Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

As suggested by RiTides in the Babylon 5 thread, this thread is for making suggestions for sci-fi TV shows as well as books and movies that others might not have seen, or that others should avoid.


One series that I think people some might like is Falling Skies, I recently got put onto it and thought the first season was well worth the watch though the series very quickly declines afterwards. It is set after a successful alien invasion of earth and portrays a human militias attempt to fight back. The graphics are okay, the plot is good but the acting is mediocre (and gets seriously bad after the first series).


So, anyone have recommendiations to make? (other than Star Wars or Trek as we dont need even more threads on those).

Show wise? Into the Badlands. It's a touch tropey/YA-feeling at times, but it's a full on wire fu martial arts-come-western show set in a dystopian future where feudal warlords rule a big chunk of what was North America and fight amongst each other for riches and control, and if you're paying attention there's actually some fairly interesting subtext about the nature of power and how the powerful influence and manipulate others through ideology and exploitation etc that mostly manages to rise above the usual "ewww men are, like, totes ebil" superficial style of pop-feminist commentary(occasionally you get a writer in the earlier seasons who forgets that The Widow isn't actually meant to be a "goodie" just because she fights 'orrible blokes). There's a techno-mystical undercurrent that's starting to come to fruition a bit in the presently airing third season with a bit more information about the "Dark Ones" and where they come from.

Book wise:

Revelation Space by Alasdair Reynolds. A hard sci-fi space opera, this series(core trilogy with a couple of spinoffs and some short stories) is a favourite. Lots of interesting characters and factions and locations all swirling around a central "ticking clock" with some fairly brain-bendy stuff thrown in as well.

Mars Trilogy by K.S. Robinson. Over three books(the kind you can beat someone unconscious with), takes a fairly hard sci-fi approach(written originally in the early 90's, but it's almost entirely focused tech-wise on practical stuff and the Newtonian end of physics, so it still holds up IMO) to the colonisation of Mars by humanity beginning with the first mission of 100 scientists, how that effort changes Mars and humanity both as a species and as a culture, and the development of cultures on Mars itself. The worldbuilding is a genuine delight especially in the latter couple of books as Mars begins to come into its own as an entity distinct from Earth, and it's genuinely nice to see a different approach to the whole "corporate dystopia is inevitable" trope of near-future sci-fi other than the even less interesting "corporate dystopia is inevitable and actually that's a good thing it would be a utopia and yes I do enjoy the writings of Ayn Rand how did you know?" variety. The novels are also fair stuffed with interesting characters, and along the way takes in economics, ecology, various philosophical subsets of anarchism, depression, techno-ethics, and so much more.

The Culture series by Iain M. Banks. Iain Banks was both a brilliant author and a genuinely sound guy, and his sci-fi series is really spectacular. Some people will say that the quality is variable, but most such people will peg different "best" and "worst" books in the series, so I'd put that down to preference. It is fair to say that the books are not all the same despite sharing the same setting, with variations in story structure and prose style between some books and even within some books. Set in our galaxy with various species of alien and humanoid, the titular Culture is a vast interstellar techno-utopia where advanced AI "Minds" - fully conscious entities with their own personalities but orders of magnitude more intelligence than any baseline humanoid - benevolently run a society that has utterly eliminated want and people are free to live any life they choose and be whoever or whatever they want to be(literally - one book mentions a fashion fad whereby a couple will get the woman pregnant, isolate the zygote within her body in suspended animation, then both cause their bodies to entirely switch sex, get the other partner pregnant, then have the first partner transition back to a woman and both go through the pregnancies and have their babies at the same time o_0 ), which for most people really takes the form of "party and wander the galaxy for centuries until you get bored". The books, however, use The Culture as essentially a backdrop - the society considers itself both entirely benevolent to the point of near-passivism and an utterly superior way of life to all others, and this contradiction manifests itself in "Special Circumstances", a cadre of AI Minds and human & Drone(a lower-order AI lifeform more equivalent in intellect to a human but with different capabilities) operatives who "benevolently interfere" in "lesser" societies to steer them over the very long term into becoming more like The Culture and eventually being absorbed into it, or to address very specific and urgent existential threats, and the books largely focus on the various hypocritical hijinks that ensue.

The books mostly take a "that sounds plausible" approach to the more "indistinguishable from magic" end of sci-fi, as the stories are focused more on worldbuilding and exploring some political or philosophical point than they are with explaining the exact mechanisms of how Displacement works or observing limitations like the speed of light or what kind of material is strong enough to construct a Ring, etc etc. I came away from every single one of the Culture novels feeling either more intelligent or more enlightened than I did beforehand, it's a great shame we'll never have more of them.

