Quote from: Professah Byah on 17 March, 2012, 04:58:20 PM
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 17 March, 2012, 04:39:44 PM
Picard is better than Kirk.
Obvious Troll is not even trying.
All right then {rolls up trollsleeves} JMS is better than GR and B5 is better than ST.
Still not trying. It was outside talent that made Trek great, not GR himself, he just came up with the concept, though JMS is a polarising figure, so you might get someone who hates him enough - and there are plenty - to bite on that one and tell you that GR wasn't just a poon-hound who got lucky.
As for B5 being better than Trek, I'm afraid you're trying too hard with that one, as in order to successfully troll, one must seem at least remotely sincere rather than just throwing out huge, laughably wrong statements in the hope someone is infuriated by them and doesn't view you with pity and concern.
But B5 is better than ST. It's better written, better acted, better realised and has better continuity. I'd put the best episodes of B5 (like The Coming of Shadows, In The Shadow Of Z'ha'dum, Into The Fire, Endgame, The Deconstruction Of Falling Stars, Intersections in Real time, etc., etc.) up against the best Trek episodes any day. A great episode of Trek virtually always re-sets at the end - although they did try harder with the latter seasons of DS9 - whilst B5 evolves from episode to episode, taking the audience on a proper '5 year mission' instead of just faffing about week by re-setting week.
I'd also put the first B5 movie In the Beginning above every Trek movie except Wrath of Kahn and (maybe) the 2009 re-boot. Admittedly, the other B5 movies are not quite as good but are still better than the odd-numbered Trek movies.
Don't get me wrong, I do like my Trek and the series has inspired both real and fictional science since the Sixties, but just because it's been around for longer and broke some ground in the past doesn't make it unassailable.
B5 is better.
Not meaning to be a troll.... but I largely agree.
That being said I really like the Star Trek films (even the bad ones, The Motion Picture being an exception, but I'd even like to give that another go) and the universe they created.
Actually it would probably be more accurate to say, I like Babylon 5 better in some ways than Star Trek.
Strangely, I was put off by B5 on seeing the first series when it first came out. It seemed just like a soap opera set in space. I didn't watch it for a good while after that, then caught it later when it was getting really exciting. On watching the episodes, including the older stuff, I was struck at how good it actually is, especially from a series arc perspective.
Some of the characters are a bit corny with their speechifying, but that's true of Star Trek too.
It's a tricky one. I'm a lapsed trekkie, but I rate later B5 as some of the best SF TV ever produced - most of Season 4 is gripping beyond description, despite some execrable acting and dialogue. Trek however offers up some magnificently entertaining individual episodes (where its strength really lies) and some great character interplay, even excluding hopeless nonsense like mid-series Voyager. For my money B5 is the better ongoing epic drama, ST the better series of individual teleplays.
I actually dislike ST when it gets stuck into ongoing war stories - all-out war has no real place in the ST universe, it's meant to be better than that: Trek threats should be cosmic, tactical or moral, not all-guns-blazing tests of relative strength. How do you square episodes like TNG's 'Coming of Age' (where we learn only one candidate from each Starfleet Entrance Exam intake can go forward to the Academy) with the destruction of several Galaxy-class ships (over 900 crew) in a single engagement (of many) in later DS9? It just doesn't work for me - the Federation should always be able to avert total war.
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 17 March, 2012, 04:39:44 PM
Spock is better than Data but Picard is better than Kirk. Then again Scotty is better than Geordie, Dax is better than Chakotay, Archer is better than Janeway and Tuvok is better than Checkov but Paris is inferior to Sulu.
The Trek Universe is indeed an odd place.
What do you call the hot little Kingon from Voyager? I liked her :)
Put it this way;
I have most of the Trek movies on DVD (I even love TMP) but none of the series. I have all of B5 boxset, and some of the spin offs.
Proving... sod all really :P
Quote from: HOO-HAA on 17 March, 2012, 06:26:47 PM
What do you call the hot little Kingon from Voyager? I liked her :)
Lt. Torres - the certainly rather lovely Roxann Dawson, but that make-up was truly awful, and her supposed personality... gah!
