Red Dwarf, I used to watch it with my dad while he was alive.
It’s cold outside…
There’s no kind of atmosphere
I’m all alone, more or less…
Have you read the books? The first two make the show look like a pile of wet garbage, and I love the show.
Firefly was nice. So was the OA. And the one following up after Dark. Good stuff, killed off too soon.
Came here to say I just started Firefly!
Lucky, you get to see it for the first time.
Shiny!
One of today’s lucky 10,000
I don’t know if it was really good or just how I remember it, but the first season of Heroes was great. It was such a shame they fucked it up so bad in the next season.
I also have good memories of Heroes in the beginning, real shame how it ended up
Not as old, but cancelling American Gods was a shame
idk, that had already changed the basic nature of how gods work from the book.
they also tended to go for cheap shots where the author really thought a lot about how to use certain gods.
for example:
in the epilogue of the anniversary edition of the book gaimam talks about wanting to incorporate Jesus, but deciding that the scene he wrote for him wasn’t good enough to capture what Jesus was to Americans. but he includes the scene in the post script anyway. it’s a quiet scene where Jesus comes and offers guidance in one of shadows most desperate hours.
in the show Jesus gets shot trying to cross the Mexican border. which is the absolute lowest hanging fruit when it comes to Jesus. i have made that joke before. I’ve heard others make that joke before. “if Jesus actually was alive right now he’d get shot at the border for being brown and communist”. they clearly just wanted shock value at the lowest intellectual price.
i don’t hate shows or movies just for adapting a story to a new medium. for example, the new dune movies really aren’t actually capturing the point of the books very well so far. that’s because the dune books are mostly people thinking about what people think it doesn’t adapt into visual mediums well. what villenuve has made is a great movie series regardless. the shining is another great example of that. i had a Stephen King fan try to tell me that Stanley kubrik was a hack for not following the book better. I’d argue that Stanley Kubrik is a better filmmaker that king is an author. the shining is an all time great movie regardless of what it was based on or how much it changed that material. that said, i do hate adaptation that add story elements and change basic rules of reality without putting thought or effort in to making it worthwhile. these two examples are great because kubrik and villenuve are masters of their craft that made these movies with immense amounts of care and effort.
deviating from the source material isn’t inherently a sin, but making a much worse story when you started with a good one that was already written and loved and using its name to draw people in is worse than just making a bad show. a bad show is easily ignored, but a bad adaptation will put people off of the source material you love. or worse, will supplant the source material in the cultural zeitgeist and you’ll forever have to specify “i mean the book, not that terrible movie they did”. i think tv American gods was… just ok. it completely failed to capture what i liked about the book, but others seem to like it well enough. it has gotten multiple people i know into the book, so i can’t hate it entirely.
similar to the Witcher show. i hated it. it had nothing of the books in it. it was schlocky and the plot BARELY made sense. they just went off and did entirely their own thing after season 1 and it was shit. but everyone who hasn’t read the books seems to still like it so maybe I’m just a hater.
If you like Gaiman, introduce yourself to Tanith Lee.
She inspired a lot of his stuff.
https://bookshop.org/beta-search?keywords=tanith+lee
“Night’s Master” is a good place to start. A demon prince visits the Earth, seducing and tormenting humanity for his own amusement.
“inspired” isn’t the word. Gaiman pretty shamelessly ripped it off for Sandman. Never even acknowledged it IIRC, despite her asking him for a shoutout because she was so hard up.
N.B. this is half-remembered gossip - do your own research, don’t just take my word for it
The funny thing is that I almost always call Gaiman out for stealing her ideas. I was a fan of hers for years, but never got into the gossip. I hope she’s in a better place now.
Ouch, that hurts. Didn’t know it was cancelled.
The one following after dark? 1799? The one with the ships?
Yeah the ship stuff. Was nice! I could imagine what they’re gonna do in the next two seasons!
Agreed!
Oooh, I loved the OA! But I’m just a fan of Brit Marling in general, She’s got some interesting ideas going with everything she does.
That’s the writer or director?
Yes 😉 She (used to?) write, produce and act in her movies.
firefly
Even the movie wasn’t enough, damn you Fox.
You can’t take the sky from me.
I’ll be in my bunk.
“Define interesting.” “Oh god oh god, we’re all gonna die?”
Love that the top 2 comments are different versions of the same.
Firefly, of course.
On the plus side, what Joss Whedon did to Wash in Serenity made me hate him long before the revelations of what an asshole he is came to light.
Hey, how do reavers clean their harpoons?
They run 'em through the Wash… 😢
Haha I hate you
Top 3 hated deaths for me. Not even sure anything else quite takes the number 1 spot.
Let me talk to you about the wire and how it is the perfect series. (Even when it got squirely in season 5)
The deconstruction of the failure of every institution in the city of Baltimore.
How good people can get lost in systems. How they can attempt to fight. How the systems inevitably prevail.
Awesome series but niche? It’s an HBO series that’s on pretty much every list of the best series of all time. I’d hardly call that niche.
Why did Season 5 fall off a bit? Was there a change in writers/producers?
Oh, it’s great. Charlie Brooker (Black Mirror’s creator) called it the best show of all time, with honorable mentions to Deadwood and The Shield (which I didn’t rate much)
Better off Ted deserved more seasons
I’d like to upvote you twice.
It’s much better than silly Silicon Valley, or the Office.
Over The Garden Wall.
I watch that show yearly when fall comes around.
It’s so good. And the soundtrack is great too, except IIRC it’s missing the thrilling chase music or something.
Babylon 5 is great for those looking for a series.