I do like Into The Badlands. It’s not great, but it is good.

Falling Skies is ok till the last season. The ending especially is particularly bad. Instead I’m really enjoying The Colony. Similar pretense as Falling Skies, but I think it’s better than I remember Falling Skies being.

Have to mention The Expanse. Very much enjoying that show. Third season isn’t about to wrap up, and then I think it was Amazon picking it up going forward due to the loud fan outcry when Syfy canned it. It feels like very realistic space travel stuff with the exception of the blue goo.

Other recent Syfy shows have been good too;

Kill Joys was a fun one. Bounty Hunters in space vs government conspiracies, three seasons done with two more to finish its run, and green goo in this one.

Dark Matter has Mercenaries in space with wiped memories vs corporate conspiracies. Bit more serious than KJs, show ended on a big season finale cliffhanger. The goo in this one is black.

Defiance is a bit older. Alien alliance tries to conquer/terraform earth. Fail. The survivors from both survive on the post apocalyptic surface. The show centers on a town where they try to live in harmony with mixed results. End on a minor cliffhanger after the third season, but generally the stories are resolved each season. Silver goo for this show.

Dark Matter was good.

Travelers has my favorite time travel mechanics and they stick to their guns on the rules for it even when it makes things real hard on the characters. Available on netflix.

Neverness, and the Requiem for Homo Sapiens trilogy by David Zindell. A far-future space opera (like Dune, it's so far in the future that there's no connection with the present day). It's about ... well, Neverness starts off following a newly graduated Pilot (a sort of explorer, navigator, trader) making an ill-advised bet with his famous uncle, and then goes off to explore post-human consciousness, genetic engineering and hunter-gatherer society, the nature of human consciousness and philosophy and the connection between matter and sapience. And then the latter trilogy does it again, in greater depth. There's thematic connections to eastern philosophy that I only realised a decade or so later and the whole thing just feels ... big.

Jon Courtenay Grimwood has written a few different SF novels, but the NeoAddix-Lucifer's Dragon-ReMix-RedRobe series was my introduction. Sort of late-stage cyberpunk, but with a particularly old-world feel (the books are perhaps alt-history, with the major powers being France, the German empire and Russia, with the USA sort of ... over there, somewhere). The four books are in the same setting, and are set one after the other, but while later books have some continuity with earlier ones, they're four different stories. His other series, the Ashraf Bey trilogy, are set in a different but similar (in tone; this setting isn't as futuristic) setting, in Ottoman Alexandria and North Africa and are sort of noir detective novels. Personal identity is a theme of both series, and the plight of refugees and the dispossessed.

I've just finished Chris Brookmyre's Places in the Darkness, set on a space station in the near to middling future. It's an interesting concept from him, since he's previously known for Scotland-set crime thrillers .

I'm probably showing my age here, but, the best sci-fi show I've seen to date is Farscape. Space Opera at its best, with engaging characters, cool backdrops, and completely over-the-top plots that somehow still manage to make sense.

Love into the Badlands - its great fun - in a similar vein I suprised myself by enjoying Shanara - its a similar setting but with races rather than Barons - some fun stuff and both are very bloody.

Falling Skies I started with and went off very very rapdily

Altered Carbon (or Bladerunner Porn we called it) is enjoyable watch - not as good as the books and they cock up most of the main message but worth a watch

Books - yeah really enjoy the Culture books - but try the altered Carbon ones.

If you're looking for a good read, check out the Deathworlders stories (aka Jenkinsverse).

As it's an "internet" thing, there is a lot of branching stuff and "non-cannon" stuff. My official recommendation is to read the Bold, Cannon stories here, in publication order, rather than chronological order. https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/wiki/ref/universes/jenkinsverse/all_works

I'm enjoying "Colony". Alien invasion show. Modern day USA. There are walls, and inside the walls are the "colonies". 3 seasons so far.

Killjoys - 3 seasons already made, season4 July 20 in the USA. It's a romp. Bounty hunters in space. The Quad (1 planet + 3 moons) is where much of the action happens, but "the J" is the star cluster where it's all set (only ever mentioned in the opening titles of the VERY first episode). It's Canadian. Faces from other shows will turn up in it from time to time - it's like there's only a handful of actors who do SF or something. S3 expanded the focus a little to have more action outside the quad. Green AND black goo.

