No Right Answer: Best Space Series Ever

[Evil Smurf]

I've met Patrick Stewart, and where was firefly? This episode needed more firefly!

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Does anyone actually LIKE Chris Pine?

 

[Terragent]

...I'll amend my earlier post about Firefly: That was one of the few TV shows that actually took care to display space more realistically than most other shows.

You're joking, right? It still had magic gravity, engines that are always on, and the same ridiculous speed-of-plot nonsense as, well, pretty much every other show. At least Trek and its ilk had the indistinguishable-from-magic handwave option open: Firefly deliberately cultivated a low-tech look despite breaking some pretty fundamental principles of physics and engineering. Not that it's particularly surprising, of course, because (a) these things are expensive to portray with verisimilitude, and (b) pretty much nobody in the industry gives a shit about doing so.

And I think you'll find that Blake's 7 was the best.

 

[Vigormortis]

"But, uh...final word...we need a new space opera."

Damn right, we do. Something that combines the world building and sense of scale of Star Trek with the character drama and interpersonal interactions of Battlestar Galactica.

Basically: Doctor Who with a bit more dramatic adventure and socio-political themes, but with a bit less camp[footnote]Don't blow up at me. I'm not badmouthing Doctor Who. I absolutely adore that series. However, we don't need a DW clone.[/footnote].

 

[AstaresPanda]

And then all of a sudden a huge tear in space the warp opens up and the Warhammer 40k universe comes spilling out. First the Imperium of Man start to invade and take over every world peaceful or not it'll all be part of His Imperium. Everything that is not human will be annihilated, by holy Exterminatus The the madness of chaos and all the horrors of the warp rape the minds of all sending them crazy and deamons possess countless worlds and madness and panic takes hold. People start to turn on one an other, for the promise of power from the chaos gods. Or just simply of crazed paranoia. Then Necron start to wake up all over space and start their purge of all things living. Tyranids hive fleets swarm over every world leaving lifless rocks after every world consumed of all bio-matter. Orks will take full advantage of the wars taking place looting all the shiney new federation tech and BSG tech. And just generally looking for a good fight. I could go on fact is.

WARHAMMER 40K universe pisses all over your StarTrek/BSG universe.

 

[AstaresPanda]

in fact...... That is what the new space opera should be. Warhammer 40k done in the same style love and attention to detail as Game of Thrones. perhaps set during the great crusade leading up to the Horus Heresy when shit really goes down. ^.^

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Two questions:

Who are you?

and

What do you want?

Ok. Three questions, where' s Babylon 5? I guess you need the appearance of a competition which B5 wouldn't have afforded.

Cut them some slack. These are the same guys who included Lost in a "Show you must watch before you die" (which actually won).

I haven't seen any of the Star Trek series (yet), but I definitely saw Babylon 5 and I'm dissapointed it's not mentioned even once. As much as I love BSG, I have to say that Babylon 5 is just better in every single aspect.

Hm, true. Didn't even think of that. Especially once Earth Gov starts turning into a fascistoid government, things start really heating up. A lot of political intrigue and interesting stuff going on there. BSG was a nice action show and the interpersonal stuff and drama had a lot of focus there, but for bigger political stuff you'd best turn to B5 (or possibly DS9, although I never liked that quite as much as B5).

B5 was great but suffer from year to year renewal which didn't like the creator handle the story arcs quite the way he wanted, he did a couple of season endings with the expectation that he might not get renewed (we have at least two episodes showing things well into the future both of which were later rendered non-canon by the show's continuation). It also had a problem with some really uneven acting, I tend to think "Claudia Christian" (Ivanova) is pretty terrible as an actress even if the character is basically okay. Also they seemed to have difficulty keeping anyone around reliably for the "Resident Telepath" role.

Also the follow up series ended in a bad place, which I didn't care for.... and I was always kind of surprised that Bester never seemed to get his (though I give them credit, that character was a magnificent bastard).

Claudia Christian is awesome, as an actress and as Ivanova. When she left in season 5, the show almost fell apart. It took me about 3 or 4 runs through the entire series to figure out what was wrong with S5 until it finally occurred to me it was Ivanova's absence.

And yeah, these guys have obviously never seen B5. If they had there would be no way BSG would make the cut. They probably haven't seen Red Dwarf either.

