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Category: Star Trek

The deep philosophical dilemma in “Avengers: The Infinity War”

The argument that pops multiple times can be summed up in … a Star Trek reference: do “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one” … or vice-versa? Or, as Cap puts it: “We don’t trade lives.”

The article suggests that, by highlighting that moral conflict, the new Avengers movie both realistically ups the stakes and sets the ultimate resolution as an answer to the question that will be very difficult to satisfy anyone with.




The irresolvable moral dilemma at the heart of Avengers: Infinity War
Say a prayer for those who will write the sequel.

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Oh, I’m just wild about Harry

Holy crap — fifty years since Harry Mudd and the “I, Mudd” epsiode of ST:TOS? I am so old …

(And, yes, I’ve suddenly had the epiphany that Thor: Ragnarok is the “I, Mudd” of the MCU, for better or worse.)

“Stella, Dear …”

Originally shared by +Semicentenary Project:

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On serialized TV and the danger of extremes

Babylon 5 was not the first TV show to play with serialized stories — the idea that the events of one episode might effect later episodes, and that a TV series was actually a long novel not just a series of incidents — but it set a precedent for SF/Fantasy TV that has grown more and more significant over the decades.

In some ways, I can do nothing but applaud that trend. Dammit, Kirk should have been personally devastated by “City on the Edge of Forever,” and it should have impacted his character in future episodes. Hell, McCoy should have been traumatized by the experience, and Spock should have referenced it in future encounters with Earth’s past, time travel, or Kirk romances.

Beyond that, one can easily point to TV series that have strong serialized stories, but have to be padded out over a season to include stand-alones that don’t advance the overall seasonal plot and tend not to be that memorable. Not every episode can be a “City on the Edge of Forever,” after all, and if you have a serialized story in mind, the “filler” episodes can tend to become like food fillers — cheap, non-nutritious, and not bearing close examination.

That said, serialization has its drawbacks. While it can draw an existing audience forward, it can also alienate people who didn’t jump onboard with Episode 1. I have had a number of series that people have assured me are tremendously cool and worth watching — but which struck me as so serialized that I felt I needed to watch from the beginning to make them understandable … something that’s often non-trivial to do.

Some of this militates toward the UK / BBC approach, in which there are often heavily serialized stories that only have as many episodes as are necessary to tell the core story. If that means a series or season is just six or eight or ten eps … well, there you go, and no worries about filler.

The problem, of course, is that sometimes the “filler” can be great TV. Not everything has to advance the underlying story. (I would argue the same can be true for novels as well, but the weekly episodic nature of TV makes it even more true.) A stand-alone episode can illuminate a character in a way that doesn’t affect the overarching story, but still remains a noteworthy tale.

Thus, if someone decided that the underlying tale of the original Star Trek was the one they revisited on a regular basis — the “Cold War” between the Federation and the Klingon Empire — we might never have gotten “City on the Edge of Forever,” unless it was intentionally targeted toward that story (I can imagine ways to do that, of course, but I can point to great eps in TOS — “I, Mudd,” “The Immunity Syndrome,” “The Apple” — that had nothing to do with that theme, and would therefore presumably have been dropped.

The bottom line seems to be the media res. A series of episodes in which nothing every changes and each episode serves as a story that has no effect on subsequent tales is a shallow and unconvincing show. On the other hand, a series where everything is deeply interlocked and every episode is structured solely around advancing that overall tale can leave out side stories that illuminate and entertain — that are not just filler, but add to the richness of the tapestry of the tale.

Which brings us back to Babylon 5, as that series contained a blend — “arc” tales that focused on the main storyline and themes, the “wham!” episodes, but also one-offs and sides stories that could serve as diversions, illuminations, and stories to add to the overall richness of the saga being told.

It’s a balancing act, that middle path. But it’s one worth pursuing, to avoid the extremes of tunnel-vision focus on the core story versus the things that happen that should (but don’t) have an impact beyond that single episode in which they occur.




Serialized Television Has Become a Disease
At New York Comic Con, during the Star Trek: Discovery panel, Alex Kurtzman said something that I’ve been thinking about a lot. He said that you couldn’t do “City on the Edge of Forever” now, because Kirk would have to spend a whole season mourning Edith Keeler.

