Good TV Sci Fi Shows?!

[Angstrom]

That's one reason I didn't get on with continuum or fringe, felt too much like a CSI episode where they try and wrap it up nice and pretty every episode.

The first season of Fringe was certainly an episodic Police Procedural with X-Files pretensions, and they didn't really know what to do with their parallel universe in season 2, but by season 3 it was all one long arc.
Take a look at the episode summaries of season 3 (long arc). They had ditched the "freak of the week" completely by then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fringe_%28season_3%29

Same thing with Continuum, they spent the first 1.5 seasons just trying to figure out what the fuck they were doing, and now they have moved onto a long arc with various displaced future/past/whatever factions vying for control of the fractured potential future - and whether that's corporate, libertarian or egalitarian. If anything the problem is the show is too long arc, and not enough really happens in an episode. It's more of a soap opera structure (like game of thrones) than it is police procedural.

A lot of these writers are far too impressed by the cliffhangers of Lost and the ridiculous J.J Abrams "mystery box" concept. Gimme a tight Columbo episode over that nonsense any day.

[Tarekith]

Ok, good to know they got better. So many people I know were talking about it and I didn't get it at all from the first 5-6 episodes I watched of each.

[eyeknow]

Oh, and though BSG was quite good, caprica was just about the worst in history

How so?!

-great plausible explaination how the AI in the Cylons emerged from the Avatars in their virtual reality.
-good showing of how that virtual reality would be (although I think they could have emphazised more what effects that would have on a society)

-Good back story how they got from their roman/greek sort of religion to a one god/christian like religion, but in the present day. And what problems that causes
-Good explanation how they treated the Cylons like slaves, although they were fully capable AIs and fully sentinent---explaining well the hate of the Cylons
-Good showing of Human hubris leading to disaster

The whole thing could have been more tightly paced, I agree and the series should not have stopped where it did, but I thought it was a good effort and a great aproach for a spin off.

Compared to all the Star Trek and Stargate spin offs for sure, where they just vary the cast and some minor details

My problem with caprica was everything. It doesn't actually give a good idea at all of what the beginning was prior to the cylon war. It's a mismash of nonsense carrying on about the "one" true god and all that. James Marsters gave a quote once about how it had to do with the fall of america or some nonsense.

The characters were awful. They all deserved death by the most painful method available (maybe the cylons???) Seriously, when the "wife" died (easily one of the most USELESS characters in tv history) I applauded. Then of course she wasn't actually dead. And they triped on with her. It's so dirty and seedy. I guess that's what appeals to people.

What star trek/sg lovers like is the "hope" factor. I know, it's silly because there is no hope, but that was a big part of it. That there are "good guys" that actually have a broader agenda than dealing drugs, sleeping around, cappin' a muthafucka like it ain't no thang. Delusional? Yeah, but it's entertainment.

Not a saint here. I like a lot of really dark scifi movies (soylent green, a boy and his dog, POTA, etc) But caprica just didn't have any characters or meaning that I could relate to. Then again, I watched it

[Angstrom]

Ok, good to know they got better. So many people I know were talking about it and I didn't get it at all from the first 5-6 episodes I watched of each.

So many of these shows only seem to get going after a season and a half, I think it takes the whole team a little time to get used to the world and the characters.
I actually enjoyed Almost Human, despite it being a run of the mill future-cop show and being sequenced so out of order that even the minuscule amount of character development is all over the place.
I wonder what they would have managed to do with a season 3, because it's very Sci-Fi in that slightly cheesy Cyberpunk neon nights and smoke in the rain way. (IE: made by Blade Runner fetishists)

[eyeknow]

BTW, has anyone mentioned "orphan black?" It's not "scifi" totally, but it's a terrific show. Great characters, good writing, interesting story line, with a tad of sci fi for good measure.

[eyeknow]

I wonder if "extant" will be any good? Considering it's Halle Berry, I'm guessing no but I'm sure it will be easy on the eyes.

[TomViolenz]

My problem with caprica was everything. It doesn't actually give a good idea at all of what the beginning was prior to the cylon war. It's a mismash of nonsense carrying on about the "one" true god and all that. James Marsters gave a quote once about how it had to do with the fall of america or some nonsense.

The characters were awful. They all deserved death by the most painful method available (maybe the cylons???) Seriously, when the "wife" died (easily one of the most USELESS characters in tv history) I applauded. Then of course she wasn't actually dead. And they triped on with her. It's so dirty and seedy. I guess that's what appeals to people.

