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Kilkrazy wrote:These things go in cycles.

All of this has happened before, and will happen again.

Depends, red pill or blue pill?

rubiksnoob wrote:Depends, red pill or blue pill?

If I knew I had to go through a whole other life, I'd kill myself right now!

warpcrafter wrote:

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:Isamov? Nooooooooooooooooooooooo! Dull, plodding and pedantic. Same for Arthur C Clarke. Alfred Bester is all you need.

Kilkrazy wrote:"There's top class modern SF being published in books."

Could you give some me examples please. I'm always on the lookout for something half decent. Cheers.

The Night's Dawn series by Peter F. Hamilton. Classic space opera. Would make an excellent series of movies, but there would have to be six of them. And they would be rated NC-17. Lots of sex.

I'd second this... awesome trilogy

no love for Abnett or any 40k books :( ?

Deader then that cat I just sat on. But honestly..I don't think so, but if you're into something new, try to find " A roadside Picnic" by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. If you liked the movie Stalker, or the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R, they are both loosly based upon this novel.

daedalus-templarius wrote:no love for Abnett or any 40k books :( ?

Was never a fan of Abnett, but the Horus Heresy books were enjoyable. Honestly though, the 40k books really aren't any great shakes.

They're good reads, don't get me wrong, but not really top-notch science fiction.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:Maybe, maybe not. What we expect from special effects and sets is a lot greater than it was then when Star Trek kicked off in the 60s. Sci Fi has always been a niche but now is getting more and more expensive to produce. Star ships ain't as cheap as they used to be!

The glut of crappy, third tier sci-fi productions we got in the late 90s and early 00s was the result of sci-fi getting a lot cheaper to produce, as computer effects became more available.

With the DVD market opening up in the 00s you actually have a pretty good situation for nerd TV like sci-fi and fantasy, because while the ratings aren't as good as you'll get for a police procedural of a similar quality, you sell a whole lot of DVD series.

The issue right now is that it seems the focus is more towards fantasy shows, and to some extent superhero shows (before BSG the last big budget nerd shows was Heroes).

At some point sci-fi will come back. There's too many nerds out there wanting to buy the DVD series of a sci-fi show for it not to come back.

I'm just now watching all of the old Sci Fi series for the first time. It's pretty sad to find out that there's nothing new being made these days.
I'm halfway through watching Babylon 5 for the first time an just watched all of Firefly/Serenity for the first time earlier this year.
Firefly was Ok, but I get tired of Joss Whedonisms. I really like B5, though, it's pretty engaging.

I'm much more of a book/movie person than TV person.
I usually don't even watch TV series until they are finished or at least have 4+ seasons, because I was burnt one too many times by cancellations.

I have never seen any of the Stargate series or Battle Star Galactica

Would you recommend them?
Would you recommend Stargate even though I thought the original movie wasn't that great? Is the series better? I would find that hard to believe when your substituting Kurt Russell for Macgyver.

sebster wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:Maybe, maybe not. What we expect from special effects and sets is a lot greater than it was then when Star Trek kicked off in the 60s. Sci Fi has always been a niche but now is getting more and more expensive to produce. Star ships ain't as cheap as they used to be!

The glut of crappy, third tier sci-fi productions we got in the late 90s and early 00s was the result of sci-fi getting a lot cheaper to produce, as computer effects became more available.

With the DVD market opening up in the 00s you actually have a pretty good situation for nerd TV like sci-fi and fantasy, because while the ratings aren't as good as you'll get for a police procedural of a similar quality, you sell a whole lot of DVD series.

The issue right now is that it seems the focus is more towards fantasy shows, and to some extent superhero shows (before BSG the last big budget nerd shows was Heroes).

At some point sci-fi will come back. There's too many nerds out there wanting to buy the DVD series of a sci-fi show for it not to come back.

I agree. Sci-Fi now tends to mean things like Heroes and sanctuary. More fantasy and comic book logic than sci-Fi. I hope you're right about the DVD market having an effect but I fear piracy may cut into how lucrative that market is.


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NagothDaCleaver wrote:I'm just now watching all of the old Sci Fi series for the first time. It's pretty sad to find out that there's nothing new being made these days.
I'm halfway through watching Babylon 5 for the first time an just watched all of Firefly/Serenity for the first time earlier this year.
Firefly was Ok, but I get tired of Joss Whedonisms. I really like B5, though, it's pretty engaging.

I'm much more of a book/movie person than TV person.
I usually don't even watch TV series until they are finished or at least have 4+ seasons, because I was burnt one too many times by cancellations.

