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Science Fiction TV reviews
Hercules/Earth:Final Conflict
crossover episode shock?
Herc shows off his skrill.
Part of my Science Fiction consumption
includes TV; here are my ratings.
These include those currently airing, and also on-video
blasts-from-the-past.
(SF films have a separate listing.)
SF TV shows, recently viewed
1. Unmissable
Rimmer from
Red Dwarf
2. Great stuff
Buffy the Vampire
Slayer
The
Clangers 1969-1974 knitted pink
whistling puppets, plus Blue String pudding, the Iron Chicken, the Soup
Dragon, and the Froglets.
Dark Skies 1997 paranoid
conspiracy theory of alien invasion.
Doctor Who
#3 Jon
Pertwee (1970-74)
#9 Christopher
Ecclestone (2005)
#10 David
Tennant (2006)
Farscape season
2
Firefly
The Flipside of Dominick Hyde 1980 and
the sequel
Another Flip for Dominick: 1982
The Giftie a one-off play two
researchers duplicate themselves, but who is real and who is the copy?
Lexx The Dark Zone Stories
season 1: 1996 surreal techno-grunge
Neverwhere 1996 Neil Gaiman's dark
fantasy, set in the London Underground
The One Game
Red Dwarf I--VI 1988-1993 a comedy SF
series that really
is funny, and SFnal!
Sapphire and Steel 1979-1982 6
Adventures of the time-travelling agents Joanna Lumley as
Sapphire, David MacCullum as Steel
Star Cops 1987 9 episodes
Star Trek: Next Generation
The 10th Kingdom 1999
fairy tales are true
The Water Margin "Robin
Hood in China": hero-outlaws fight a corrupt government.
X-Men animation some of the mutant
superheroes have interestingly complex characters
Ivor the Engine
Noggin the Nog
3. Worth watching
Andromeda, season 1
Angel brooding
vampires
Babylon 5 films
Battlestar Galactica
the new version
Blake's
7 1978-81
Century Falls 1993
Children of Dune 2002
Dark Angel escaped
teenage mutant super-soldiers
Doctor Who early
#4 Tom Baker (1974-81) and
#7 Sylvester McCoy (1987-89)
Dune 2000
Earth: Final Conflict season
1
Farscape season
1
Futurama
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 1981 the
TV series
Ivor
the Engine of course it's SF: it's got a
dragon in it!
Noggin
the Nog of course it's SF: it's got a talking
bird in it!
Roswell High 2000
teenage aliens
The Sarah Connor Chronicles
2007
Shoebox Zoo 2004-5
Sliders lost in
parallel space
Space Precinct 1995 Gerry Anderson's
Cops in Space series
Stargate SG1/Atlantis
Star Trek: Deep Space 9
Third Rock from the Sun 1996 Comedy
as four aliens take on human form to research us.
"Why did I have
to be the woman?" "Because you lost."
Thunderbirds 1965 Gerry Anderson's
puppet International Rescue Service longer episodes allowed
more complex plots, and the model equipment often looked realistically
'used': battered and grubby (no,
Star
Wars wasn't the first to do this).
"F.A.B.,
Scott!" Like all Anderson shows, the covert
organisation is remarkably lightly staffed: what happens if someone gets
sick, goes on holiday, wants to leave, or even just wants to sleep? and
where are all the maintenance and ground crews?
Timeslip 1970 Liz and Simon slip back
to a WWII incident, then forward to
The Icebox, an Antarctic
research station, then forward to a different future in
The Burn Up,
where planetary engineering is destroying the climate, then back to the
present to discover a clone conspiracy. They meet various versions of
themselves, of their parents, and of Commander Traynor, sort out what's
happening, and eventually save the day.
The Tribe season
1: 1999 children surviving in a post-apocalyptic world
Twin Peaks watch for the surrealistic sub-plots
Ultraviolet 1998 hunting
urban vampires
The Uninvited 1997
aliens secretly taking over the world (or at least East
Anglia)
VR5 1997 Virtual
Reality conspiracies
Xena: Warrior Princess
Destiny Angel from
Captain Scarlet
4. Mind candy --
watch if nothing better to do
The 4400
A for Andromeda 2006
Batman 1966-69 "Holy weird
camera angles, Batman!"
Beauty and the Beast: Vincent (Ron Perlman) is a mutant
living under New York, and Catherine (Linda Hamilton) is his friend above.
Captain Scarlet 1967 Gerry Anderson's
Spectrum
versus the Mysterons puppet adventures, led by the
indestructible Captain
"This is the voice of the
Mysterons" morally ambiguous: we blow them up in an
unprovoked attack, then get upset when they strike back
"Spectrum
is Green"
The Champions 1968-69
three UN Nemesis agents are given superpowers by Himalayan
gurus, and become
"the Champions of Law, Order, and Justice".
