Well, I’ve downloaded, completely randomly, the three seasons of Stargate: Atlantis. I can tell you right away this is one of the worse show I have ever seen. I’m still watching the shows cuz they’re on my computer and there’s nothing else to watch, but heck… Bad actors, bad scenario, stupid jokes, people who are about to die but make their freakin jokes, no surprises whatsoever, everything predictible… Well, at least the special effects are kind of allright. Have you ever seen worse than this show?
Yeah, that Roddenberry created show with the former Hercules as a captain of a space ship. Dude can’t act, show is poorly written.
Dumb, dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb…
Oh yeah, that Andy-drama-duh show, or whatever it was… it was pretty lame…(and for the record, the finished product hardly resembled Roddenberry’s original vision; it seemed more loosely based around his concept for the show).
The new Battlestar Galactica is AMAZING. Seriously, the only worthwhile show on television.
But I reriously can’t understand why they would make shows that are so bad. Is it because there is a big audience for bad scenarios and stories, and bad acting? Why can’t they simply make good shows out of these? In Stargate: Atlantis the basic idea is good. Why do they have to ruin it?
Maybe one explanation is that the actors, being so bad, are cheap, and the scenarios, being so bad, are cheap to write and to put on the screen. So maybe Sci-fi channel makes enough money with bad shows, and would not make much more with a better show, which would be much more expensive to create. It must be a business decision, I can’t believe they’re doing bad shows because they can’t do better.
You are forgetting what I call the “cringe” factor, i.e. its so bad it makes you cringe. Some people call this “camp”. Ever since the really terrible low-budget sci-fi films of the 1940s-50s, there has been an audience for truly awful horror and sci-fi. The Space channel in Canada devotes more time to cringe programming than to aything else. You hit all the main points: its cheaply made by cheap people using cheap resources. Also, there is plenty of it available. I have not seen any truly imaginitive sci-fi tv since Babylon5 or Farscape, and that’s not saying much.
djm
There were several “High Costume Drama” productions on over Christmas here in the United States of Britain, such as Nicholas Nickleby, and I found them all slow and turgid, and couldn’t bear to sit through them.
We’ve been watching Torchwood, a spinoff from Dr Who, and the last epsiode featuring full on man-to-man kisses (more than once) was a bit much.
We tend to watch DVDs of series we know we liked, like MacGyver, Sliders or Quantum Leap, if we need a bit of gogglebox time.
Yeah, Babylon 5 was amazing. From what I’ve heard, budget was limited and the american public was not used to shows that were continuous, had a developing story.
I agree that the new BSG is one of the best sci-fi show I have seen.
But coming back to Stargate, darn, I mean, I could go there and make the scenario better! I know I could! It’s so dump sometimes I would just tell me to cut the crap, make it a little more serious, I would plug the big illogical holes, and I’m sure I could make it much better than it is, even with the poor acting. Hehe.
We do have SF (Sorry, I was brought up to dis the term “SciFi”) TV in the UK.
I watched (some of) Torchwood last night. It had a pretty good monster at one point, but a few gratuitous Gay Snogs. Maybe it will boost their ratings. I don’t know.
The Christmas Dr Who was amusing. Catharine Tate played a very bitchy bride failing to get to the Wedding on time. In a Time Machine. Nice one, BBC! 
The thing that’s wrong with Torchwood isn’t the man love, it’s the fact that for a super secret team of alien hunters, who have the resources to build Canary Wharff and seem to be involved in much of the underhand stuff that goes on to thwart the alien menace, they’re a bit rubbish. How many times have they revealed secrets to strangers, let their feelings get in the way of their job or just ran headfirst through an open doorway so they can be shot? And they have the gall to call the army amateurs.
Aside from that the first couple of episodes were good and the last couple were alright. Everything in between was a bit of a slog.
I just downloaded 11 episodes of Torchwood, but haven’t seen
'em yet. Sounded like an amusing premise when it came up in the
Dr. Who Victorian Werewolf episode. I must say, though I’ve
been ecstatic about this past season (series, whatever) of Dr. Who.
Excellent stuff.
But the absolute worst crap tv sci-fi in recent history has to be the Lexx series. This was such a major disappointment after such excellent production design and top notch animation went into it. The stories and dialogue were written by and for seven year olds. Sometimes I find my hand involuntarily reaching out for a gun … 
djm
Oh yeah that sucked big time. I could not understand, how, at the time, someone could watch such a show.
Now that I remember, anyone have ever seen a show called something like “Police Presinct” about some police department fighting alien forces on the planet. I think the main actor was the guy who used to play JR. and Bobby Ewing’s brother in “Dallas”. My goodness, Lexx did look like a masterpiece compared to this.
Wasn’t that a Gerry Anderson creation with puppets a la Thunderbirds?
Actually wikipedia says that as called Space Precinct
There was a film like that … Space Sphincters or something like that … yeah, that’s what it was, only it doesn’t show up in IMDb cuz Homeland Security runs that now, and you’re not supposed to know that film ever existed, even though millions of people saw it, but they figure, if they tell us enough times that it never existed, and if we can’t find it in IMDb, then we’ll believe it never existed, too. Yuh know? 
djm
Farscape went bad fairly early on. In much the same way as people groaned “it’s the holodeck again” when Star Trek “Next” went costume, people groaned “It’s inner space again” any time the Farscape script-writers couldn’t be bothered to write a new episode and trawled through the wardrobe to recycle old costumes.
I think Science Fiction is going to have a lean generation for the next fiteen years, and if there’s still any technology after that, there’ll be a resurgence of SF.
There are plenty of excellent sci-fi books that would make great movies or series. The Dorsai series by Gordon Dickson comes to mind.
I rented the first disc of Stargate Atlantis and decided that was enough- for all the reasons Azalin listed. Never got around to Farscape. Saw a couple of episodes. Someone recommended it to me recently because he liked the premise of a sentient spaceship, but now you guys have talked me out of it.
Agree, Battlestar Galactica is the best thing I’ve seen on tv (actually dvd) for years, as far as sci-fi goes. I loved Firefly, too.
Tony
No, go ahead and try the first few episodes of Farscape. Make up your own mind. Its clear to me that we all of us have our own personal agendas with regards to likes and dislikes in sci-fi.
Speaking of sf novels coverted to film, I recently saw “A Scanner Darkly”, one of PK Dick’s most paranoid druggy books. I couldn’t imagine it becoming a film, but they did a very faithful rendition, and its much funnier as a film than as a book, I thought.
djm
My best three favorites sci-fi shows are Space: Above and Beyond, and BSG, and Babylon 5. I’m not sure which I like better. I think the best shows of “Space” will be forever hard to beat. Babylon 5 suffered from lack of money for special effects but had everything else, Strasinsky (sorry for the messed up name) is a genius and an amazing story teller.
I have to admit I really liked Star Trek: Enterprise. Is something wrong with me? 
Yes, seriously wrong. ST:E had all the look and feel of a 1960s sit-com, like Gilligan’s Island. Thankfully, it was pulled early before any more shame could be heaped on Roddenberry’s legacy.
djm