Quote from: TordelBack on 17 March, 2012, 06:23:57 PM
...only one candidate from each Starfleet Entrance Exam intake can go forward to the Academy...
When it comes to stuff like this, I tend to rationalise it in my own way. I'd imagine that the one successful candidate would go through to Academy Officer Training and the rest just learn how to be redshirts - which seems to be mainly about learning how to wander off and get yourself killed. I'd add to that the sheer number of scholastic institutions throughout the Federation (imagine just how many schools there are just on present day Earth alone) where the entrance exam could be taken and that gives many, many successful single candidates. Once actually at the Academy (and surely there must be more than one Starfleet training facility throughout the Federation), then the single Officer Candidates would either succeed or fail allowing the ones who came second to work hard enough to be moved up a level.
Oh God. I can't believe that I've even thought about this :(
Furthermore:
(http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p147/the_legendary_shark/Dax.jpg) is better than (http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p147/the_legendary_shark/Torres.jpg) but neither is as good as (http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p147/the_legendary_shark/Uhura.jpg)
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 17 March, 2012, 06:09:09 PM
But B5 is better than ST. It's better written, better acted, better realised and has better continuity.
This is much better trolling, but you haven't even tried to defend
Legend of the Rangers, which I feel is a missed opportunity on your part.
I enjoyed B5 as a whole, but it's important to distinguish that from the componant parts, because on almost every level B5 was barrel-scraping stuff and no amount of Voyager episodes where Tom Paris drives his space-car too fast and turns into a walrus will ever change that - B5 was a one-trick pony. You have a point that Trek tripped over continuity now and then, but it also made an occasional virtue of its episodic nature with episodes like The Visitor or The Visionary - alternate-timeline episodes whose outcomes rely upon the viewer knowing for a certainty that the reset button was gonna happen - or The Quickening, an episode that takes the classic Trek staple of the crew flying in to solve an entire planet's problems in forty minutes and then failing to do so. B5 had that episode about space-kickboxing and that other one about the 13th floor, which were... well, they were definitely episodes of a television series. I'll give them that.
Quote from: TordelBack on 17 March, 2012, 06:23:57 PMI actually dislike ST when it gets stuck into ongoing war stories - all-out war has no real place in the ST universe, it's meant to be better than that:
It was established as early as The Cage that Starfleet regularly engaged in all-out warfare (the death of the first officer in a land battle is why the Enterprise originally had a female XO - she was a field promotion), and even well into the film series Starfleet was painted as the military arm of the Federation - even the Bajor stuff (which included the Cardassian War) started out in a TNG episode.
Quote from: Professah Byah on 17 March, 2012, 08:31:56 PM
It was established as early as The Cage that Starfleet regularly engaged in all-out warfare...
I'm not saying there isn't war in the ST universe, I'm saying that depciting it doesn't fit well with the style of the TV show, which is largely optimistic. My preference would be that it certainly shouldn't be on the scale of the Dominion War, or a focus for the series. Having something like the Battle of Axanar providing backdrop for a story, or cold-war style ship-on-ship Neutral Zone action is cool, as are the repercussions of O'Brien's and Ro's Cardassian backstories, even using Picard's or Kirk's actions as a pretext for war, I just feel it worked much better when the objective was preventing large-scale conflict, not showing it.
I agree. Can someone start a "Babylon 5 Is A Load Of Shit" thread?
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 17 March, 2012, 04:39:44 PM
Spock is better than Data but Picard is better than Kirk. Then again Scotty is better than Geordie, Dax is better than Chakotay, Archer is better than Janeway and Tuvok is better than Checkov but Paris is inferior to Sulu.
Bloody hell, Shark dude, that post made my head hurt...
Quote from: TordelBack on 17 March, 2012, 08:43:03 PM
I'm not saying there isn't war in the ST universe, I'm saying that depicting it doesn't fit well with the style of the TV show, which is largely optimistic.
