You have already rewatched VOY, DS9 and TNG more than seven times, right?
Lower Decks, Enterprise, Picard, TOS, The Animated Series, The Orville? So many treks to watch!
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I consider The Orville a show that is filmed inside the Trek Universe for people in the federation to watch for fun.
I think the community is in agreement on this one.
That’s not spicy, that’s generally understood.
Where the fuck did Galaxy Quest go?
I started watching DS9 for the first time couple of months ago. It is very good but visuals are quite dated (just finished season 1).
DS9 camera people had a real hardon for Vaseline.
Once you put it in the camera lens it’s really hard to get off, and with their production schedule it’s easier to just leave it on for the whole show.
Woah slow down there, a season a year is pushing it but a season every few months? You’re crazy!
Not in that particular order, no
Somewhat. I’ve never completed a full watch through of DS9 but I’ve seen the other two countless times.
Right, hand over your fan card. DS9 is unmissable
Not the first person to say that lol
Well, DS9 it is then. I know it’s hard to survive the first two seasons, but it’ll be worth it.
Those first two seasons really aren’t that bad. There are some episodes that are downright excellent in there. Duet is a masterpiece.
Start mid-S2 if it’s really rubbing you. Armageddon Game is a great intro to one of the best relationships on the show, and a good story in its own right. By the time you reach the Maquis you’ll be hooked.
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No thanks.
I’m convinced that many people don’t appreciate DS9 until their 30s.
Cool that the 90s shows each seem to appeal to different demographics even though they were all in theory designed for mass audiences ( unlike in the current streaming era).
The problem seems to be that a lot of younger fans that get into Voyager & TNG, just cringe at DS9 or find it boring. Once they’ve had that experience they’re hard to convince to give it a fresh shot when they’re older.
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I think many of us feel that DS9 is one of those shows where each season is an improvement on the one before it. So it starts out pretty mundane at best with some terrible episodes, but by the final season it’s pretty incredible.
My issue with the show extends throughout all seasons, unfortunately. There’s a few reasons as to why I am not interested but they’re all personal opinion. No serious complaints about the shows quality overall.
I’ll take DS9’s first two seasons over TNG’s first two any time. Yes, even Move Along Home. TNG also peaked around season 5, and was somewhat more mixed after that (but never going quite so low, either).
I’m more forgiving of TNG because it was breaking new ground. DS9 had years of TNG to build itself on. It should have come swinging right out of the gate. There are fewer bad DS9 episodes overall than bad TNG episodes in my opinion, but I will forgive TNG for being rocky at the start, especially when control was continually being wrestled between Roddenberry, Hurley and Berman.
Also, I think there are a lot of excellent season 2 episodes for TNG and I think Pulaski is a highly underrated character. One of the few who develops as the season progresses and doesn’t regress. She slowly begins to admire Data and eventually accepts him as a fellow crewmember and not just a robot. You also had classic episodes like Elementary, Dear Data.
I agree on Pulaski. She could have been a great character if she had more than one season.
I don’t think there’s a truly great episode in TNG’s first two seasons, though. They range from “utter garbage” to “fine” . Season three is massive improvement. Watching it back to back, it’s almost jarring how much better it gets. Barely seems like the same show.
DS9 ranges from “I’ll watch it, I guess” to “holy shit this is amazing”. Kai Winn is a fantastic villain straight away, and would be the most talked about villain in any other show. The only reason she isn’t is because there are so many great villains in DS9 that she gets lost.
Serious question; have you watched For All Mankind?
Nah. I can’t watch alternate period pieces like that, Man in the High Castle and even Inglorious Bastards. My brain cannot cope with history being different for some reason and I start getting really uncomfortable and stressed out/anxious. The sensory issues that I’ve gotten from my autism are the dumbest things possible.
However I haven’t seen the final season of the Expanse. So considering starting that up again… That being said I also have never seen Stargate, Babylon 5 or Battlestar Galactica. So not like I have a shortage of sci-fi at the moment.
My two-cent hot-takes on that list of shows:
- Stargate: For the time, it did the Trek format incredibly well if not better. First season was rough, but oddly found its feet when SciFi took over (weird, right?) Good characters, great villains, fantastic arcs. The show “ends” multiple times, with the last few seasons being less than fan favorites. That said, if you love the characters by the end you may find yourself putting up with late season plot devices. Atlantis is good too, but shorter with slightly less compelling plot hooks. The short-lived SGU sequel/spinoff is has this man-v-man flavor not unlike DSC season 1, but doesn’t stand on its own lore-wise.
