Don’t know how you guys feel about comparisons to Star Trek but I thought this was interesting.
Also, Mods … if this kind of post is not allowed, I don’t mind it being taken down.
I’ve only watched about half of all Star Trek content with series and movies and animations. I thought I had years of content to watch in the future … but after hearing about other series from other people over the years, through comments in this community and through lists like this Youtube video … I think I’ll be spending the rest of my life watching scifi, the majority of which will be Star Trek.
I remember really enjoying Earth: Final Conflict when it was on the air, though I don’t know if it holds up today. It was based on some Gene Roddenberry notes and produced by Majel.
They had some very cool futuristic gadgets that I wish had made it into the mainstream a bit more. The design for this communicator was awesome, for example.
Neat … this series is on my long, long list of shows to watch.
- Battlestar Galactica
- Babylon 5
- The Expanse
- Farscape
- The Orville
- Legend of the Galactic Heroes
- Firefly
- Red Dwarf
- Stargate Universe
Orville <3
WHERE IS SEASON 4?!?!
:(
in production!!
I thought you were just messing with me… then I saw that it’s true!
Thank you for this precious gift of hope :)
Watched and loved all over the years except 5&6!
Legend of the Galactic Heroes is an interesting one. It is based off a Japanese novel (debatable whether it is one long novel or a series, but that is a digression) that is okay ish. But the show does a pretty decent job of it, and many actually consider the show to be the better form. It’s pretty long, like 110 episodes (from memory, could be wrong) and occasionally it veers into petty politicking a little too much for my liking. But it’s really interesting from a tactical point of view in a way that no other sci Fi has attempted. It’s very fuedal naval empires in space. Master and Commander stuff.
Worth it. Give it a few episodes to let the show grow on you. The art style will throw you off initially, but after a little bit it seems normal.
Which Galactica? I’m a fan of the original and the 1980 spinoff, but not the remake.
According to the video: the 2004 remake.
I saw the remake first and really like it. I watched a few of the original, but couldn’t really make it through more than a few episodes. Which did you watch first? Any one thing that elevates them in your opinion?
I also prefer the silver cylons, I just think they’re cool, and they have wit, they make a joke or two in the series.
Probably because I watched the originals as they aired. The remake was too much drama for me, wasn’t fun. I’ve watched the original several times. Every kid wanted a Muffit.
Some good shows in the list, but the one that I find notably missing is Dark Matter. Well worth checking out if you haven’t seen it.
Beautiful username because it reminds me of this classic scifi that I really really wish they had turned into a TV series … Galaxy Quest
What a genuinely wonderful piece of cinema. It excels as both a Trek spoof and loving homage. Also, Enrico Colantoni.
2015 Dark Matter right? Enjoyed 2015 so much I can’t get over the unrelated 2024 with the same name…
Yeah 2015. Another great show cancelled despite being a success with viewers. Haven’t seen any of the 2024 one.
A somewhat obscure one, but very well worth a watch is “Earth 2” from the mid 90s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_2_(TV_series)
Featuring Tim Curry!
So he did escape to space?
Don’t worry, I remember this. Would love to see a torrent sometime
https solidtorrents . to / torrents/earth-2-1994-f59f1/5c463eff29dd4319e4eb411e/
I wasn’t sure about some scifi TV series from the 90s that I had never heard of … but you had me at Tim Curry!
It’s a very good show.
I also cannot recommend Blake’s 7 enough. It’s the original dark sci-fi TV series- unsurprising since it was from the mind of Terry Nation, who created the Daleks- and inspired a lot of other shows… especially Farscape, which was essentially a Blake’s 7 tribute show. Both are about a bunch of criminals escaping from a tyrannical government on a ship unlike any other known ship, with its own agency and ability to communicate with the crew. In both, some intend to fight back, some intend to run away and some are just in it for themselves. One of the villains in Farscape (Grayza) even very obviously was made to look like the big bad in Blake’s 7, Servalan.
It’s also got one of the most jaw-dropping finales of all time.
Space:1999 is underappreciated.
A great list. I haven’t watched most of these either so you are not alone there.
I would say that if you could never watch another show for the rest of your life after picking just one, it needs to be Firefly. After that, you may die happy. Not kidding to be clear, and not even limiting to sci-fi there: it’s that good. It’s also, unfortunately, short. There is a movie though, which wraps up the dangling plotlines.