I agree, Star Trek should be a largely cerebral and optimistic sci-fi saga, leave the epic intergalactic war saga on telly to Babylon 5, which (despite a ropey first season) went on to be one of the greatest pieces of television drama in the entire 1990's, if it had been an historical show and not a sci-fi one, it would have been hailed as a work of genius, snobbery as usual...
Quote from: Professah Byah on 17 March, 2012, 10:22:14 PM
Can someone start a "Babylon 5 Is A Load Of Shit" thread?
That's it, outside, NOW... "we live for the One, we die for the One" (been waiting years to use that quote)...
Quote from: Professah Byah on 17 March, 2012, 10:22:14 PM
I agree. Can someone start a "Babylon 5 Is A Load Of Shit" thread?
This'll have to do for now.
Have at it.
Star Trek reflects the American Dream.
When America is doing well there's lots of Star Trek on TV the ie: the 1980's,1990's. When America is not doing so well and things look like shit and there's not a lot of optimism about there's less Trek on the telly.
Notice how the recent TV series Star Trek Enterprise was cancelled after the 4th series. Post 9/11 and the subsequent Wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq weren't exactly 'lets' understand our cultural differences with our neighbours moments.'
More aggressive series like Stargate replaced Trek with it's much more gun ho militaristic style and the obviously middle Eastern inspired Goa'uld were little more than cyphers for Americas dislike of Arab type cultures generally.
There's the re imagining of the original series in the new Films but that's a different medium being much more expensive to produce. It was more spectacular than any TV series could have been but it was basically a re make of a TV show first aired in the 1960's an expensive upgrade.
It had none of the 'live and let live' baby boomer bullshit the original series had though. They simply had an enemy who had to be destroyed.
Lot's of progressive understanding and cultural respect there.
Quote from: IAMTHESYSTEM on 24 March, 2012, 11:30:37 AM
More aggressive series like Stargate replaced Trek with it's much more gun ho militaristic style and the obviously middle Eastern inspired Goa'uld were little more than cyphers for Americas dislike of Arab type cultures generally.
Yeah, those nasty, xenophobic Americans, it's not as if any Arab types have done anything to them, is it...?
Quote from: Beaky Smoochies on 25 March, 2012, 05:30:35 AM
Quote from: IAMTHESYSTEM on 24 March, 2012, 11:30:37 AM
More aggressive series like Stargate replaced Trek with it's much more gun ho militaristic style and the obviously middle Eastern inspired Goa'uld were little more than cyphers for Americas dislike of Arab type cultures generally.
Yeah, those nasty, xenophobic Americans, it's not as if any Arab types have done anything to them, is it...?
sold them all that lovely oil? (sorry yanks call it gas).
Quote from: Beaky Smoochies on 25 March, 2012, 05:30:35 AM
Quote from: IAMTHESYSTEM on 24 March, 2012, 11:30:37 AM
More aggressive series like Stargate replaced Trek with it's much more gun ho militaristic style and the obviously middle Eastern inspired Goa'uld were little more than cyphers for Americas dislike of Arab type cultures generally.
Yeah, those nasty, xenophobic Americans, it's not as if any Arab types have done anything to them, is it...?
Yeah I think 9/11 simply confirmed the deep suspicion in many American minds that certain Islamic groups saw America as the new enemy. There was that bombing of the World Trade center in 1993 plus various other attacks the USS Cole, the Kenyan Embassy bombing in 1998. All horrible prologue's to 9/11.
Sorry if I sounded glib
Beaky Smoochies perhaps we can't really understand the cataclysmic culture shock for the USA 9/11 was and still is.
Anyway I think programmes like Stargate and the cancelling of the more Liberal leaning Star Trek franchise must surely reflect a shift inside American culture. Away from 'let's try to understand and get along' to a more guarded stance.
The TV series 'Homeland' is a very good example of this. To much exposure to the enemy might turn you into one it seems to be saying. If even your Defenders can be turned against you who can you trust?
Nobody of course.
Quote from: IAMTHESYSTEM on 25 March, 2012, 01:30:43 PM
If even your Defenders can be turned against you who can you trust?
