worst sci-fi TV series of post 1964

[Spot261]

Its rather simple: audiences were disappointed with what ENT was doing (for among many reasons--the points I covered earlier), criticized and stopped watching it, naturally leading to a drop in its already meager ratin

So, again, for the third time, can you actually establish a causal relationship here or are you simply stating your own perceptions as fact? You have listed some audible complaints from a minority of the fanbase and observed the fact viewing figures went down. That isn't the same as demonstrating a link between the two.

On the contrary, the pattern fits the fatigue model very well.

 

[Reverend]

Interesting. I've never seen Space: Above and Beyond, but my impression was that it was highly-regarded in some circles. And I know that Highlander has a cult following, many of whom insist that the TV show was better than the movies. (Not a high bar, I know, expect for the first one.)

I think 'Space: Above and Beyond' is one of those "small but passionate fanbase" type of shows. Same for 'Highlander' I think.

Where SAaB lost me I think was the whole "tough jarhead marines who are also top gun space fighter pilots" thing, and oh if they didn't hit every single cliche that those two things bring to mind!

As for 'Highlander'...honestly it just struck me as painfully mediocre in concept and execution. Not surprising considering nobody has managed to recapture what made the original movie so entertaining, despite about 172 attempts in various formats.

 

[Skipper]

As for 'Highlander'...honestly it just struck me as painfully mediocre in concept and execution. Not surprising considering nobody has managed to recapture what made the original movie so entertaining, despite about 172 attempts in various formats.

Highlander the Series has been generally favorable reviewed by critics. It spawned 6 season, two spin-off and two movies and it was nominated for various awards.

Obviously all this does not demonstrate the quality the show (something that isn't objectively demonstrable) but a least it shows that there isn't a critical consensus about its mediocrity.

I suspect that a lot of people on this thread confuse their own opinion with some kind of absolute truth. Look, someone doesn't have to like Citizen Kane or The Godfather. There's no accounting for taste. But if this someone says that they are just boring chores to sit through made by talentless hacks and everyone is stupid for liking them, well, excuse me I don't hold his/her opinion in high regard.

 

[Reverend]

Highlander the Series has been generally favorable reviewed by critics. It spawned 6 season, two spin-off and two movies and it was nominated for various awards.

Obviously all this does not demonstrate the quality the show (something that isn't objectively demonstrable) but a least it shows that there isn't a critical consensus about its mediocrity.

Congratulations, you just reiterated the point of my initial post back to me. Of course it's all subjective!

The truly *objectively* terrible shows are the ones nobody remembers because they don't even have the novelty of being entertainingly awful. Just about every show mentioned here has had some kind of merit to some corner of fandom, no matter how small or devoid of good taste.

 

[Skipper]

Congratulations, you just reiterated the point of my initial post back to me. Of course it's all subjective!

It's not *all* subjective. There are, for examples, rules established in the field of cinematography or editing. If someone doesn't follow the 180-degree rule and he isn't making some kind of avant-garde film, well, he doesn't know how to do his job. And there can be a consensus on other things that aren't easily quantifiable like acting. I mean, there is a reason why Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep are usually regarded as better actors than a bunch of high school teenagers doing a school production.

If it were all subjective, then it would mean that the opinion of a university professor, who has spent his entire life studying Film Theory and History, would have the same value as the Simpsons's Comics Guy's.

The truly *objectively* terrible shows are the ones the ones nobody remembers because they don't even have the novelty of being entertainingly awful. Just about every show mentioned here has had some kind of merit to some corner of fandom, no matter how small or devoid of good taste.

I agree on this

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

OH, GOOD LORD! I think "Skipper" just nailed what should have been the obvious choice for the worst: I hadn't even thought of The Starlost, but that had to be the most pointless, dreary, and utterly unwatchable series ever, in any genre. I think I saw part of the first episode, and it managed to both depress me and nearly put me to sleep at the same time.

As I recall, it was even visually bad, shot directly on video at a time when that only worked well for multi-camera variety and talk shows that involved little or no post-production, and it had a color cast in that peculiar shade of beige we call "forgot to white-balance the camera."

 

[Skipper]

OH, GOOD LORD! I think "Skipper" just nailed what should have been the obvious choice for the worst: I hadn't even thought of The Starlost, but that had to be the most pointless, dreary, and utterly unwatchable series ever, in any genre. I think I saw part of the first episode, and it managed to both depress me and nearly put me to sleep at the same time.

