The Greatest Sci-Fi Series or Franchise ever?

[Gallahadd]

I loved Farscape. When it aired I missed it till a season or 2 in thank fully it was on Netflix and I was able to finally able to watch it all.

Tbh, you didn't miss much in season 1. Farscape is one of my all time favourite shows, but the first season drags a bit XD. There are maybe a handful of episodes worth watching, but on the whole the show didn't REALLY kick off till season 2ish.

[Jakisuaki]

I really like Mass Effect

[Independent voter]

Deep Space 9

"Captain's Personal Log: Stardate 5-1-7... [unsure] 5-1-7... 4? Computer – what day is it?" "[COMPUTER VOICE] Stardate 51721.3." "It's only been two weeks... I need to talk about this. I have to justify what's happened... what I've done... at least to myself. I can't talk to anyone else... not even to Dax. Maybe if I just lay it all out in my log, it'll finally make sense... I can see where it all went wrong... where I went wrong... I suppose it started two weeks ago while I was posting the weekly casualty list in the wardroom... every Friday morning, for the past three months, I've posted the official list of Starfleet personnel killed, wounded or missing in the war. It's become something of a grim ritual around here. Not a week goes by that someone doesn't find the name of a loved one, a friend or an acquaintance on that damned list... I've grown to hate Fridays."

"That was the moment I made the decision. It was like I had stepped through a door and locked it behind me. I was going to bring the Romulans into the war."'

"My father used to say that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. I laid the first stone right there. I'd committed myself. I'd pay any price, go to any lengths, because my cause was righteous. My... intentions were good. In the beginning, that seemed like enough."

"If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that bad news invariably comes in the middle of the night."'

"Maybe I should have put a stop to it right there. Maybe I should have said, "Thank you very much for your input, Mister Garak, I will take your suggestion under advisement," and then gone back to my office and forgotten the whole thing. But I didn't. Because in my heart, I knew what he was saying made sense."

[Hammerfest]

Deep Space 9

It was truly the greatest of the post-TOS Star Trek shows. Nobody will be allowed to do anything like that again.

[Sixnalia]

I chose Babylon 5.

But would have chosen Red Dwarf if it were there.

[minkage]

I chose Babylon 5.

But would have chosen Red Dwarf if it were there.

Red Dwarf probably gets overlooked alot because its comedy and also because the comedy is very british. It is however very brilliant scifi at times and one of my fav shows of all time.

[Sixnalia]

Red Dwarf probably gets overlooked alot because its comedy and also because the comedy is very british. It is however very brilliant scifi at times and one of my fav shows of all time.

Yep. When most people list off Sci-Fi series, it'll often be drama with some comedy. Rather than a comedy with drama.

--------------------

I forgot to mention one I enjoyed a bit too, Eureka. One of the few things from SyFy I enjoyed, and it got cancelled one season early. (but luckily had time to change their schedule to finish the series off, even if a bit rushed.)

It was slightly repetitive until they began getting into the heavier story-arcs and multi-episode stories. But overall, it was an enjoyable approach to a common Sci-Fi/Fantasy trope.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I don't consider Star Wars science fiction. It's science fantasy:

- Star Wars' physics doesn't adhere to any consistent logic and is hardly ever explored. The only time it's a plot point is in episodes 5 and 1, when the ship's engine breaks, and even then the films don't go into depth about them. The stuff that is explained in the side materials places Star Wars in the "science in genre only" on Moh's scale of SF hardness. The politics, economics, industries, cultures, etc - the details - of a world or nation is skipped over, and is only touched upon lightly in the prequels (the prequels were my favorite because of this, and left me wanting more). Worlds are treated as scenery changes (we were on a forest planet for an hour, let's get stuck on a desert for another hour) or are in servitude to the whims of the plot (we go to desert planet #2 because that's where the enemy is building their robot army).
- The presence of spirituality: almost every science fiction series treats religion as either something that went extinct/relegated to cults when space exploration became the norm/aliens were met, made up to control people, or simply lore of the world. It's almost never treated seriously or as a plot point. Star Wars's entire story is based around the idea of an incorporeal force that some people can be trained to interact with, and how to use that force. It's magic in all but name.