Trust only in the Modpleton.
For the Greater Good.
Quote from: Minkyboy on 25 March, 2012, 02:22:08 PM
Quote from: IAMTHESYSTEM on 25 March, 2012, 01:30:43 PM
If even your Defenders can be turned against you who can you trust?
Trust only in the Modpleton.
For the Greater Good.
This is the truth.Like Sonic Youth.
Quote from: IAMTHESYSTEM on 24 March, 2012, 11:30:37 AM
Star Trek reflects the American Dream.
Pretty much. That's why when they go to other planets, instead of lots of different cultures sharing the one globe as would be expected, there's a singular culture usually analogous to something on Earth. Basically Trek is about how America likes to view itself as a cowboy riding in to the rescue and then buggering off without any long term problems arising from their interference seeing as they're basically imposing the American values Space Russia secretly longs for.
can't believe this hasn't appeared yet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpb1OXvNNMc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpb1OXvNNMc)
(it isn't, by the way)
Which one had the exploding turtle?
I can't believe there is even this argument going on. Bab5 was so much better than Trek in so many ways. The only downside with Bab5 was some very wooden acting in the first season. The downsides to Trek were most of it.
Speaking of Star Trek, I rewatched the film (reboot) yesterday. Despite not really buying the [spoiler]'future star going supernova put the entire galaxy in danger'[/spoiler] gubbins, and the [spoiler]Spock Uhura[/spoiler] malarkey, it's still a cracker in all it's Star Warseyness.
Incidentally, I never go round to watching the new(ish) Babylon 5 mini-series (I remember there were supposed to be three, but don't know if they got beyond the first as I think ratings were poor.) I was really looking forward to it, but the reviews I've seen haven't been too good. I'll still give em a shot though.
Quote from: James Stacey on 26 March, 2012, 10:57:20 AMBab5 was so much better than Trek
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWtuKm6C1Sw
Quote from: Professah Byah on 26 March, 2012, 04:31:49 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWtuKm6C1Sw
Heh. I've never seen that. I actually quite like the idea as using VR as a space ship battle interface (I actually had an idea for that in a comic story, so slightly irate to find out they did it first.* ) but boy, did she look silly.
*In my one it was a small one man fighter with the person plugged in directly via a cybernetic implant. To their perception they're flying through space kinda like superman, with a 360 degree view all around, actually relayed to their brain via the ship's sensors. The pilot might point to shoot, etc, but none of that flipping around. Unless he/she wanted the entire ship to do that.
Argue all you like. But we don't have to because we know that Star Trek really is the best.
After just watching the complete run of battlestar galactica(2004-09) something i've been meaning to do for a while but never got around to until now.
Reading the thread and watching the 4th season really hit home with the whole debate going on in here...I feel as though the 4th season more so the last 4/5 episode really ruined it for me not sure if i'm alone in thinking that.i know the directors and producers can't please everybody.
I only saw a teensy piece of Babylon5, I was put off by the CGI ships- models are still even now better in my opinion, and at the time what I saw didn't grab me.
@Klute- I didn't think the end of BSG was perfect [spoiler]so the baby didn't in the end matter at all, and that theatre stuff was meaningless)[/spoiler], but in terms of every other drip-feed multiple season mystery I've seen it was up there with the best.
And the soundtrack throughout was immense.
Quote from: Mardroid on 26 March, 2012, 04:47:30 PM
Quote from: Professah Byah on 26 March, 2012, 04:31:49 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWtuKm6C1Sw
Heh. I've never seen that. I actually quite like the idea as using VR as a space ship battle interface (I actually had an idea for that in a comic story, so slightly irate to find out they did it first.* ) but boy, did she look silly.
*In my one it was a small one man fighter with the person plugged in directly via a cybernetic implant. To their perception they're flying through space kinda like superman, with a 360 degree view all around, actually relayed to their brain via the ship's sensors. The pilot might point to shoot, etc, but none of that flipping around. Unless he/she wanted the entire ship to do that.
