My 15 Favorite Science-Fiction TV Series Of All Time

contrary to popular belief i

do things besides just read so that's

why i want to start this new series

called

reading break we're going to talk about

some things that i love besides books

and what better way to kick that off

than talking about some science

fiction tv

hey what's up bookworms and science

fiction nerds mike here today to talk a

little

tv with you for a change i think

everyone's got to take a quick little

reading break

now and then talk about something else

and something that comes up on the

discord and in live streams quite a bit

are what are some of your favorite

science fiction television shows i mean

this

comes up constantly so i thought it

would be a perfect

way to kick off this new series called

reading break

again don't worry these aren't going to

take over the channel or anything like

that i'm not becoming a multimedia

channel i am still just

books but i think one of these every few

three or four months is fine right

at least i hope so i hope that you'll

give me some good feedback here let me

know what you think about these and what

uh

what some of yours are now here are a

couple of

ground rules here and this might seem a

little controversial

i am only picking one series

per franchise so yes things like

stargate and star trek are going to be

tough

it's going to be tough tough choices so

if you're like i can't believe you

didn't have the series on here

it was just a stupid little rule i made

so this list didn't get convoluted

i want to keep it tight and just to

you know some series that uh maybe you

don't know as much about

and this might give you some interest in

them so there we go guys obviously these

are only series that i've watched if you

look at particular one i haven't watched

it obviously i can't put it on here but

these are 15

that i absolutely loved and i want to

talk about

briefly let's go ahead and dive right in

oh before i do that i do want to say

no buffy the vampire slayer on this why

because i consider buffy to be fantasy

i consider all vampire stuff to be

fantasy

supernatural is going to be fantasy uh

anything like that

is going to be fantasy and that's why

it's on this list for me science fiction

is mostly spaceships aliens and lasers

so there we go that's why i am where i

am there might be a couple that seem to

contradict that on this list

but i want to let you know up front

everyone knows i'm a huge buffy fan they

think that's going to be number one

that's not

that's not that'll be a list for a

different time let's start with number

15 and that is

fringe yes the short-lived i don't say

short-lived

four seasons on fox it to me it was very

very x-files of the time it felt very

x-filesy with its monster of the week

but it had a

large overlapping arc and it dealt with

multiple uh parallel universes and

multiple realities and i love stuff like

that very stephen king

and uh yeah it was another one of the jj

abrams brainchilds

before he went absolutely nutty which is

a conversation for a different time

i know it's very unpopular so you

appreciate anything that bad robot did

now

after uh certain things have happened

recently but at the time i think he was

still

full of fresh ideas and fringe was very

very cool very very slow burn but had a

terrific cast the main three of them

just had terrific chemistry together and

like i said the monster of the wiki

stuff was okay

but their main overlying arc was

absolutely stunning

some of the best long-form uh

storytelling i've seen

especially from fox fox you know who's

just famous for canceling

anything that doesn't get like 20

million viewers per episode and sci-fi

is still a very

niche genre that's not going to draw

those kind of numbers you know they're

expecting sci

uh star wars style ratings on television

that's just not going to happen

at least not usually so i i think that

that's

always going to be one of the big

complaints there with fox and i think

you know there's a specific series that

comes to mind when you think about fox

and cancelling stuff too soon

but uh fringe uh very good it gets to it

even it ended sooner than it should have

but uh still very very satisfying and i

i have the box that

i'd love to do a re-watch of it one day

uh because is it john noble who played

walter on there

absolutely amazing performance that's

dennithort from lord of the rings by the

way

number 14 didn't have such a quite a

happy ending

because of cancellation that is the 4400

on the usa network

this basically took the idea of all

these people

there's a show they call the leftovers

which i haven't watched where all these

people disappear

uh i feel like this is kind of similar

in that all these people over the course

of 50 years have just disappeared and

then one day

they all just appear back somewhere i

think in like wisconsin or something

like that or seattle i don't spend a

long time