About Farscape... guys, it wasn't that great. Aside from the aliens and puppets, which I will admit were the possibly the best we've seen in sci-fi, everything about Farscape was distinctly average to above-average. Apart from that, it was barely sci-fi. It was an space action show.

 

[Hutzpah Chicken]

As far as I'm concerned Babylon 5 outmatches both. It's presents realistic handling of realistic situations in a sci-fi setting. There's no "perfect society" like Star Trek or "suddenly aliens that want to destroy us" like BSG or so many other alien Sci-Fi dramas. Nope, major story development is all based off real events that have actually transpired and could transpire again in a more natural evolution of what becoming a level 4 space society would be. It's not post apocalyptic but it's also not pristine perfection either.

To add, It is probably the only series that would come up with new methods of visual and auditory presentation, limit them to a couple of uses to give them the impact that's needed then stops using them so it doesn't water down the effect. I've lost track of how many times the same effects were used in either of your choices which got to the point of "this again?" level.

So yeah, narrative depth that derived from the real world without being about the the real world, a solid balance of visual and auditory effects to give it the most impact, and oh yes, A story with so many minor, major and critical arcs to make your head spin but structured in a manner to make it understandable. B5 wins my vote, hands down.

I'm just joshing you. I never really got into Babylon 5 mainly because of the commericals for it that I saw while watching my dad's beta taped from TV collection of The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. UPN didn't do much to catch my interest and I really thought it wasn't worth my time. I saw an episode and I still didn't see much to it. Deep Space Nine was the best Star Trek, though.

 

[LordLundar]

Blasphemy!

I'm just joshing you. I never really got into Babylon 5 mainly because of the commericals for it that I saw while watching my dad's beta taped from TV collection of The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. UPN didn't do much to catch my interest and I really thought it wasn't worth my time. I saw an episode and I still didn't see much to it. Deep Space Nine was the best Star Trek, though.

You might want to give B5 another look then, considering it and DS9 had a number of similarities and it has been argued that each influenced one another.

To be honest, I wasn't even interested in the series myself until after it finished airing. Once I got into it though I was hooked.

There's also something to be said that when the Executive producer (J. Michael Straczynski of too much stuff to mention fame) kills off a signature character and when asked why responds with "If I killed off some nobody no one would care!" That takes balls and it's something all to rarely seen in TV shows.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

TNG won, as I predicted. STAR TREK, as a whole, has in spades what BSG lacked (aside from that picture of the 3 women in skimpy outfits; where's you guys find that?): hope and optimism. That's what keeps the viewers coming back for more, because we want a better tomorrow. That and BSG would take up to a year off between seasons. Also, what's this
"Patrick Stewart was" business? Patrick Stewart IS.

If you're going to select star trek, then at least go with the best version of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Superior storytelling to TNG.

And yet you have Sir Patrick Stewart playing John Oliver as your avatar?

To be fair, two of the most popular shows currently being broadcast are Breaking Bad (Ok, until a couple of days ago) and Game of Thrones. Neither of those series has a large quantity of hope in them, and certainly less than BSG. Being hopeful doesn't make a good tv series anymore.

I'd argue that being constantly bleak makes a worse one. I pretty much wrote off TV for an entire decade because of how bleak things got. I realize good things happening is unrealistic, that's why I watch TV. If I wanted to see bad things happen I'd look out the window. I don't even need to watch Breaking bad to see a meth empire, there's multiple labs and dealers on my home street.

 

[DRTJR]

DS9: is the "best" series of Star Trek, my favorite is ToS but that series has no legitimate end.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

DS9: is the "best" series of Star Trek, my favorite is ToS but that series has no legitimate end.

Not unless you count the the sixth movie, but then they were only counting the shows themselves here. Anyone who likes Star Trek and hasn't seen that movie owes it to themselves to watch it, though. It's the best of the bunch, with TWoK unfairly getting more love because it came earlier in the series.

 

[RonHiler]

IMO: BSG is the better series for one simple reason, and you guys touched on it, but didn't really make a big enough deal of it. In BSG, there was a level of continuity that just wasn't there in TNG. For example, at some point around midway in the series, the Galactica is hit by a nuke. You see the large scar from that nuke for the rest of the series. It doesn't magically disappear like battle wounds did in TNG at the beginning of the next episode. By the end of the series, the ship itself was coming apart due to the battles it had been in and lack of materials to fix it. That's good stuff, it's way more realistic that TNG, where everything just magically resets for the next hour.