Charmed seasons
1-7 The Halliwell sisters have the Power of Three
Cleopatra 2525 "in
the year 2525..."
Doctor Who Late
#4 Tom Baker (1974-81) and
#5 Peter Davison (1982-84)
First Wave season 1
the alien invasion predicted by Nostradamus
Invasion 2006 a
hurricane results in alien hybrids
Lexx season 2 more
grunge, less surrealism
Medium psychic
crimebusting 2004-6
Moonbase 3 1973 6 episodes
Mork and Mindy 1978-80
The New Adventures of Superman aka
Lois and
Clarke (presumably the BBC thought we Brits wouldn't know who they
were?) the emphasis is on the relationship, rather than the
super-hero
Oktober 1998
The Others 2000
Prey 1998
homo
dominant battles
homo sapiens
Red Dwarf VIII 1999 better than
season VII, certainly, but not up to the earlier standards
Sanctuary 2008
season 1 the TV version of the Webisodes
Seaquest 2032 third season genius kid
has become an ordinary crew member, and the plots are less cloying
Seven Days the
Backstep project
Space: Above and Beyond
Space Odyssey -- Voyage to the
Planets 2004 "Walking with
Astronauts"
Star Trek: Voyager some episodes try to raise
tension by offering a quick way home, but you know it just can't happen
Stingray 1964 Gerry Anderson's
undersea puppet adventures
"Anything could happen in
the next half hour"
Strange 2003 a
defrocked priest fights demons
Wilderness 1996 librarian
werewolf
action shot from
Space 1999
5. Waste of time ...though
knowing that doesn't always stop me
The Bionic Woman
2007 dull reimagining
Crusade 1998 such
a disappointment after
Babylon 5
Dinotopia 2002 humans
and dinos in perfect harmony
Doctor Who
#6 Colin
Baker (1984-86)
Fireball XL5 1962 good in its day,
but badly dated
Invasion: Earth 1998
Red Dwarf VII 1996 the eagerly
awaited return, but what a bitter disappointment!
Seaquest DSV seasons 1 and 2 genius
kid, dolphin, super-submarine. [ITV (Anglia region) showed the first half
of season 1 ... long pause ... the first half of season 3 ... shorter
pause ... the last half of season 1. Then season 2. Continuity? We don't
need no steenkin' continuity!]
Space 1999 1975 Gerry Anderson would
have us believe an explosion on the moon blows it
out of orbit [on
13 September 1999, fortunately
after the
11 August 1999 total eclipse of the sun],
which incredible event occurs
without destroying Moon Base Alpha the
moon then behaves as a spaceship, travelling round the galaxy, having
various alien adventures.
Star Trek: The Original Series 1966-69 some
from the end of series 3
Star Trek: The animated series
Time Trax a cop from a future parallel world
comes to our time, to fight time travelling criminals
The Tomorrow People 1973-79 a few
children 'break out' with psi powers, which make them telepathic and let
them 'jaunt' (teleport).
U.F.O. 1970 Gerry Anderson's move
into live action (with all the obvious jokes): it is 1980, and
(surprisingly humanoid) aliens are stealing human organs for their own
use. Early conspiracy stuff: SHADO, fighting the aliens, is a covert
organisation but how do they keep Moonbase secret?
Walking with Dinosaurs 1999
"educate, inform and entertain" -- not
Have the old ones just not stood
the test of time, or were they really that bad first time around?
Joe 90
6. Unfinishable ...
even I won't watch them
Adam Adamant Lives! 1966-67 an
Edwardian adventurer, frozen in 1902, thaws out in swinging 1960s London now
in the 1990s even the 'modern' scenes look like costume drama, and the
plots and dialogue are cringe-making
Battlestar Galactica the original version
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
Crime Traveller 1997 A detective and
a research scientist use a time machine to solve crimes before they
happen. But the plotting itself is criminal (best bit: the scientist
drives to the time machine, parks her car, travels back a few hours,
gets
in her car, and drives away!)
Doomwatch 1970-72
Early Edition 1997 The protagonist
gets tomorrow's newspaper, and can prevent the tragedies. Great premiss,
cloying realisation.
Hex 2004 "British
Buffy" flops
Joe 90 1968 just what
would
the Social Services say today?
Land of the Giants most of the SFX were done with
camera angles.
The Last Train 1999 a
bunch of passengers get frozen and survive a meteor impact, then bore us
to death
Lost in Space I would have spaced Dr Zachary
Smith in episode 1. Bill Mumy (Will Robinson) grew up to play Lenier in
the infinitely superior
Babylon 5.
Supercar 1961
The Time Tunnel
The Visitor 1997? A pilot lost in the
Bermuda Triangle in 1944 is returned today, with some mysterious mission
to complete, possibly that of enacting every cliché in the book.