and they all just arrive back on earth

at the same time from different periods

in time

and it's about them trying to adjust

back into normal everyday life

but they all start to develop

supernatural abilities superpowers

so it's one of those kind of things you

feel like you've heard done a million

times it really really

did it in a way that again very x-files

that you could tell

all these things were trying to corner

the next x-files because x-files was

going off the air when this started

and i think it was probably the closest

it came to closest

very very sad that it ended when it did

because it still had

so much left to tell and it ended on a

cliffhanger and that's the real real

bummer about this but

spectacular writing wonderful main duo

uh just it's one of those very very

mulder and scully

in a way that nothing else has been able

to capture

up to this point and i'm sad that the

fan revival thing

wasn't really big back then i know

jericho got it pulled off

you know and now it seems like netflix

or or amazon saves everything

that gets cancelled by uh by major

studios but uh this is what i really

we had at least one more season to let

them tie up their loose ends it would

have been great so i wish the cam fan

campaign had been a little

stronger but uh the show is so much

better than me just talking about it was

how it was canceled it's really really

spectacular very uh

you know patient of the week client of

the week monster

whatever you want to call it but uh in a

way that did not get exhausting

at all like so maybe some x-files

episodes did which i'll talk about

number 13 going back to my childhood

with this one

quantum leap this is what made scott

bakula

known to me i had never heard of scott

baker before i don't even know if he did

anything before this but

scott bacon and dean stockwell became

just

no matter what they did after this i was

going to watch one of the most

fascinating concepts ever put to science

fiction with someone who would leap

to someone else's body in a point in

their life

where he has to figure out how to right

a wrong in their life

and he's not able to jump to the next

body until he actually achieves that

so it gave you it was basically like the

ultimate anthology series and that every

episode was different

uh you know but each one he kept hoping

that his next leap as it said in the

credits would be his leap

home where he go back to himself so i

very very well received critically loved

i feel like everyone has nothing but

great things to say about it

uh i feel like there's been several

things they've tried to copy it i've

heard they're trying to reboot it which

would be

depressing the only way that i'd be on

board for a reboot is if scott bakula

played dean stockwell's version in in in

in in the new series that would be

pretty neat i would be okay with that

but uh definitely one that i think has

aged decently

uh you'll go back i mean it was very

forward thinking at the time too

i mean it had all these social issues

that people are

absolutely batty about on television

these days it had all of them before a

lot of things were actually

we're still too scared to approach these

topics so it covered everything i mean

he leaps into a woman

he leaps into civil rights activists all

kinds of stuff it is really out there in

the

the lee harvey oswald episode so good

so good so dark man uh so yeah very very

classic sci-fi

there but a brilliant concept now number

12 you probably expect this to be a

little higher because everyone knows i'm

a big joss whedon honk

um firefly and the reason that firefly

is

where it is is because longevity has got

to count for something in this for me

and as brilliant as its 14 episodes were

it was just 14 episodes in a movie

so it's hard for me to put it above some

of these others that have had more

content now more content doesn't always

mean better

but uh i feel like it in my power scale

here it kind of

takes away from it absolutely wonderful

has some of the best

dialogue and that is what i think that

joss whedon was able to do

in his in his his heyday was the

brilliant dialogue i know a lot of

people got tired of it

uh with the second avengers movie but uh

as someone who you know

buffy was it for me seeing him touch on

sci-fi was just absolutely wonderful

and a lot of things i feel like try to

kind of do the

western frontier star wars mix like he

did with firefly and it hasn't worked

like at all but uh it's one of those

things where i always wish that they'd

get a revival together but it's been so

long now

none of those actors are free at the

same time it just wouldn't be the same

now so

uh it lives on the comic books you know

much like buffy did

so there's that but uh yeah very very

much

a missed opportunity with fox on this

one because i mean you just look at the

legacy

that this show has built off of the

short time it was together

and i mean you still see you go to a

