50 Best Sci-Fi TV shows of all time
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ragnaroknrol wrote:
Heroes broke it for me when Sylar began to flip flop more than a politician behind in the polls.
I actually like that... I don't like it when shows decide "Ok, this guy is 100% evil"... In real life, there's no such thing as "good" and "evil". I mean, look at Babylon 5... The "evil" guys were never really "evil"... Just different points of view. They're only "evil" because their views oppose those of the protagonists. It's cool how Sylar keeps jumping around... Sometimes he's just on a killing frenzy, and sometimes he's with the "good guys"... But when he's a "good guy," you're always wondering when he's going to switch sides again and betray them. I call that good writing.
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Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)It wasn't about good or evil. It was about being wishy washy. He had no conviction. If you are going to be a monster, be a damn monster. But wanting to be a good guy, wanting to fix your addiction, embracing it, just being a jerk, being power mad, being the nicest guy around, and then something else wasn't consistent. I don't call it good writing. I call it "the good guys should have spaced him already, may not die, but he can enjoy a trip to mars for a few centuries to get some perspective. Bester was consistent. He did things for the corps. He did things for him. He wanted humanity on top, and psi-cops in charge of humanity when they time was right. Mordin was a self-serving genie. But you knew where he stood. All of the B-5 characters were pretty consistent. You may not have liked them, they may have gone through changes, but when they were there, you knew their motivations and goals. Sylar felt like a lost character looking for a niche because the writers were tired of the niche being "villain." His motivations felt external after the whole "you are brothers" thing. Heck, Mal has some weird honor code yet you never felt like he was doing things capriciously. Even when he was being a complete jerk or killed someone you could figure out why. "Darn."
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Shows like Buffy (or anything dealin with vamps, warewolves, etc) don't make the list...thats fantasy, not scifi. Shows like Xena, Hercules, etc don't make it cause those are mythology shows, not scifi
kinar wrote:
or anything dealin with vamps, warewolves, etc
Unless the source of said vampires/werewolves is described as failed genetics or bio-warfare experiment, and their "special traits" are explained in scientific terms. Certain zombie movies have achieved this... I think it's been done to some degree with vampires, but no examples come to mind.
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Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels) -
Well, I can give you my top 5... 1) Babylon 5 2) Firefly 3) ST: DS9 4) Heroes 5) ST: TNG Would probably have Dr. Who on that list, but I haven't seen much of it.
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Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)Gag, DS9 and TNG blew for the most part. Way too PC. The Borg episodes were reasonably cool though.
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Its different depending on where you go. http://www.justnews.com/slideshow/entertainment/13277110/detail.html[^] Xena was Sci-Fi? Buffy? The original Start Trek #1? http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/gallery/topscifishows/[^] Tales from the Crypt and Wonder Woman? The Greatest American Hero? So what is the CP top 50? Or maybe just the top 10?
I know the language. I've read a book. - _Madmatt
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kinar wrote:
or anything dealin with vamps, warewolves, etc
Unless the source of said vampires/werewolves is described as failed genetics or bio-warfare experiment, and their "special traits" are explained in scientific terms. Certain zombie movies have achieved this... I think it's been done to some degree with vampires, but no examples come to mind.
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)Ian Shlasko wrote:
I think it's been done to some degree with vampires, but no examples come to mind.
Blade. The hemotologist develops a retrovirus to cure herself of a bite.
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Not sure who Pol Pot was and I'm sure that Simon Cowell is just on there in jest but... You consider those people evil? I don't so much. Sure they were in-humane but not necesarily evil. In-humane != evil.
kinar wrote:
Not sure who Pol Pot was
Leader of the Khymer Rouge in Cambodia from the late 70's. Responsible for killing between 750,000 and 2,000,000 of his own people - all the clever ones he could catch. If we lived under his rule, then every member of this website would be under a death sentence, because we can read. See "The Killing Fields" for an idea of the political ideals of this "gentleman"!
