50 Best Sci-Fi TV shows of all time
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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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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?
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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.
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Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)MUTANTS! duh!
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Evil is a matter of perspective. I doubt Hitler thought he was the "bad guy"... He thought he was "purifying" the human race, right? The whole "Aryan nation" garbage? Yeah, from OUR perspective, he was "evil", but really he just had a different point of view... And needed to die a painful death.
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Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)Ian Shlasko wrote:
Evil is a matter of perspective.
Sorry to call bullshit on this! There are *some* cases where "evil" might be a POV. But the ones Dave listed definitely don't fall under that. Under no circumstance does killing millions of innocents fall under anything but evil. It's wrong, no ifs ands or buts about it. Hitler was nuts, possibly a sociopath, but in the end he was just plain wrong. Ditto for Pol Pot, Stalin, and friends. I understand that there's a whole lot of gray area in life, and certainly POV needs to be taken into account, but there's also a point where things are just plain wrong.
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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)Frankenstein figures out electricity can be used to reanimate dead tissue. Does it on grand scale. Creation gets up and Frankenstein books it in a fit of remorse, terror, and suddenly realizing he played god. Creation is effectively a small child in mentality and has abandonment issues. These get resolved by way of killing a child and framing Frankenstein, there is a big showdown where they explore their feelings, and then death. This was written just as people started playing with electricity. People could stimulate muscles in dead people, so it wasn't that far fetched at the time.
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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
digital man wrote:
That has to be the dumbest and most ignorant thing I've read all day
The Hobbsian view of morality. It even has a name. :) from link below; Hobbes believed that in man’s natural state, moral ideas do not exist. Thus, in speaking of human nature, he defines good simply as that which people desire and evil as that which they avoid, at least in the state of nature. Hobbes uses these definitions as bases for explaining a variety of emotions and behaviors. For example, hope is the prospect of attaining some apparent good, whereas fear is the recognition that some apparent good may not be attainable. Hobbes admits, however, that this definition is only tenable as long as we consider men outside of the constraints of law and society. In the state of nature, when the only sense of good and evil derives from individuals’ appetites and desires, general rules about whether actions are good or evil do not exist. Hobbes believes that moral judgments about good and evil cannot exist until they are decreed by a society’s central authority. This position leads directly to Hobbes’s belief in an autocratic and absolutist form of government. click[^] Of course Hobbs is evil.
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Ian Shlasko wrote:
Evil is a matter of perspective.
Sorry to call bullshit on this! There are *some* cases where "evil" might be a POV. But the ones Dave listed definitely don't fall under that. Under no circumstance does killing millions of innocents fall under anything but evil. It's wrong, no ifs ands or buts about it. Hitler was nuts, possibly a sociopath, but in the end he was just plain wrong. Ditto for Pol Pot, Stalin, and friends. I understand that there's a whole lot of gray area in life, and certainly POV needs to be taken into account, but there's also a point where things are just plain wrong.
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Does that include 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
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Ian Shlasko wrote:
Evil is a matter of perspective.
Sorry to call bullshit on this! There are *some* cases where "evil" might be a POV. But the ones Dave listed definitely don't fall under that. Under no circumstance does killing millions of innocents fall under anything but evil. It's wrong, no ifs ands or buts about it. Hitler was nuts, possibly a sociopath, but in the end he was just plain wrong. Ditto for Pol Pot, Stalin, and friends. I understand that there's a whole lot of gray area in life, and certainly POV needs to be taken into account, but there's also a point where things are just plain wrong.
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Jim Crafton wrote:
Under no circumstance does killing millions of innocents fall under anything but evil.
Sure, killing people is "evil"... Unless you're in a war... Or they're "bad guys"... Or you were protecting yourself... Or they don't worship the same deity... Or they live on the other side of the border... Or they're messing around on your side of the border... Again, I don't know much about Pol Pot, but Hitler THOUGHT he was creating a better world. He thought the ends justified the means, an argument just about every group has taken at one point or another. If the Axis had won WWII, they would be the ones writing the history books, and I bet we would be the "evil" ones.
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Does that include 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
Actually I'm pretty sure Simon Cowell falls under a completely different defintion on evil... Dante would have undoubtedly worked out a 10th level of Hell just for him :)
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Dr Who (soon be 50 years old!) Blakes 7 Hitch-Hiker Guide to the Galaxy (in all it's forms) X-Files STTNG STV SG-SG1 SG-A BSG $VI000000MAN
------------------------------------ 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:
Dr Who
I could never get into this. Every time I saw an episode when I was a kid it looked so awful I just cringed and could never finish it up.
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MUTANTS! duh!