The Expanse is a fun show. Inners (Inner planets - Earth and mars) v belters (Descendants of the first asteroid miners and ship builders) and also Earth v Mars v belters, as well as rich corporate types+Earthgov v everyone. 200 or so years in the future. Belters harvest ice from the belt to send to the inners but are still the "underclass". Based on a series of 9 novels and half a dozen or so novellas (book 8 due end of this year, 9 next year). Wasn't "cancelled" by SyFy, it was only "not renewed" (because SyFy didn't MAKE the show, they only rebroadcast it for the US market - Netflix had RoW sown up). Amazon have picked it up for S4+ (working on it now, so next year airing). All you really need to know is "Holden is a d**k." or "Holden is a Sh*t magnet."

I enjoyed Defiance - it dribbled out backstory over its three seasons ( and the online game had an effect on the show for S2). The hows and whys it all happened. It's a 5000+ year story arc that ends up set in a near future earth, "terraformed" by Aliens (the votan, who are made up of 8 races, 6 of which form a collective). Based around the town of "Defiance" situated over the ruins of old St. Louis (the Freedom Arch gives it away). Ends on a cliffhanger after 3 seasons. Like a frontier western, but with Aliens. For the first 2 seasons, the constant threat of falling space debris ("Arkfalls" or "razor rain") meant flying/aircraft was a non-thing, further extending the frontier western theme.

Falling skies had good bits (Alien invasion show) - and seeing what prosthetics Doug Jones has got himself into this time is always nice but suffered from sappy ending syndrome (Spielberg WAS involved, so that partially explains that part.)

Dark Matter was fun. 3 seasons, ends on a cliffhanger (because Syfy: Imagine your show cancelled. ). Mercenaries, corporate wars, colonials, all the usual tropes.

Altered Carbon was OK - it's based on a book in a trilogy focussing on the main character (Takeshi Kovacs). Ex Military spec-ops commando type. This one is set on Earth (he was born on one of the outer colonies but gets sent to Earth). Locked room murder mystery with conspiracies and search for lost-loves and such. Took themes from the book then split them, twisted them and rewove them into something that sorta resembled that story but not.
The other two books are about the Kovacs character, but are set on different worlds in different parts of the galaxy.
Some say there's an "unhealthy" reliance on nudity in the show (but to be honest, the characters who nude-up the most, are the ones who regard their bodies as little more than "clothing". "Death" is less of a thing in this universe, and the richer you are, the better the body you can come back in.).

 Yodhrin wrote:
The Culture series by Iain M. Banks. Iain Banks was both a brilliant author and a genuinely sound guy, and his sci-fi series is really spectacular. Some people will say that the quality is variable, but most such people will peg different "best" and "worst" books in the series, so I'd put that down to preference. It is fair to say that the books are not all the same despite sharing the same setting, with variations in story structure and prose style between some books and even within some books. Set in our galaxy with various species of alien and humanoid, the titular Culture is a vast interstellar techno-utopia where advanced AI "Minds" - fully conscious entities with their own personalities but orders of magnitude more intelligence than any baseline humanoid - benevolently run a society that has utterly eliminated want and people are free to live any life they choose and be whoever or whatever they want to be(literally - one book mentions a fashion fad whereby a couple will get the woman pregnant, isolate the zygote within her body in suspended animation, then both cause their bodies to entirely switch sex, get the other partner pregnant, then have the first partner transition back to a woman and both go through the pregnancies and have their babies at the same time o_0 ), which for most people really takes the form of "party and wander the galaxy for centuries until you get bored". The books, however, use The Culture as essentially a backdrop - the society considers itself both entirely benevolent to the point of near-passivism and an utterly superior way of life to all others, and this contradiction manifests itself in "Special Circumstances", a cadre of AI Minds and human & Drone(a lower-order AI lifeform more equivalent in intellect to a human but with different capabilities) operatives who "benevolently interfere" in "lesser" societies to steer them over the very long term into becoming more like The Culture and eventually being absorbed into it, or to address very specific and urgent existential threats, and the books largely focus on the various hypocritical hijinks that ensue.

All of this. If you haven't read the Culture series you need to fix that problem ASAP.

FYI if you enjoy the Culture series, WLG's sci fi game Beyond the Gates of Antares is very heavily influenced by it.

Breaking news! As of the newest episode The Colony is no longer goo free! We have seen the goo and it is green!

Space Captain Smith is a comedy/action SF series based in the future British Space Empire which is fighting a war against the ant-like Ghast and the Lemming Men.