convention and you'll still see people

cosplaying as brown coats

because it was just such an impactful

series and it's just a shame it got cut

down

when it did because it was absolutely

brilliant a true

true western in space that i feel like

no one else is going to be able to

replicate

ever again number 11. this might seem

kind of new

to you but i think three stellar seasons

makes it kind of stand out for me and

that is stranger things because this

is basically an ode to all things

stephen king for me

i obviously am a big stephen king fan

and i think the stephen king stuff uh

kind of straddles one foot in the

supernatural one foot in science fiction

so that's why i went ahead

and counted here you're dealing with

upside down which is a parallel

dimension so to me this classifies as

science

fiction even though others might not

agree um

obviously the throwback is really cool

to people of my generation seeing all

the stuff that we loved as kids

you know brought forth back into pop

culture modern pop culture is obviously

a really cool

thing but everything from the music to

the feel to the aesthetic to the way

that the kids

talk to each other is just terrific

terrific television and there's a reason

it's basically netflix's flagship

because it is that good and what i find

absolutely just wonderful about this

series is it doesn't matter if you grew

up in the 80s or not i know people half

my age that enjoy this series

just as much and it put more eyes on my

dude stephen king and i'm always for

that it got

new readers interested in stephen king

and you can't deny the influence of

stranger things

almost everything tries to rip it off

now uh the it movie that they made tried

to be stranger things i'm like what are

you guys doing

stranger things was trying to be stephen

king why are you guys trying to be

stranger things

so that's you can see my my it reviews

for uh for how

how i complained about that but uh yeah

you can't deny the influence of one

stephen king and that and stranger

things

is by far my favorite show on netflix

it's just

brilliant and it's not just for the

nostalgia i know a lot of these things

is just nostalgia

with this it's just good television it

really is and i think like i said the

the varying age groups that love that

series

just proves that that is true number 10

will seem kind of weird

because i did not watch the classic

series and i'm talking about doctor who

i did not watch a classic series my

earliest memories of doctor who are my

parents telling me my brother to go do

something because they wanted to watch

the last episode of tom baker tom baker

as

the fourth doctor that was my earliest

memories i didn't ever really watch the

series

but when it relaunched i kind of put it

off for a while and then i started

watching the series when it came to

at the time it came to netflix i think

in 2016

and i watched the relaunch that's

christopher eccleston

that's david tennant that's matt smith

uh that was all that was at the time the

eighth ninth and tenth doctors

and uh wait

9th 10th and 11th doctors my fault it's

been a little bit here

but here here's the thing i absolutely

ate the show up i love yes

at first it was really low budget again

to me

if you have quality characters and

quality writing i don't care about the

budget that's just gravy

once matt smith took over they had some

real money

and i felt like the show's production

value really really rised

uh you had if you're an american you

might find the british stuff a little

strange just like i'm sure if you know

bbc people watching american sci-fi

might think it's a little strange

i don't think that's anything wrong to

say but uh to me i was able to latch on

to it really quick

uh when i first started i said it's kind

of like harry potter beats bill and ted

you know and that was how i sold it to

some friends that got really into it too

but

uh the big argument always now is like

you know who's your favorite doctor

and stuff like that uh like i wept when

david tennant left i i

thought there's no way i'm going to be

able to go on with the series and then

matt smith came in i absolutely fell in

love with him right away

so it's just one of those things that's

every time a doctor leaves you're always

like i don't know if i can do this and

then the new doctor shows up and

and you love it um i kind of fell off on

the show recently which i won't get into

because i know where that leads but uh

yeah i loved it through the capaldi era

i thought it was it was pretty solid

show but what really got it from me

was if you watch a series it basically

tells you

yeah the main character's gonna die

every three years

and it's going to rip your heart out and

you keep watching

that says something for the legacy of a

show and

yes this show hits you in the fields way

more

than you would ever expect just a fun

goofy science fiction

series to do it really really does