As for my actual answer:

Gundam

I don't think there's a such thing as "the best franchise", but of all SF franchises, this is my favorite. The phlebtobium is consistent and thoroughly explained in the main series', and ways to develop the technology of the series is explored and a plot point. The entire premise over the story is that mankind found a way to harness the power of Helium-3 (thereby allowing for cheap interplanetary travel and the construction of off-world colonies). Because Gundam actually adheres to laws of newtonian physics (as opposed to Star War's idea that dogfights can occur in space), Gundam are practical: they have multiple limbs upon which to apply thrusters, allowing for the Gundams to actually be able to maneuver in space. The idea of humanity being divided because of eugenics (why would employers hire normal people over those with genetic enhancements?) is the entire story of one series. The politics, economics, and cultures of the world that developed in this hypothetetical future are thoroughly explored.

[baskev]

The Greatest Sci-Fi Series ever in your opinion?

Mine is Farscape hands fucking down.

Dude....how can you even ask this....All of them are great....
All have something special. But ill try... ( but might not succeed).


- Star Trek : great in its prime. But voyager and enterprise kinda sucked. But omg TNG and DS9 where epic. But its seems like they do not know what to do with it anymore.
- Star Wars : Same as star trek. But currently a bit weaker . Has great story's in legends...but that does not count in movies/tv.
- Battlestar Galactica: the fights and the rawness where great ( but misplaced as being called the first dark sci fi...farscape, ds9 and babylon 5 all had as dark moments as this show). And the whole ending and god stuff was weak.
- Farscape: Great show. Nice doing something that breaks the mold. Sadly it falls victim to the quantum leap story telling...the hero never knows peace.
- Dr Who: The OG....but sadly weird plot writing
- Stargate SG1: The one with the most epic story. It grew and became more and more story wise. But the story slowed down. And became weaker in the end.
- Other (Comment Below): space above and beyond, firefly, west world and honerry mention: dark angel.
- Babylon 5: Great story that was written in advance. Nice hero's and anti hero's. Kinda product of its time. Stands up to time. But was to short . and spin offs all failed.

So lets remove on what i dislike....Star trek and star wars both for the fact they are kinda messing around with it. And both have had highs and very low lows. BG also goes because of the whole god thing, dr who goes for the writing.

So that leaves farscape, stargate and babylon 5.

Lets look closer:

Story wise: Stargate had great growth over time, farscape had a bit weaker story. Babylon 5 wins because it was written in advance and feels like 1 big season instead of 5 or 10 small story arcs.

Acting: babylon 5 had some great acting...but also some weaker support. Stargate had the same problem, and the reuse of actors mad it worse. Farscape was great...so farscape wins.

Effects ( cgi): Farscape had little cgi so its out. Babylon 5 had great cgi but was used very sparsely and it did not grow with the serie. Stargate cgi grew, become bigger and more epic. So stargate wins.

Effects ( practical): not even going to touch this one....farscape wins.

Villains: Farscape had great villains but they where always far away or friendly for some reason. Babylon 5 had switching villains so it was nice. And stargate had great villains , but again sometimes very far away. Babylon 5 wins.

Support actors: Like i said babylon 5 was a bit weak here, Stargate reused to many of them. So farscape wins.


points:
babylon 5: 2
farscape: 3
stargate: 1

So top 3 would be
nr 1 : farscape
nr 2: babylon 5
nr 3: stargate

( and nr 4 star trek and star wars )

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[B]WOW [/B]for once i agree with Mall Security on something. Farscape is such an obscure show for most people and it shouldnt be. Its like a good mix of babylon 5 story structure, star trek episode of the week, knows how to be funny, knows how to be sexy, the props and costume even now look legit cool. Even terrible episodes still end up good because of how like able characters are. The smart use of props and sets really made it age well, because bad CGI is mostly just space stuff and is recent enough that it doesent break the visual.

I kinda like all the shows listed and more. Im a huge star wars nerd as well. Farscape is just something close to my heart, even if somebody doesent know the show, ill defend it to death. Plus Claudia Black voice always been instant boner, even in her, dragon age, mass effect and diablo 3 cameos.

lol...so true

[Doctor Amadeus]

Dude....how can you even ask this....All of them are great....
All have something special. But ill try... ( but might not succeed).