- Babylon 5: The even more grounded DS9. But like the oft-compared Trek series, the production values are a 1990’s time-capsule, which (today) has a kind of charm to it. The story arcs center around diplomacy, subterfuge, spycraft, and interstellar war, all told in a universe that is delightfully consistent and charts its own territory. Characters play off each other incredibly well once the series gets going.
- Galactica: I’m going to assume you mean the reboot*. This is a gripping serial epic with very few filler and bottle episodes. Characters grow and evolve, allegiances change, motivations shift, ethics are challenged, and whole personalities get re-written. You can slap “space opera” on the box and be correct, but you can’t describe more than two character arcs without filling your mouth with crazy nonsense. Yet somehow, it all works brilliantly and draws you in over and over again. It stands apart from the source material, but has lots of nods and references to the original so that the old farts in the audience are enthused.
(* The original BSG is a hot mess of amazing-for-the-time effects, cool characters, great concepts, and bad studio interference. Best enjoyed using mind-altering substances because that’s clearly what the writers were doing)
Original Galactica: Somehow makes TOS feel mature and grounded.
Reimagined Galactica: The original grimdark reboot. It’s one of the few works that did “grimdark reboot” well because at the time “it had the virtue of having never been tried.”
This is what Ronald D. Moore did in response to being replaced on Star Trek Voyager for trying to make it the exact same kind of show but was told to make it light-hearted and episodic like TOS or walk. So he walked.
Fuck you, Rick Berman.
Galactica 1980: We don’t talk about Galactica 1980.
The Galactica take got me rolling for some reason.
Babylon 5 and Galactica are the ones people have pushed me the hardest to watch. I’ve been meaning to but haven’t gotten around to it. Babylon 5 probably pushed harder on me because I don’t like DS9 and everyone keeps saying that B5 is DS9 but better. Just keep rewatching the same few things over and over again. Eventually I’ll get to it and hate myself for not having started it sooner.
Personally, I think the problem with Galactica nowadays is that the world is generally far more depressing than it was when the show came out. I can take dark and gritty, but it was more fun then. Now, I prefer something more lighthearted.
Like the flashback episode of SNW, where we saw Chapel and M’Benga during the Klingon War. My first though was “this is awesome, I could watch a whole show like that”, but shortly afterwards, I realised "nope, that would be way too much, bring back Captain Daddy making jokes about how flipping the communicator open is better than tapping a commbadge.
Or maybe I’m just more of a miserable bastard than I was 20 years ago. IDK.
But hey, for any sci-fi fan, I’d certainly recommend at least watching the miniseries that kicks it all off. Get a feel for the characters and the universe they’re in.
I’ve never watched Babylon 5. Everyone always raves about it, but I don’t know if I could get past the extremely dated looking effects.
Plus there’s so much new content coming out. I can’t criticise anyone who doesn’t want to watch older stuff, because who has the time to watch it all?
That being said… you have seen Firefly, right?
Iirc There’s a remaster floating around that revamps the super dated CGI. It’s no SNW but if you can stand TNG & DS9 you’ll be OK.
There’s a lot of fighting between DS9 and B5. The story goes that B5 series creator J. Michael Straczynski had shopped the series bible around, including to Paramount. They weren’t interested, but when they heard it got picked up by WB, they rushed their own space station based Star Trek series forward. With people coming over from TNG, they get a pilot ready faster than JMS can create a series from scratch.
Since they had the B5 series bible, there’s long been allegations that DS9 is a ripoff of B5. Indeed, there do seem to be some elements stolen out of it. For example, the pilot of B5 has a “changeling net” technology that lets people impersonate each other, which had apparently evolved out of an early draft of a changeling species, which DS9 copies outright.
What Paramount studio execs did was definitely underhanded. They were deliberately pushing out a show to make sure B5 wouldn’t get to the same level of popularity as Star Trek. They probably did steal elements from the B5 bible and pushed Berman and Piller to use them.
However, fans make more of the similarities than are really there. Berman and Piller were almost certainly unaware of why the studio was pushing certain ideas and where they got them from (and JMS said as much at the time). Most of the stolen elements are ultimately superficial. The way the central conflict unfolds is very different, the characters are very different, and the technology is all different. B5 doesn’t center around a planet coming out of a long term colonial authoritarian government, and DS9 doesn’t have humanity crawling out of a war that nearly destroyed it and which ended for mysterious reasons. B5 doesn’t have an excellent father-son relationship, and DS9 doesn’t have a wisecracking ambassador who’s very likeable despite doing some incredibly fucked up things.
