was short lived, as well as a percursor to UPN.) I even got to meet Dale Midkoff (Darien) at a local Toronto fan run convention in the 1990's.

I do, and I loved that show too. I wish that it had continued to Book Two, or at least got a DVD box set release.

Both can be revived, and succeed with today's SFX (and SeaQuest could even get a spin-off set in space called StarQuest IPSV [Interplanetary Space Vehicle], with the same concept [the nations of Earth have the same problems divvying up the resources of the solar system as on the parent show, so a UEO clone called the United Space Nations is set up to govern interplanetary space travel and protect Earth's colonies, with the same science as 2001, and Space: 1999 used on the show instead of Star Wars and Star Trek tech.])

 

Even the Star Wars prequels--while updating certain things like monitor graphics, etc.--still looked like it would lead to the OT. The PT did not look like some entirely different production having nothing to do with its creative source. That cannot be said of ENT, which utterly flushed TOS--save for that two-parter--while jumping off a number of revisionist cliffs to the point where the criticism and failure it received were deserved.

Moreover, from a visual standpoint alone, both DS9 and ENT had TOS-themed episodes, and do not recall any criticism of the TOS sets/costumes as being out of date next to the "present day" DS9 & ENT sets. It comes down to choice, and respect for the source, and as a prequel it had the responsibility of "predicting"/leading to its in-series future.

Any series that successfully buried a franchise is among the worst for that reason, and there's no way to honestly avoid admitting just how damaging ENT was. That was not the result of what some tried to sell as "Star Trek fatigue", as the first of the JJ reboots only appeared 4 years after ENT's cancellation, yet it managed to succeed. That success had somwthing to do with how much JJ-Trek was not like the dreary ENT

Well played!

 

That's entirely subjective, my own take is they did nothing of the sort. On the contrary I find it hard to believe they exist in the same universe.

Criticism for ENT was far from universal, on the contrary this board is absolutely full of ENT fans. Don't conflate you own opinion with an absolute statement of the publics.

 

Please avoid creating some alleged positive opinion of ENT based on posts (which are not universal in support) from a single message board. The audience made their feelings known with the ratings drop, hence it being the one and only Berman-era ST series to fail to run 7 seasons. The series generated a number of serious problems leading to that mass fan exodus from ENT, with the revisionism issues being one of the major triggers.

 

And you can demonstrate objectively that perceived revisionism was the causal issue how?

 

Never heard of Woops, so I'll make no comment on it. As to Salvage 1, it was intended to be tongue-in-cheek, and I rather liked it. It had a lot of heart to it.
As somebody else pointed out, Quark was a parody series (and if the music seems to have a family resemblance to that of Mork and Mindy, it should: same composer), and it was spot-on with everything it poked fun at. As well it should have been: Buck Henry was, after all, a co-creator of Get Smart.

I think Mad Magazine said it best with the title of their own parody of my choice for the absolute worst of the worst: Cattlecar Gigantica.

And "TREK_GOD_1," I think we all get that you have a vendetta against ENT. You don't need to keep flogging a deceased equine about it.