because you get so connected to those

characters

so connected to those companions and

when bad things happen and bad things do

happen it's just absolutely devastating

but so

much quirkiness about the scythe i don't

think besides farscape i don't think a

show has ever been just as

quirky and would just go for it with

some of their alien creatures

like doctor who did so it definitely

deserves its place here in the top ten

for me number nine

i can't think of a cooler cat growing up

than

ross earling and that was because i

watched the twilight zone

it was on nick at night when i was a kid

and it was one of those things where

uh my parents were very sheltering they

were very religious they were very

sheltering what we watched but they were

okay with us watching the twilight zone

because you know i guess they watched it

when they were younger

and me and my brother we just ate it up

uh i it was the first time i'd ever

watched anything really in black and

white

and i thought that was so vintage and

cool and it's just one of those things

that i would not want to watch a

colorized version of twilight zone i

think it makes it creepier

but some of the most classic tropes in

sci-fi now that have been done to death

twilight zone was doing them first and

this show

did social commentary before anything

else i think

uh i mean this is just some of the guest

stars that you see on the show though

william shatner like some of these

people who went on to be bigger actors

that you never really expected to see

when you go back and watch them now you

know i got that blu-ray set

a couple years ago we just started

re-watching all of them and i'm just i'm

stunned at how old it is but how

dark and sinister that show will go was

never afraid to leave you

with an unhappy ending which at the time

period was just unheard of so yes

vastly ahead of its time and it's still

rather amazing it is interesting to see

how fascinated we were with outer space

at the time you know because this is

before we even went to the moon

you know so it's really a good time

capsule

of where you know american minds were at

the time and it's uh it's a show i think

has aged wonderfully

ah new series no no

i know a lot of people like carry on

about black mirror which i still haven't

watched

and they're all like oh it's amazing

every episode is like a new cast and i'm

like so was just doing what twilight

zone did 50 years ago

so i i don't know if that's a fair uh

criticism i don't know i haven't watched

black mirror so

there it is but twilight zone i would

absolutely say

uh check it out and i would definitely

watch a new x-files that performs at

xbox

a new twilight zone episode uh if it

aired tomorrow and i just spoiled my

next one number eight

that is the x-files and i know that some

of you might think oh might but you said

that you know

no no no there's no space no like

there's aliens hello

that counts x-files was targeted for me

i

was very very very much into the jfk

conspiracy at the time

still i am and uh when this came out it

was one of those it was during a time

where you still believe that government

american government was competent enough

to keep secrets from us

and it was just perfect timing

and your two leads were just magnetic no

one was cooler than david duchovny

in 1993 right and jillian anderson

she could still call me today uh so yeah

that's like my first

tv wife there was jillian anderson but

it's just

a brilliantly done monster of the week

long form storytelling

it had its monster of the week episodes

which were almost always great is there

some stinkers when you've got a show

that's on for nine seasons you're gonna

have some stinkers in there it's gonna

happen with science fiction

but i think the for me the dark

conspiracy cover-up men in black kind of

thing

really made that show what it was for me

where it was like they would have these

absolute huge revelations

and you'd kind of feel like okay i need

to catch my breath and like okay here's

a couple months for the week episodes

for you

to calm down and then we'll get back

into the heavy stuff and it

did that balance pretty much perfectly

after dude company left the show

like i like robert patrick but it just

wasn't the same they were very clearly

trying to do

uh passing of the torch i can't remember

the other girl that he was working with

that wasn't scully i can't remember they

were very clearly trying to do that

it didn't work the audience has rejected

it and they tried to get due company

back and it was just a big mess towards

the end

so i think this would probably be higher

than eight if uh if duchovny

and anderson had stayed together the

whole time but uh yeah just

a wonderful show that's age if you don't

mind seeing like cell phones that are

like this big and stuff like that

i did the technology obviously it's

going to be like what it's

aged terrifically i still watch them all

the time on hulu