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It wasn't about good or evil. It was about being wishy washy. He had no conviction. If you are going to be a monster, be a damn monster. But wanting to be a good guy, wanting to fix your addiction, embracing it, just being a jerk, being power mad, being the nicest guy around, and then something else wasn't consistent. I don't call it good writing. I call it "the good guys should have spaced him already, may not die, but he can enjoy a trip to mars for a few centuries to get some perspective. Bester was consistent. He did things for the corps. He did things for him. He wanted humanity on top, and psi-cops in charge of humanity when they time was right. Mordin was a self-serving genie. But you knew where he stood. All of the B-5 characters were pretty consistent. You may not have liked them, they may have gone through changes, but when they were there, you knew their motivations and goals. Sylar felt like a lost character looking for a niche because the writers were tired of the niche being "villain." His motivations felt external after the whole "you are brothers" thing. Heck, Mal has some weird honor code yet you never felt like he was doing things capriciously. Even when he was being a complete jerk or killed someone you could figure out why. "Darn."
ragnaroknrol wrote:
It wasn't about good or evil. It was about being wishy washy. He had no conviction. If you are going to be a monster, be a damn monster. But wanting to be a good guy, wanting to fix your addiction, embracing it, just being a jerk, being power mad, being the nicest guy around, and then something else wasn't consistent.
The point is that he's NOT a monster... His power comes with a strong addiction, and he's got an internal conflict... Sometimes he fights the addiction and tries to be normal, and sometimes he just gives into it and goes monster on everyone. Think of him as a borderline skitzo. I DO think the Sylar arc has gone on a little too long, though... Invincible characters just aren't any fun. That's one of the main rules I go by when writing my novels... Even though some of my characters are powerful enough to blow up entire planets, they can still die just like everyone else. At least Claire, despite being invincible, isn't ALSO super-powerful... So she can survive, but can't do much else.
ragnaroknrol wrote:
All of the B-5 characters were pretty consistent. You may not have liked them, they may have gone through changes, but when they were there, you knew their motivations and goals. Sylar felt like a lost character looking for a niche because the writers were tired of the niche being "villain." His motivations felt external after the whole "you are brothers" thing.
Ok, I admit, the "brothers" phase was a bit silly, and was really a low point for the writing. He went along with that way too easily.
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels) -
now your being silly
Smile and the world smiles withyou, laugh and they think you are a nutter
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Gag, DS9 and TNG blew for the most part. Way too PC. The Borg episodes were reasonably cool though.
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DS9 was my favorite Star Trek series, though... It was more about the people, and less about "Look, we can save ourselves by rewiring the flux doohinkey through the matter transponder jiggerwhatsit"... Yeah, it was a little PC, but it was a huge step up from the rest... Now, Voyager... I watched the first half of the first season before I got sick of it... It was just too ridiculously obvious how they included as many different types of characters as possible to try to appeal to every possible type of viewer... Sure, DS9 did a little of that, but they kept it subtle and believable. Never watched Enterprise... After that brief experience with Voyager, I basically decided the entire franchise was over. As for TNG, I agree, it was incredibly PC with two-dimensional characters. It had more bad episodes than good, but I think there were enough good episodes to put it on my top 5 list... Though I'm really not sure if it should stay at #5, or actually be #6 behind Stargate SG-1.
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels) -
ragnaroknrol wrote:
It wasn't about good or evil. It was about being wishy washy. He had no conviction. If you are going to be a monster, be a damn monster. But wanting to be a good guy, wanting to fix your addiction, embracing it, just being a jerk, being power mad, being the nicest guy around, and then something else wasn't consistent.
The point is that he's NOT a monster... His power comes with a strong addiction, and he's got an internal conflict... Sometimes he fights the addiction and tries to be normal, and sometimes he just gives into it and goes monster on everyone. Think of him as a borderline skitzo. I DO think the Sylar arc has gone on a little too long, though... Invincible characters just aren't any fun. That's one of the main rules I go by when writing my novels... Even though some of my characters are powerful enough to blow up entire planets, they can still die just like everyone else. At least Claire, despite being invincible, isn't ALSO super-powerful... So she can survive, but can't do much else.
ragnaroknrol wrote:
All of the B-5 characters were pretty consistent. You may not have liked them, they may have gone through changes, but when they were there, you knew their motivations and goals. Sylar felt like a lost character looking for a niche because the writers were tired of the niche being "villain." His motivations felt external after the whole "you are brothers" thing.
Ok, I admit, the "brothers" phase was a bit silly, and was really a low point for the writing. He went along with that way too easily.