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Honest Trailers does “Star Trek: The Next Generation”

To be fair, TNG ran for 178 episodes over 7 seasons, so there was plenty of time for bad episodes, repeated tropes, and odd character business that looks a lot more odd when repeated back to back.

But, for all the solid, good entertainment that came from TNG, this is a fun take-down of all of the above. (As well as some honest criticism, e.g., Worf being the punching bag of the galaxy.)

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“Star Trek: Discovery” — I would watch this. On broadcast TV.

We got around to watching the Discovery first episode, the one that CBS so graciously posted on their own broadcast network rather than their pay streaming channel.

I was the most enthused in the household, and that was only at a “I would watch more if it were handed to me to watch.” Nothing to make me want to fork over a monthly fee for. And, to be honest, while I was fine with waiting for it to inevitably show up in some other medium, neither of my housemates seemed particularly enthusiastic.

I didn’t mind the much-more-prostheticked Klingons, but I thought their far-too-homogeneous outfits were sketchy. Their ponderous subtitled speeches were also not engaging.

I liked the individual characters we saw, though the main protagonist’s move against her captain didn’t strike us as a bold step to do what was needful as much as a doofus move that would rob her of all credibility. Which, honestly, characterized most of her actions.

The FX were all nicely done. The plot was not nearly as well baked.

I do still want this show to succeed, because Star Trek. I am sure that, like most such things, it will improve over the course of the first 3-4 episodes, as well as over the first seasons. Unfortunately, by being told by CBS that the only way to see this is fork over a monthly fee, my willingness to put up with that learning curve drops sharply.

There’s a lot here of interest, esp. if you can get beyond the “Why does this seem so improbable as a 10-year prequel to TOS” — but not enough to make me pay extra to go watch it.

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The TOS crew and “Star Trek: Discovery”

One of the intriguing (and dangerous) aspects of setting Star Trek: Discovery only ten years before The Original Series is that all of those TOS characters were actually alive then, and some of them were serving in Star Fleet.

I find it highly unlikely that this will not mean we encounter some TOS crewfolk some time during the run of ST:D. The temptation (a la Enterprise) will be unbearable.

This article goes through the canonical info (assuming ST:D adheres to canon) as to where all these folk were during the ST:D timeframe.




Where Were The TOS Crew During The Events of ‘Star Trek: Discovery’?
The new show will take place 10 years before the events of The Original Series. We take a look at what Kirk and crew were up to in 2256, and whether the Discovery crew might run into our classic heros out on the frontier.

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Guess What We’re Doing?

Well, I’m excited.

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Movie Review: "Star Trek Beyond" (2016)

A lot better and more entertaining than the original trailer would have had you believe. Occasionally over the top, but also grounded by some major character themes worth considering.

Full review: http://letterboxd.com/three_star_dave/film/star-trek-beyond/

Score: 3.5 out of 5 stars (with a heart)

And that wraps up #FatherDaughterMovieWeek with +Kay Hill. Always a good time!

 

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Three personal Star Trek fandom stories

As the 50th Anniversary winds up …

1. The Fan, Enraged

I was actually alive and sentient (though young) during the original run of TOS. The shift to a later hour in the third season meant I couldn't stay up that late, though.

Apparently one night that restriction caused me to "snap." The previous owners of the house we owned had put a lockable door in the hallway from the front of the house to the back bedrooms. Upon being sent to bed rather than being able to watch my beloved Star Trek …

… I crept back out and closed that door and locked it.

So when my parents decided it was time to head to sleep, they found they couldn't get to use, or to their bedroom.

They knocked, but my brother and I were both fast asleep. They went outside and rapped on the window, and, eventually, woke up my brother, who would have been 4 or 5 at the time.

He finally figured out what they wanted, got something to stand on, and unlocked the door in question.

I don't know what the aftermath of the episode was, but it remains a repeated family anecdote.

2. The Fan, Tongue-Tied

I was a speech nerd in high school, racking up trophies at National Forensics League[1] events, taking long trips to speech tourneys around SoCal, and even up to northern California.

We actually did a field trip one year, to go hear Ronald Reagan speak at an event in downtown Los Angeles. This was in Reagan's "wilderness years" between being governor and being president.

So we traveled to downtown, to some major hotel, and listened to the speech. It was just what one would expect from Reagan: jovial, friendly, ideological, and driven by his constant prop of 3×5 cards onto which he'd noted the speech structure and various anecdotes.