For that reason alone, I thought BSG told a much better story. I like Star Trek and all (I have all of the DVDs in boxed sets), but you always knew the main characters were going to make it through unscathed to the next episode (with a very few exceptions, looking at you Denise Crosby). That was not the case in BSG, where main characters could and did die from time to time, or might lose body parts. That gave the show an edginess that I liked a lot.

 

[Zer0Saber]

I was thinking Farscape all through this episode...

Such an amazing series (That I must've watched hundreds of times by now), it has characters you grow to love - Both the Protaganists and the Antagonist (Scorpius is a really interesting bad guy) - They all have original motivations, which end up changing throughout the series (For people aboard Moya, they start out just wanting to get home, and end up becoming like family to each other and end up trying to bring peace to the universe), all the aliens are unique with stereotypical traits seen between them with exceptions to those stereotypes (Such as PK Tech girl)

The only other space show that's kept up with the amount of viewings as Farscape from me is Red Dwarf but series 7, 8 and 9 kind of let it down somewhat (The rest of it is really awesome... Though as it's also more about the comedy rather than space drama, it probably wouldn't win this particular topic)

I saw the title and said, "Farscape". I love Farscape. I also love how they use Crichton as a ground for the viewer. When the series started this guy is thrown through a wormhole into a universe that makes no sense to him and then the viewer learns about this universe as the character does. I think compared to a lot of other sci-fi this show was a lot more "alien" in content compared to Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica.

 

[DRTJR]

DS9: is the "best" series of Star Trek, my favorite is ToS but that series has no legitimate end.

Not unless you count the the sixth movie, but then they were only counting the shows themselves here. Anyone who likes Star Trek and hasn't seen that movie owes it to themselves to watch it, though. It's the best of the bunch, with TWoK unfairly getting more love because it came earlier in the series.

Wrath of Kahn is an amazing film! Undiscovered country is a fitting end to ToS and a proper send off but TWoK is everything that made Trek Great, an amazing story that was both old and new in SPACE!

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

DS9: is the "best" series of Star Trek, my favorite is ToS but that series has no legitimate end.

Not unless you count the the sixth movie, but then they were only counting the shows themselves here. Anyone who likes Star Trek and hasn't seen that movie owes it to themselves to watch it, though. It's the best of the bunch, with TWoK unfairly getting more love because it came earlier in the series.

Wrath of Kahn is an amazing film! Undiscovered country is a fitting end to ToS and a proper send off but TWoK is everything that made Trek Great, an amazing story that was both old and new in SPACE!

I have to disagree though, because TWoK wasn't quite /everything/ that made Trek great, but TUC was. If one day it's the only piece of of the original series that still exists, future generations will still have a pretty darned good idea of what it was all about. Whereas Khan, while an excellent story told within the universe, kind of does its own thing with it.

Also, The Motion Picture is a better TNG movie than any of the actual TNG movies. VI and I are my two favorites in the whole series, then II, III, IV, V[footnote]For execution. On premise it's number 1[/footnote], with the TNG movies all far enough behind that it doesn't really matter how I rank them.

Edit: And I realize the TNG movies were generally better put together than The Final Frontier was (Generations aside, that is), but the problem is they fall into the same basic trap that Trek '09 does: they're well put together action movies, not well put together Star Trek movies, and especially not well put together Star Trek: The Next Generation movies.

 

[DRTJR]

DS9: is the "best" series of Star Trek, my favorite is ToS but that series has no legitimate end.

Not unless you count the the sixth movie, but then they were only counting the shows themselves here. Anyone who likes Star Trek and hasn't seen that movie owes it to themselves to watch it, though. It's the best of the bunch, with TWoK unfairly getting more love because it came earlier in the series.

Wrath of Kahn is an amazing film! Undiscovered country is a fitting end to ToS and a proper send off but TWoK is everything that made Trek Great, an amazing story that was both old and new in SPACE!

I have to disagree though, because TWoK wasn't quite /everything/ that made Trek great, but TUC was. If one day it's the only piece of of the original series that still exists, future generations will still have a pretty darned good idea of what it was all about. Whereas Khan, while an excellent story told within the universe, kind of does its own thing with it.

