Help Me Choose A New Sci-Fi Series

TV does not do real good justice to Sci Fi and a lot is personal taste.

Star Gate has loads of fans (7 years plus spin offs) watch movie 1st

Firefly I think it was called ( not a real fan of this 1)

Terminator - Sara Connor Chronicles (sort of Sci Fi)

Star Trek The next generation - Voyager - Enterprise (prequel) I liked 1st season of Enterprise

Dune - watch movie 1st. I liked the books

This one was great.  But be warned.  There's only one season before it got cancelled.  However,  a movie did get made like 8 or 9 years after.

Off air sci-fi shows eh?

Earth 2 was watchable, Sliders started off pretty damn good, went to crap in later seasons though.  SeaQuest DSV followed a similar pattern.  Farscape is ok when it's not just a farce.  There's actually a decent knockoff of the old roadrunner toon in there, but despite being singularly entertaining it's a depressing feature for an attempt at a serious show.  The old V miniseries was pretty good.

There are actually a lot of sci-fi shows, but most of them are like Firefly, mid-season burnouts canceled prematurely.  Star Trek itself fell prey to a premature cancellation, network execs don't seem to grasp the premise of expensive, well done shows paying for themselves over the long run, instead of the short run.  They've had numerous gold mines, provided writing staff were well paid, that went poof in return for greener pastures with a brief shelf life, like all the Friends knockoffs with less syndication combined than the lackluster show itself has managed thanks to being built on one liners that aren't that funny the second time around.

What, Serenity is from next year?

Well, yeah, Firefly is a pretty good show, and it is a 'western'-style sci fi story. Clever writing, good dialogue, and likeable characters. I do recommend that one. Think of it as 'Han Solo as written by Joss Whedon.'. And yes, Farscape was also quite watchable and then some. I'll second that recommendation.

Stargate is a bit more iffy, the first series is rather outdated, but Atlantis and Universe is decent enough; I'm liking Universe quite a lot.

A recent sci-fi series at least worthy of a mention is 'V'. You might like it, and the old folks might have seen the series it's a remake of.   
Trailer: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahjPQjQGdbU). (I didn't like it but it did get a second season, it may have picked up after I stopped watching.)

As for other science fiction series.. an animated one, but not at all childish, is Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.
Intro: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUk2r-cJtTs&playnext=1&list=PL15C1A552829C3E01&index=1). Very heavy, philosophical, and at times quite strong. One of the best series I've seen.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (recent, not the old one) is an animated series based on Star Wars, and should appeal to both a young audience and older. I thought it was better than movies II and III, for what it's worth, but unlike Ghost in the Shell, it is targeted at a young audience.

If you don't need the series to be SCIENCE fiction, but just fantastic in some manner, I would strongly recommend The Walking Dead, which is probably the best new series of last year. True Blood is also well worth watching, as is Heroes. First season was the best one, IMHO, but still.

Firefly is amazing. Only show I like better is BSG. But like he said, the ********s at Fox cancelled it partway through the first season, so there's only 14 episodes. The movie, Serenity, was actually 3 years later, and tied up a lot of the loose ends.

Personally, I don't like Stargate. Maybe it got better later, but the first movie and the first couple episodes just were terrible. I made it through five or so, and then I couldn't take any more. Other people love it though.

EDIT: Almost forgot, another show I really like is Eureka. It's not the same kind of sci-fi as BSG, Star Treck, Firefly, etc. IIRC, you've seen Warehous 13; Eureka is the show that W13 ripped off, but it's infinitely better in every way.

I liked watching the Farscape series. A little campy but good fun.

my top 2 favs

I am surprised no one has talked about Buck Rogers.  Wilma Deering is worth the watch!  The show itself is average.

OK, OK.  Aside from being chronologically incorrect I stand by my recommendation.  Also, I assume you've heard of Caprica?  A spin off of BSG that is a prequel series.  I can't vouch for it though,  which is downright shameful being a fan of BSG myself.

Caprica got the axe. The good part, from my understanding, is that they knew far enough in advance that they had time to make the last couple episodes actually end the show. But, there's only like 12 episodes or something like that. It was doomed from the start. SyFy wanted it to attract female viewers (they said so themselves) so they made it more like a soap opera. Unfortunately for them, that put off many of the people who liked BSG. Whatever new viewers they might have gotten wasn't enough, and Caprica ended up a failure.

