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So with the family on vacation I have some time and broke out some unwatched DVDs.

The late 90s early 2000s were a great time for Space Opera on TV. 3 or 4 Star Trek Shows, Babylon 5, the Battlestar Galactica reboot and then all the 'also rans' Farscape, Stargate, Earth Final Conflict and Andromdea.

I remember ads for Lexx which boiled down to "space! and sex!" but so far...

Sets and FX that make Blake's 7 look good (and I liked Blake's 7!), the sexiness ain't sexy, the humor ain't funny and the characters are annoying.

I had some hope when the pilot film gives us an oppressive theocratic regime, with kangaroo courts that turn people into servitors. A crossed wire leads to a space pirate getting a medal and the innocent school kids being fed to lizards. It had potential.

But season 1 (really several 2 hour films) is just awful. Very talented people like Tim Curry just wasted.

Does thing get any better?

I recall watching a few episodes when it came out, and was unimpressed. I can’t recall any of my friends liking it, and we’re a pretty diverse geeky bunch.

So I can’t tell you if it gets better, but can tell you that you aren’t alone.

And this thing ran for 4 seasons!

(And Firefly for one...)

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
So with the family on vacation I have some time and broke out some unwatched DVDs.

The late 90s early 2000s were a great time for Space Opera on TV. 3 or 4 Star Trek Shows, Babylon 5, the Battlestar Galactica reboot and then all the 'also rans' Farscape, Stargate, Earth Final Conflict and Andromdea.

I remember ads for Lexx which boiled down to "space! and sex!" but so far...

Sets and FX that make Blake's 7 look good (and I liked Blake's 7!), the sexiness ain't sexy, the humor ain't funny and the characters are annoying.

I had some hope when the pilot film gives us an oppressive theocratic regime, with kangaroo courts that turn people into servitors. A crossed wire leads to a space pirate getting a medal and the innocent school kids being fed to lizards. It had potential.

But season 1 (really several 2 hour films) is just awful. Very talented people like Tim Curry just wasted.

Does thing get any better?

The next movie/disk after the Tim Curry one is not any better. Never made it farther than that.

Stargate SG1 is an also ran to you? The first season was pretty weak, but that was a solidly entertaining show for about 6-8 seasons, which is more than most Star Trek series can say. Now Space: Above and Beyond, that's an also ran!

Personally I thought it got worse rather than better as it went on,

but enjoyed it as somewhat throwaway SF with a difference but it was certainly not for everybody

Edit: (I suspect the coffee budget on firefly was more than all 4 Lex seasons cost)

I enjoyed season three.

Nope...it stays bad throughout. I tried.

I liked the League of a 10000 planets and its IoM vibe.
Other than that...it was meh. I gave up a little bit after the first Xev died.

They should not have changed the ship's interior from the first season's.
The first season's interior of the Lexx looked pretty good. The subsequent season's looked cheap.

I liked the first 2 seasons of lexx. The characters may come across as annoying but to me they were a compilation of anti-heroes, there wasn't anyone there who was an outright good guy. The janitor who accidentally ends up in control of the most powerful ship in the universe, the renegade fat/ugly woman who gets transformed into an unprogrammed sex slave, and the guy who should be a hero (and was) but is unfortunately dead and largely a slave at that point. I liked the whole atmosphere and the concepts involved. But losing the xev character after season 1 didn't help things, and season 3 was sort of uninspired and season 4 i physically couldn't watch it had run out of ideas.

But things like how stanley controlled the ship was pretty cool, or the whole biological nature of the lexx when everyone else was using metal ships at the time. I liked it more than farscape, but then i always felt farscape had too weak an introduction/setup to the series. But yeah, if you don't like season 1, you're probably going to despise 3/4. I think season 2 did too much, and left them with nowhere else to go.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
So with the family on vacation I have some time and broke out some unwatched DVDs.

The late 90s early 2000s were a great time for Space Opera on TV. 3 or 4 Star Trek Shows, Babylon 5, the Battlestar Galactica reboot and then all the 'also rans' Farscape, Stargate, Earth Final Conflict and Andromdea.

I remember ads for Lexx which boiled down to "space! and sex!" but so far...