Crammed with pop and geek culture in-jokes and cameos. There are now six titles, in order;

1. Space Captain Smith
2. God-Emperor of Didcot
3. Wrath of the Lemming-men
4. A Game of Battleships
5. End of Empires
6. Pincers of Death

Oh, Final Space. Animated show. Primarily follows an idiot who ends up on a mission to save the earth with his buddy that fires planet destroying lasers from his face. Comedy, action, drama, some seriously harsh feels. This ended up being a lot better than I was expecting to it be going into it and I’m definitely looking forward to the second season. But seriously though, there are a couple of scenes where if you don’t have to strain to hold back tears then you are a sociopath.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
The Culture series by Iain M. Banks. Iain Banks was both a brilliant author and a genuinely sound guy, and his sci-fi series is really spectacular. Some people will say that the quality is variable, but most such people will peg different "best" and "worst" books in the series, so I'd put that down to preference. It is fair to say that the books are not all the same despite sharing the same setting, with variations in story structure and prose style between some books and even within some books. Set in our galaxy with various species of alien and humanoid, the titular Culture is a vast interstellar techno-utopia where advanced AI "Minds" - fully conscious entities with their own personalities but orders of magnitude more intelligence than any baseline humanoid - benevolently run a society that has utterly eliminated want and people are free to live any life they choose and be whoever or whatever they want to be(literally - one book mentions a fashion fad whereby a couple will get the woman pregnant, isolate the zygote within her body in suspended animation, then both cause their bodies to entirely switch sex, get the other partner pregnant, then have the first partner transition back to a woman and both go through the pregnancies and have their babies at the same time o_0 ), which for most people really takes the form of "party and wander the galaxy for centuries until you get bored". The books, however, use The Culture as essentially a backdrop - the society considers itself both entirely benevolent to the point of near-passivism and an utterly superior way of life to all others, and this contradiction manifests itself in "Special Circumstances", a cadre of AI Minds and human & Drone(a lower-order AI lifeform more equivalent in intellect to a human but with different capabilities) operatives who "benevolently interfere" in "lesser" societies to steer them over the very long term into becoming more like The Culture and eventually being absorbed into it, or to address very specific and urgent existential threats, and the books largely focus on the various hypocritical hijinks that ensue.

All of this. If you haven't read the Culture series you need to fix that problem ASAP.

And Against A Dark Background. Same author, different setting, much more melancholic feel to it. Also the book that inspired the name of the Halo series (while the Culture novels inspired the rings themselves, IIRC).

All my recommendations are literary. I can't think of any TV series that haven't already been brought up.

Primeval; available on Hulu. BBC program that puts scientists against rifts in time and space, opening to the past and future. First two episodes are a bit slow, then it takes off. Tons of fun, my wife even loved it.

Bran Dawri wrote:
I'm probably showing my age here, but, the best sci-fi show I've seen to date is Farscape. Space Opera at its best, with engaging characters, cool backdrops, and completely over-the-top plots that somehow still manage to make sense.

I could never get into that show, they scream at you for an opening. when I want to hear a space opera I watch the 5th element.

there's really not many sci fi shows out there, I'm on a site where they did a march madness style bracket for best sci fi tv show ever and they got so desperate for shows they put lost on the line up, and one season wonders like firefly. it was depressing when looking at the shows and thinking, really, that's the list? that's the best sci fi shows over the last 60 years?

link for those interested.
https://www.facebook.com/GeekLeagueOfAmerica/photos/a.381405125255641.91424.333804750015679/1875775752485230/?type=3&theater

Of the last 60 years? What about Blake's 7?

Or 1998's Invasion Earth miniseries, which does pretty much what it says on the tin.

Hell, I'd nominate Space Precinct before stuff like Sliders. Nonsense list IMO, especially as it looks like certain options were pretty obviously set up to fail - like, in what universe would Space:1999 ever get more votes than reboot BSG? Or UFO than Who?

For TV shows I would recommend Blake's 7, though finding a copy on DVD can be tricky if you live in the US. It's an ancient, ultra low-budget series (with notoriously bad FX) based around a group of escaped criminals fighting a rebellion against a totalitarian government. The writing and characterizations compensate for the dire look of the show, and it takes a realistic look at the complicated nature of anti-government rebellions. Several of the main cast are not good guys (a serial killer, a terrorist, and a psychopath are included in their number) and nobody has any kind of plot immunity. Served as a direct inspiration for Firefly and some bits of Farscape (the female villain from the latter seasons of Farscape was a clear expy of Supreme Commander Servalan).

For novels, I would recommend the Gap Saga by Stephen R Donaldson. It is a retelling of the Ring of the Nebelungen (sp) In SPAAAAAACE!

There's a rumour that during one location shoot for Blakes' 7 (in the infamous "BBC quarry"), a crew member was sent to investigate the noise coming from the other side of a spoil heap what was interrupting filming. The source of the noise was apparently Doctor Who, filming in the same quarry.