They are both excellent shows, and well worth your time.
Battlestar Galactica’s miniseries (episode 1) is just so mind fucking blowing crazy good that just by itself it excuses the lower ratings episodes later on. And there are some, it’s not all 8+. But when it hits, oh boy does it hit.
I’m not sure how it would be on a rewatch, since I watched it from season 1 as it was coming on air, and half the fun was basically spending hours on forums discussing theories about the show between episodes.
Oh man, that takes me back
So - I swear I tried to google this yesterday and came up empty. I have a weird question.
Was there a third Sci-fi series that aired around the same time as Babylon 5 and DS9? It may have had a plot thread that involved genetically engineered space spies? Like telepathic central intelligence officers? Or am I thinking of B5?
I was in college at the time (mid 90s) and didn’t have the free time to watch much TV. I caught an episode here or there and would occasionally talk about shows with my friend Spencer. I’m definitely not thinking about DS9 because I’ve seen that in its entirety fairly recently.
Babylon 5 had the Psi Corps, a branch of the military that was made up of people with telepathic powers. I’m guessing that’s what you’re remembering.
That must be it. Thanks
Stargate: like Star Trek except without any of the interesting ideas, there is a cool scene where the U.S. military bros hold up a sub machine gun and say how it is so cool compared to a lame alien staff weapon. Best moment in sci-fi to some people apparently. It’s fine, but it is an action hero show about war and it rarely even remotely approaches the thoughtfulness of the better Star Trek episodes. I like the characters, I have had fun watching it but Stargate can fade away into obscurity and shrug meh.
Battlestar Galactica: yawnnnnn sorry what oh yeah I fell asleep to the monotonous drone of grimdark, military space war scifi. I am sure it is good but again Star Trek is on a whole different level because of its broadness of vision, ideas, and focus on humanity.
Babylon 5: haven’t seen this one in ages, isn’t it another space war scifi?
Star Trek is great because somehow it managed to escape the fly trap that all sci-fi shows/books seem to go to of grimdark space war scifi where everyone is a miserable f^%k. I’m fine with grimdark space wars, I don’t want 100% of my sci-fi to be about grimdark space wars because then you have idiots like Elon Musk who grow up injecting this stuff directly into their veins and they develop an absolutely shockingly tiny worldview. If they had just read some damn fiction that actually challenged their perception of reality like Virginia Woolf or something…. well they probably still be a&$holes but maybe a tiny bit less?
I have heard Red Dwarf is pretty good.
Red Dwarf is good, but I find it leans on the laugh-track a little too hard sometimes. It does a good job of poking fun at sci-fi of the day, and is a great counter-point to BBC sci-fi like Trek and Dr. Who. They may have even shared some of the same sets and props with the latter.
Hyperdrive is in the same vein and has some really great moments. It sits in my head as the midway point between Red Dwarf and The Office. You could even say it was the much lower-budget BBC predecessor to The Orville.
My brother in Christ…
WATCH STARGATE!
It is probably the most well-rounded sci-fi ever made. Very good characters, very funny, and the budget kept getting bigger with each season. (Probably should’ve stopped after season 8, the whole Ori plot feels tacked on - it’s still pretty solid, though.)
There are a lot of familiar actors throughout the series, including some from Trek.
- You don’t need to watch the original MGM movie, it’s technically set in a different universe. But it is fun. And the events of this movie are explained in the series as needed.
- Do make sure you watch the R-rated version of the series pilot (Stargate started off on HBO)
- And don’t forget to watch the two TV movies set after the end of the series. One is okay, the other is excellent.
…When you’re done with that, then you can watch Stargate Atlantis which has even better characters!
Okay I lied a little. I saw two Stargate movies and I’ve seen a handful of Atlantis episodes. Stargate proper looks okay but not as in line with my tastes as Atlantis seems to be. Also cute dude with glasses on Atlantis. That helps. Then again SG1 has that silver fox so who knows…
I’ll get to it when I get to it!
If “in line with my tastes” means what I think it means, just wait until you get a load of Christopher Judge’s Teal’c. Especially in later seasons.
The first few seasons of SG-1 do feel darker (figuratively and literally). Atlantis had the advantage of taking what the main series learned along the way and employing it from the get go. The best thing about them, I feel, is how they aired concurrently and had multiple crossover moments (imagine if Picard’s Enterprise regularly checked in with DS9). So you might want to find a guide online to know what order to watch the episodes of both series in, if you care about chronology.