In attendance at this public speech, at a nearby table, was George Takei. Takei was involved in California and Los Angeles Democratic politics in the 1970s, and he was attending this particular event, too.

After the speech, I screwed up my courage and went over to him, determined to speak to him and to tell him …

… um …

… it was not until I was standing at his table that I realized that I had no idea what I really wanted to tell him in this kind of a public setting. So I mumbled something about how much I'd enjoyed his work and then wandered away, feeling like an idiot.

I'm sure I was neither the first nor last person that Takei ever encountered who was so tongue-tied, probably not even that day. But it was an event that warned me off in later years from making a point to go up and say hi to celebrities I admired. I mean, heck, I'd love to sit down and chat with any number of them, but in terms of summing up something coherent and non-fanboyish in a public setting?

Yeah, words fail me.

3. The Fan, Alone

So, working in the Denver area, in downtown, it was hard to avoid this being the season starter day for the NFL — not with the NFL Kickoff Celebration taking over Civic Center Park and the front of the City/County Building, nor with everyone and their brother and sister and distant cousin wearing Orange and/or Blue.

So I thought I'd be cute. I had a staff meeting with my peers this morning, and I said, looking around at all of them wearing something Bronco-related, "I just want to say, as we start this meeting, that this is a very special day, something I'm sure we all want to celebrate … the 50th Anniversary of the first episode of Star Trek."

I was a pilgrim in an unholy land. Around the table, including my boss, there were raised eyebrows of bemusement or general scoffing and eyerolling.

I did get referred to another peer in the department that I should mention this to, and, when I did so later, he was appreciative.

I tried this trick with another group in another meeting. This time it was, "Huh, imagine that," sort of like if I'd mentioned it was the anniversary of Richard Nixon's resignation or something. One guy in the meeting did opine that he had also been alive during the TOS initial run and remembered a few eps from it. I regaled them with Story Number 1 above, and they were appropriately amused.

At last, at the end of the say, I had my own departmental meeting, and sprung this on my two direct reports. They, at least, had the interest (or politeness (or appropriately truckling nature)) to oooh and aaah. So that, at least, felt better.

Happy Anniversary, Star Trek. I appreciate the good times, not to mention the anecdotes for me to carry forward.

—

[1] The official High School Speech Competition organization, not something that the CSI folk belong to. Alas, in the past few years they changed their name to the National Speech & Debate Association, which is more descriptive, but a lot less interesting.

 

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On Star Treks

A 50th Anniversary Analysis:

I deeply love, with a nostalgia of childhood and a ritualistic familiarity with every episode and massive chunks of dialog[1], Star Trek, the Original Series. Sure, it has its multitudinous flaws, many of them a result of the general state of late 1960s TV (and network shenanigans), but the willingness to (sometimes) grapple with social issues, the sense of adventure, and the personal stories told amidst the less inspiring tales, all make it, like Thomas Jefferson, a flawed but admirable Founding Father.

Fast Forward way too many years, and Star Trek: The Next Generation came to pass. I watched it because, hey, Star Trek! I found the first few seasons cloyingly preachy, but after it loosened up there were some moments of brilliance (many of them centered around Data and how he was mistreated as an AI life form) alongside the moments of goofiness (too many of them also centered around Data) (the same can be said of Worf as well). I watched it, on and off, through its run; it's a show that Margie and I watched while we were dating. It never grabbed me as much as TOS, but it beat most TV.

A while after TNG debuted, we got a new series: Deep Space 9. And I have to say it's my favorite of the post-TOS Treks, for the variety of reasons spelled out by the article attached below. That is, it was gritty, it was shadowy, it was political compromises and religious discomfort and people with clouded moral attitudes and angry people and broken people and a world that as far less perfect than TOS or TNG, but still possessing that element of hope and ultimate optimism. I fell away from the series for a variety of reasons after the first couple of seasons, but it's the one Star Trek that I'd like to go back and binge watch. Some day …

I had high hopes for Voyager, as the idea of a divided crew stranded in the wilderness, having to band together out of a sheer need for survival, felt like a great way to progress the dramatic and human stakes of the Star Trek world. Alas, Voyager never really lived up to that expectation, instead feeling more like an adventure with no strings attached. Not surprisingly, my favorite episode was "Year from Hell," where actually saw the starship and its crew taking damage that wasn't magically healed by the next episode, and the stakes of survival were high and ongoing; when it all got retconned away after the second part, I was basically done.

