The Sci-Fi Series Thread

[KleptoKat]

polite bump

[Tommygun]

Well anyone here watch Andromeda or Earth: Final Conflict, both Gene Roddenberry ideas.

I think both shows started out good but ran into problems at the end.

Although I guess that could be said of many series.

[KleptoKat]

Well anyone here watch Andromeda or Earth: Final Conflict, both Gene Roddenberry ideas.

I think both shows started out good but ran into problems at the end.

Although I guess that could be said of many series.

A friend of mine watched Andromeda. What's it like?

[Tommygun]

Well in some ways a bit like Star Trek in that they were going from world to world, but there was a longer running story arc for the series.

It had a bit more humor in it, at times a little too much, but nothing like Sorbo's Hercules. I think my favorite part of the show was the ship and Lexa Doig's portrayal of the ship's AI.

The ending was a little weak in that that they rushed to wrap up the story in a few episodes, but they probably had little choice as the series ended a season sooner than they expected.

I don't think I would recommend buying the DVDs, but if you can find it on Hulu or Netflix, you may want to try it out.

[Nikolai]

It's not exactly a series, but there are a number of Stephen Baxter titles that are excellent fodder for realistic space travel enthusiasts -- with the caveat that he seems to believe that 1960s and 1970s space travel technology was magically far more reliable than we have reason to expect. I've read Voyage (which posits a late twentieth-century manned mission to Mars, at the expense of Viking, Voyager, and the Shuttles) and Titan (about the first manned mission to Titan -- darned depressing, though); if there are others, I don't know whether they're good or bad.

A few of the things that really spooked me about Titan were

the destruction of the Columbia on re-entry and the election of a bit-too-religiously-scary President

, both of which seemed eerily prophetic. Even the book's

destruction of the entire human race

didn't shake me up as badly.

EDIT: Forgot the "didn't".

[jhz3]

I'll put in a second vote for the Ender's Game series, the final books were certainly not as strong and much harder to read but they had a very important and valuable theme. The Ender's Shadow spinoffs that I've read so far were awesome, Bean is such a great character. I feel like Card really researches the hell out of his books too, they're believable.

I'll also add my voice to the tumult for Star Trek, Firefly, and Battlestar Galactica. I thought BSG got weaker towards the end but that happens to lots of shows so I wasn't surprised.

If we can talk about video games in here as well, I'd suggest anyone play through the Mass Effect series. I spent more hours of my life with Shepard and friends than I care to admit, but the narrative and themes in those games transcended the medium. It's funny when a game can make you relate to real world issues; celebrating diversity, racism, political maneuvering, etc. The ending disappointed me, but I refuse to let that sour the overall experience. And now I've gone off-topic, drat.

[SpaceSphere]

- Star Trek: Nemesis

- Star Trek (2008)

- Star Trek: Enterprise

Just a heads up, that should be "Star Trek (2009)" and it should come after Star Trek: Enterprise (a series I liked a lot by the way )

[AcidEric]

B5 is my fav sci-fi Tv series, the spin-offs - Crusade & legend of the rangers not so much but crusade was watchable. and filled in some of the back story and unanswered questions left in the main show. Would love to see some of the B5 stuff in KSP.

films that are a bit more thought provoking try Gattaca & Kpax neither are your average sci-fi. Gattaca asking the question should we modify our children to make them the best they could be and what would be the consequences for humanity if we did. And Kpax just for the play off between Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges.

Books or rather Authors who haven't been mentioned yet- the big three of Isaac Asimov (the foundation series, The Robots series),

Arthur C Clarke (Childhoods End, The Sentinel (the sentinel is the original story that Stanley Kubrick and Clarke developed into 2001-A space odyssey), Rama series, the 2001-2010-3001 books)

& Robert Heinlein (Stranger in a strange land, The puppet masters) of course,

but also Iain M. Banks (The player of games, The wasp factory),

Philip k. D ick << not a bad word the authors name!! (minority report, Do androids dream of electric sheep (a.k.a. BladeRunner)),

David Brin (the uplift series)

Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451)

I've just started on the John Brunner books, Into the slave nebula & Stand on Zanzibar. Stand on Zanzibar is hard going at first but worth it if you stick with it. I was on the 4th chapter before I even figured out what world the book is set in and prob chapter 7 or 8 before the story starts to come through.

Any one who has a kindle or Google play books can now get a lot of the old Sci-fi Authors who have been out of print thanks to the publishing houses going back and releasing digital versions of the nebular award winners back catalogues

[TonyC]

My favorite shows will be always (in order)

1. Stargate franchise (especially with S.9 and 10 of SG-1) for great story and great characters.

2. Battlestar Galactica, for the FX and design of ships.

3. The Walking Dead, very great story and very realistic, but without SPACE.

Waitaminute..I was victim of a bump !

Edited October 27, 2014 by MegaUZI
oh no

[RobotsAndSpaceships]

Battlestar Galactica, and Firefly hands down, sure the ships don't have heat radiators, and are nowhere near scientifically accurate, but still great shows.

[optimusjamie]

I recently started watching Babylon 5 after I got the whole thing on DVD. It was a bit of a slow start, but I'm one episode into season 2 and I'm hooked, though it's still got a way to go before it beats The Next Generation.

Star Trek in general is my favourite TV show next to Doctor Who, but I've still got a soft spot for the old Supermarionation shows (Thunderbirds et. al.) and Space: 1999.

[Dispatcher]

The best was about garbage hauling in space: Quark.

[Xorth Tanovar]

This.

You ever catch the "New Captain Scarlet" series? CGI' date=' but done well; a good tribute to the old show that actually had full support from Gerry Anderson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3JBnRh8OCc