Try Dollhouse.  It's Whedon-tastic.

Hmm.  I glanced through all the responses and find it hard to believe that I didn't see Babylon Five (unless I missed it).  It's more or less Star Trek DS-9 on reality steroids.

That is to say that it was a darker and dirtier space station than DS-9.  Anyway, there are several seasons and you definitely want to watch the shows in chronological order...

My two cents.

SK

PS.  Who knew Melissa Gilbert would grow into such a hot looking woman...  (She appears in one or two of the last few seasons).

B5 is mentioned in the OP so why tell about if they already know.

I'm like yourself trying to find a decent Sci Fi show.  Sci Fi is interesting to me because of the setting but in general Sci Fi shows writing is terrible, throwing pseudo science in as plot devices and then just basing it around that.

After Battlestar Galactica I found V to be watchable.  Some terrible cheesy moments but overal fun and some good moments.

Caprica was terrible, there wasn't one character that you actually liked, all mean spirited and selfish to a fault.  I think they copied the fact that BSG had flawed characters but forgot to add redeeming qualities.

Battlestar Galactica Blood and Chrome will be around soon I guess but I'd prefer something original, afterall we know how the Cylon War ends pretty much, and we know our protagonist survives.

Firefly was good fun, a little more of a family show than BSG but excellent at what it does.

Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex as someone mentioned is not bad.  Some good moments and decent characters but can be boring some episodes.

I would strongly recommend you take a look at an anime series called Cowboy Bebop if you can stomache animation.  Brilliant writing, sometimes good fun, sometimes quite emotional and Sci Fi but not an in your face black holes/antimatter/crazy evil alien kind of Sci Fi.

heh - well, I liked it.  I get what you mean about most of the characters being unlikable (makes it all the more strange that I enjoyed it).  I think it was mostly wanting to see more in the vein of BSG that made me like it so much.  Seeing how the first cylons were created, the first skin job, the cylons belief in a singular God.  All very interesting to me and not disappointing as it did explain all of those things.  But, to each his own.

I second that.  Cowboy Bebop is brilliant.  One of my fav anime series.  Great stories, good artwork, and excellent music.  Probably the only series I've ever purchased a soundtrack for.

Can't wait for them to get on with the next season but hopefully the prequel will tide us over till the lead actor can get better. Stupid Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma!

I also recommend Cowboy Beebop.  Even if you don't like Anime, you might like this one... 

It was too different to BSG for me to enjoy it based on that and it was too much like any other hocus pocus Sci Fi that I find I cannot suspend my belief enough.  The whole concept was outrageous, that girl created an AI that sophisticated....how old was she?

I think if I had of seen half of the clever character design we saw in BSG I would have still been in to it.  Name one redeeming quality any one of the characters had.....I can't.  Comic relief?  Nope.  Any action?  Nope, not really, well none you couldn't class as completely lame like the V world stuff.

I think I am alone in my level of hatred for it, a friend who watched it liked it, I just could never understand why

Sorry for my rant....I'll stop now

fake bill adama died and then became the real bill adama.  There. 

Well, I've gotten my first disc of B5 today. Looks pretty good, even though this is supposed to be the "bad" part. Heavily reminiscent of DS9, I think. I'll show the folks two episodes on Saturday.

The X.O.  lady looks familiar... and was that a much younger James Callis playing a minor part??

(Why does "Executive Officer" become a smily???)

Stargate.

1 movie + 212 episodes + 100 spinoff episides + 2 more movies. + 30+ (10 havent aired yet) more spinoff episodes.

yeah - I'm sad I haven't checked out babylon yet.  Someday.  Have to sign back up for netflix for a couple months. 

Good job on getting B5. I do not think James Callis played on B5 ever.

B5 is a great series - one of the earlier that had a planned plot from start to finish, and it shows. Things that happen in season one suddenly become relevant in season four, that sort of thing. Much better than the 'each episode starts and ends in the same situation' - series designed to run for an indeterminate time. On the other hand, it was a show on a budget, and this shows in the special effects at times, so a bit of suspension of disbelief might be necessary.

I have to second? third? the cowboy bebop recommendation. The film is okay, but the series is brilliant.