I saw the first couple, and didn't really like it. The only part I found interesting was the creation of the Cylons, everything else was kind of "meh." The characters weren't too interesting, and neither was the plot. I gave up on it.

However, there is another BSG prequel in the works, called Blood and Crome. It's about young William Adama in the first Cylon War, and will supposedly be more similar to BSG than Caprica was. At the very least, it will bring back the space combat

I watched Caprica, seen all the star trek series and both seasons of the Sara Connor Chronicles, too bad fox cancelled it i kinda liked that one

As I said, it was doomed from the beginning. The whole thing was rather misguided. The show itself wasn't really sexist or anything, it just wasn't very good. Supposedly it got better toward the end, but by then it was too late. Blood and Crome makes it sound like they learned their lesson, although we won't really know until it comes out.

yeah - I'm a bit bummed that a few of my fav's... actually all of them, were cancelled off.  Firefly, sara connor, and caprica. 

Yeah - the wrapped things up at least somewhat decently.  I'm really annoyed with the bs they pulled with bill adama though.  Pretty stupid and flimsy, but liked everything else.

Nice!  And as for Caprica...  I couldn't really wrap my head around it anyways.  "BSG" without the space warfare I can do without.

going to look into this.  First I've heard about.  I, personally, can't get enough bsg.

you were thinking right. B5 is the BSG of the 90s. it pretty much pioneered the novel for tv narrative. even if your lawyer and accountant don't like it, you owe it to yourself to check out. you wont be disappointed.

This article basically has everything everyone knows about Blood and Chrome (I mispelled it before ): http://www.tvsquad.com/2010/10/22/syfy-adama-blood-and-chrome/

It's going to start as a 2-hour made for TV movie/pilot, and if it's good enough they will turn it into a full show. Unfortunetly, the pilot won't be until the end of this year at the earliest, but early next year is more likely. So we still have a while to wait...

This better not be a promo for google chrome. 

Everything scifi is getting axe these days> first Flash Forward, then Caprica and now SG Universe.

Anyway i concur Raistlins recommendation of Babylon 5 {did i say it right? LOL, my english sucks}. Anyway, you already saw DS9, so B5 is the next best choice. You really wont be disappointed, its the best of the best. Its only weakness is the first season, so do not let it to "scare you away", the other seasons are worth it.

BTW i just finished watching whole Star Trek Voyager and i can recommend that one as well, its maybe not as good as DS9 {its close though, DS9 edges it for me with those huge space battles}, but if liked DS9, you would like Voyager as well.

And indeed Stargate, some people do not like it, but i personally always enjoyed it. Just be sure to start with SG-1, its not only the first one, but imho the best one as well.

Thanks for the tip about the first season. I'll be sure to pass it along when we start on B5.

I vote for Sopranos.

1.  it is fiction, so it satisfies the "fi" segment

and

2.  it provides entertainment but is politically correct (hence satisfying the 'science' segment) as it shows the mechanisms to how corrupt humans can become whether they obey the badge (ie, law enforcement) or hide from it.

*(being corrupt is not our natural state of existence and neither is living subject to human law)*

Obviously I love the drama/thriller genre, but I especially love the sci-fi genre...but not so much for it's entertainment value.

You see, "sci-fi" to me is in many ways NOT just a movie.

Spaceships are real.

Aliens do exist.

Giants do remain dormant under the crust.

In fact, we are the AI we seek to create. 

o.o

Our creators will return to salvage what became of us and this planet, but only to reset things to another beginning.  So again, we will [eventually] become enlightened and take on "civil" measures once again, only to return to our most "natural" state of existence...that being with assumed guidance per the local civilization as determined by the illuminated....ie, slaves.

Make no mistake about it.  We constantly receive these messages/warnings within the highly engaging sci-fi flicks.  The only problem is, we are culturally persuaded to assimilate to a certain thought process and accept these 'messages' as entertainment only....  Hence, "....it's just a movie."

Sopranos.

-.-

Caprica is nice, but perhaps only a 7 out of 10, while Battlestar Galactica was a 10/10.

Two other suggestions are:

1) The Walking Dead (great mini series in 2010, will continue in 2011). For me a 9/10

2) I'm currently watching the series Flash Forward. Unfortunately they had to quit after one season, but still I would say it is a 7 or perhaps 8 out of 10. I'm only halfway through the season.

Have fun and keep us informed about your choices!

yeah - if you haven't watched this, you need to start.  You can buy the entire season digitally through amazon for like $12 if you missed out. 

Off the SciFi path is Spartacus - Blood and Sand