Sets and FX that make Blake's 7 look good (and I liked Blake's 7!), the sexiness ain't sexy, the humor ain't funny and the characters are annoying.

I had some hope when the pilot film gives us an oppressive theocratic regime, with kangaroo courts that turn people into servitors. A crossed wire leads to a space pirate getting a medal and the innocent school kids being fed to lizards. It had potential.

But season 1 (really several 2 hour films) is just awful. Very talented people like Tim Curry just wasted.

Does thing get any better?

The next movie/disk after the Tim Curry one is not any better. Never made it farther than that.

Stargate SG1 is an also ran to you? The first season was pretty weak, but that was a solidly entertaining show for about 6-8 seasons, which is more than most Star Trek series can say. Now Space: Above and Beyond, that's an also ran!

If one were to judge by the ease and frequency people could perform unauthorized landings or steal fighters from the thing,the carrier in Space Above and Beyond had easily the worst security in any military.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
I liked the League of a 10000 planets and its IoM vibe.
Other than that...it was meh. I gave up a little bit after the first Xev died.

So did I, it was really close to the Imperium and had a nice bit of absurdity to it.

So naturally they blow it up at the end of season 1...

Leaving us with a version of Red Dwarf only not funny and with worse FX.

I'll probably try and finish some of season 2 before giving up.

A few years back I rewatched Star Trek TNG and wow, those first 2 seasons were unwatchable crap. But then it got good. Really good.

So I had hope for Lexx. Apparently unfounded.

As for Stargate, never really got into it, I saw a few stray episodes over the years. I think 'also ran' is a fair description though, expecially when put next to Babylon 5, Deep Space 9 or BSG2.

Babylon 5 and Deep Space 9 are the heights of televised sci fi, so no argument there. However, I am curious why you rate nBSG as a great show but SG1 is only an also ran. nBSG had 2.5 good seasons and then became an absolute mess. SG1 started weak, got better, and eventually got tired after 6 or more seasons of great adventure. I'd rate SG1 much higher than nBSG. I'd also rate TNG higher than both.

As to Lexx: the pilot is not great. If you don't like it after the next couple episodes, though, you never will. TV is an art form, and art is to the brain what food is to the stomach. With that thought in mind, Lexx is like a Twinkie: it has no redeeming nutritional content whatsoever, but many people (including me) still enjoy one from time to time.

Everyone has those 'guilty pleasure' shows/comics/movies that they enjoy even though they know that they aren't objectively good. I think Lexx goes squarely in that category. I enjoy it, and so long as people don't throw rocks at me for enjoying it, I promise not to throw rocks at them for watching Jersey Shore, reading Preacher, or renting Twilight.

As to Stargate: I think you're giving it a bit of an unfair treatment. It had a helluva run. (10 seasons, plus I think 6 seasons of spin-offs and a handful of movies?) It was watchable from the first episode, and stayed watchable right up to the last, which is something very few shows can say, even some shows that have garnered huge acclaim over the years. I think it definitely had a niche, which was different from B5, DS9, or BSG. (I hold the same opinion about Farscape, although the show's limited run provides less evidence to make a case to that effect.)

OK I'll add Star Gate to the 'watch someday' list along with Farscape.

No promises though... Had to do (legal) streaming in Delhi and my free time will go away when the family comes back.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And hey, is Andromeda (which I also left off the list) worth trying again?

Saw the first few episodes and thought it had potential IF THE PLOT EVER MOVED, which didn't seem to be happening.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


Saw the first few episodes and thought it had potential IF THE PLOT EVER MOVED, which didn't seem to be happening.

Oh, it moved.

In all the wrong ways

I've seen bits of Andromeda and a lot of my friends were reallly into it, but you need to be warned. The first season was the brainchild of the head writer, and was apparently very good. Then Kevin Sorbo fired him and took the show into an entirely different direction often described as "Hercules in space". It might be safer never to try it rather than to fall in love knowing your heart will be broken.


As for Lexx, I would never look down on anyone who likes the show. I didn't enjoy it enough to keep watching and I would never recommend it to someone more sci fi vanilla than I am, but it was unique, so I can understand why it appeals to some. I guess I'd put it with Space Precinct in the extremely-niche-shows-I-couldn't-get-into bin in my brain.