Earlier I mentioned V might be worth watching but I didn't like it. I picked it up again, and I'm liking it much better this time around, so I'll upgrade the recommendation from 'well, you might watch it if you're desperate' to 'quite watchable'.

there's a reason for that. they were in direct competition back in the day and those behind ST saw a magnificent show being created by JMS, and it shaped DS9 to an extent. B5 had a much tighter, less episodic narrative than DS9 for the most part.

i envy your first watching! and the fact you won't have to wait week to week for episodes at strange times at night. as much as a huge BSG fan as i am, i still think the B5 story is unsurpassed in scifi television.

How about Day Break. It's about a modern day cop that gets framed for murder. He lives the same day over and over. A bit like Ground Hogs Day. Some interesting twists are if he's injured the wounds carry over into the next reboot so he can't just jump off a building and expect to wake up again. Also if he makes a significant difference in someone's life the person kind of remembers it and changes their mind about what they do in the new reboot day. The series tied most things together so it has a satifiing ending. The cop wakes up to a new day after he solves his problems. But they did have a bit with a recurring character that left room for more.

Glad to hear there might be more BSG in the form of Blood and Chrome.

I would recommend Seaquest and Sliders.  They kinda... start to suck in the last two seasons especially Sliders, but I think they're still worth watching.

To be more specific, JMS tried to sell B5 to Paramount who turned him down.  He even showed them his B5 bible which had all his plans for the entire series.  Speculation has it that they used or were inspired by a lot of it, and looking at how DS9 was so similar, it's hard to think otherwise.  That's not to say I didn't enjoy DS9 especially with the introduction of the Dominion.

YESYESYESYES: SPARTACUS!!!! Easily the best series ever created!

I cannot condone your recommendation of the David Lynch rendition of Dune. It simply does no justice to the books.

If you want Dune, go for the miniseries. Scratch that, go for the Chilren of Dune miniseries from the SyFy channel. The original Dune had some, well, nekkidness, in it.

Not a good choice for son, mom&dad to watch together. Note that the Children of Dune miniseries doesn't really need more than a passing knowledge of Dune.

Also note that the David Lynch's movie rendition of Dune was pretty good. It just wasn't accurate to the novels, or the Dune universe. On its own, or as an adaptation of the book, it does pretty well.

*sigh*. Guess I'll have to double post.

DO. NOT. WATCH. SPARTACUS. BLOOD IN THE SAND. EVAR.

If you do, I will hunt you down and gut you like a fish. Then I will sew you back up and feed your raw fish skins. Or would that be scales?

Last part was kidding, BTW. All-caps was not. I've read some reviews of Spartacus, and they all eviscerate the show, and then take the eviscerated viscera and hang them about a pitchfork, set them on fire, and then parade them about as an example of how bad that show is.

On the anime front, I recommend Code Geass:Lelouch of the Rebellion. You'll have to specify English dubs, but they're pretty good. Only two seasons for a total of some 50 episodes, but they had an excellent plot. Not as much 'scifi' as speculative fiction though, and adds some metaphysical/spiritual wierdness in some aspects. Overall though, I like it quite a bit. Engaging plot and characters.

Well I just did a quick search and gave up trying to find these so called reviews for Spartacus. IMDB gave it 8.8/10.

You seem to be pretty passionate about a show you never watched. Please link me to these reviews. The guy that wrote that one probably thought Driving Miss Daisy deserved an award. 

Sure it's not a show you'd watch with your parents, but it's not bad.  It's not fair to judge the show and pass on your feelings to others either if you haven't seen it.

Amen to that, brother.

Anyway though i prefer the continuous storyline of B5 to DS9, some of the DS9 episodes not related to main story arc: like Visitor, Duet or Its only a paper moon were really top notch.... and the main story arc episodes (Die is Cast, Call to Arms, Sacrifice to Angels, Tears of the Prophets...etc...) were indeed on par with B5 ones...

Both shows are IMHO alongside BSG the best what sci-fi genre has to offer...

Has anyone mentioned Andromeda ?  it has to be one of the best series i've seen. 5 seasons should keep you happy for a bit.

One that I will recommend you dont see is Roswell.  We tried it recently and it was pretty awful.  It's basically a teen drama (I wasnt aware of that beforehand...oops), but some of the angsty teens happen to be angsty teen aliens.  The writing and dialogue are terrible, the story moves along very slowly, and the lead character may have well as been played by a manikin, he's so wooden.  Seriously, a life-sized cardboard cut-out would have had more personality.

Avoid!

Sentient species taste better...