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)I just stopped caring at that point and we lost interest. They could have turned the show around, but at that point we had a scientist that was the fly and now working as a bad guy, Hiro's best friend was probably going to be a bad guy, 2 invincible bad guys with ridiculous powers aside from that, and arguable the most powerful person had been stripped of his powers in a dues ex machina move by a guy that was one of those invincible bad guys. It had just gotten annoying. As for the monster thing: I liked him that way. Humanizing someone that left a trail of bodies with skulls cracked open wasn't exactly going to work. Him being a victim of his powers just seemed to easy an excuse to forgive a guy that was hunting children occasionally.
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Hitler, Ghengis Khan, Pol Pot
kinar wrote:
You consider those people evil? I don't so much.
That has to be the dumbest and most ignorant thing I've read all day. They personify evil in a very real way: they used violence and killing as a means to an end and thought nothing of committing genocide and, apart from everything else they did, killed millions of innocent people. That's not evil? Only form their perspective, perhaps, but not from any sane point of view.
me, me, me "The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!" Larry Niven
Heh...classic interwebs argument. IMO, much like your post was your opinnion, an evil person is someone who takes pleasure in evil acts. Just because someone perpetrates evil acts doesn't mean that those people are necesarily evil. I don't discount the possiblity that those people were evil. But I don't look at history and make that judgement either. Hitler wasn't killing Jews because he enjoyed killing jews. He did it because he thought he was creating a better world by eliminating what he saw as a problem. That doesn't sound too evil to me. Ghengis Khan existed in a completely different world. In his world, what he did wasn't even considered immoral, let alone evil. It is very easy to look back at history and decide, based upon current world assumptions, what was good and what was evil. Because we are now "civilized", we consider killing things evil. Well guess what, there is evidence to suggest that we are outgrowing our planet and the lack of killing things is causing global warming and the lack of natural resources. We very well might look back in 100-500 years and see that the actions of entire populations of the 20th and 21st centuries were "evil" because we wiped out most of our population. Of course I am not advocating genocide here, I'm simply not about to judge someone as evil just because I don't agree with thier actions...especially when I really don't know why or under what circumstances they performed those actions. Doing so would be ignorant.
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now your being silly
Smile and the world smiles withyou, laugh and they think you are a nutter
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I just stopped caring at that point and we lost interest. They could have turned the show around, but at that point we had a scientist that was the fly and now working as a bad guy, Hiro's best friend was probably going to be a bad guy, 2 invincible bad guys with ridiculous powers aside from that, and arguable the most powerful person had been stripped of his powers in a dues ex machina move by a guy that was one of those invincible bad guys. It had just gotten annoying. As for the monster thing: I liked him that way. Humanizing someone that left a trail of bodies with skulls cracked open wasn't exactly going to work. Him being a victim of his powers just seemed to easy an excuse to forgive a guy that was hunting children occasionally.
ragnaroknrol wrote:
They could have turned the show around, but at that point we had a scientist that was the fly and now working as a bad guy, Hiro's best friend was probably going to be a bad guy, 2 invincible bad guys with ridiculous powers aside from that, and arguable the most powerful person had been stripped of his powers in a dues ex machina move by a guy that was one of those invincible bad guys.
Yeah, that's pretty much the low point for the entire series. After that season, they got back on track and redeemed themselves... The writers, I mean. I do think stripping Peter's abilities was a good thing, though... He was getting too powerful, which makes it difficult to have any meaningful struggle. They should have done something similar with Sylar, for the same reason.
ragnaroknrol wrote:
As for the monster thing: I liked him that way. Humanizing someone that left a trail of bodies with skulls cracked open wasn't exactly going to work. Him being a victim of his powers just seemed to easy an excuse to forgive a guy that was hunting children occasionally.
But that's the point... They don't want you to forgive him. They want to put you on the fence... Should I hate this guy or not? Is he really bad, or just sick? He's not meant to be completely evil. Now, the elder Petrelli (The one who stole powers) was basically the "evil" archetype, and so were some of the minor characters. Sylar is more complicated.