Lexx never gets better, it only gets worse.

Farscape is really good, especially when you realize how much crap they had to put up with behind the scenes, as Sci-Fi kept slashing the budget (despite the show being the highest-rated show on the network) and Fox kept stealing their sound stages so they could make the Star Wars prequels. Somehow, the budget cuts almost never appear on screen. Oh, and it's also an actually good show, too.

Stargate SG-1 took me some time to warm up to, but it does get enjoyable for the middle few seasons before it starts getting really tired. I never got behind any of the spin-off series, though, so I can't say much about them.

Andromeda is one of my ex-gf's favorite shows, but I never sat myself down and watched enough of it to form an opinion. I saw like the first three episodes and then one or two from somewhere in the middle or so. It seemed okay, for low-budget television sci-fi.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I guess I'd put it with Space Precinct in the extremely-niche-shows-I-couldn't-get-into bin in my brain.

Space Precinct. Man, I really liked that show. I have no idea why, but for some reason, I did.

Andromeda is one of the few that I have never sat down and got into, only seen a couple of episodes here and there.

As far as Lexx.... I liked it to varying degrees. I would never try to say it was 'good', but it was it's own thing. Aggressively. It was a mess, a weird off putting mess. But I kind of liked it.

I found the pilot to be decent, and the first few films all right. After that the quality plummets. There's some good episodes in there, but by season 3/4 the plot's gone walkies.

Season 1: Goodies fighting galatic evil regime, woo! (spoiler, the bugs did it)
Season 2: Evil regime's gone, now for the filler
Season 3: Huh, robot hands just ate the galaxy, let's go to heaven/ hell
Season 4: Well we're on Earth now. So its came to this. ...Why are there carrots everywhere?

If they'd stuck to the format of the films then maybe there'd have been something there, but things quickly become prop of the week. It seems like with each season they have a good start point, then they put in some random filler and by the end have to tie the whole mess together into a conclusion (typically blowing up everything and starting again in a new setting).

That Brunnen G theme though...

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
So with the family on vacation I have some time and broke out some unwatched DVDs.

The late 90s early 2000s were a great time for Space Opera on TV. 3 or 4 Star Trek Shows, Babylon 5, the Battlestar Galactica reboot and then all the 'also rans' Farscape, Stargate, Earth Final Conflict and Andromdea.

I remember ads for Lexx which boiled down to "space! and sex!" but so far...

Sets and FX that make Blake's 7 look good (and I liked Blake's 7!), the sexiness ain't sexy, the humor ain't funny and the characters are annoying.

I had some hope when the pilot film gives us an oppressive theocratic regime, with kangaroo courts that turn people into servitors. A crossed wire leads to a space pirate getting a medal and the innocent school kids being fed to lizards. It had potential.

But season 1 (really several 2 hour films) is just awful. Very talented people like Tim Curry just wasted.

Does thing get any better?

Your taking the show way to serious, with the proper mindset and taking the show for what it is its an amazing show.

I thought Lexx was great, it's not really like anything else. It's totally weird, and then gets weirder. It's as though Ice Pirates and The Mighty Boosh had a baby, and then didn't spend any money on it, and it grew up to be a transvestite. If you're watching it hoping it will get better, then it won't, and you're doing it wrong. You have to watch it like it's an Andrei Tarkovsky movie, i.e: give up all hope that there will be any kind of payoff, or that it will even make sense, and just appreciate each deranged moment for what it is.

Lexx series 1 (the 4-part miniseries, IIRC) was cheesy nonsense, but enjoyable. season 2 in the Dark UNiverse with Mantrid was the same, but this time it ran on too long and the joke got old. Never saw anything past that.

Andromeda started off well. It's when purple Trance goes away and gold Trance turns up that the rot (AKA the Kevin Sorbo megalomania show) starts to set in. Leave off then and go and play Traveller instead, because from what I can figure out, the plot is much the same.

