Top 10 Sci Fi Shows

Definately agree and also I am a Trek fan from WAY back and the first to admit that if it were not for the cult popularity of the original none of the spin offs would have ever existed. Still in my own opinion Star Trek Next Generation was a much better show. Obviously the ability to create better graphics helped a lot .. come one let's face it in some of the old TOS shows you could practically see the string holding up the model of the Enterprise. More than that though the character develpoement was far superior. Kirk was the main focal point of most of the original shows and the running joke was.. which alien female will he sleep with this week and how long before his shirt get ripped off. STNG was much more of an emsemble show with episodes highlighting various members of the crew.. including some personal favorites that were not even in every episode.. Q for one and Lt. Barkley for another.


I was happy to see Farscape made the list. I loved that show and am still angry that SciFy removed it from their line up not because it wasn't popular but mainly because it cost too much to do. Yeah there's a great way to increase your veiwers keep the crappy made-for-TV movies you run on Saturdays but drop the highly popular, funny and interesting show that has people staying home on Friday nights to see. DUHHHHH

X-files is number 7 behind LOST Was the person that came up with this list on drugs.

It's better to burn out than fade away, as the saying goes. Whatever one may say about Lost's sixth and final season, the showrunners explicitly decided to end the show after a pre-determined run and avoid the X-Files's meandering approach to its mythology. Nine seasons wore out the latter's audience's taste for suspense and paranoia. Chris Carter even went on record to admit, "We lost our audience on the first episode {of the ninth season}. It's like the audience had gone away, and I didn't know how to find them."

(I still say that the writers strike of '08 damaged Lost more than any of the show's convoluted plot points. The bifurcated and abbreviated fourth season threw off the series's internal rhythm and disconnected it from its mainstream audience.)

The market is global. Always has been. The popularity of a show/movie/radio knows no boundaries. It never has.

That's why I said the list goes on and on. I'm surprised at all the ones I did remember.

Actually, Farscape pretty much just made stuff up as they went along and a lot of it is readily apparent. There are a lot of continuity errors and characterization problems throughout.

I guess if you are saying X-Files is the same way then the real difference between the two is that X-files didn't have an over arching plotline that made those particular problems less noticeable. That plotline being that John wants to get home / fix what has happened

Did we watch the same show? Because I frankly saw nothing of the sort.

Personally I found Farscape to be very good early on, but eventually went off the rails.

Always has been is a bit of a stretch. Overseas syndication was at most a distant afterthought back in the days when Dr. Who and Star Trek started.

... Technically yes, but from the point of view of how one views it and what one brings to the table, probably not.

You probably saw farscape when it first came out and watched over the course of several years and probably haven't seen it since.

I saw farscape less than 12 months ago over the course of a few days.

Without including anything else like age, this means that when I saw it i developed my impression of the show and then saw how it changed almost instantly while you were less sensitive to the changes and more accepting because you created extra story in your head between viewings since each episode was a week or more apart and told over the span of several years.

Now if I assume you're around the same age as I am we likely had very different points of view since I saw this in my mid 20s and you in your mid to late teens. And not to mention we probably have very different world views, knowledge bases, and life experiences in general so even if we saw this at the same time over the same amount of time we'd likely see different things in the same series.

So whether we saw the same show or not... that's quite a hard question to answer.

Television syndication was started in the 50's and was already established by the time Doctor Who and Star Trek were created. Doctor Who first aired in 1963 and Star Trek first aired in 1966.

It's also the only reason we still have some of the old Doctor Who episodes after they almost all got binned in the late 60's/early 70's.
They recovered a lot of stories from Australia, Canada and oddly enough, Nigeria.

I was also in my twenties when it was on. I also have seen the show in syndication since its complete run. I also have the first season on DVD. I have seen nothing that would imply that they were "making it up as they went along." As a matter of fact, it was even stated that each of the major arcs had been roughly planned out before most of the show. Hell, you remember the Peacekeeper Wars miniseries? If Syfylis hadn't cancelled the show before its fifth season, that was going to be one of its two major arcs, thus all the lead in from the fourth season with the Scarrans rattling their sabers.

The other major fifth season arc was going to be the long-awaited Chiana-centric storyline concerning the Nebari government's evil venereal disease plot that would frell up half the galaxy and the resistance that her brother was in.

As for the person who said it "went off the rails" in later seasons, someone clearly needs to watch the show again and consider all the wormhole plots and also pay special attention to the 4th season episode where they go to Earth. Both the wormhole stuff and the need to find Earth again had been omnipresent themes throughout the show since EPISODE 1!!

Just because it has over arching storylines doesn't mean it didn't just make a bunch of stuff up randomly to progress through those plotlines or as filler or that it had good writing.

