I just finished the series. Some of the episodes I was seriously like wtf? The cartoon one comes to mind. A lot of the romance arcs were stupid as well. Some of it was the best sci-fi I have ever seen, especially the "Unrealized Reality" one. I thought it really fell off at the beginning of season 4. Overall, I would put it after Firefly and BSG.
Definitely Firefly. As many has mentioned, it is short, but that shouldn't stop you from watching one of the best series ever.
How bad is the ending? Makes me not want to waste my time and watch it... Does Firefly have a conclusion even though it didn`t last long?
The reactions to the ending seemed to be a bit polarizing with the side that hated it being pretty vocal. The ending was fine with me and hardly ruined the series. Firefly the series ended pretty much right as it was getting very good. Fortunately the movie Serenity was pretty much as good of a way to end a short lived series as possible. You are left wanting more but the story is complete.
I thought the ending of BSG was pretty good. Except the part about Starbuck. I do not want to share any spoilers for anyone else, so I will not say anything specific about that ending. But the way they ended it with her really kind of pissed me off.
Bsg was great, but they built up the last season to the point where I thought the fillers were anticlimactic. The ending was decent. I thought it didn't match the hype.
Firefly concludes with the movie serenity. A nice wrapup to the shortlived series. As for BSG, I personally found the last season and the ending horrid, but your view may vary (as others have noted). However polarizing the ending, the rest of the series itself isnt... its damn good. My main objections to the ending is Spoiler [for me] it ruined the motivations and rationales and actions of the characters of Baltar, starbuck, and the six. Having them being dictated by GODS or being themselves being an ANGEL makes every decision and action they took irrelevant in the previous season. They were agent of god/gods their actions were therefore always going to work out, no matter the choice. Having starbuck as an angel or whatever was even more ludicrous... looking back at prior seasons it thus seemed silly to worry about the fate of baltar or starbuck or even the galactica as they were either being guided by god or protected by an angel. There are many other reasons i vaguely recall being horrified by the ending but the last one i'll note is, wtf were they thinking sending their ships into space? Did the writers seriously believed these people would willingly want to go back to the stone ages, with no shelter, medicine, transportion or technology? Do they really believe that a colony of people who had just barely survived war and extinction would just flippantly destroy their weapons and starships at first peace.
I agree that both Firefly and BSG are excellent shows (I haven't seen Caprica yet), but Firefly was aired on Fox, not on Sci-Fi.
Farscape was awesome, but the miniseries that was created to replace the final season was too rushed and left me flat. Chiana was delicious. "Crackers Dont Matter" is one of the funniest episodes ever.
Another vote for Firefly with, as mentioned, the movie Serenity. You get a nice, not too long, show that ends in a reasonably satisfying way (but it still sucked that it actually ended). Second would be Battlestar Gallactica. The only problem I have with BSG is that there were some filler episodes in the middle that were kind of boring.
The previous posters kind of took the words out of my mouth, but I'll post anyway. Stargate SG1 is a fantastic show. The fact that it went 10 seasons is proof of this- a sci-fi show has legs if it goes half that long. BSG, of course. A total game-changer for Sci-Fi shows. Stargate Atlantis was a pleasant surprise for me. I liked it every bit as much as SG1. It's a travesty that they ended it so they could make that BSG knockoff, SGU. Firefly is up there, but tremendously short (it's why I don't like watching new shows). The movie does cap it well. Lost is one of the best ever, and it's a sci-fi show. I loved Farscape when it was out in the late 90s, but I tried to re-watch it with my wife recently and couldn't get into it. It has a British feel to it. Great, fantastical characters. Dr. Who is a must for any sci-fi fan, particularly the Tom Baker years. It's low-budget, pure sci-fi, so if you're looking for action and bang, look elsewhere. Red Dwarf is a British comedy based on a giant spaceship. Has some sci-fi elements and plot devices. The X-Files was a victim of it's own success. It was very good for a while but it got stale. Still worth a watch. Going farther back, I really enjoyed the 90s version of the Outer Limits. I never got into any of the Star Trek shows so I can't comment on them. Shifting a little, you can't miss with Buffy or Angel- both good shows.
I'm a big sci-fi fan but I never liked Firefly and don't really get the appeal. I get it its a Western in space but does that mean you really need to then also use clothes, weapons and even dialogue from a western? I found stuff like that as getting in the way of the story and action than helping it. If we are talking sci-fi series that aired on Fox in the 90's there was a series called Space, Above and Beyond that dealt with a platoon of space marines in the midst of a war with an enemy. It had a grittier feel than a lot of the sci-fi produced at the time and was influenced more by Saving Private Ryan than Star Trek. I'm glad to see DS9 getting a lot of appreciation as I think during its run it was underappreciated and overshadowed first by TNG and then by the much inferior Voyager. DS9 was Star Trek growing beyond the utopian vision of Roddenbury to a more complex and morally ambiguous view of the future. I also think it had some of the best acting of any sci-fi show including the BSG.
I don't understand the BSG love fest. As someone mentioned it is like watching days of our lives in space. A few episodes are ok and most of the acting is not bad (just average). But the writing is cheesy as hell, kind of soap operish (they seem to just throw in sex scenes for absolutely no reason). There is not a single likable character, in fact most of them are annoying. I just couldn't to get into this show, gave up midway through season 2 and thats after fast forwarding through most of it. If you want a smart, well written Sci-Fi show i suggest you go with Star Trek DS9 and TNG. I'm gonna try Firefly and Babylon 5 next.
I wish I could take the time to write exactly how I feel about Dr.Who.... How great each episode is and how it almost never let me down.... The adventures here are endless, one night you will find yourself on an abandoned space ship and the next you will find yourself in a haunted little town...... The show is the most original from all the ones being mentioned. I loved firefly, Xfiles, Outer Limits and so on but none of these shows can come close to what Dr.Who has to offer (my opinion)... I have not gotten to the older shows yet but I know the new ones have been great featuring David Tennant who is suppose to be the best Doctor of all times.....
I wouldn't recommend BSG to my worst enemy! It's awful. I watched 4 seasons and i can't believe how religious it became towards the ends. And the story? Cylons, Cylons on the crew, MORE Cylons on the crew. If you decide to watch BSG, watch the first 2 seasons and stop watching after that. Now i'm watching Stargate (finished SG-1, now watching Atlantis) and i love the show. There are really funny episodes. If you decide to watch Stargate here's canonical order of how to watch it: 1. Stargate movie 2. Stargate SG-1, episodes 1.1 to 8.2 3. Stargate Atlantis, episodes 1.1 to 1.15 4. Stargate SG-1, episodes 8.3 to 8.20 5. Stargate Atlantis, episodes 1.16 to 2.1 6. Stargate SG-1, episodes 9.1 to 10.2 7. Stargate Atlantis, episodes 2.2 to 3.4 8. Stargate SG-1, episodes 10.3 to 10.12 9. Stargate Atlantis, episodes 3.5 to 3.19 10. Stargate SG-1, episodes 10.13 to 10.20 11. Stargate: The Ark of Truth 12. Stargate Atlantis, episodes 3.20 to 5.1 13. Stargate: Continuum 14. Stargate Atlantis, episodes 5.2 onwards. 15. Stargate Universe, episodes 1.1 onwards And yeah, nothing beats Star Trek.
Recent Doctor Who episodes have been great. I'll miss David Tennant. Torchwood hasn't been too bad, either. Besides the obvious shows, which have been discussed now ad nauseam, check out Fringe (on Fox). The first few episodes dragged, but then the series really took off.