I only saw the first four or so series of Stargate; after that it went from Channel 4 (which is free to view) to Sky (which isn't, and I didn't have access to). From what I read, it changed a bit after hoovering up actors left with nothing else to do after Firefly and Farscape, but not necessarily for the better. I saw (one of?) the finale movie and apart from being filled with time travel and a load of charactgers I'd never seen before, it seemed up to the quality of the stuff I'd seen earlier.

Out of the lot of them, I'd take Farscape and BSG (although perhaps not the last couple of episodes. Or even just not the last twenty minutes).

 Smacks wrote:
I thought Lexx was great, it's not really like anything else. It's totally weird, and then gets weirder. It's as though Ice Pirates and The Mighty Boosh had a baby, and then didn't spend any money on it, and it grew up to be a transvestite. If you're watching it hoping it will get better, then it won't, and you're doing it wrong. You have to watch it like it's an Andrei Tarkovsky movie, i.e: give up all hope that there will be any kind of payoff, or that it will even make sense, and just appreciate each deranged moment for what it is.

I think we can close the thread now, or maybe the whole internet. I doubt there will be a more perfect description.

It used to show at the weird small hours in the UK, so I watched it drunk after coming back from various locales in various states of enlightenment, and it worked well for that, until the earth episodes, which, even off my gourd, were rubbish.


My ranking for top 3 space operas btw, is Babylon 5, Farscape, DS9 in that order.

My ranking for top 3 space operas btw, is Babylon 5, Farscape, DS9 in that order.

Add the miniseries and season 1 of new BSG, and the granddaddy with STOS and there you go.

And don't forget the great sci fi show of all time - MY FAVORITE MARTIAN!

 Smacks wrote:
I thought Lexx was great, it's not really like anything else. It's totally weird, and then gets weirder. It's as though Ice Pirates and The Mighty Boosh had a baby, and then didn't spend any money on it, and it grew up to be a transvestite. If you're watching it hoping it will get better, then it won't, and you're doing it wrong. You have to watch it like it's an Andrei Tarkovsky movie, i.e: give up all hope that there will be any kind of payoff, or that it will even make sense, and just appreciate each deranged moment for what it is.

That's...surprisingly accurate.
The first season is the best, imo. Second season went to too long. Though I did like the killer replicating arm bots. Those were goofy in a scary way.
I lost interest before starting the third season. I might get around to it eventuall.
Also, I liked old Xev better than new Xev.

I thought it was enjoyable at times. I had to be in a mood to watch it though, because it was simply weird and made zero sense. I also tended to not watch it in chronological order making it even harder to watch.

Wasn't aware Xev died so I guess I don't remember it all that well. I remember was it Malcom McDowell as some kind of space lord in between fire and Ice planets which lasted multiple episodes?

I loved B5 and DS9. They were brilliant series. My wife still calls the bad guys in DS9 Kardashians. BSG I thought was a great series, it kind of went depressing and weird but it remained pretty high quality throughout. Still never figured out why they didn't just space the scientist dude.

I liked Lexx. It was the closest thing to 40K on television I had as a teenager, and well, there were boobs sometimes.

Sci Fi boobs! Teenage me was a simple creature in many ways.

I liked the Brunnen G theme too, and the bioship aspects of it, the general creepyness and trippyness of it all.

I think it peaked in the season with all the crazy "nanobot" arm thingies, after that it sorta went downhill.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
It used to show at the weird small hours in the UK, so I watched it drunk after coming back from various locales in various states of enlightenment, and it worked well for that, until the earth episodes, which, even off my gourd, were rubbish.


My ranking for top 3 space operas btw, is Babylon 5, Farscape, DS9 in that order.

I better start watching Farscape then.

 Da Boss wrote:
I liked Lexx. It was the closest thing to 40K on television I had as a teenager, and well, there were boobs sometimes.

Sci Fi boobs! Teenage me was a simple creature in many ways.

I liked the Brunnen G theme too, and the bioship aspects of it, the general creepyness and trippyness of it all.

I think it peaked in the season with all the crazy "nanobot" arm thingies, after that it sorta went downhill.

The Brunnen G theme is pretty awesome.

I prefer Shadows and Prophets though




Cleric is pretty good as well




As I said before, the first season is probably the best.
This is the most memorable scene for me.




The Divine Shadow is one hell of a villain. He's like an evil Emperor of Mankind.