Posted on 11/02/2009 3:09:41 PM PST by EveningStar
Here are my selections for the most pretentious science fiction - fantasy TV shows (RELAX - THE CYNICISM IS ALL IN FUN!):
5. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997 - 2003) - Pretty much a chick series.
4. V (original - including miniseries' - 1983 - 1985) - Nazi lizard people invade the earth.
3. Alien Nation (1989 - 1990) - A message series with one message - racism is evil. We get it. Next. (amazingly enough, this series spawned five made for TV movies, which were viewed by all 500 of its fans)
2. Beauty and the Beast (1987 - 1990) - Nauseatingly sappy
1. Babylon 5 (1993 - 1998) - Yeah, I know that "true science fiction fans" like this series because J. Michael Straczynski is a fan of literary SF - and named a Psi Cop "Alfred Bester." Big deal.
I never saw the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, but from what I've read about it, it definitely would have made my list.
OK. Those are my picks. How about yours?
Amazing. The most pretentious show ever. Correcting past mistakes? By whose opinion were they mistakes?
What I don’t understand about SGU is why nobody has beaten Dr. Rush to death by now.
SGU is a blended show. It blends Voyager and BSG together into one show.
You sir, are absolutely correct.
Red Dwarf? Pretentious???
Oh BS. The most pretentious SF show of all time was ST:TNG. Never was there a more snobby load of arrogant touchy-feelie new age twaddle than came out of the mouths of Jean-Luc Picard and Deanna Troy. The only redeeming quality to the series was Ryker who had the b@lls to say “Fire” on occasion. It’s waaaay past time to put an end to Star Trek in all its iterations. Bury it deep and put a nice marker on the grave for what it gave us. Just realize that it has been milked beyond reason and needs to die monster die.
Babylon5 and BSG Redux were a bit pretentious from time to time but that goes with SF territory. At least they had neat space battles and didn’t resolve everything in the most boring manner possible. Alien Nation never interested me one bit... the movie was so disappointing.
SF tends to get preachy. That’s the danger. ST became non-stop preaching. “V” never even came within a light year of ST’s preachiness.
“Cleopatra 2525”
“Thankfully, this show only lasted two seasons.”
It didn’t last one episode in my house. I admit that the costumes may have slowed my surfing but when they opened their mouths, I moved on, never to return.
Thanks for bringing up that bad memory.
Good one.
Now how about the new Doctor Who?
Red Dwarf is not pretentious. Torchwood is pretentious.
Sadly, so is the most current incarnation of the Doctor.
DS9 had the virtues of a grimy, lived in look, with moral equivocations and many episodes leading to messy conclusions. Kinda like the Clinton era that the show originally ran in and like most of our futures.
Using those rules, I don’t think you could make it sober through the opening credits.
As James Doohan replied when asked about that very question, “Why did we need bathrooms? We had phasers.”
He surely deserves it; and the Brit accent is especially grating as it is meant to show that he is both smart and entitled to be ill-tempered and snooty.
>Using those rules, I don’t think you could make it sober through the opening credits.
LOL - That’s funny.
Bab 5 was actually pretty good. Loved Girabaldi, who was played by an actor who’s now a conservative talk radio host. There is some really great fanfiction based on that series and cross-overs with shows like Star Trek on spacebattles.com. Some of those ‘amateur’ writers are better and more creative than those who wrote the series!
The Alien Nation film was great...the series, drek. I can describe the problem with seven words:
Deep, dark Newcomer secret of the week.
Truly a litigious, pompous jerk. However, his episode Man With the Glass Hand from the original Outer Limits, starring Robert Kulp, was just a great story. It certainly fanscinated me at 5 years of age!
Voyagers was pathetic with its “woman in charge” weakness since it went all democrat Mrs. Columbo.
Star Trek Enterprise PROMISED to get back to the unpc but failed when the suits interfeared.
Alien Nation was uber-pc because it went nuts with the left wing liberalism. (polution controls, ERA was ultimatly passed, pregnant males, matriarchy nonsenses)
the re-envisioned BSG was just plain stupid. (except for the special effects sceenes and when the Galactica jumpes sub orbital launches the vipers.)
I hope and pray the movie version keeps the special effects and goes to the 1970s cold war script with the politician who sells out the nation.
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