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels) -
Heh...classic interwebs argument. IMO, much like your post was your opinnion, an evil person is someone who takes pleasure in evil acts. Just because someone perpetrates evil acts doesn't mean that those people are necesarily evil. I don't discount the possiblity that those people were evil. But I don't look at history and make that judgement either. Hitler wasn't killing Jews because he enjoyed killing jews. He did it because he thought he was creating a better world by eliminating what he saw as a problem. That doesn't sound too evil to me. Ghengis Khan existed in a completely different world. In his world, what he did wasn't even considered immoral, let alone evil. It is very easy to look back at history and decide, based upon current world assumptions, what was good and what was evil. Because we are now "civilized", we consider killing things evil. Well guess what, there is evidence to suggest that we are outgrowing our planet and the lack of killing things is causing global warming and the lack of natural resources. We very well might look back in 100-500 years and see that the actions of entire populations of the 20th and 21st centuries were "evil" because we wiped out most of our population. Of course I am not advocating genocide here, I'm simply not about to judge someone as evil just because I don't agree with thier actions...especially when I really don't know why or under what circumstances they performed those actions. Doing so would be ignorant.
kinar wrote:
IMO, much like your post was your opinnion
Agreed.
kinar wrote:
Just because someone perpetrates evil acts doesn't mean that those people are necesarily evil.
That makes no sense.
kinar wrote:
Of course I am not advocating genocide here
That's really good of you.
kinar wrote:
especially when I really don't know why or under what circumstances they performed those actions. Doing so would be ignorant.
AS far as Hitler and Pol-Pot (who you didn't even know) are concerned their motivations are well documented. Try reading about them before excusing them.
me, me, me "The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!" Larry Niven
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Ian Shlasko wrote:
I think it's been done to some degree with vampires, but no examples come to mind.
Blade. The hemotologist develops a retrovirus to cure herself of a bite.
Yeah, I was thinking of that, but it's kinda borderline. They explain the blood-drinking, but don't explain how it makes them super-strong, burn up in daylight, die from silver, etc etc. And they especially don't explain the shapeshifting bad guy in the last movie.
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels) -
kinar wrote:
or anything dealin with vamps, warewolves, etc
Unless the source of said vampires/werewolves is described as failed genetics or bio-warfare experiment, and their "special traits" are explained in scientific terms. Certain zombie movies have achieved this... I think it's been done to some degree with vampires, but no examples come to mind.
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels) -
kinar wrote:
IMO, much like your post was your opinnion
Agreed.
kinar wrote:
Just because someone perpetrates evil acts doesn't mean that those people are necesarily evil.
That makes no sense.
kinar wrote:
Of course I am not advocating genocide here
That's really good of you.
kinar wrote:
especially when I really don't know why or under what circumstances they performed those actions. Doing so would be ignorant.
AS far as Hitler and Pol-Pot (who you didn't even know) are concerned their motivations are well documented. Try reading about them before excusing them.
me, me, me "The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!" Larry Niven
digital man wrote:
kinar wrote: Just because someone perpetrates evil acts doesn't mean that those people are necesarily evil. That makes no sense.
Since we're on a WWII kick... In 1945, the US nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki, basically obliterating two cities. Why? To end the war and prevent the greater loss of life that would have resulted from a full invasion. Does that make the US an "Evil Empire," like some radicals call us? We did a horrible thing, causing a large amount of pain and suffering for a lot of people, but we did it for what we thought was a good reason. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, but the act itself was still "evil." History still considers us to be the good guys.
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Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels) -
I can agree to that... I was thinking the same thing when I posted it but I couldn't think of a TV show that took that angle...as you mentioned, several movies/games have (Resident Evil for example).
Yep, Resident Evil was the one I was thinking of... You could also point to Omega Man / I am Legend... Monsters created by science. Even Frankenstein could be considered sci-fi, I think, though I'm not very familiar with the original story.
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Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels) -
Ian Shlasko wrote:
I don't like it when shows decide "Ok, this guy is 100% evil"... In real life, there's no such thing as "good" and "evil"
Hitler, Ghengis Khan, Pol Pot, Simon Cowell?
------------------------------------ I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave
Dalek Dave wrote:
Hitler, Ghengis Khan, Pol Pot, Simon Cowell?
Oh, come on! That's very unfair! . . . on Hitler, Ghengis Khan and Pol Pot. Andy B
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Yeah, I was thinking of that, but it's kinda borderline. They explain the blood-drinking, but don't explain how it makes them super-strong, burn up in daylight, die from silver, etc etc. And they especially don't explain the shapeshifting bad guy in the last movie.
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)MUTANTS! duh!