Also since you said you watched it in your 20s, you are now in your 30s. That gives you a different perspective than me and accept different levels of crap than I do. Seriously I've sat and watched shows and movies from different eras for hours on end and if you sit in a room with me and play those shows more than likely you will get hours of me ranting about every single issue which are plentiful. I've seriously gotten sore throats after watching shows like "Emergency" because there is so much wrong with every aspect of it I just need to point it out and if I didn't rant about it I wouldn't be able to watch it because other wise it just is baaaaad. The thing is shows from those past eras are considered great by various people and they really wouldn't point out any of those problems because they are blind to them. And usually shows that came out when you were age 10-30 you'll be blind to a lot of their problems because your mind tells you, this is how it is normally, and it doesn't register it as a problem...in fact you start seeing newer stuff as being worse because of it.

Sure, there are some shows that hold up over time, or we're able to look past the nostalgia, but generally not so much.

And don't get me started on the "It could have been great" shows that are considered "great" like Firefly v.v

If you're equating filler episodes with "making it up as they go along" then you might as well say that a show as tightly written as Babylon 5 was "making it up as they go." Filler episodes are filler episodes; they allow the writers a little more freedom to do something that isn't in the story bible. Every damn TV series has them!

The story arcs exist as a means of direction, and it was clear to me that as soon as Jim Henson Studios had all the elements they introduced over the course of the first season, they had a definite idea of where they wanted to go from there. And they stated as much. Hell, even during the DVD interviews from the first season set, they mention likely possibilities for future story arcs, and guess what? A lot of them wound up happening. They were not just playing it by ear.

Meanwhile on the other hand, we have the X-Files where we have so much wandering garbage, I can't figure out if Mulder's sister was killed, a continued prisoner of the aliens, or ******* cloned. Nor am I able to figure out what's up with the aliens, whether the shapeshifters are greys or if they're separate from the greys or what the **** these "resistance" guys are with the sewn up orifices or if all the black oil are from greys or only some of it or if the Syndicate was working with or against the greys etc. etc. etc.

X-Files storylines were a ******* mess because they WERE making **** up as they went. Whereas I can watch Farscape from start to end (which I have, thanks to it having been syndicated once recently) and it all falls together rather nicely and I pick up hints in earlier episodes that are eventually explored in later episodes.

So no, you are very much WRONG.

Umm... but yes you did.

You are so frelling full of drin.

You are not reading what I said right.

Filler is not what makes it have those qualities which which is what you are arguing. I'm saying that there are a lot of bad characterization and things that were used as filler that didn't actually work within what they were doing.

The plot points are all spot on, but just because it didn't matter to the overall plot, they took it as a license to just throw anything at the wall whether it clashed with what was going on or the characters or not.

Filler in the context that I am talking about are not "filler episodes" which is what you are talking about, but Filller as in this progresses nothing at all and isn't needed, but we have it because it makes it seem likes we're smart, have a more vibrant universe, or need to make this longer even though it's not actual content. Granted filler episodes are part of this, but they exit for a reason in terms of production and are excused in my book as not filler in the sense that I'm talking.


as a point of reference... those stupid numbers that everyone talks about when they talk about lost as if they ever meant anything. That's filler.

I frankly disagree. There was nothing wrong with the characterization. I'm pretty certain now that you're confusing Farscape with a completely different show. The characters as far as I could tell were pretty consistent in their developing stories.

Maybe it's the quaint concept character development that's striking you oddly? Y'know, subtle changes in personality to show that the character has grown. I know, it's a hard concept for some people to swallow.

....

You have just defined the very basics of a filler episode.

There was nothing like that in Farscape, so clearly you are talking about a completely different show.

There was quite a bit from what I remember. I'm not going to rewatch it to list it off. I don't commit these things to memory you know, but from what I remember there are large character changes. They aren't gradual and a lot of times they change from episode to episode.

Also I feel you are definitely blind to these things as they happen in every series to varying amounts. To say that there was none shows that you are blind to it, but that's ok.

Considering how often I see you in this folder saying wrong things wrongly with everyone and their grandmother arguing with you, I don't think I'm the one in error here.

You are saying that something that happens in every series ever created didn't happen in the series you like.

Also, considering how stupid the average person is and how little they know about most things though still hold an opinion about it and the shear number of people that like to troll others and the shear number of people that simply don't like me that I have accumulated over the years and just like saying I am wrong even when I'm not, that type of argument is beyond fallacious and sound like the pleas of a person who can't argue with anything more than denial.

And since this is going nowhere how bout we stop and call it a day?

Um... that's a pretty inflated opinion of yourself.

I didn't say I was smart. How does saying the average person is stupid translate to I'm smart. Unless you think I'm not the average person and thus you hold the opinion I'm smart and defeat you're own argument >.> but like I said, let's stop yes?

See, you even misinterpret my dissection of your post to expose what I saw as egotistical as a compliment. You see the average person as stupid and you always see yourself as right when you may actually be in fact be wrong. That is what I was highlighting.

And it's unfortunate that I had to explain it to you.