Yep! I think that anyone who affirms that nuBSG and Enterprise are worse than this one is just trolling, because no one in complete control of his mental faculties can really believe this.

 

[Timewalker]

LORD! I think "Skipper" just nailed what should have been the obvious choice for the worst: I hadn't even thought of The Starlost, but that had to be the most pointless, dreary, and utterly unwatchable series ever, in any genre. I think I saw part of the first episode, and it managed to both depress me and nearly put me to sleep at the same time.

Yep! I think that anyone who affirms that nuBSG and Enterprise are worst than this one is just trolling, because no one in complete control of his mental faculties can really believe this.

Judgmental much?

I've seen the entire Starlost series. I read the novel, and met one of the authors of that novel (a very friendly person named Edward Bryant, who co-wrote the novel with Harlan Ellison).

Yes, the series fell far short of what the original intention was, the writing was uninspiring, the costumes ranged from bland to groan-inducing (ie. Walter Koenig in a couple of episodes playing an alien named Oro, wearing a gold lame jumpsuit), and it lacked the special effects that modern audiences seem to require to enjoy anything.

But I would definitely prefer to rewatch that than DiscoTrek, and Enterprise just bores me. I lasted maybe half an hour with nuBSG and it failed to interest me.

And no, I am not trolling and my mental faculties are just fine. Everyone has their preferences, and you don't get to be judge and jury on that.

 

[Greg Cox]

I understand that "worst" is a subjective term, but if you put Enterprise and Highlander (two competent shows, at least from a technical point of view) in the same league of The Starlost or The Phoenix, well, I suggest you do not leave your daily job to become a professional tv critic.

It remembers me how, when the IMBD boards still existed, invariably someone wrote that some (perfectly ok) movie was "THE WORST MOVIE EVER!!!!". When someone asked them how they can say that particular movie was the worst between all the millions movies made in the world from Lumière's L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat to today, the answer was always a variation of "BECAUSE I SAID SO!!!!".

Yep Any discussion of THE WORSE MOVIE OF ALL TIME! will invariably be weighted toward movies made since 1975 or later, largely ignoring movies made before the poster in question was born. Historical perspective tends to go out the window in favor of that crappy movie somebody saw five years ago . . . .

 

[Skipper]

Judgmental much?

I've seen the entire Starlost series. I read the novel, and met one of the authors of that novel (a very friendly person named Edward Bryant, who co-wrote the novel with Harlan Ellison).

Yes, the series fell far short of what the original intention was, the writing was uninspiring, the costumes ranged from bland to groan-inducing (ie. Walter Koenig in a couple of episodes playing an alien named Oro, wearing a gold lame jumpsuit), and it lacked the special effects that modern audiences seem to require to enjoy anything.

But I would definitely prefer to rewatch that than DiscoTrek, and Enterprise just bores me. I lasted maybe half an hour with nuBSG and it failed to interest me.

And no, I am not trolling and my mental faculties are just fine. Everyone has their preferences, and you don't get to be judge and jury on that.

Look, you prefer watching The Starlost over nuBSG? Please, be my guest. No one can force you to like something. But if you really believe that a multiple-award winning tv show and which Time nominated best 2005 tv show is inherently worse on a story level, technical level and acting level than a show which its creator disowned, its scientific consultant loathed, and is usually consensually considered one of the worst sci-fi tv show ever made, well, I hope you aren't a tv executive who has to decide where to put network's money...

But I believe Mr. Ellison can explain the concept better than me, using his own words:

 

[Timewalker]

Look, you prefer watching The Starlost over nuBSG? Please, be my guest. No one can force you to like something. But if you really believe that a multiple-award winning tv show and which Time nominated best 2005 tv show is inherently worse on a story level, technical level and acting level than a show which its creator disowned, its scientific consultant loathed, and is usually consensually considered one of the worst sci-fi tv show ever made, well, I hope you aren't a tv executive who has to decide where to put network's money...

I don't need your permission to like or dislike anything. I don't give a damn how many awards nuBSG won. I don't base my likes or dislikes on awards. I base it on whether or not it entertains me. NuBSG failed spectacularly in that respect.

But I believe Mr. Ellison can explain the concept better than me, using his own words:

Yes, I've seen his rants, I've seen Ben Bova's rants, and I chatted about this matter with Edward Bryant at the science fiction convention at the time he autographed my copy of the Starlost novel he co-wrote (it's called Phoenix Without Ashes). The book was intended to be the first in a series - Ellison's version of how he had originally intended the series to be presented - but I can't find any evidence that a second book was ever published.

