[Astra]

I just finished to see season 1.
Liked the series a lot.

I have not seen any series for the last 6 years.

What would you suggest? Mystery/Fantasy/Sci-Fi - but less taking, more action. Contemporary. Maybe something like x_Files but more up to date.
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Season 1 was really good.

Please no suggestions such as Babilon...where humans dress as aliens and walk around and talk as if they are not humans...

[Aptorian]

Fringe - sort of like x-files, more gorey, less scary.
Supernatural - Two brothers who hunt monsters. Sort of like Buffy the vampire slayer and Angel.
Stargate SG-1 - Like Star Trek only with wormholes. A lot of shooting and spaceships and MacGyver.
Alias - Like James Bond and Mission Impossible and Victorias Secret wrapped in a package.
Smallville - Superman as a teenager. Awesome budget. Not so clever storyline.
Battlestar Gallactica - Everything that Star Trek never was. Gritty space war, a little talky but utterly ruthless.
Lost - A bunch of planecrash survivors on a very spooky island. It gets better and better and then not so much but then it gets good again.
Heroes - X-mens mutants in all but name and form. There's a brain eating guy. Must see.
The 4400 - It was sort of interesting for a while but it's not great in any way or form.

[Lisheo]

I'd recommend Supernatural, even I watch it whenever I can, and I hate TV.

[frookenhauer]

I have a feeling Apt may occasionally sit in front of a box, but judging by his enormous post count, I reckon he is actually a conjoined twin sharing a brain or something. One watches TV, while the other fires off posts all day long.

[Aptorian]

I spend a lot of time in front of computers pretending to take notes from what ever book I'm reading. Don't watch much TV just watch streams of the series I like.

[Abyss]

Astra, on Nov 3 2008, 04:54 PM, said:

I just finished to see season 1.
Liked the series a lot.

I have not seen any series for the last 6 years.

What would you suggest? Mystery/Fantasy/Sci-Fi - but less taking, more action. Contemporary. Maybe something like x_Files but more up to date.
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Season 1 was really good.

Please no suggestions such as Babilon...where humans dress as aliens and walk around and talk as if they are not humans...

I'm liking FRINGE a lot. Like X-Files with more mad scientist and less alien silliness.

In DVD/downloadland, I don't know if you'd enjoy BUFFY, but the ANGEL series spin-off might be to your liking and easy enuf to pick up anything you missed from the internut. Also, ALIAS S1 is fun, S2 is brilliant, S3 is ok'ish and we'll all pretend S4 never happened.


- Abyss, lalalaneverhappenedlalalala

[Sir Thursday]

Aptorian, on Nov 3 2008, 09:12 PM, said:

The 4400 - It was sort of interesting for a while but it's not great in any way or form.

I'm a big fan of the 4400, mainly because it's pretty much the only Sci-fi type show where what is going on is allowed to have world changing ramifications by the writers. Unlike, Heroes, or Fringe, or Smallville, or SG-1, the stuff that's going down completely changes the world we live in (especially the later seasons), to create a very dystopic future, especially in Seattle, where the show is set. It didn't do 'Monster of the Week' especially well, but the ongoing plotlines were interesting and kept changing as the show went on.

I'll admit that the original miniseries was horrible (especially the highschool bits :bleuch:) but when they turned it into a full series they cut those bits out, and made it much better. In terms of comparing it to Terminator, I'll say this - the central plot device involves people from the future trying to fix things by moving people about in time, and it features this man. I'm a big fan of the main character, Tom Baldwin, so I'll give it a plus for characterization, although I don't like Nina Skouris, his partner, quite as much. Another plus, it features the actor with the greatest name ever: Mahershalalhashbaz Ali.

In any case, my recommendation if you want to give this a try is to push through the miniseries, and get on to the show proper. The tone changes every season - Season 2 (the first one after the miniseries) is set around the new discoveries that are being made about the returnees, Season 3 features supernatural terrorism, and Season 4...well, I won't spoil it.


Sir Thursday

[Aptorian]

It's actually gone all the way up to season 4? I thought it stopped around the time Billionaire MOgul/messiah guy returns.

I may have to look into this.

I liked the setting and some of their more balls'y moves plotwise but the episodes themselves were often, well... awfull.

[Sir Thursday]

Aptorian, on Nov 4 2008, 05:26 PM, said:

It's actually gone all the way up to season 4? I thought it stopped around the time Billionaire MOgul/messiah guy returns.

I may have to look into this.

I liked the setting and some of their more balls'y moves plotwise but the episodes themselves were often, well... awfull.

If you count the mini-series as a Season, then yes, it ran 4 seasons before it got cancelled. And despite a bad choice regarding 'The Marked', the last was the best. The way they finished off that last episode...daaamn.

Like I said, when they did '4400 of the Week', they quite often failed, but the major plot arcs were awesome.


Sir Thursday

[Astra]

Thanks a lot, I have compiled a short list including your suggestions and some from another forum:

Heroes - X-mens mutants in all but name and form. There's a brain eating guy. Must see.

Lost - A bunch of planecrash survivors on a very spooky island. It gets better and better and then not so much but then it gets good again.