Oh I’m aware of Teal’c. The show was constantly on TV and my parents liked it but I never watched it. So I’m familiar with the premise and most general characters but I never got into it personally. Teal’c I ended up becoming even more familiar with when I was doing research thanks to God of War. God can that man act…
Hilariously I wasn’t actually being gay in this moment, although you are totally right to immediately go with that line of thinking for ‘in my tastes’ lol. This might sound hypocritical considering my love for Discovery, but Stargate SG-1 seems to be more action focused than Atlantis. I could be completely wrong but that’s just my impression from seeing it casually on TV every now and again. DSC has a bunch of action but it’s also pretty heavily peppered with a lot of really great dialogue and character development so the action feels ‘earned’ to me. Not just throwing it around just for the sake of it. I could be wrong but SG-1 (and again this is totally from the outside looking in with no real information/watching history) feels like it just has a lot of action. I mean that’s probably due to the fact that they’re going through gates to random worlds.
Atlantis seemed more researchy and talky, like TNG or VOY, which I gravitated a little bit more towards. But again I only ever saw sporadic episodes and have no idea what the hell was going on beyond the fact that they found old shit underwater and there was a cute dude in glasses.
Hmm… Thinking about it, I guess SG-1 is a bit more action oriented. But I think that’s because it went on much longer than Atlantis. If Atlantis had less action, it was because it tried and failed - not because it was intending to be more “talky”. One of the defining moments of Atlantis is a gigantic engagement in space. It was so important they changed the show’s intro to include it.
Rest assured, SG-1 has a lot of great dialog and thought-provoking stories, too. I guess you got unlucky and saw all the “YEEHAW, MURIKA!” episodes. XD
One episode in particular is really rough because it focuses on the emotional aftermath of a single action scene.
The reason I called SG-1 “well-rounded” is because it’s a terrific balance between action and character. Atlantis does the same with less on-location filming, and a smaller budget. It’s really hard to pick one over the other because you should treat both as a complete set.
Okay I was actually talking with my roommate a few minutes ago, while you made this comment, and we were talking about Stargate. We’re both huge Trek fans and she has seen all of Stargate. While talking to her I realized why I felt put off by SG-1 and you touched on it.
Every part of Stargate SG-1 that I’ve seen feels like it’s Team America: Space Police. As a Canadian, I really fuckin hate that. So if you’re saying that’s less common then I might give it a chance. I really really despise the concept of a bunch of militarized people rocking up somewhere and suddenly and aggressively imposing their will upon the local population. Which, as I found out when talking to roommate, is sort of the concept of the first Stargate movie? Going in to kill Egyptian-esque gods that have enslaved the locals of another location?
I really liked Babylon 5, I’ll say it gets REALLY good around season four. Season five is a little bit less good but it isn’t bad
For the final season of the Expanse, I’ll try not to spoil anything but I’ll say that Covid has once again given me a reason to despise it for what it did to the ending
COVID fucked over so much. I dunno how much of a surprise this is but I liked Supernatural and the ending that they went with was garbage. Although the producers have said that COVID didn’t impact the ending that heavily. I hope to fuck they’re lying because if that was a conscious decision then fuck 'em all.
yeah, I’m pretty sure the Expanse was supposed to have more episodes in the last season until Covid killed it so it ends… oddly
It’s great up until that point though
I feel the same way but I never really thought about it.
It’s also why I don’t like musicals. I can’t just cut into singing (do they know they’re singing? Is it like that buffy episode?)
Definitely watch Stargate, then. Start with the '94 movie.
Joel Kinnamen in his Punished Snake old man makeup looks great. Can’t wait for the next episodes.
LOL! Fuck, you’re right. He looks like Big Boss. I will never unsee it now.
I was like this when Stargate was in it’s hay day
This meme really says how I feel.
Me with lower decks… Lol.
You forgot Enterprise Season 5?
🥹
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We just dream about it
No
Only if by no you mean yes!
No
Come on, I know Enterprise is your favorite Star Trek series!
Nice edit, jackass
Admit it, that was funny 😁
No
This is a big part of why I don’t start watching a show until it’s complete.
I was just continuing my risa-inspired rewatch of DS9 last night, and it made me think of you all here.
I think its been a really long time since my last watch through, and the upside is that a lot of it feels fresh again, even though I know the characters and the general trajectory of the plot. I think I like this show even more already.
I’m in season 2 and just a few episodes back was “Cardassians,” wherein a Cardassian orphan living on the planet as a Bajoran sets the scene for Garak to flex all over the fucking place.