As for what I would do if I were a network executive with the power to decide which projects get money, I'd be offering Robert Silverberg anything he wanted to allow a series to be made of his novel Lord Valentine's Castle. There have been numerous attempts to convince him to let it be made into a movie, but he's always refused... out of fear that other people wouldn't do it justice.

There's enough material in the main Majipoor books for a multi-season series, never mind the prequels and short stories.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

But I believe Mr. Ellison can explain the concept better than me, using his own words:

There are a lot of areas where I sharply disagree with Ellison (case in point, The City on the Edge of Forever), but this is not one of them.

That's not, however, to say that I can think of any version of Galactica as anything other than "Cattlecar Gigantica."

But to be fair, there's probably nothing so utterly awful that nobody finds it appealing. (After all, there are shockingly many people who actually think Laurens Hammond's noisome little noisemaker (TM) sounds better than a real organ, with real pipes!)

 

[Skipper]

But to be fair, there's probably nothing so utterly awful that nobody finds it appealing.

Oh sure. I mean, If they decided to broadcast something it means that a least ONE person was ok with it.

And apparently, there are fans of The Powers of Matthew Star out there too!!!

 

[Timewalker]

Oh sure. I mean, If they decided to broadcast something it means that a least ONE person was ok with it.

And apparently, there are fans of The Powers of Matthew Star out there too!!!

That's another show I watched and liked.

Your judgmental attitude is pretty annoying, though. There are plenty of TV shows I think are dumb, but I prefer to denigrate the shows, not the people who enjoy them.

 

[Skipper]

That's another show I watched and liked.

Your judgmental attitude is pretty annoying, though. There are plenty of TV shows I think are dumb, but I prefer to denigrate the shows, not the people who enjoy them.

There is some misunderstanding here.

I never, NEVER said that someone is stupid or intelligent for liking this or that show.

I quote myself:

No one can force you to like something.

Look, someone doesn't have to like Citizen Kane or The Godfather. There's no accounting for taste

But the title of the thread is clear: "worst sci-fi TV series of post 1964", not "TV series of post 1964 that you liked the least.". So it isn't about personal tastes, but about being objective, at least as much as possible when we talk about works of human creativity.

Probably I would prefer to watch an episode of Knight Rider over nuBSG any given day, but I don't pretend the former is a kind of artistic masterpiece because I know that my personal tastes aren't some kind of universal truth.

 

[Maurice]

Best to worst IMO from 1965 to just before TNG, and this it each series overall, even though some started good and went bad, or, like Galactica, started okay, got bad, then slowly started finding its feet. A lot of shows were just dull, which to me puts them behind goofy stuff like Lost In Space.

Best

• Star Trek
• Blake's 7
• UFO
• Battlestar Galactica
• Space: 1999
• Land of the Giants
• Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
• Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
• Logan's Run
• Lost In Space
• Quark ...................... a funny idea unfunny in execution
• Fantastic Journey
• The Time Tunnel
• Planet of the Apes
• The Phoenix
• The Powers of Matthew Starr
• Galactica 1980
• The Starlost
• Salvage One

Worst


Shows I didn't see or have forgotten but were on:

• The Man From Atlantis
• The Invisible Man
• Time Express (1979)
• Voyagers!
• Gemini Man

Speaking of bad, anyone remember Space Rangers?

 

[Skipper]

Best to worst IMO from 1965 to just before TNG
[...]
Best

• [..]
• Blake's 7

You know, this is a series that I have always promised myself to watch.
(checking Wikipedia)
52 episodes * 50 minutes = 44 hours....
Argh!

 

[Skipper]

I did this query on the IMDB:

American Sci-Fi Tv show made between 1964 and 2018:

1.670 titles...

(but a lot of them are animated shows)

 

[Maurice]

I did this query on the IMDB:

American Sci-Fi Tv show made between 1964 and 2018:

1.670 titles...

(but a lot of them are animated shows)

A lot of them are kiddie shows or anything with a "scientist" in the premise. My Mother The Car? Really?

 

[Maurice]

You know, this is a series that I have always promised myself to watch.
(checking Wikipedia)
52 episodes * 50 minutes = 44 hours....
Argh!

The production values are Bargain BBC, but the main characters are well-drawn, and it's basically the model for how sci-fi shows are done today. Cliffhangers. Main characters die. The good guys don't always win. Avon's razor sharp comments are worth the price of admission.