Perhaps this is a bit obvious, but the sci fi comedy Red Dwarf is worthy of it's cult status. Start at the first season.

I really enjoyed the first season of Counterpart

Not sure if it counts as SF but if you haven't seen it, the original The Prisoner is well worth a watch.

 AduroT wrote:
Have to mention The Expanse. Very much enjoying that show. Third season isn’t about to wrap up, and then I think it was Amazon picking it up going forward due to the loud fan outcry when Syfy canned it. It feels like very realistic space travel stuff with the exception of the blue goo.

Joyful news. I am really hooked on the show.

Battlestar Galactica
Stargate(s)

Lost Fleet by Jack Campbell (books, sci fi, action, spaceships, casual reading)
Foundation Series (books, sci fi, fall of the galactic empire - this is my favorite trope and can't miss the chance not to recommend it)

Quantum Leap is a time travel series with some heart.

V: the Miniseries is a classic and pretty much required viewing for anyone of my generation.

I'd suggest watching the oBSG pilot episode(s) for a few reasons: it's a time capsule of a show made in the OG Star Wars headspace; the effects were great for the era of motion controlled miniatures; who doesn't want to see the plucky good guy fleet fleeing from a genocidal empire and then take a side quest to a casino planet?

Stargate SG1 is like a pro to-MCU show in that it has a great mix of action and quips. You just have to get past the rough first season, and you'll have seven years of escalating adventures before the show gets tired. If you're still up for it, the spin-off, Stargate: Atlantis, gave the world Jason Momoa.

Space: Above and Beyond might be worth a watch for some 90's space opera cheese. It starts off as the type of sci fi that Starship Troopers was parodying, although I think it got better. It had higher production values than Babylon 5.

Ok lets see:
TV:

Battlestar Galactica ORIGINAL! - witness the original flight of the colonies of man toward the shining star, known as Earth

Buck Rogers - man is frozen in time and travels far into the future!

Sliders - four people who slide between dimensions, each time hoping that the next slide will send them home. Each world is unique, each world different.

Quantum Leap - One man jumps from body to body within his own lifetime; each time hoping that he'll jump back to his own body.

Farscape - mad fun in space with impressive Jim Henson puppetry for the aliens.

Star Trek (do I need to say anything on this? )

Babalon 5

Stargate SG1 - great series, gets a little long in its tooth near the end, but a very solid series indeed and great fun


Books:
The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton - fantastic epic space opera. Really recommend this trilogy as not only is it hard-sci-fi but it has that edge of mystical unknown of the universe and space. Note if given the choice get it ebook - each paperback is 1200 pages long (they get heavy on the fingers)

 Overread wrote:
Ok lets see:
TV:

Spoiler:

Battlestar Galactica ORIGINAL! - witness the original flight of the colonies of man toward the shining star, known as Earth

Buck Rogers - man is frozen in time and travels far into the future!

Sliders - four people who slide between dimensions, each time hoping that the next slide will send them home. Each world is unique, each world different.

Quantum Leap - One man jumps from body to body within his own lifetime; each time hoping that he'll jump back to his own body.

Farscape - mad fun in space with impressive Jim Henson puppetry for the aliens.

Star Trek (do I need to say anything on this? )

Babalon 5

Stargate SG1 - great series, gets a little long in its tooth near the end, but a very solid series indeed and great fun


Books:
The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton - fantastic epic space opera. Really recommend this trilogy as not only is it hard-sci-fi but it has that edge of mystical unknown of the universe and space. Note if given the choice get it ebook - each paperback is 1200 pages long (they get heavy on the fingers)

I never quite liked the new BSG - mostly cause I felt it was trying to be its own thing; it also had that "dirty" feel to it a bit like playing Red Alert 3 what with the half dressed to fully nude robo-gals walking everywhere. It just felt more tacky than anything. I might watch it again some time and see if I can get into it (wouldn't be the first time I've disliked something on first viewing).




I also I forgot to add two thing to my list. COMICS

Metabarons - fantastic artwork and a very neat story in a very operatic style futuristic world. Well worth reading even if just for the high grade of artwork alone.

Alien Omnibus series - the comics pretty much start from the end of Alien up to Aliens and many are simply stories set in the world. A huge variety of sci-fi stories with one of the most famous xenos in the universe. Honestly very enjoyable to read if you're Xeno fan. Far more creative and building within the world than many of the - ahem - attempted reboot films.

NBSG was always a bit try-hard, although it didn't go off the rails until after New Caprica. It was a well done "what's going to happen next?" drama let way down by the fact that the writers had no idea where it was going. It was a lot like Lost in that regard, and like Lost it seems to have lost a lot of its appeal over time.