- Star Trek : great in its prime. But voyager and enterprise kinda sucked. But omg TNG and DS9 where epic. But its seems like they do not know what to do with it anymore.
- Star Wars : Same as star trek. But currently a bit weaker . Has great story's in legends...but that does not count in movies/tv.
- Battlestar Galactica: the fights and the rawness where great ( but misplaced as being called the first dark sci fi...farscape, ds9 and babylon 5 all had as dark moments as this show). And the whole ending and god stuff was weak.
- Farscape: Great show. Nice doing something that breaks the mold. Sadly it falls victim to the quantum leap story telling...the hero never knows peace.
- Dr Who: The OG....but sadly weird plot writing
- Stargate SG1: The one with the most epic story. It grew and became more and more story wise. But the story slowed down. And became weaker in the end.
- Other (Comment Below): space above and beyond, firefly, west world and honerry mention: dark angel.
- Babylon 5: Great story that was written in advance. Nice hero's and anti hero's. Kinda product of its time. Stands up to time. But was to short . and spin offs all failed.

So lets remove on what i dislike....Star trek and star wars both for the fact they are kinda messing around with it. And both have had highs and very low lows. BG also goes because of the whole god thing, dr who goes for the writing.

So that leaves farscape, stargate and babylon 5.

Lets look closer:

Story wise: Stargate had great growth over time, farscape had a bit weaker story. Babylon 5 wins because it was written in advance and feels like 1 big season instead of 5 or 10 small story arcs.

Acting: babylon 5 had some great acting...but also some weaker support. Stargate had the same problem, and the reuse of actors mad it worse. Farscape was great...so farscape wins.

Effects ( cgi): Farscape had little cgi so its out. Babylon 5 had great cgi but was used very sparsely and it did not grow with the serie. Stargate cgi grew, become bigger and more epic. So stargate wins.

Effects ( practical): not even going to touch this one....farscape wins.

Villains: Farscape had great villains but they where always far away or friendly for some reason. Babylon 5 had switching villains so it was nice. And stargate had great villains , but again sometimes very far away. Babylon 5 wins.

Support actors: Like i said babylon 5 was a bit weak here, Stargate reused to many of them. So farscape wins.


points:
babylon 5: 2
farscape: 3
stargate: 1

So top 3 would be
nr 1 : farscape
nr 2: babylon 5
nr 3: stargate

( and nr 4 star trek and star wars )

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lol...so true

Honestly I really love the breakdown, not often you can get those that can articulate what it is they like and why, and also be objective along points and being specific.

BUT, I am going to say Farscape wins for a bit of a different reason, and using the scale that you gave, I have to honestly say there are some things, I felt missing over all.

Where I agree is that Farscape is the best.

Where we may not see eye to eye is on the elements and I do mean the tried and true traditions of storytelling which is to tell a write something I care about, make it believable, arrange that in a way that makes sense.

Now obviously that is debatable especially considering over time those elements have been tested for instance making a story something that makes sense. Well sometimes a script or a story may have intentional gaps, but if it isn't intentional and for the over all progression of the story, well then I think it's out.


Star Trek as a whole has always been about dynamic storytelling, about exploration and making the viewer relate and care about the material being presented. I think some of Star Trek as a franchise better stories happened when there was CGI, however it doesn't mean that the CGI later made it a worse story, it just simply adopted a lot of other problems.

Star Treks best episode IMO from the classic series where Kirk and Spock went back in time, Kirk fell in love with a woman he would ultimately have to let die, otherwise jeopardize the future by changing something that happened along a timeline that resulted in where they were from.

However Star Trek TNG, went even better with the introductions in the first seasons and the over all progressions where CGI wasn't overused at all, it was simply done so in a way to facilitate a better story, how else could you literally being a kind of Space Vampire like "The Borg" of sorts without it, take a situation where we pick up the further adventures of the starship Enterprise, as it has made major advancements, since it's previous incarnations on end to being a serious for in the galaxy, to being dwarfed again, by this literal nightmare that was antithesis of everything this new Starfleet Federation stood for.


Star Wars I would say avoided this, their problem is that they saturated the audience with so much nuance the over all progression was hard pinpoint, am I supposed to care about Luke finally come to terms with his destiny, or am I supposed to care about Leia and Han or maybe it supposed to be these ewoks. As far as further tellings like the Prequels the same thing goes, am I following the progression of Anakin, or the rise of this Empire as it relates to the Galaxy.

However the reason I didn't pick either SW or ST even though I love both is because with the wealth and history it has, it still has managed to get away from itself. The problem wasn't CGI or story, but the fact neither has progressed with the story, and in the attempted to be ambitious got away from following basics.

To be continued...

[Arrowstormen]

I haven't watched Star Trek shows, Farscape or Stargate (and technically not Battlestar Galactica either), but I believe Babylon 5 is the greatest story ever told, so I'd be surprised if there was another series out there that could beat it in my book.