Farscape is damn good, and weird. “Goodly weird or weirdly good?” Yes. Both. Neither. Sorta. Just watch the first episode, and you’ll know if it appeals to you or not.
Babylon Five isn’t “good” as the term is normally used. Instead, it is “deeply satisfying”. Like going to the gym, you need to force yourself to watch it much of the time, yet when you do, you will not regret having done so. It is an older style of television, more like a play almost, and gets wonderfully boring at times, but has the deepest plotlines that I’ve ever heard of in video form. Or at least the ones most applicable to irl. You’ll literally enjoy the bad guys especially, bc they aren’t “evil” -> they are us, if given half a second and a full opportunity to have gotten into such a situation.
BSG I don’t know how well it has held up. This video says well so… maybe. I recall that when I watched it, it was “difficult” to do so, probably bc it matched up too closely with what was going on irl at the time. MAJOR trigger warnings for this one, especially torture/abuse - and I don’t mean like “torture is (always) bad”, but rather “torture can be good sometimes, even necessary, now let’s go rape someone today!” level of psychological mind-fuckery. Sadly I wish I was even halfway joking here. You may want to save this one for later, until you have time to really process it. Also, this video should have included some of these warnings - I consider it irresponsible even to have not. That series is DARK - yes, deliciously so, but that’s still worth a trigger warning in my book, so that someone knows in advance what they are getting into.
Great advice here. I totally agree with Firefly. Close to perfection in every character/story/etc.
For BSG, they made a 2-part movie to kick it off. I watched that a few years ago and it still holds up pretty well. If you like those intro-movies, it’s worth a watch as a series (even though it does end poorly).
Babylon 5 is on my near-term list to start.
Firefly was too wonderful for the for-profit TV media to handle - definitely we would have enjoyed more, but just as definitely that was never going to be allowed under those conditions.
BSG:
This update of the late-1970s programme takes a decidedly darker tone…
Yeah, I’ll say.:-) Especially that one where they encourage rape - shudder. I can’t recall Stat Trek ever hitting that hard? More impactfully, sure, bc Capt. Picard was a freaking role model of leadership, as too were Kirk, Sisko, and… well… no, not Janeway:-).
Remember to persist through Babylon 5 - you won’t be disappointed, at least not in the long-term, although you might not enjoy every moment of every episode either. Unlike Enterprise though, it will be worth it (hey-oooh!:-P).
Great input … will definitely keep all this mind for when I turn 90 and decide to watch something other than Star Trek.
I’m joking around but sometimes I feel bad that I’m coming to the end of a series I’m watching … I watched TNG years ago and was sad to see it end … watched VOY to end the was sad to see it end … now watching DS9 and almost at the end and feeling sad. But I’m looking forward to other Star Trek series and will have years of content to slowly watch. But even after all that … there is still so much to watch and enjoy, it’s amazing.
Good: that means that you are a normal human being. Keep in mind that like food, consuming any kind of content too quickly is bad for health. Watch something, then touch grass, repeat if you feel like it - no biggie. Network producers have ignored that definitely real humans prefer quality over quantity so… that’s not your fault that there’s so much more to watch than can be enjoyably handled. This is our new world now. Perhaps someone will design an AI to watch our TV for us, and just feed us the highlight clips - heck, they may have already even!?:-P
I tried watching the Buck Rogers tv series recently, Buck’s just too much of a dick head with the ladies. A product of its times maybe. Been passing the time with Logans Run, and android was introduced in the tv series, helps run the plot and provides some wit.
Good list. Perhaps the only one I disagree with is SG:U. As a series it was unfulfilling, and if animated series are on the list (given that legend of the galactic heroes was listed) I’d have gone with Macross/Robotech.
Over any other Stargate series, I don’t get why anyone would put Universe on a “best of” list like this.
I sorta interpreted it as “We wanted to put Stargate on the list, but Universe is the only one that actually takes place in space.” SG-1 and Atlantis definitely spend their fair share of time on spaceships, but that’s outnumbered like 30-to-1 by time spent in the gateroom or the scenic woodland vistas of Vancouver.
I’m a fan of Universe, and thought it got a bad rap, but yeah - SG1 is obviously the jewel of the Stargate franchise.
I enjoyed it, but I also feel like it was a show which had amazing potential and they didn’t really go anywhere with it.
If anything, it should obviously be Stargate Infinity on that list.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t really pay off until the end, and even then, the payoff is a bit anti-climactic.