Fringe - sort of like x-files, more gorey, less scary

4400 - It was sort of interesting for a while but it's not great in any way or form

Jericho

Invasion

Regenesis

Total Recall

Firefly

Lost Room

Monk

Lone Gunman

Threshold

Surface

Supernatural - Two brothers who hunt monsters. Sort of like Buffy the vampire slayer and Angel.

Alias - Like James Bond and Mission Impossible and Victorias Secret wrapped in a package

[Aptorian]

Don't bother watching Invasion. First of it's a cancelled series, so any thing it builds up will not be fullfilled. The story is crap. Basically it's a bunch of people being taken over by water... thingies.

Lone Gunman(men?) was fun. It was a shame they cancelled it. It's about the three stooges that Mulder (x-files) used to work together with when he was trying to uncover government conspiracies.

Monk is not sci-fi. It's a crimedrama about a highly neurotic ex police officer who works as a consultant for the police. It's really great if you like the character. Sort of like Mudrer She Wrote and Columbo, just more funny.

Firefly is completely awesome once you get past the first few bad episodes. Cowboys in space!

I've only seen a couple of episodes of Jericho, but basically it's a post nuclear attack drama. Like 9/11 only on a national... global? scale.

Don't know anything about the rest. Threshold sounds interesting.

[Stalker]

I would really recommend Firefly, thought it was a great show, and was very sad that it got cancelled.

I would also say that Threshold was a good show, it was. However, it was one of those shows where many questions were raised, yet none were answered due to the show being cancelled.

It's disappointing that all the interesting shows get cancelled.

[Astra]

Stalker, on Nov 5 2008, 01:39 AM, said:

I would really recommend Firefly, thought it was a great show, and was very sad that it got cancelled.

I would also say that Threshold was a good show, it was. However, it was one of those shows where many questions were raised, yet none were answered due to the show being cancelled.

It's disappointing that all the interesting shows get cancelled.

When you say: Cancelled, what do you mean? They ceased to broadcast it in your country, they stopped filming new seasons/episods?

[Stalker]

When I say cancelled I mean no new episodes are filmed. Threshold may still air some episodes in other countries but they aren't making new episodes, to my knowledge, as I saw an article about how it was cancelled. There were about 10 episodes aired before it went off-air.

[Abyss]

THRESHOLD, along with INVASION and SURFACE (aka FATHOM), were part of what happens when networks scrambled to replicate the success of LOST's first season and failed utterly and completely.

It was quite astounding to watch, three series, all released at the same time, all dealing with alien invasions of some sort (terraforming interstellar radio frequencies, teleporting viruses and aquatic DNA seeding if my not actually having watched the shows memory serves me), all with boring archetype characters, dull/slow plots and massive effects budgets for only the first ep. Iirc, only Invasion managed to complete its season.

As a general rule, any time a show is a success, other networks will try to build on it by picking up other shows of similar flavour, and usually fail miserably. Look at every post FRIENDS young adults sitcom for a few years after that show went off the air, every medical drama since ER's first season until GREYS and HOUSE came along years later, etc etc.

Curiously no one tried to rip off HEROES, mostly because no one came up with a suitably similar yet different idea... unless you want to ref 2007's BIONIC WOMAN and really, the less said about that the better.

next up will likely be Whedon's DOLLHOUSE in January. While Fox powered out MY OWN WORSE ENEMY to get it on the air in Sept so that it seems DOLLHOUSE is ripping them off, everyone in the know knows, and anyways, Whedon has a built-in following even before we get into the sick twisted fans giddy over the idea of rewriting Eliza Dushku's brain however they want. Let's face it... Eliza Dushku on the one hand, Christian Slater on the other... no contest.

But back to series worth checking out, i hear good things about spy series MI6. I am totally into serial killer with a heart drama DEXTER and think it obscenely clever. In the historical drama zone DEADWOOD and ROME get excellent press.

- Abyss, as seen on TV...

[Astra]

Astra, on Nov 4 2008, 09:32 PM, said:

Thanks a lot, I have compiled a short list including your suggestions and some from another forum:

Heroes - X-mens mutants in all but name and form. There's a brain eating guy. Must see.

Lost - A bunch of planecrash survivors on a very spooky island. It gets better and better and then not so much but then it gets good again.

Fringe - sort of like x-files, more gorey, less scary

4400 - It was sort of interesting for a while but it's not great in any way or form

Jericho

Invasion

Regenesis

Total Recall

Firefly

Lost Room

Monk

Lone Gunman

Threshold

Surface

Supernatural - Two brothers who hunt monsters. Sort of like Buffy the vampire slayer and Angel.

Alias - Like James Bond and Mission Impossible and Victorias Secret wrapped in a package

OK. Then next question.
What series have been canceled with cliff hangers from the list above?

[RodeoRanch]

Supernatural is great.

[GardenGnome]

Firefly is the greatest.

[Use Of Weapons]

If you haven't seen the miniseries of the Dresden Files, do give it a try -- it's well worth a look. There's a bit of a step-change in Harry's power levels when the episode based on Storm Front arrives, but in general the series hangs together well.

Also, Blood Ties is pretty watchable -- based on the Tanya Huff 'Vicki Nelson' series.

Of those already mentioned, have to go with Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, and Heroes -- probably the best SF TV ever, certainly in the last decade.

[Astra]

GardenGnome, on Nov 6 2008, 02:42 PM, said:

Firefly is the greatest.

Stalker says it has been cancelled?