I was similarly intrigued by Enterprise, as a chance to see a lower-tech Earth ship make the first tentative steps out into the universe. Unfortunately, lower-tech tended to mean lower-action in the early years of the series, which too soon started giving us First Encounters that made no sense with the canon. I dropped it after the first season, though I've watched a few stray episodes which were enjoyable, but not compelling.

I'm curious to see what Star Trek: Discover turns out to be like. Honestly, I don't plan on watching it in first run; not as something I need to pay for to get CBS's streaming service. I'm sure it will eventually make its way to some medium where I can enjoy it. I look forward to doing so.

——

[1] I used to make audio cassette recordings of TOS episode reruns and listen to them constantly. Hey, I grew up in a pre-VCR universe.




What Deep Space Nine does that no other Star Trek series can
This show isn’t just a good story; it’s a beacon of hope for people living in dark times.

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Google Trek

Google didn't put together a new Google Doodle for the Star Trek 50th Anniversary, but they did point to the one they did a few years back.

Originally shared by +Google:

In honor of #StarTrek50, revisit our #GoogleDoodle celebrating the anniversary of its first broadcast → https://goo.gl/w1WlVr

 

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A Golden Anniversary for the show that changed SF

It's hard to believe, but it was 50 years ago today that the first episode of Star Trek aired on NBC television. Presaging airing order weirdness for future SF shows, the first episode was "The Man-Trap," not the (second) pilot that had sold the series.

The article below tries to speculate on what science fiction — on TV, in the movies, and fandom itself — would have been like had Star Trek never made it on the air.

It's possible to overstate the case: thoughtful SF and TV drama as a whole existed before Star Trek. Though to modern eyes The Original Series seems in turn weirdly action-oriented and preachy in turn, it was considered quite cerebral for its era (too cerebral for the network suits). Just as TV as a whole has matured over the decades and dramas have gotten more sophisticated, on the whole, one can assume SF, like other genres, would have had later opportunities.

That said, the direction of future SF on TV would have been quite different. While ST:TOS didn't prove that SF could be a success on TV (quite the opposite), it did influence everything that came after (as a model or counter-model), and the core of fandom that was built around it, and stayed loyal to it, shaped the future how science fiction in the media, especially once kids raised on TOS started coming to power in the media itself. And that fandom created the model which exists today, in turn influencing how media companies engage with fans.

I don't think Gene Roddenberry had any idea in the beginning what he was creating, or its seminal influence, but create it he did, alongside a huge raft of talented men and women as writers, producers, directors, technicians, and, of course, actors. Here's to all of them.




What if Star Trek Had Never Existed?

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Die, Redshirt, Die!

Timothey Adams at Emerald City Comic-Con, a redshirt on the (by request) deadliest away mission — asking other cosplayers to do away with him, for the camera. Great idea.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10209194547681599&set=a.10209194487720100.1073741831.1257830661&type=3&theater

[h/t Randy]

 

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Acting is actually a pretty good workout

At least when the ship is "rocking".

(Picture from with the camera shake in a scene compensated for.)

Originally shared by +Jānis Jaunošāns:




media.giphy.com/media/l2JI9xpp6lbqi7984/giphy.gif

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To boldly go on display, where it was once on display before!

The Smithsonian has owned the original USS Enterprise model for some time, and for a while it was on display. But now it's getting a thorough cleaning, a stripping of multiple paint jobs since 1967, and will then be back in the Air & Space Museum as part of a Boeing (?) exhibit.




Original USS Enterprise model set to boldly go… on display
Original model of starship ready for public viewing

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Forgiving Star Wars its scientific sins

Of course. Star Trek is extrapolation. Star Wars is myth. Star Trek is the Cold War and the Space Program. Star Wars is Arthur and Campbell. Star Trek draws wrath when it breaks scientific plausibility. Star Wars draws wrath when it violates what feels right.

You don't expect Zeus to obey the laws of physics. You don't worry if Mount Doom is vulcanologically correct. And you don't worry if the Force exceeds the speed of light or if laser swords can actually exist.

Originally shared by +Doyce Testerman:

I had pretty much exactly the same conversation with +Kaylee Testerman​ today.