they're still very very good and some of

those episodes

are so freaking dark that you cannot

believe that they were on television

and it just again this was my teenage

years man i love the x-files that was

that was can't miss tv for me in the 90s

and it's still really good number seven

lost now i know that a lot of hot takes

about lost uh

you know how everybody is all super

critical about how game of thrones ended

yeah multiply that times a million that

was how lost ended that was how people

felt about loss

social media wasn't huge at the time i

think myspace was the biggest thing

when lost was on tv but uh sticking with

the game of thrones comparison there you

know how everyone was just like super

obsessed with their theories and stuff

like that

that was nothing compared to lost

dude people were writing freaking novels

trying to explain what they think was

going on in lost it was that deep and

yeah we got to we got towards the end we

realized yeah they never knew where they

were going the whole time

but getting there was worth the journey

yes the ending really let me down that's

what keeps it you know from being you

know a top three show all time for me

but no one has been able to do the

flashback thing

as well as lost it's tried to be

replicated a million times remember that

show flash forward oh

yeah it everyone tried to do that

formula after lost mount there and

no one has been able to capture the same

sense of mythology that that show

captured and i mean

i still got my dharma t-shirt i should

have wore short my dharma t-shirt i

still got a dharma t-shirt

because i was obsessed with that show

when it was on i had my own theories i

used to write

remember blog posts on myspace i used to

write theories about why i think that

this person was this and what was

connected to that

but that flashback scenario really i

think helped keep it from feeling

formulaic because it gave you

something new every episode while also

slowly unraveling the mysteries

of this island so uh that's a show i'd

like to revisit

and maybe time will have uh have maybe

be less critical on that last season but

i doubt it i doubt it

but uh yeah it doesn't deny the fact

that those first five seasons were just

stellar seller tv

at least for me and that's why it's as

high as it is

yes i have to break up my single take

that i did in this video because i

realized i forgot something that was

very very important when you just kind

of

make this list just off the top of your

head you don't actually write this stuff

down

you have some mistakes and there's one i

kind of want to fit in and it fits about

right here in between

a lost and i'm going to the next one

will be the expanse

so it fits right in between those two

here and of course i am talking about

dark on netflix if you have been a fan

of this channel at all you know i have

been championing

this series for about the last year this

is by far the most intelligently written

show i have seen in a long long time but

here's the thing

it challenges the viewer it not just

because

uh if you're in the states it's in a

foreign language it's in german uh they

have dub tracks where

they're pretty bad so we just left on

the german and read the subtitles but

here's the thing

that doesn't take away from it at all i

mean this is a reading channel after all

but uh it challenges you in that it

gives you

no answers really very often it just

presents question

after question after question very much

in a lost kind of way

and that it's dealing with multiple

timelines but

uh unlike loss they knew where they were

going the whole time

and it was just three seasons it's all

on netflix guys you should absolutely

watch it

but it ties up damn near everything

in a perfect satisfying way

but again just how intelligent that show

is and how

well written it was just really stands

out i mean there's so

many times that i thought i had it

figured out and then

bam out of nowhere completely surprised

me and caught me off guard

and it what i mean by it challenge you

is like there are multiple

versions of each character from

different timelines and it's stuff like

i said you really

really got to pay attention to it but

just the most brilliant time travel type

of show i've ever

ever watched and one of the things i

think that really

just super hit a home run for me with

this is that the casting

was superb in that usually on most shows

when you have a say you have a mid-20s

actor

and they need to cast the kid version

like i'll just get someone with the same

color hair that can be them

no what this show did to hit a home run

with the casting

is that they cast it by the eyes they

casted people who had these same eyes to

play the young version

the middle aged version and the old

version of each character and that way

you saw this character and you knew

absolutely from go who it was

and that is the most brilliant casting

director i have ever seen