[baskev]

Honestly I really love the breakdown, not often you can get those that can articulate what it is they like and why, and also be objective along points and being specific.

BUT, I am going to say Farscape wins for a bit of a different reason, and using the scale that you gave, I have to honestly say there are some things, I felt missing over all.

Where I agree is that Farscape is the best.

Where we may not see eye to eye is on the elements and I do mean the tried and true traditions of storytelling which is to tell a write something I care about, make it believable, arrange that in a way that makes sense.

Now obviously that is debatable especially considering over time those elements have been tested for instance making a story something that makes sense. Well sometimes a script or a story may have intentional gaps, but if it isn't intentional and for the over all progression of the story, well then I think it's out.


Star Trek as a whole has always been about dynamic storytelling, about exploration and making the viewer relate and care about the material being presented. I think some of Star Trek as a franchise better stories happened when there was CGI, however it doesn't mean that the CGI later made it a worse story, it just simply adopted a lot of other problems.

Star Treks best episode IMO from the classic series where Kirk and Spock went back in time, Kirk fell in love with a woman he would ultimately have to let die, otherwise jeopardize the future by changing something that happened along a timeline that resulted in where they were from.

However Star Trek TNG, went even better with the introductions in the first seasons and the over all progressions where CGI wasn't overused at all, it was simply done so in a way to facilitate a better story, how else could you literally being a kind of Space Vampire like "The Borg" of sorts without it, take a situation where we pick up the further adventures of the starship Enterprise, as it has made major advancements, since it's previous incarnations on end to being a serious for in the galaxy, to being dwarfed again, by this literal nightmare that was antithesis of everything this new Starfleet Federation stood for.


Star Wars I would say avoided this, their problem is that they saturated the audience with so much nuance the over all progression was hard pinpoint, am I supposed to care about Luke finally come to terms with his destiny, or am I supposed to care about Leia and Han or maybe it supposed to be these ewoks. As far as further tellings like the Prequels the same thing goes, am I following the progression of Anakin, or the rise of this Empire as it relates to the Galaxy.

However the reason I didn't pick either SW or ST even though I love both is because with the wealth and history it has, it still has managed to get away from itself. The problem wasn't CGI or story, but the fact neither has progressed with the story, and in the attempted to be ambitious got away from following basics.

To be continued...

Yup that is the long explanation of what i thought...( try not to write that long or people will not read it ).

And thanks always try to have a open mind for things like this.

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I haven't watched Star Trek shows, Farscape or Stargate (and technically not Battlestar Galactica either), but I believe Babylon 5 is the greatest story ever told, so I'd be surprised if there was another series out there that could beat it in my book.

WHAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

Okay you can do chronological star trek that means: Enterprise, TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager. But i would say go for the last 2 first or start with the next generation. You like babylon 5...so i would suggest DS9..it has somewhat the same feel.

Farscape is fantastic. But you must really like sci fi to like it.

Stargate is a hard watch the first 1 or 2 seaons ( a bit cringy lower budget stuff. But later seasons it goes into epic stuff). But it grows ALLOT after that. If you like to try a bite size stargate go for atlantis first.

And bsg tos or the new one?
Tos you should watch when you watch star trek tos...And the new series....watch it after star trek and farscape...it will leave a bad taste in your mouth if you do it any other way.

[jdbond592]

Farscape, Firefly....

[Arrowstormen]

WHAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

Okay you can do chronological star trek that means: Enterprise, TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager. But i would say go for the last 2 first or start with the next generation. You like babylon 5...so i would suggest DS9..it has somewhat the same feel.

Farscape is fantastic. But you must really like sci fi to like it.

Stargate is a hard watch the first 1 or 2 seaons ( a bit cringy lower budget stuff. But later seasons it goes into epic stuff). But it grows ALLOT after that. If you like to try a bite size stargate go for atlantis first.

And bsg tos or the new one?
Tos you should watch when you watch star trek tos...And the new series....watch it after star trek and farscape...it will leave a bad taste in your mouth if you do it any other way.

I'd probably enjoy Star Trek (or at least some of them), but I have higher priorities on my watchlist currently. I suspect I will find DS9 to be an inferior Babylon 5.

[baskev]

I'd probably enjoy Star Trek (or at least some of them), but I have higher priorities on my watchlist currently. I suspect I will find DS9 to be an inferior Babylon 5.

Oohh yeah some will be less fun for you. And i would not say DS9 is worse then babylon 5...its different. Nothing can tip the long story of B5.