How I Am Able to Forgive the Absolutely Appalling Science in the Most Recent (and Indeed Every) Star Wars Film | Whatever
As explained by me to my wife as we drove home last night from The Force Awakens: Me: See, the reason the bad science in Star Wars films doesn’t really bother me is because the movies tell you right up front that they’re based on legends, right? “A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy Far Far Away.

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Movie Review: "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" (1986)

It's a damned silly movie, but that's part of it's charm.

http://letterboxd.com/three_star_dave/film/star-trek-iv-the-voyage-home/

Think of it as a Roger Moore-era Bond, only more lovable. 3 stars out of 5, but a favorite.

 

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Everyone's got "must-have" ideas for the next Star Trek

Given that so little info was given from the CBS announcement (aside from the zany "streaming video only" aspect of its distribution, it's not surprising that everyone's jumping on what the show should be about and, more importantly, what the characters should be like.

A lot of that has been (on a number of sites) about inclusiveness, which the attached article focuses on, specifically looking for the next show to have:

– A female captain
– Openly gay character(s)
– Multi-racial characters
– Committed relationships
– Openly trans character(s) (played by trans actors)
– A non-human captain

Part of this, it seems to me (from my own ethnic / racial / gender / orientation privileged perspective) searching for a couple of different things:

A. An interesting cast of characters that will lend itself to interesting stories.

B. A desire for representation, either in the abstract (the future should look like X), the professional (more Y people should be employed in Hollywood), or the personal (I want a Z character that I can better identify with).

Those are all laudable goals — and, honestly, there's a lot of overlap there (especially with a good writing team). The problem, creatively, is making sure that (A) comes first. If there's a perception that (B) is given priority, that there is box-checking for maximum diversity for the sake of maximum diversity, that bodes poorly, especially if it further has the sense of Kumbaya / "the future is pleasant and progressive and diverse and everyone lives in harmony" about it that so hampered S.1 of TNG.

On the other hand, if there's a perception that the producers are playing it safe and going for a mostly-white / male / straight / cis cast for fear of alienating audience members and/or sponsors, that's sacrificing (A) as well.

Some other issues to consider are:

– Core vs recurring characters and crew
– Under-representing vs over-representing
– Inclusion vs tokenism

One question that comes up is how to fit in diversity without making the show about diversity that, in the Star Trek future, is presumably not even seen as a diversity issue, the same way that nobody comments on the eye color of that new ensign that just beamed on board. Is it enough, for example, to have a chief engineer who is gay (and, presumably, has same-gender romantic involvements), or does that character's gayness need to be the centerpiece of some stories (imprisoned on the planet of Throwback Puritans or whatever)?

I'd add into the mix as well consideration about some other minorities and how they fit into the world of the 2Nth Century. Body form / weight / attractiveness. Age. Religion. Disability. There's some representation there which could make for some interesting plot hooks (or even just be part of the background for the characters, the way Picard's Frenchness was, with a couple of notable exceptions, part of his background, not foreground).

I think the last item the writer suggests — the idea of increase alien representation — is potentially the most exciting as hooks for plots and interesting characters within them. Some of the best Star Trek characters (especially in terms of how they then reflect upon humanity) have been (primarily) non-human (Spock, Data, Dax, Odo, arguably Seven of Nine, the EMH). Humans (or humanoids) with a non-mainstream-Earth cultural backgrounds (the Bajorans, the Maquis) also carried a lot of interesting ideas (both realized and not) that have potential. Greater representation there, including some aliens that are not just nose/forehead/ear-appliance aliens, makes a lot of sense for a Star Trek series. The question then becomes how to make sure that your core crew that has one human and five non-humans don't (a) turn into a bunch of "really are just humans who have different makeup demands" but (b) remain relateable to an audience that is, in fact, mostly human.

But, then, writing about the human condition is what good drama, and good Star Trek is all about, whatever alien or Earthly demographic we're talking about.




6 Things We Need the New Star Trek TV Series to Do With Its Characters

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Star Trek boldly goes where you have to pay separately for it

Dear CBS — I'm tickled that you are starting up a new Star Trek TV series, and I'm sure it will be interesting.

I'm also sure I won't be watching it if you are confining it (after the premiere episode) to your separate $5.99/month streaming service.

Did the Ferengi suggest this as a good marketing strategy? Just wondering.