I'll just wade in here with a Stargate reference :D
http://www.gateworld.net/wiki/Eurondan_piloting_unit
I've not watched much Babylon 5, seems like the kind of thing you'd have to watch all of to say. The bits I have watched seemed too deep into whatever storyline runs through the whole thing to get into. Of course, being a Stargate fan will probably negate any opinion I may have anyway ;)
Liked BSG mostly, was disappointed by the end and copying it ruined SG: Universe.
According to (Stargate Universe producer) Brad Wright, what ruined Stargate Universe was that fans of SG1 and Atlantis didn't like it and so warped reality itself to make it seem like the show was being criticised by established reviewers, and to make it appear that people were turning off in large numbers.
Basically, SGU failing was not his fault, it was ours.
It's an odd one. The wife is a huge Stargate fan, has the whole endless shebang on DVD, including Atlantis and the movies, and for myself I find it inoffensive and entertaining, and sometimes actually surprisingly smart fun, so have always been happy to watch it with her. We also both enjoyed BSG, old and new.
Despite surely being the target audience the wife never even made it through the first episode of SGU, and while I tried quite a few episodes I somehow never got all the way through a single one. Something went badly wrong there, I think.
You misunderstand, TB: there is nothing actually wrong with SGU. You're just a hater. A hater on the internet, no less.
All of these shows are terrible.
That's why you should be a Mod.
Trek has a special place in my heart that no other show could ever replace
Trek is a special kind of wet fart that no other show could ever replace.
Quote from: Roger Godpleton on 27 March, 2012, 01:41:38 AM
Trek is a special kind of wet fart that no other show could ever replace.
I knew you'd understand
Quote from: IAMTHESYSTEM on 25 March, 2012, 01:30:43 PM
Sorry if I sounded glib Beaky Smoochies perhaps we can't really understand the cataclysmic culture shock for the USA 9/11 was and still is.
The TV series 'Homeland' is a very good example of this. To much exposure to the enemy might turn you into one it seems to be saying. If even your Defenders can be turned against you who can you trust?
No worries dude, I got your meaning alright, and you are absolutely correct that most non-Americans fail to grasp the cataclysmic impact that 9/11 had on the American psyche, if it was Canary Wharf that had been levelled and not the WTC, a lot more people would understand the grief and pain that America felt, not to mention their completely proportional response to it... in regards to Homeland, I have mixed feelings about that show, it's clearly an excellent and quality show, but unlike 24 which had both liberal and conservative writers on the staff (and thus came across as balanced), Homeland's writers are ALL left-leaning liberal Democrats, so it doesn't explore both sides the way it should, it's almost sympathetic to the erroneous view that the U.S. brought terrorism on itself through it's own actions worldwide, a view I find not only wrong but utterly reprehensible!
Anyhoo, back to the thread's subject, Star Trek's original and TNG series' are both great shows, forget the other spin-offs, with the second, third, fourth, and sixth movies superb, the TNG movies not so. Babylon 5 is just different to Trek in that it's eseentially a singular, concurrent storyline with a clear beginning, middle, and end - Seasons 1-5, forget the movies (except
In The Beginning ) and spin-offs - the only reason for B5 to return would have been to do a proper theatrically-released feature film that took place in the twenty years between the penultimate and final episodes of the fifth and final season, but as the actors who played G'Kar and the coloured doctor (I forget his name) are both deceased, that opportunity has since gone...
Quote from: Onlyverysmall on 26 March, 2012, 08:25:52 PM
I only saw a teensy piece of Babylon5, I was put off by the CGI ships- models are still even now better in my opinion, and at the time what I saw didn't grab me.
@Klute- I didn't think the end of BSG was perfect [spoiler]so the baby didn't in the end matter at all, and that theatre stuff was meaningless)[/spoiler], but in terms of every other drip-feed multiple season mystery I've seen it was up there with the best.
And the soundtrack throughout was immense.