oh my god someone in hollywood pay

attention to the casting director for

dark because they have figured

this out they know how to actually make

this work and i think that is just

something i can't say

enough of about on top of how well

written

and how how well active the show is so

guys please if you have if you respect

science fiction smart intelligent

writing like i said it's gonna make you

think

it's going to make you think you're

gonna be like four episodes and you're

gonna be like this makes no sense i mean

there was times when me and my wife are

basically arguing because we didn't

understand what was going on

so yes it is that deep but it is so

satisfying it is

very very satisfying i've seen it taking

on a lot of uh new life lately uh saw

stephen king actually tweeted about it

and whatever the king tweets about

uh any type of programming or a book

most people usually take note

uh but uh i'm happy to say i was ahead

of the king on this one

it is very very brilliant and uh it's

probably one that will

only go up on this list over time but i

just couldn't put it above the next one

so let's

get to those next ones now number six

the expanse

i know so many people who are like ah

this is a sci-fi chat and you know what

that reputation got earned sci-fi

channel put out crap quality tv shows

for a long time

so i understand why people didn't want

to take that show seriously and ended up

getting canceled

but thankfully jeff bezos loved the

series and he has a lot of money so he

picked the series up

apparently he was always rubbed the

wrong way he wanted to buy that series

when it was first available

for tv and sci-fi kind of kind of kind

of stole it from under him which is just

amazing to hear about but regardless of

all that

the expanse is such a better show than

just

hey this is a show that was saved from

cancellation because of the fans look

this is by far the most scientifically

accurate television i have ever watched

it puts such an emphasis on physics

and gravity and how space is scary as

it does it in a way that basically

gravity is a character on this

television show and it's just

stunning you know you'll watch so much

sci-fi tv and they'll do something

you'll be like

yeah that wouldn't work but this it's

like yeah they got the science right

apparently they keep

scientists on staff to make sure they're

getting the science right that's

brilliant that's brilliant brilliant

television

and it's it seems like it's probably you

know four seasons then it might be a

little new

they're they've got great source

material that they're working off of the

expanse books by james i say corey

but uh it seems like over the course of

time

this series might go down as my favorite

science fiction television series ever

i've got it at six right now just

because it's still so young

but i definitely think it is trending in

the right direction and guys

this is probably my favorite show on

television

right now next to uh with vikings and

last kingdom

the the expanse is every bit as good as

anything that you're watching right now

so if you haven't watched the expanse

please do

i tell people give it four episodes

because it is a big heavy drop at first

it drops you into this world

and you're just like what is going on

and it's a lot to take in

but if by about the fourth episode if

you aren't in it might not be for you

but i'm thinking it will be because

it is just brilliant brilliant

television and some of the best and most

flawed damaged characters

i've ever seen on tv and it absolutely

nails what all programs should be doing

with the whole diversity already

confused right now

i definitely think that watch my expanse

why you shouldn't read the expense video

for what i mean further

on that issue because i talk about the

tv show some on there but definitely

check out the expanse

if you haven't definitely moving up for

me over the course of time now here was

my first

tough pick and this is because i'm

talking about star trek at number five

and trying to stick to just

one i love the original series i love

the next generation i love deep space

nine

i could do without voyager enterprise uh

the new stuff that to me that doesn't

register

um this was a really really tough pick

for me

and here's the thing the one that i

don't pick it would be in this list as

well but for the sake of this list i did

it this way

just to try to give it some conversation

i'm going to go with deep space nine as

my favorite star trek series

and i think that's because i am such a

sucker for serialized

tv i need a long arc

the monster of the week thing kind of

got burned out for me all those years

watching x-files

with deep space nine you had ronald d

moore and steve and i are bear who were

you know

got their chops on writing for next the

next generation and they were the ones

who kind of

proved that you can break away from

syndication tv

which is why everything had to be you