CBS Needs Star Trek to Show It Gets the Streaming Future | WIRED

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The 50 Greatest Sci-Fi TV Shows (kinda-sorta more-or-less) (Redux)

So this is based on an article from a Popular Mechanics (!) article on "The 50 Greatest Sci-Fi Shows Ever" [http://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/movies/g156/the-50-greatest-sci-fi-tv-shows]. See here [https://hill-kleerup.org/blog/2015/10/17/the-50-greatest-sci-fi-tv-shows-kinda-sorta-more-or-less.html] for caveats and comments on that list.

I've decided to do my own force ranking (thanks +Stan Pedzick), working within the same list (to do otherwise would be to court madness). And, because I can (and, apparently, have way too much free time on my hands), I'll annotate it. Because the Internet.

First, the shows I never watched sufficiently to judge — they either never grabbed me, or were on at an odd time, or I missed the tide in watching them. (Please don't ply me with DVDs; my backlog of stuff to watch already reaches past the Singularity.) They are ordered as per the original rankings:

Dark Angel (46)
Jericho (44)
Life on Mars [2006] (40)
Lexx (39)
Twin Peaks (37)
Caprica (34)
Red Dwarf (27)
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (26)
Star Blazers / Space Battleship Yamato (20)
Blake's 7 (15)
Lost (12)

The rest are ranked by some idiosyncratic mish-mosh of how I like them plus what quality I think they are. I;ve indicated past the title the original ranking; the lower-ranked ones are helped a lot by dropping out the above 11 choices. Since I broke them up into three groups for initial sorting, I've kept them that way.

(Force ranking of this sort is one of my least favorite activities, since on any given day or for any given episode, I could easy see any of these rankings +/5.)

BOTTOM OF THE CLASS

39. Knight Rider (45) – Silly kids fare, with minimal FX and zero SFishness aside from snarky car AI. Though I still love Marc Daniels.

38. Battle of the Planets (41) — Noteworthy mainly for still inspiring cosplay.

37. The Six Million Dollar Man (47) — I would still watch this at the drop of a hat, but its SF elements were awful.

36. Logan's Run (28) — Deep 70s SF, variable "worlds," pretty bad writing.

35. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (36) — Space fantasy, though I still dearly love the stargate effect.

34. Lost in Space (31) — The first show to really get space opera in everyone's living room, dragged down by camp silliness that only increased each season.

33. _Thunderbirds (50) — Crunchy SF with marionettes and kiddy melodrama. I still marvel at this show.

32. Land of the Lost (49) — Hurt by being a Saturday morning "cartoon" period show, it's still (behind the awful stop-action) full of some very cool SF concepts.

31. V [1983] (13) — Brought big screen TV SF to life as an "event" — but with writing straight out of Dallas or Dynasty.

30. War of the Worlds (38) — A personal favorite of mine, if for no other reason than bringing back those lovely swan-necked Martian War Machines from the Pal movie.

29. Mystery Science Theater 3000 (17) — Upchecked for showing so many wonderfully cheesy SF movies, but downchecked for really just being a comedy riff.

STARTING TO GET SERIOUS

28. Sliders (18) — Imaginative, but the concept wore thin after a while.

27. Quantum Leap (21) — Better than its first cousin Sliders if only because the consequences were of such import and the characterizations were such a challenge. Arguably as much fantasy as thinly veiled SF.

26. The X-Files (02) — It was … okay. Influential. Dearly loved by zillions. But I never really got hooked by it.

25. Stargate SG-1 (14) — I was never a big fan of any of the Stargate iterations. Not sure why. But impressive in overall accomplishment.

24. Space: 1999 (48) — I remember this as the first satisfying SF show after the original Star Trek went off the air. The FX/model work was exquisite. It was hampered S.1 by opaque British plots, and S.2 by dumbing down too far from S.1.

23. Battlestar Galactica [1978] (30) — Incredibly hokey, but spectacular beyond its budget. Some plots were deeper than others.

22. Dollhouse (42) — Possibly ranked higher than it should be here, because while I never quite got hooked, I could tell it had a lot of strings below the surface that I wasn't giving it a chance to show.

21. Space: Above and Beyond (43) — As close as we'll ever get to a Starship Troopers TV show. I liked it.

20. Star Trek: Voyager (32) — Decent Star Trek fare, hampered by an unwillingness to truly embrace the inevitable change and problems of isolation, division, and deferred maintenance.