Also, The Motion Picture is a better TNG movie than any of the actual TNG movies. VI and I are my two favorites in the whole series, then II, III, IV, V[footnote]For execution. On premise it's number 1[/footnote], with the TNG movies all far enough behind that it doesn't really matter how I rank them.

Edit: And I realize the TNG movies were generally better put together than The Final Frontier was (Generations aside, that is), but the problem is they fall into the same basic trap that Trek '09 does: they're well put together action movies, not well put together Star Trek movies, and especially not well put together Star Trek: The Next Generation movies.

TMP, The Final Frontier, and Nemesis all earn my ire for a singular reason, their failures were almost bad enough to sink the entire franchise. A franchise that I want back on the small screen. Doctor Who is alive and well bopping about time and space, and yet no one is boldly going were no man has gone before? Why is this? It's because Nemesis and Enterprise failed and we suffer from those.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

DS9: is the "best" series of Star Trek, my favorite is ToS but that series has no legitimate end.

Not unless you count the the sixth movie, but then they were only counting the shows themselves here. Anyone who likes Star Trek and hasn't seen that movie owes it to themselves to watch it, though. It's the best of the bunch, with TWoK unfairly getting more love because it came earlier in the series.

Wrath of Kahn is an amazing film! Undiscovered country is a fitting end to ToS and a proper send off but TWoK is everything that made Trek Great, an amazing story that was both old and new in SPACE!

I have to disagree though, because TWoK wasn't quite /everything/ that made Trek great, but TUC was. If one day it's the only piece of of the original series that still exists, future generations will still have a pretty darned good idea of what it was all about. Whereas Khan, while an excellent story told within the universe, kind of does its own thing with it.

Also, The Motion Picture is a better TNG movie than any of the actual TNG movies. VI and I are my two favorites in the whole series, then II, III, IV, V[footnote]For execution. On premise it's number 1[/footnote], with the TNG movies all far enough behind that it doesn't really matter how I rank them.

Edit: And I realize the TNG movies were generally better put together than The Final Frontier was (Generations aside, that is), but the problem is they fall into the same basic trap that Trek '09 does: they're well put together action movies, not well put together Star Trek movies, and especially not well put together Star Trek: The Next Generation movies.

TMP, The Final Frontier, and Nemesis all earn my ire for a singular reason, their failures were almost bad enough to sink the entire franchise. A franchise that I want back on the small screen. Doctor Who is alive and well bopping about time and space, and yet no one is boldly going were no man has gone before? Why is this? It's because Nemesis and Enterprise failed and we suffer from those.

I'll give you the other two, but TMP was actually a box office success that revitalized the franchise. It's remembered as a failure today because it picked up an undeserved bad reputation somewhere during the 80's or 90's, but it made close to three times its budget in the US alone. Source for the budget thing: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=startrek.htm

Edit: Also, the biggest box office success until at least the '09 movie, adjusted for inflation, was actually The Voyage Home. Part of the reason The Final Frontier was so bad was Shatner wanted to do something serious, like The Search for Spock, but Paramount thought something sillier and more comedic, like The Voyage Home, would make more money. That infighting is why the tone is so schizophrenic.

Edit Edit: Correction, it turns out that TMP was actually the highest grossing in inflation adjusted dollars until Trek '09, with IV being the highest in un-adjusted dollars, and second highest in adjusted. Trek '09 is now the highest in both, but Into Darkness still ranks below IV. Source: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=startrek.htm

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Blasphemy!

I'm just joshing you. I never really got into Babylon 5 mainly because of the commericals for it that I saw while watching my dad's beta taped from TV collection of The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. UPN didn't do much to catch my interest and I really thought it wasn't worth my time. I saw an episode and I still didn't see much to it. Deep Space Nine was the best Star Trek, though.

You might want to give B5 another look then, considering it and DS9 had a number of similarities and it has been argued that each influenced one another.

To be honest, I wasn't even interested in the series myself until after it finished airing. Once I got into it though I was hooked.

There's also something to be said that when the Executive producer (J. Michael Straczynski of too much stuff to mention fame) kills off a signature character and when asked why responds with "If I killed off some nobody no one would care!" That takes balls and it's something all to rarely seen in TV shows.

This is why I went off Trek, and I'm surprised I didn't go off it earlier. What's the point of putting characters in danger every episode when you know they're not going to die, ever? Half the B5 crew either died or left, and you didn't know who it would be. Tasha Yar was an exception but really, the characters in Star Trek were invincible.