I disagree on the thing with not giving a good backround, but I understand the other contentions. What wife, btw?! Are you talking about the daughter and her avatar?! I think her not being really dead?! (well she was, it was just the avatar who still lived on and was almost exactly like her). I think that was a main story driver.
I think I just didn't get as annoyed be the things that bothered you, because I actually liked their de-based virttual realities and the whole avatars - become sentinent AIs - get up loaded into robot bodies - become cylons - which are treated like slaves - becoming angry enough to want to wipe out the whole human race.

What star trek/sg lovers like is the "hope" factor. I know, it's silly because there is no hope, but that was a big part of it. That there are "good guys" that actually have a broader agenda than dealing drugs, sleeping around, cappin' a muthafucka like it ain't no thang. Delusional? Yeah, but it's entertainment.
:

That's not the part of Star Trek I don't like (I'm a heart bleeding liberal (according to some here) after all)

What I don't like is the soap opera nature of it. If they would focus more on how their society works in long story arcs, explored some science concepts (and not in this hand wavy "it's basicaly magic" manner) and made more use of the dangerous enemies that they had introduced in long story arcs...
I would be all over it. (that's why I liked Enterprise a lot more)

But I just don't give a fuck if Riker and the Counselor do it and if Captain Janeway fucks Aliens and I certaily don't want them to constantly explore this over several seasons in every fucking episode for most of the show. I'd rather watch General Hospital or other such non-sense, at least they don't claim it's SciFi.

[Angstrom]

Good scifi plots are difficult to write and even harder to sell, because good scifi needs to deal in revolutionary ideas, controversial, and either philosophically or sociologically challenging. If scifi doesn't have those elements its just soap opera with blinky lights. I don't care about super accurate mentions of current physics buzzwords, that's not the point of scifi for me. I read it for the brain twisting concepts, and no big TV network will take a chance on that.
It's much easier to use the furniture of scifi as set dressing on a soap, the writers know how to write it, and the audience know how to watch it.

[andydes]

Good scifi plots are difficult to write and even harder to sell, because good scifi needs to deal in revolutionary ideas, controversial, and either philosophically or sociologically challenging. If scifi doesn't have those elements its just soap opera with blinky lights. I don't care about super accurate mentions of current physics buzzwords, that's not the point of scifi for me. I read it for the brain twisting concepts, and no big TV network will take a chance on that.
It's much easier to use the furniture of scifi as set dressing on a soap, the writers know how to write it, and the audience know how to watch it.

My thoughts exactly. I'm open to suggestions.

I did rate Stargate Universe as a vast improvement on the others. But given the choice of leads, who would you pick? Francis Begbie or MacGyver?

[Tarekith]

More of a mini series than a TV show, but the Sci Fi channels version of "Children Of Dune" is probably one of my all time favorite things on film. Their version of the Dune itself was a bit more low budget, and some of the costumes are pretty funny. Still worth checking out, if only so you lead up to Children Of Dune which had much better production.

[sporkles]

Ok, good to know they got better. So many people I know were talking about it and I didn't get it at all from the first 5-6 episodes I watched of each.

Fringe turned to absolute shite - do not waste your time on it. I really liked how it started out as kind of punk rock version of the X-Files, but they really messed things up. They made a valiant attempt at saving it in the final season, but it just wasn't enough, and it clearly suffered from a more or less ad lib arc and a low budget.

[clydesdale]

More of a mini series than a TV show, but the Sci Fi channels version of "Children Of Dune" is probably one of my all time favorite things on film. Their version of the Dune itself was a bit more low budget, and some of the costumes are pretty funny. Still worth checking out, if only so you lead up to Children Of Dune which had much better production.

Read the books instead. However, the mini series was the truest vision of the books I've seen. If you watch the credits the whole thing was done in some eastern european country, Czech Republic maybe. A long list of names in the crew and not a vowel to be found anywhere. Couldn't tell you why I remember such a useless piece of information.

[nebulae]

The Leftovers seems interesting. On HBO now.

[LoopStationZebra]

BG's last season was so godawful pathetic that it simply ruined the entire previous seasons. All this nonsensical hocus pocus crap.

omfg

[nebulae]

The Dune movies on SyFy were really faithful to the first two Dune books. I'm glad they stopped there.