Ya know, after this discussion, I'm starting to think I should take Heroes off my list... Not because it isn't a great show, but because it's more fantasy than sci-fi... I mean sure, genetic mutations could explain SOME of the powers... Like... uh... wait, no, I don't think it could explain any of them.
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Frankenstein figures out electricity can be used to reanimate dead tissue. Does it on grand scale. Creation gets up and Frankenstein books it in a fit of remorse, terror, and suddenly realizing he played god. Creation is effectively a small child in mentality and has abandonment issues. These get resolved by way of killing a child and framing Frankenstein, there is a big showdown where they explore their feelings, and then death. This was written just as people started playing with electricity. People could stimulate muscles in dead people, so it wasn't that far fetched at the time.
Ok, so that's definitely in the realm of sci-fi. It's an extrapolation of current technology, kind of like the Jetsons.
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Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels) -
Dr Who (soon be 50 years old!) Blakes 7 Hitch-Hiker Guide to the Galaxy (in all it's forms) X-Files STTNG STV SG-SG1 SG-A BSG $VI000000MAN
------------------------------------ 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:
Hitch-Hiker Guide to the Galaxy (in all it's forms)
Not the TV mini-series... The books and radio shows, yeah, but I could never put the TV series on any top-10 list, and this is a list of TV shows :)
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Yep, mentioned that in an above post... Good example of monsters with a scientific basis.
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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.
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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
I think lists like these always way over value the original Star Trek. The show wasn't bad, and it did help kick off many others. But that being said it just wasn't that good. About 80-90% of the time they went out into space they wound up on Earth, or a mirror Image of Earth, or went back in time to 1960's Earth, or occasionally to the alien planet that just happened to look a whole lot like southern California. Unbridled imagination, meet budget constraints.
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I think lists like these always way over value the original Star Trek. The show wasn't bad, and it did help kick off many others. But that being said it just wasn't that good. About 80-90% of the time they went out into space they wound up on Earth, or a mirror Image of Earth, or went back in time to 1960's Earth, or occasionally to the alien planet that just happened to look a whole lot like southern California. Unbridled imagination, meet budget constraints.
Not to mention, it was really campy with wooden characters... I never liked TOS at all. Especially when they... had William... Shatner try to... say something... The only good character on that show was Scotty. Don't get me wrong... The actors weren't bad (Ok, a few were). The CHARACTERS were just empty.
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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)Forgive this cheesy quote but "the needs of the many outweight the needs of the few". What the USA did in 1945 prevented millions of more deaths. What they did was merciful and the right thing to do to get Japan to surrender. The USA ddn't start the war, they were pulled into it and did what they had to do to end it. The act was not in any way evil: that is a naive position to take. It would have been inherently more evil not to have used the bombs and to have allowed far more suffereing and a much longer war when knowing that using them could prevent it. Whilst I agree that evil is very hard to quantify I think anyone knows it when they see it. If I do soemthing evil you think I am merely misguided? That is why evil people get away with evil deeds because good people fail to believe that evil really exists.
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:
Evil is a matter of perspective.
Sorry to call bullshit on this! There are *some* cases where "evil" might be a POV. But the ones Dave listed definitely don't fall under that. Under no circumstance does killing millions of innocents fall under anything but evil. It's wrong, no ifs ands or buts about it. Hitler was nuts, possibly a sociopath, but in the end he was just plain wrong. Ditto for Pol Pot, Stalin, and friends. I understand that there's a whole lot of gray area in life, and certainly POV needs to be taken into account, but there's also a point where things are just plain wrong.
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Just to bring in one of Ian's arguments to your claim... Would you consider Harry S Truman, the 33th President of the USA, evil? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki[^] Of course your post mentioned millions and Mr Truman only killed 150,000-250,000 (mostly innocents) in a matter of days so maybe he doesn't qualify as evil? If not, at what point does killing innocents become evil?
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Just to bring in one of Ian's arguments to your claim... Would you consider Harry S Truman, the 33th President of the USA, evil? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki[^] Of course your post mentioned millions and Mr Truman only killed 150,000-250,000 (mostly innocents) in a matter of days so maybe he doesn't qualify as evil? If not, at what point does killing innocents become evil?
No, not in the same sense as someone like a Hitler or Stalin. Was it wrong? Maybe, probably, depends on your POV. Was it a bad thing, sure. Was it evil? I don't think so. Truman's motivations and rationale for the bombing were completely different from Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, or any other nut job dictator. For example, AFAIK, there's no evidence that the bombs would have been dropped if the Japanese had surrendered when asked to. Anyway, my general point is that you're comparing apples to oranges.
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