I enjoyed Atlantis too. I watched the original Stargate SG-1 for a couple of seasons, because we were really starved for more science fiction tv back then, since Deep Space Nine was finished, and science fiction was pretty rare. But I wouldn’t recommend the show to anyone now. But Atlantis was just better all around, I thought. I’m still not sure I’d recommend it now, since there’s so many good choices for good TV.
Nope, all the others I listed are series, although a couple are pretty short. I never played the Steins;gate game and still enjoyed the anime, for what that’s worth.
Lots of good folks on there, but I have to say, John Larroquette was absolutely my favorite.
Hey, I did! But it’s been a long time and it was pretty well-known, I just kinda assume now that everyone who was interested has already seen it.
Things no one has mentioned so far:
- Carnival Row is a pretty decent steampunk grimdark fantasy with faeries and whatnot.
- The Leftovers is sci-fi-ish in the same vein as Lost, but is the best show ever to air on television.
My wife and I loved the SG-1 series, but we haven’t watched it in well over a decade. We never watched the spinoffs.
As an aside, do the spinoffs have endings or were they cancelled prematurely?
Sure. But the sci-fi is all in the premise. There’s very little in the moment-to-moment narrative that turns on the sci-fi aspects, outside of a couple episodes a season. It’s basically a family-in-peril thriller, where the family happens to all be clones. The resolution to a problem is almost never magic tech. The setting is almost always modern day suburbia. A given episode is more likely to be about hiding something/one incriminating from the cops than it is to be about genetic warfare.
My own recommendations for jpinard:
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The 4400: Back when this first aired, the only superhero show I’d seen was the original X-men movie. So I really enjoyed this take on superheroes set in the modern world. The main mysteries of the show do get resolved, so don’t stay away just because it was eventually cancelled. The show is well made and it has heart.
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Lost in Space: I really enjoyed this new series. I have never seen the original, but I have seen the Matt Le Blanc movie from a decade or so ago. This series is way better than that, and I found it really enjoyable. It starts off with a lot of tension from the word go between the family members, which I found very uncomfortable and intriguing. And the writers know how to keep that tension going in a realistic way and when to resolve it.
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Travelers: I watched season 1, and it’s really different. It’s got great characters and a good premise. I’ll probably go back for Season 2, though it’s not necessary as I feel the main thrust of the story was finished at the end of Season 1.
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Stranger Things: You’ve probably already seen this, but it’s worth mentioning, just in case you haven’t. It’s excellent all 3 seasons so far.
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Russian Doll - Another Netflix show that I absolutely ended up loving, even though it starts off really weird and off-putting at first. It’s a groundhog day type of scenario.
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Umbrella Academy - You already mentioned watching this, but in case someone else drops by this thread for recommendations, I just want to add my agreement that this was a great show.
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Eureka - I enjoyed what I saw of this back in the mid 2000s, but I was starved for science fiction shows and good TV at that time. I’m not sure I’d recommend it to anyone now. There’s just much better stuff out there.
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Lost: You’ve probably already seen it, but if you haven’t, I’d say it’s worth the journey. Just don’t watch it for the main mystery, just enjoy each episode. And if the episode is about Evangeline Lilly’s character, feel free to be liberal with the fast forward button.
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Black Mirror: What an amazing show. It’s a modern day twilight zone. If you haven’t seen it, watch it. It’s really good. Just don’t binge it. Watch each episode, and think about it for a while.
Adding some older shows for @BennyProfane.
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Babylon 5: We were starved for good sci-fi in the 90s. I loved this show back then. It doesn’t hold up. I’ve been watching some re-runs on Comet lately. It is so bad. Bad music, hammy acting, soap opera feeling sets. It’s still got a good overall story, of course, but there’s so many better things to watch these days.
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Star Trek: The Original Series - Qt3 are collectively watching these again every week, you should join us. The original series is surprisingly good when watched in the broadcast order! There’s some clunkers, but I’m mostly very impressed at how well the show holds up.
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Star Trek: The Next Generation - excellent show. Again, lots of clunkers, but mostly great episodes, starting in Season 2.
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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - worth watching end to end. Great, great show that holds up. I love it.
With that over with, here’s the list of I’ve gathered from this thread so far for myself:
Farscape
Leftovers
Carnival Row
The Expanse
Fringe Season 2 onward
Counterpart
Legends of Tomorrow Season 2 onward
Travelers (Season 1 was great, I haven’t seen the rest yet)
The Middleman
The Rook
Humans
Colony
Altered Carbon
Penny Dreadful
Orphan Black
12 Monkeys (tv series)
Occupied
11.22.63
Defiance
Continuum
Ascension
The 100 Morons
Mr Robot
Anime
Orange
Steins;Gate
Plastic Memories
Melancoly of Haruhi Suzumiya
Oh I also recently enjoyed the first season of Project Blue Book.
Nobody has mentioned either Babylon 5 or Farscape yet. I think both are well worth watching, and no self-respecting SF fan can skip B5!
I totally overlooked Orphan Black earlier. Wonderful series, with award-winning performances!
There was an ending.
@Rock8man, if you enjoyed ST: Atlantis, you probably would enjoy the final few seasons of SG: 1, when they came up with Season Long Arcs and more space ship battles.
Sapphire and Steel. Fuck Doctor Who!
Fuckin’ new Dark Crystal show RULES!
Doom Patrol isn’t really superhero, more rejection of superhero. Neurotic dysfunctional people with powers they can’t control refusing to leave the house until they have to. I thought it was great.
Not me, dude. If I have an interest in it, I have a backlog for it.
I can’t get behind that. Babylon 5 is great stuff. Obviously this is going to be YMMV, but I can’t let that one pass without comment. It does have poor 90s effects and there are some seriously bad episodes - but I don’t think you’re going to find any show that hits it out of the park every time. If you like sci-fi, it’s hard to imagine you wouldn’t find something to like about B5.
Yeah, I just assume this has already been watched, years ago.
That’s a fair point, if you like sci-fi you’ve probably already seen B5.
What about The 100? Pretty cheesy but I hear it got fairly good (I am still working my way through it). It even has a thread all its own! The 100 morons
Also, has anyone mentioned Mr. Robot?
Just a couple of notes: I assume you know it is just The 100, we added Morons at first because it starts so badly. Stick with it, it gets better quickly.
Also, re Farscape: I know a lot of folks here and elsewhere were put off by the puppets, but I promise that if you stick with it, after a bit they become real characters, and you don’t even notice any more. It also starts slow, but once the principle villian, Scorpius, shows up, it really gets rolling.
I don’t know these people.
My parents have all of Farscape box set TV series prominently displayed on their bookshelf. Unfortunately, it’s on VHS, and I don’t have access to a working VCR anymore.
It’s on Prime Video, but there’s sooooo much good stuff to watch on Prime Video, I didn’t get to it yet.
Funny thing re: Farscape, I never seem to make it to the end. The original airing on sci-fi was fraught with massive gaps in the middle of seasons and other nonsense. I’ve watched most of the series, multiple times, including one with our kids, but never finished.
But what a marvelous weird, wacky, wonder of a show.
The 100 is great, even the first season is watchable.
Its final season will air next year (2020).
Mr Robot is amazing, must see TV that isn’t sci-fi in any sense that I can think of. Just very geeky.