Yes! B5 is awesome!
What seems to start as a cheesy Star Trek monster of the week ripoff turns into amazing character development and years-long plot developments from an era where that’s not what TV was.
Preach.
I think it’s time for another rewatch.I’ve been watching that and Deep Space Nine.
DS9 is the more well known, but I think Babylon 5 was more hard sci-fi
They’re both good
Farscape was also on TV way back then right after so it was amazing
DS9 was Babylon Five Lite.
The Penn and Teller episode was amazing. I can’t think of a better use of comedy in science fiction. There may be funnier shows, but this one actually dealt with humor as a part of people’s culture.
I read that as “great looking” at first.
Yeah it uhhhh has some rough visuals lol. Works well though, and the uniforms are mostly incredible
AFAIK the visuals were designed for a 3:4, SDTV world. The problem is that when they filmed it they framed it for 4:3 but they included some content to the sides so it could be used in a 16:9 format. The problem is that the CGI was all 4:3, so when they released a 16:9 DVD they had to do something about the CGI stuff, and they made a horrible decision. Instead of having vertical black bars, they cropped and zoomed the 4:3 CGI scenes so they had a 16:9 ratio. That meant they took something that was already in SD, then cropped out 25% of the content, and zoomed in so you couldn’t see the whole frame.
😂 that being said, is crazy to think that that was actually cutting edge CGI, pretty sure we still called them Silicon graphics at that time maybe. B5, ReBoot, crash test dummies, those three were pioneers from a tv show production CGI.
I’m curious what those first shows in other countries were like
Crash dummies is basically unwatchable hahaha. I remember watching it so many times.
B5 also notably has inertia physics in space, mostly, which was unique
Was later on, but Space Above and Beyond handled inertia physics well iirc
I stopped B5 after the resolution of the shadow wars. which apparently only needed a plucky American to explain that that whole thing was pointless and they all just went away.
Seems pointless to continue after that.
Should I continue?
Yes. And do so knowing that the whole thing was supposed to be a five season arc, then they got told “no you get four” so hastily wrapped up the war only to be told “have another season!”
So they pulled an entire season out of their arse on the fly and in this year it is very. Very relevant
That arc is great. The followup is the earth civil war arc which is pretty great. You won’t enjoy the last season, even though I find a lot of it good.
Better Off Ted is just so good. Only 2 seasons but tbh I doubt they could have kept the pace past maybe a third season anyway. As much as I want more it’s kinda nice it burned brightly and shortly
My favorite part is when the octochicken comes down from its web.
For me it’s when Veronica gives deposition in as little words and meaning as possible while technically not refusing to answer. It was perfect.
Farscape. I never heard much, if anything about it in Denmark, but it’s amazing. Good sci-fi great humor.
surprisingly dark too, especially in the latter seasons. they just keep making the main characters fail and suffer and betray each other and get tortured and have their friends and family die in front of them after failing to escape the body horror mad scientist that wants to steal your organs and trap you in the matrix…
i actually had to stop watching it towards the end over the continuous concentrated negativity. it’s not a very happy show very often. still good, i just can’t deal with shows that never turn on the lights. like bojack horseman and mr. robot. two other shows that are just too depressing for me to watch. i resonate too hard the consistent downward spiral with no positive moments, then the feeling sticks with me. all three are really good shows that i had to turn off for my own wellbeing.
I’m currently through Season 1 and starting Season 2. Last time I saw it was in high school and the show holds up amazingly well. I’ve enjoyed it as much if not more.
I saw it a lot many years ago, and I agree that its good, don’t know how much it holds up today though
I left his in another comment before seeing yours but yeah, last time I watched it was quite some time ago and I still really enjoy it. One of the few times the ‘rose colored glasses’ didn’t apply.
thematically it holds up fine. productuon wise it’s about what you’d expect from 90s scifi. it even has early cg aliens, with a tv budget. lots of big rubber suits or people with skin paint and wigs.
The Lost Room. A forgotten SyFy channel gem.
Syfy had some decent to good mini series.
In addition to The Lost Room, I really enjoyed Tin Man (Wizard of Oz reimagining) and remember liking Alice (Alice in Wonderland reimagining)
Seriously thank you, I remember watching this when it aired and occasionally have wanted to look it up but forgot the name.
You also reminded me of the uproar when “The Sci-Fi Channel” rebranded to SyFy lol
Never heard of this one, it sounds fascinating! Thanks for mentioning.
Looooove this show. Only available in DVD quality that I’ve found. Still worth the watch.
Don’t forget its spirit spinoff, Warehouse 13.
I haven’t heard of that one. I’ll have to look into it. 😀
I thought Warehouse was a spin off of Eureka.
They were contemporaries, and had crossover episodes, but weren’t technically linked.
ah! I loved it. one of the earliest things I pirated. felt like it could have worked for a full season.
Was about to comment this… Didn’t know there were other connoisseurs
I’m about to jump into The Twilight Zone from 1959.
Where will he go next? This phantom from another time, this resurrected ghost of a previous nightmare. Chicago? Los Angeles? Miami, Florida? Vincennes, Indiana? Syracuse, New York? Anyplace, everyplace, where there’s hate, where there’s prejudice, where there’s bigotry. He’s alive. He’s alive so long as these evils exist. Remember that when he comes to your town. Remember it when you hear his voice speaking out through others. Remember it when you hear a name called, a minority attacked, any blind, unreasoning assault on a people or any human being. He’s alive because, through these things, we keep him alive.
I’ve always been meaning to go through and do a serious watch of that in order.