[spoiler]I didn't take the baby as being meaningless in the grand scheme of thing's for me anyway she proved that the Cylon's and Humans could co-exist with out the whole cylon resurrection (this would of course make them mortal as oppose to immortal) or at least as immortal as the ressurection hub would have allowed
Again for me it meant that over many years the human and cylon genepool would mingle and give both race's the best of both.....the cylons had no idea till the baby and to a lesser extend caprica 6s baby came along that it was possible for them to create "new life" without having to engineer it themselves bringing the above back into play in the end the human race could not survive without co-existing with the cylons.
Being immortal such as they were/it was. Eventually the cylons would have wiped out the humans due to being able to come back from the dead the humans couldn't. for me again the message in the end seem's very simliar to our own situation in the past and even now the only way human life will continue to exist is if we continue to co exist and see past our own genepools and stop the wars against each other
So for me she was very important to the humans survival but yeah i wasn't so sure about the theatre[/spoiler]
TREK for me I own the entire lot on DVD,
I have heard rumor of star trek ENTERPRISE, i even have a box of dvds with that title on.
this said, as i am aware it was never actually anything other then a bad idea. which was never made in a show.
Babylon 5 I also own it all,
very good but TREK WINS.
babylon five was good, if you could not act! it got you a job on TV. later stuff better then the first couple of seasons.
movies from ok to outstanding.
Babylon 5 gave Kenicke a job, so it wasn't a total waste of time.
One thing I do notice with B5 compared to Trek is that the direction is incredibly static. The camera rarely moves around the set or the actors, almost like it was just turned on and then the director left the room.
Quote from: Devons Daddy on 27 March, 2012, 03:05:00 PMI have heard rumor of star trek ENTERPRISE, i even have a box of dvds with that title on.
this said, as i am aware it was never actually anything other then a bad idea.
I fucking
hated Enterprise so much the first time around, but I rewatched season three a year or two back on a whim and found it really enjoyable hokum the more it abandoned any pretence that it wasn't just a rip-off of Galaxy Quest, right down to the hammy actor captain, hot babe who does nothing on the bridge but answer the space-phone, the young black pilot, the trippy engineer (who was even
named Trip), the alien doctor, the ineffectual security guy, and even the giant reptile supervillain baddy whose goal is to possess a giant spherical superweapon.
Season 4 was also much better than I remembered, but then I rewatched the first two seasons after that and realised they really were just as terrible as I recalled - if not worse. The season four finale is also so laughably terrible that most of the cast refuse to watch it to this very day, citing it as the result of sour grapes on the part of the guys who wrote it that they weren't in charge of the show anymore.
I own the entirety of the original series of Star Trek, along with the animated series, the first seven movies, the reboot movie, all of james hawley's star trek: new voyages/ phase II episodes and about fifty or so original series trek novels. I own only the episodes of later trek that feature actors from the proper show and which were released at the arse-end of the dvd partwork collection.
I neither own, nor have watched, any babylon 5. Actually, tell a lie, i may have seen the first episode and a series climax one where barry bostwick (?) piloted a cgi spaceship into another spaceship, seeming to die. Neither seemed very good.
So, trek wins. Unless you also factor in later trek (from tng onward), in which case the statistics may be weighed against it.
SBT
There's a whiff of snobbery off that collection, SBT: you don't have the Starfleet Academy comics. They had an issue written in Klingon, damn you!
I think you need to have watched DS9 and B5 specifically in order to really contribute to this discussion, particularly as B5 writer/producer JMS claims as absolute fact* that DS9 ripped off all of B5's good ideas, but tried to hide this by doing all of B5's good ideas on DS9 before JMS could do them on B5. His exit interviews for Amazing Spider-Man are equally fair and balanced, as I recall...
Actually, I suppose you can get around not having watched B5 or DS9 if you watch original Trek and then compare it to Crusade. Of course, that would mean having to watch Crusade, which I wouldn't wish upon anyone.
* though he graciously admits that he can't actually prove it in any way whatsoever: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Deep_Space_Nine#Deep_Space_Nine_and_Babylon_5
That first episode of the new season that aired this week was so great. I can't believe Starfleet Cooper Draper Pryce has to hire a black person now.