I have never seen any of the Stargate series or Battle Star Galactica

Would you recommend them?
Would you recommend Stargate even though I thought the original movie wasn't that great? Is the series better? I would find that hard to believe when your substituting Kurt Russell for Macgyver.

BSG is my favorite show but I really liked firefly and haven't made it past episode 5 of Babylon 5 so ymmv.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:
BSG is my favorite show but I really liked firefly and haven't made it past episode 5 of Babylon 5 so ymmv.

B5 takes a good while to get rolling. Half way through the first season it begins to pick up. The second and thirds seasons are leagues better.

Agreed with B5. Unlike most other TV shows, B5 had a pre-planned story arc. The first few episodes (indeed the first season) is all about the "signs and portents" of things to come. I didn't really enjoy the first half of season 1, but now that I'm on to season two, I am hooked.

Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Roger Zelazny, John Campbell, Murray Leinster, Theordore Sturgeon, Frank Herbert all dead and the list goes on and on. Do any of the writers today compare in the least to the people who built the genre? A few, maybe, but overall I'd say "yes" sadly, SF as far as real ideas is dead.

Metro 2033, by some russian guy, retranslated into english.

The game is NOTHING compared to the book.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:I agree. Sci-Fi now tends to mean things like Heroes and sanctuary. More fantasy and comic book logic than sci-Fi. I hope you're right about the DVD market having an effect but I fear piracy may cut into how lucrative that market is.

Yeah, piracy may be a big issue with my argument above, I'll grant that.

If that's the case, then us nerds have no-one to blame but ourselves.

Damn you Karma!

I believe that sci-fi like starship troopers and BSG are often scoffed at by hipsters and 12-year-olds, preferring either(but, most likely) james cameron explosions everywhere, or a god awful interpretation of a graphic novel or videogame/comic(see resident evil).

I think that Sci-Fi on television is slowly being replaced by Sci-Fi in Video Games.

Just see all the games to resurface. Mass Effect 3, Starcraft II - Legacy of the Swarm, Space Marine, Aliens: Colonial Marines, Prey 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Dark Millennium, Fear 3...

And that's just famous sci-fi...

Yeah, there is pretty much no sci-fi on at the moment.

I'm sad about the loss of stargate universe, the second season was really good, but the bad start of the first season crippled it's ratings.

It had the advantage of being a properly realistic show, with people from the present day earth.. BSG was good but there wasn't that direct connection since the characters weren't from our world... plus I lost interest in the show when they dragged out the trial of Gaius Baltar (the most annoying character in the show) across 12 episodes of season 3. Finished watching it, but that middle-to-end stretch of the third series really wrecked it as a whole.


As far as I'm aware, there will be 3 new sci-fi shows coming soon.

1. BSG - Blood and Chrome. Prequel to BSG with a young adama as the main character. Hopefully less of a fail than Caprica was.

2 + 3: A pair of sci-fi shows that Steven Spielberg is making.. one is based in a post-alien-invasion earth (where humanity lost), and the other is set in dinosaur times, a bunch of people get sent back in time and stuck there. Looking forward to both of those.


Fantasy genre is going very strong at the moment too... if you aren't already watching Game of Thrones, you should be... it really is that good.

It's "hard" fantasy in the same way that BSG is hard sci-fi. Any fans of that show will love it.

Would you recommend Stargate even though I thought the original movie wasn't that great? Is the series better? I would find that hard to believe when your substituting Kurt Russell for Macgyver.

Yes, they're good. I'm not a fan of the movie either, the concept of it was amazing, but it somehow got turned into a poor movie. The pilot episode of SG1 is much better. Don't except Macgyver to be your typical movie action hero.. his character is the humorous one, whereas Tealc is the token total badass character. The series is really lighthearted and amusing sci-fi that doesn't take itself too seriously while still offering great entertainment and doing a lot of really cool stuff... if you watch sci-fi to see the writers using sci-fi as a metaphor for dealing with moral issues or philosophical questions or whatever (e.g. pretty much every TNG episode) then you won't like it.. stargate is all about big explosions, exploration, alien worlds, massive space battles between colossal fleets of starships, the entire US airforce dogfighting with an invading alien fleet over the skies of antartica etc. Another big plus point is that it uses modern military tech and is set in the present day.. it really keeps things grounded, most other sci-fi is set in a distant future that we can't quite relate to no matter how well it's done.

It's a very visual show, light on dialogue, heavy on action and humour. Kind of a "beer and pretzels" show, pure entertainment, heavily upbeat. Atlantis follows the same formula and takes it even further. Universe is the total polar opposite of the other 2 series.

rubiksnoob wrote:

daedalus-templarius wrote:no love for Abnett or any 40k books :( ?

