Fringe (Mostly for audacity, and great older actors)
I had to push to get past the first episode of Rick and Morty, but man-oh-man, I’m glad i did. I. Can’t. Even.
The Expanse is shaping up to be a contender.
I have high hopes for Sens8; hoping it continues to accelerate the crazy. Bit of a slow-burn start.
I wanted to love Black Mirror, but found it too bleak.
I enjoyed Person of Interest, but it suffered from too slow a ramp-up, too much case-of-the-week.
A big factor in this list for me is does it hold up over time. For that reason, most Trek doesn’t make my list, B5, as much as I wish it would. Red Dwarf is borderline. BSG would make the list if they stopped before the last season…:\
Babylon 5 and X-Files get a (pretty big) runner up prize for pretty much inventing modern genre Arc series…};^)
I have enjoyed Continuum. The first season I enjoyed more as a sort of guilty pleasure, skeptical of how deep they were going to take the “cop from the future” premise. But the second and third seasons convinced me that they had a great story to tell, they had a lot of balls in the air and knew just where they were going. The fourth wrap-up mini-season was a mess of bad pacing and abortive ideas, but I guess that was not unexpected, considering.
As much as many complain about time-travel, I loved that the story of Continuum was really based upon it instead of using it as window-dressing. They really got into many of the implications more than most series, but unfortunately I think that this alienated many prospective viewers. Most people started giving up just when I thought it was getting good. I tend to bemoan how much televised sci-fi is really action stories, based upon a military or police theme, because the ideas (if they had any) suffer so much. This series I think struck a good balance using the police angle for contemporary commentary, extrapolation and exploring social ideas which many others haven’t bothered with.
My main criticism is that the acting was usually serviceable at best, but it being more plot-driven made up for this.
I watched the first three seasons but felt no real desire to watch the fourth.
The first couple seasons were good, but the third season, with the amnesiac from the future, and loopy Alec and not-loopy Alec, and then that final scene…
I liked how they gave more and more depth to the supposed “bad guys” as the series went on, but in the end, I had very little curiosity about where Season 4 would go.
Yeah, but that’s a different list. There are lots of SF lists out there. Moreover, that’s a stupid list, as it has Blake’s 7 and Babylon 5, the two most pretentious SF shows ever that aren’t named Sapphire and Steel, above all the STs. This is wrong by any measure.
Really terrible, despite its amazing cast. Speaking of Ross Martin, The Wild Wild West probably counts as SF, as would its update, The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. They’re both pretty good.
I notice none of the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson shows are on this list. They are all pretty spotty - except Stingray, which hardly ever faltered - but I expect for many of the posters here one or another of their shows was a childhood favorite. I’ve recently started watching Joe 90, which is maybe the strangest of them all. (If you haven’t seen it: the theme is that a British neuroscientist performs experiments on his young son’s brain, and allows him to be used by an American CIA operative to engage in missions that are mortally dangerous even for an adult, let alone a tween. Anyone know the phone number of Social Services?)
If we can include pilots, then K-9 and Company. Elizabeth Sladen and John Leeson at their best, before some nitwit at the BBC allowed intellectual rights to K-9 to pass out of their control.
I could agree that there is some behind B5, but if Blake’s 7 or Sapphire and Steel are based upon some pretences, I cannot for the life of me conceive of what they would be. And I have watched both series in their entirety.
I keep hearing that Person Of Interest is somehow special, but the one or two episodes I watched seemed pretty much like standard procedurals. Is there more to it?
ATM I’m binge-watching Stranger Things, which gets far beyond the initial “80s Stephen King horror!” hook, with characters who initially present as two-dimensional jocks or cops or ditzy big sister or whatever, but then reveal depths way beyond their clichés. Nobody’s from central casting.
I don’t have much love in my old age for SF shows that take themselves too seriously. B5 was self-important high concept from day 1, Terry Nation didn’t bring any of his signature humor to B7, and S&S (I have the DVD boxed set on my shelf) is all portent and grim atmosphere.
Having said this, I should probably remove Land of the Giants from my list above, it too is rather joyless.
(Note: I’ve included everything everyone has mentioned if I saw a significant amount of it whether I liked it or not. I also split it by themes because this is overkill.)
##Space Fiction##
I pretty much at least like everything on this list.
DS9
BSG
TNG
Doctor Who
Babylon 5
Firefly
Voyager
Star Trek: The Animated Series — What, it’s good.
TOS
Torchwood
Enterprise
Gundam Wing — What can I say. Poorly translated practical-philosophical ruminations on war must be my thing.
Tenchi Muyo — Anything not revolving around the “harem” angle of this show is at least interesting.
Space Above and Beyond
Earth 2 — Pretty enjoyable but it didn’t ever make me cry (except when it got cancelled) so it ended up on the bottom of the list.
##Apocalyptic##
I’ve re-ordered this list a bunch of times. You could consider it a tie for first place. Except, for reasons, The 100 has never made it to the top of the list. If I didn’t know what they did to a certain character, it might have.
Madoka Magica — Seriously one of the best pieces of fiction ever made.
Knights of Siddonia — I haven’t seen season 2 yet but season one is amazing.
V the original Miniseries
Mobile Suite Gundam 08th MS Team
The 100
Attack on Titan
##Near Future Improbable##
Orphan Black
Ascension
Person of Interest
Defiance
Twilight Zone (the original)
Sliders
Seaquest
Black Mirror — I outright hated this show.
##Comedic##
Steven Universe
Futurama
Red Dwarf
Rick & Morty
Eureka
Lexx — Not actually bad. There’s just a lot of good stuff on this list and I like Eureka more. Also, it and Eureka never made me cry so *waves sheepishly to the entries who made bottom of their lists because they didn’t make me cry*
Did you watch many episodes? Certainly the first one is off-putting, although it does offer food for thought. Some of the others have themes that have been done before, although not so much on TV, but I thought much of it was brilliant.
Well because in some ways I am still 8 years old
Ultraman
Johnny Sokko
and just about any Super Sentai type show cause if it has people in monster suits smashing model cities I am quite happy to watch.
And not 8 years old me… in no real order and cribbing from above to remind myself of things I forgot I have seen.
Doctor Who both old and new
Star Trek all of them
The Prisoner
The Avengers
Firefly
Cowboy Bebop
Babylon 5
Space 1999 (I am not familiar enough with the rest of Gerry Anderson’s shows but there looks to be some good stuff there)
Max Headroom
Torchwood
Wild Wild West
Brisco County Jr.
Rick and Morty
I got a significant amount through the second episode and realized it outright wasn’t for me. I even went through the synopses for the other episodes to make sure I had given it a fair shake. I know a lot of folks liked it but it emphatically wasn’t for me.