Anyone see a short-lived series called Starhyke (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1520150/) which starred Claudia "Ivanova? - Ivanavon too!" Christian? I keep walking past the DVD in a trade-in shop and it only costs a few quid but since I've never heard of it and the "complete" version is 6 episodes, I'm not expecting much.
@ Klute
That's a good argument, I may watch it all again soon.
Talking of Claudia Christian, I always thought she looked loads like Anthony Ainley who played The Master in '80s Doctor Who.
Sod all you lot. Farscape was some of the best TV and was prematurely cancelled.
V
Farscape was very good. Lexx on the other hand could sometimes be sublime...at least the earlier ones, anyway.
Quote from: vzzbux on 27 March, 2012, 09:36:32 PM
Sod all you lot. Farscape was some of the best TV and was prematurely cancelled.
V
Farscape was awesome i'm pained to admit that i didn't watch all of it i caught bit's and pieces here and there and now regret not watching the full run.I should put it on my christmas list
Quote from: Onlyverysmall on 27 March, 2012, 09:43:31 PM
Farscape was very good. Lexx on the other hand could sometimes be sublime...at least the earlier ones, anyway.
Again as with farscape i wasn't a consistant lexx viewer but i has spent a bit of time recently thinking about it again one for my christmas list.
Ive always found Trek to clean, I loved the original series but then I loved "Lost in Space", "Land of the Giants", "the Avengers" and all other 1960 kitsh TV series. Im not sure I can class it as love. I think it was Tordel who put his finger on it, the 3 leads made that series and the later films. I dont like to talk about TNG because I just thought it was a bit pants (and then there was the worse spin offs). And by Pants I dont mean something that would fit in Rich's underwear thread......
B5 was grit and dirty to ST's cleaness. It was a place where aliens didnt really like humans. In a lot of ST episodes it was "Oh good, solve this millenium old problem we have. Oh that was the answer? Its that simple" and off they flew. B5 had problems every one did, even the ending left problems that werent really resolved. It just seemed more real less idiolistic and in season 4 (I think) we the humans are the villains of the piece.
maybe in the end it all depends wether you like soap opera style high Sci fi or not. I guess the same split is apparent in Fantasy fans?
Quote from: the 'artist' formerly known as Slips on 28 March, 2012, 10:05:09 AMB5 was grit and dirty to ST's cleaness. It was a place where aliens didnt really like humans. In a lot of ST episodes it was "Oh good, solve this millenium old problem we have. Oh that was the answer? Its that simple" and off they flew. B5 had problems every one did, even the ending left problems that werent really resolved. It just seemed more real less idiolistic and in season 4 (I think) we the humans are the villains of the piece.
This was the biggest stumbling block for me with B5: we condemn racism, sexism and slavery, and while we're not
free of those things just yet we're getting there because humans are basically fantastic when you get down to it. Trek comes from a place where this is a given and thus can be seen to be forward-looking, while B5 assumes we will get
worse, not better, and thus can be seen to be regressive.
Quote from: Onlyverysmall on 27 March, 2012, 09:43:31 PM
Farscape was very good. Lexx on the other hand could sometimes be sublime...at least the earlier ones, anyway.
I simply cannot get into Farscape at all. I got halfway through the second series and then had to give up at that episode where they're on a planet of lawyers and win a court case by setting a branch on fire with lasers and saying it was magic.
Quote from: Dandontdare on 27 March, 2012, 08:08:24 PM
Anyone see a short-lived series called Starhyke (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1520150/) which starred Claudia "Ivanova? - Ivanavon too!" Christian? I keep walking past the DVD in a trade-in shop and it only costs a few quid but since I've never heard of it and the "complete" version is 6 episodes, I'm not expecting much.
I own it.
I bought it really out of curiosity. They hacked out an entire series before they even had a proper channel to show it on. It ended up on DVD first! It's only relatively recently (after being out, literally years) that they have a cable channel to show it on.
Anyway... The premise was very interesting, and I found it watchable, but overall I didn't think it very good. Possibly better than Hyperdrive, but nowhere near as good as Red Dwarf*. CGI was actually pretty good, but they had years to tweak it. It showed promise at the end, though.