know closed-ended episodes

and you could do long story arcs and it

was on season

four of deep space nine through the very

end four five six seven

and namely the dominion war that is just

some of the best

long-form television you will ever see

and the thing was is when next

generation came out i said well you

can't ever replace that crew

and you fell in love with the crew with

deep space nine well there's no way they

could be as good as the next gen crew

and i fell in love with all of them it's

just an amazing

job by moore and his team to what they

were able to write

and when they brought wharf over from

next generation it just it to me

that's what put it over the top as the

best next gen uh the best star trek

series that there was and i absolutely

loved it look i tortured myself making

this pick i really did

but deep space nine's a long

storytelling arc

and the finale just yeah not even going

to talk about it and i'm going to talk

about it because i'll get emotional here

just brilliant brilliant tv it's all on

netflix guys please

please watch deep space nine because i

feel like it is the black sheep of star

trek shows

maybe a long voyager and i just i don't

get it i think it is just

stunning television and it's just a

brilliant brilliant writing

and it led ronald moore to a show i'll

talk about in a little bit

number four another tough pick because

while i love stargate atlantis

i have to go with stargate sg1 because i

love

that crew tilke and sam and daniel

and colonel o'neal that was my ragtag

sci-fi group for a decade man

i loved sg-1 i liked the movie when i

saw look

huge kurt russell fan so i would see

anything he was in and i liked

stargate sg1 by season three

i was saying this is the best science

fiction show on tv and second isn't

close

this was wonderful wonderful job at the

monster of the week

it did it perfectly would you set up

this gate system where there's

jump into a new gate every single week

and then you'd have like a big bed for

each season that would kind of show back

up

randomly kind of using that buffy format

where you have your monster of the week

but that big bad is

always present in the background

somewhere that was brilliant television

and

dude to me richard dean anderson was

macgyver and i was like i'm never going

to be able to not see him as macgyver

now i'll say like a macgyver rerun on

i'm like hey colonel o'neal and i mean

for the that that really

just got through and i mean so many

quotes i use in my daily life are

colonel o'neill quotes i still say

indeed about everything like tilk wood

uh

if i have apprehensions about the show

it's just that you know they they teased

us so long about colonel o'neill

and and uh samantha carter you know but

again

that's not ever going to be a detraction

against it i like look i i i joked when

i did my live stream that if i ever did

a live stream it would just be talking

about my

me and like eight other people talking

about our favorite stargate sg1 episodes

well it turns out that that uh people

will probably actually want to do that

i i love this series yes after

after uh richard dean anderson he wanted

to take a reduced roll

uh he didn't want to travel he wanted to

spend time with his family for those

last couple years and they brought over

some far escape veterans which was

really cool

but it never really felt the same but

those first seven seasons

absolutely brilliant sci-fi television

even today yeah some of the special

effects are dated of course

but as you'll see with some of the other

stuff on my list that doesn't matter

that doesn't matter at all these

characters were wonderful i love them

and they're

those four actors chemistry together

along with the gentleman that played

general hammond

absolutely stunning and just a

achievement i mean this is the reason

this is one of the longest running

science fiction shows of all time

because it was just brilliant television

and it makes me sad that they can't

figure out how to get

a new stargate show going i know that

they've tried with universe which was

i didn't really care for it uh they did

an animated show personally i think

atlantis

had at least two or three more years in

it you know

but uh it is what it is i hope that they

can revive stargate somehow some way not

a reboot

but just a continuation of that universe

i would definitely be

down for it moving along here to number

three

do you remember when guardians of the

galaxy came out and everyone was just

absolutely like wow i've never seen

anything like this well i wouldn't saw

it because i won't lie i'd never read

the comic and i don't think that 90

of the people that told you they had

read the comic had read that comic

either

i went in with low expectations and

after i left and i absolutely loved it

i was asking myself why i loved it and i

said well because all it was was like

the biggest

budget episode of farscape that i have