Was never a fan of Abnett, but the Horus Heresy books were enjoyable. Honestly though, the 40k books really aren't any great shakes.

They're good reads, don't get me wrong, but not really top-notch science fiction.

I'm not saying its the best sci-fi ever, but I do find most of the 40k books I've gotten to be pretty enjoyable. (Goto is still atrociously bad)

Significantly more enjoyable than some other slower and more plodding sci-fi books I've read.

Surprised you don't like Abnett, he is usually people's favorite. Him and Graham are by far my favorites.

@scarlettsquig

I forgot about Blood & Chrome. All is not lost then.
Haven't heard about these Speilberg shows but they sound interesting.
I thought Game of Thrones was some historical thing like The Tudors.

Not exactly set in space but there's V and The Event that are sci fi or at least about aliens. I prefer the original V though. At least they had laser guns and cool (well, 80's cool) sunglasses.

I liked SGU the most out of all the Stargate shows. I guess it seemed the least silly out of all of em.

I think the problem is, Joe Sixpack doesn't like nerdy sci fi, just us nerds like it, and there aren't enough of us to justify the kinda cash it takes to make something worth watching.

Necros wrote:Not exactly set in space but there's V and The Event that are sci fi or at least about aliens. I prefer the original V though. At least they had laser guns and cool (well, 80's cool) sunglasses.

I liked SGU the most out of all the Stargate shows. I guess it seemed the least silly out of all of em.

I think the problem is, Joe Sixpack doesn't like nerdy sci fi, just us nerds like it, and there aren't enough of us to justify the kinda cash it takes to make something worth watching.

Cancelled, Cancelled and Cancelled.

Doesn't surprise me at all.

All they have left to kill is Chuck and I'll officially have nothing to watch.

I think I'm already there. I won't miss V and Event though. While I was watching them I was always thinking to myself "why am I watching this?". I liked SG:U and it was getting better. Rush made that show I think.

Good scifi requires good writing, and good scifi is hard to come by. The real problem is good writing goes somewhere, which means the series will end after 4 or 5 seasons tops.

Babylon 5: Writing was for 5 seasons, show ended in 5 seasons.

Farscape: Writing was for 5 seasons, show ended in 4 seasons despite getting better ratings than any other show the scifi channel. Concluded with a miniseries instead of a 5th season.

Firefly: Writing was for a set number of seasons, probably 3 to 6. Show got the axed in season 1, concluded several seasons worth of writing within a single feature length movie.

Battlestar Galatica: Writing was for 4-5 seasons, producers decided to go with 4.

Bad Scifi has bad writing with no end to the story. It follows the Dragon Ball Z template. Storylines may last 1 or 2 seasons with every storyline ending in the good guys discovering some new power to defeat a bad guy. Next season starts a new story line with a new bad guy that is even more powerful than the last bad guy, good guys discover some new power to defeat the bad guy. Rinse and repeat until you reach supersaiyan 10, or end up with 10 seasons of stargate + stargate universe.

Good scifi comes and goes, bad scifi is cursed with eternal life.

schadenfreude wrote:
Good scifi comes and goes, bad scifi is cursed with eternal life.

Isn't it us that is cursed with bad scifi's eternal life?

Stu H wrote:

warpcrafter wrote:

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:Isamov? Nooooooooooooooooooooooo! Dull, plodding and pedantic. Same for Arthur C Clarke. Alfred Bester is all you need.

Kilkrazy wrote:"There's top class modern SF being published in books."

Could you give some me examples please. I'm always on the lookout for something half decent. Cheers.

The Night's Dawn series by Peter F. Hamilton. Classic space opera. Would make an excellent series of movies, but there would have to be six of them. And they would be rated NC-17. Lots of sex.

I'd second this... awesome trilogy

I'm glad you posted that, I was starting to think that I was the only one with knowledge of Joshua "Lagrange" Calvert. Perhaps HBO should pick it up after they get done with Game of Thrones. (I tried reading those books, but I got tired of getting invested in characters just to see them get killed off. I was starting to really worry for Arya Stark. If she would have gotten killed off, I would have been howling for George R. R. Martin's head on a pike.)

Necros wrote:Doesn't surprise me at all.

All they have left to kill is Chuck and I'll officially have nothing to watch.

It's been given 12 episodes in this series to wrap things up and then that's it.

You're running into a 'good ol days' problem, where you're comparing something like 'all of the 1990s' to 'right this minute'. There are always dry spells if you're looking for a really specific format, it doesn't always mean that the've stopped forever. Especially since effects keep getting cheaper and easier to do. Just yesterday I saw a trailer for Falling Skies on TNT, which looks like a 'humans surviving alien invasion' show like V was, so there's still new shows getting made.