*I know there are people here who dislike Red Dwarf. I'm curious which episodes they've watched though. If their opinion is based on series 7** and 8, the're missing out 5-6 great series. Buy hey-ho these things are all subjective aren't they? I actually disliked the first episode of series 1. It put me off of the series entirely, and didn't see an episode again until Series 3's Marooned. I soon changed my mind.
**Actually, I like that one, but many of the actual RD fans do not.
Space above and beyond....i was gutted when it was cancelled :(
Quote from: klute on 28 March, 2012, 04:33:44 PM
Space above and beyond....i was gutted when it was cancelled :(
I really liked that too. It ended in such an exciting way too.
Quote from: the 'artist' formerly known as Slips on 28 March, 2012, 10:05:09 AM
I dont like to talk about TNG because I just thought it was a bit pants (and then there was the worse spin offs).
You're right about the spin-offs, talk about running a good idea into the ground, and whilst I still like (loved it years ago) TNG, it really started to tail off in overall quality around the time they started with the aforementioned gratuitous spin-offs around the fifth season (1991-92), apart from the occasional remarkable episode and/or storyline (the Klingon civil war, the appearance of Spock on Romulus, etc), but it's a shame they didn't just concentrate on TNG alone, and keep all the good material for that series, and when Patrick Stewart announced he was leaving after the seventh (and easily the dullest) season, they should have waited until all work on the series was complete before even thinking about a TNG movie, and then maybe the resulting film may have had a much better script and be a lot less rushed overall... even if you don't like TNG, Slips dude, I suggest you watch the
Best of Both Worlds two-parter, the highpoint of the entire franchise; epic and dark and awesome, "resistance is futile", indeed!
Quote from: klute on 28 March, 2012, 04:33:44 PM
Space above and beyond....i was gutted when it was cancelled :(
BSG before there
was a BSG, certainly had potential, pity FOX didn't have the cojones to give it a chance...
I've always bee a 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century' man for the following reasons:
(http://www.denofgeek.com/siteimage/scale/800/600/15354.png)
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_7GF2kkMcTKc/RwOH9GyHaOI/AAAAAAAAH8c/IG8rmnc9jcc/s400/ardala6.jpg)
(http://i.ebayimg.com/t/BUCK-ROGERS-25TH-CENTURY-GIL-GERARD-GARY-COLEMAN-PHOTO-/13/!Bnqgnf!CGk~$%28KGrHqYH-DIEt0D89PzJBLkZV1olOw~~_35.JPG)
Quote from: Mardroid on 29 March, 2012, 12:52:53 AM
Quote from: klute on 28 March, 2012, 04:33:44 PM
Space above and beyond....i was gutted when it was cancelled :(
I really liked that too. It ended in such an exciting way too.
I'd forgotten about that, think I liked it a lot too, being orginal BSG-ish. I'm sure it would have been cancelled around the same time as Dark Skies (bastards), which isn't similar to stuff in this thread, but it did have Jeri Ryan (7 of 9) in it, so it counts :D
Quote from: JamesC on 29 March, 2012, 12:28:52 PM
I've always bee a 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century' man for the following reasons:
(http://www.denofgeek.com/siteimage/scale/800/600/15354.png)
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_7GF2kkMcTKc/RwOH9GyHaOI/AAAAAAAAH8c/IG8rmnc9jcc/s400/ardala6.jpg)
(http://i.ebayimg.com/t/BUCK-ROGERS-25TH-CENTURY-GIL-GERARD-GARY-COLEMAN-PHOTO-/13/!Bnqgnf!CGk~$%28KGrHqYH-DIEt0D89PzJBLkZV1olOw~~_35.JPG)
Yes, yes, and WHAT THE FUCK? respectively.
The correct answer is Star Wars. I hope that clears things up for you all.
Quote from: Colin Zeal on 29 March, 2012, 02:19:01 PM
The correct answer is Star Wars. I hope that clears things up for you all.
Seriously?(http://www.infobarrel.com/media/image/65467.jpg)
:D