19. Max Headroom (25) — I am afraid of rewatching this for fear that the zany fun and interesting concepts I remember will turn out to be threadbare.

18. Alien Nation (33) — Like much good TV SF, this tackled (well) contemporary issues (mostly about racism) that would have been too controversial outside of the SF realm.

17. Torchwood (23) — Sometimes too tempted to go over the top, and with an ensemble that the writers never quite knew what to do with, this is still good, gritty, high concept SF (overlapping to fantasy).

16. Fringe (09) — I never became a fan, despite being a serious watcher for at least the first season.

TOP DOGS

15. The Prisoner (07) — While suffering from British too-cleverness (and star/producer indulgence) at times, it's still gripping in making the viewer want to figure out what the hell is going on.

14. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (24) — A great example of successfully (for my taste) grabbing a movie concept and running with it for TV. Well done.

13. Cowboy Bebop (35) — Too cool for school, between the music, the action, the dialog.

12. Futurama (29) — Ranked this high if only because of their willingness to use very single SF trope in the book — multiple times — and do it with humor.

11. Neon Genesis Evangelion (08) — High concept that sometimes gets too high for comprehensibility, it's still a gorgeous (and frightening) Giant Robots vs Aliens anime with eleventy-dozen layers beneath it, from religion to child abuse to alcoholism to identity.

10. The Twilight Zone (05) — Endlessly rewatchable and entertaining, its SF elements get washed away by fantasy too many times, and too many of the Serling and Matheson plots were simply setups for (usually great) plot zingers.

09. Doctor Who (01) — The face of SF for many, and laudable for its longevity and the loyalty of its fans — but, again, too much of it is more properly fantasy, and the uneven writing over the decades does not for great SF make. I watch every episode, but I'm trying to be realistic here.

08. Star Trek: The Next Generation (03) — A remarkable rebirth of a franchise, with a long run, a decent number of great eps, and a large number of not-so-great ones.

07. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (16) — For my money, a better show than its TNG big brother, especially early days when they were diving into the characters and the religion / politics of Bajor, less into the Dominion War in its later episodes. That said, its serial elements put it a tick above TNG.

06. Star Trek: The Original Series (06) — A remarkably seminal show in its influence on TV SF for the decades since. Riddled with weaknesses that its cultural gestalt has overcome.

05. The Outer Limits (10) — With very few exceptions, this classic anthology show was hard SF, written by some great talent (and acted by some remarkable talent), hampered at time by budget limits, but hitting major literary themes and SF tropes in a remarkable fashion. This show (in rerun) solidified my love of SF.

04. _Battlestar Galactica [2004] (04) — A gripping tale of survival and moral compromise, in the face of aliens who look just like us … those were the high points of BSG. The further they drifted away from that (e.g., the further they explored Cylon society), the weaker the show got. And, of course, I truly despise the last couple of episodes concluding the series. Still, with those exceptions, it's a remarkable work.

03. Farscape (22) — One never quite knew where this show was going (that seems to have included the writers), but that didn't hamper the wonders, fun, drama, and imagination of this ensemble explorers-on-the-run show. I just enjoyed it so much, it needed to rank this high.

02. Babylon 5 (19) — Joe Straczynski didn't invent serial TV, but he made it legit, and epic (despite near-disasters by networks and actors alike). Rocky acting early on, and mangled plot points toward the end, it still holds a major place in my heart as a five-year long coherent SF novel, delving into everything from high concept battles between not-really-good vs not-truly-evil, to human weakness and prejudice, including some remarkable character evolutions.

01. Firefly (11) — Yeah, I'm one of those people. Deep-threaded plots and hidden backstories, a delightful mixing of the SF and Western tropes, a splendid set of actors, a roster of episodes where the great far outweigh the weak, and … well, the biggest criticism I can make of the show is that it was cut off way too soon to determine if it would all pay off. I'll assume it did, and just wait for the opportunity to buy the 5-season set when we finally get those portals to parallel worlds working …

And some arguably as-good shows that didn't make the list:

Wild Wild West (of course it's science fiction)
Andromeda
Fantastic Journey
Otherworld
Greatest American Hero
UFO
The Flash [1990]
Misfits of Science
The Invaders
Robotech

I do give, again, kudos to the writers of the original list for leaving off anything within the past five years. Not only would that add a large number of prospects, but it's really hard to judge such things so close to them.

 

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