ever seen

farscape was an incredible

science fiction series that had muppets

in its main cast yes muppets uh for you

who don't know if you're a little

younger

that is a mechanical puppet uh we grew

up in the area

of jim henson fraggle rock things like

that so we were all about the muppets

you know the muppet show was a gold

standard when i was when i was a tiny

tiny child

and when you saw that moved into science

fiction and you had

two main characters like uh rigel

and pilate that were muppets and

it worked to a point to where you

eventually started thinking

i don't even look at them as muppets i

just look at them as characters and that

is just

brilliant storytelling uh involved with

just absolutely wonderful special

effects and i think that farscape is

like the along a firefly is the biggest

like

tragedy of a show that was cut down

before its time now unlike

uh other things out there that was a

show me firefly got its movie

you know but farscape got a made for

television mini series

like four hour mini series wrapping up

all their loose ends and it did so

decently or whatever but far escape for

four seasons this was the quirkiest

and weirdest and most fascinating

science fiction show i had ever

watched had absolutely stunning

characters and just crazy crazy plot

twists

and some character deaths i think at a

time when

people were so scared to kill their

characters off on tv

fire escape was the first one i saw

killing off main members of its cast and

it was just

absolutely shocking and it did cut

every single time but it wasn't just the

makeup and the special effects and

things like that

they were all nice but that crew

it was different to me because i looked

at stuff like star trek where you have

your chain of command and everyone

respects that chain of command

in first cape these are all people that

you think at first

they're all out for each other you know

they're all for themselves they're at

each other's throats all the time

so people have a hard time kind of

connecting with that but it's the bond

that they

these misfits form over time is what

makes that such a beautiful story

and it's just absolutely wonderful one

of the best

villains i've ever seen in in television

in scorpius

absolutely amazing job by wayne program

i can't say enough about him

and i mean crichton crichton was the man

right but the dargo dargo is my boy

absolutely wonderful wonderful cast they

all nailed their parts

they just went for it they didn't care

if it was weird

they didn't care if it was you know

overly sexual

they didn't care about any of that stuff

they wanted to do it they went for they

even made a freaking animated

episode one time uh before a lot of

other series were doing that

uh you know most now usually always have

like their musical episode they had a

looney tunes episode basically and it

was just

absolutely hilarious but again uh some

of those

shocking tv deaths i've ever seen and

just

the big moments in that show where

they'd have like their two or three part

episodes

wonderful wonderful television and

that's one i've revisited

numerous times since it went off the air

made my wife watch the whole thing

she actually loved it and again if you

like guardians of the galaxy i have no

idea why you wouldn't like this

because everything about that you can

look at every one of the members of the

guardian galaxy

and you can pick out who they were in

farscape it's

really really like that it's just

wonderful wonderful

tv so please check it out if you haven't

it will always be dear

to me number two god this was hard

picking between two and one

very very hard and i feel like i flip

back and forth on it all the time

if you're on the discord you probably

know because i talk about this show

quite a bit and i'm talking at number

two is babylon

5. i had never watched a science fiction

series at the time this was the mid 90s

we're talking about here that was

serialized that had a

long form storytelling arc it where

we're talking like

season two through four was one story it

was really almost like

to be continued at the end of every

episode it was like watching

a movie broke into 20 episodes uh

sure the special effects are hilariously

bad now in the 90s they were ambitious

as hell

you know but it didn't matter the

writing on there j

michael strazinski brilliant this guy

had a plan of the beginning

middle and end before he started yeah

there was some with tnt and he

had to end up rushing his story

and he thought the show was getting

canceled so he wrapped everything up and

then they said oh no we've got an extra

we're gonna give you extra season after

all and then he had to kind of make up

something on the fly for the last season

season two through four best science

fiction ever made

there's only one reason it's not number

one that's because season one's just

okay and season five was

because for a reason not his his own but

uh

i can't say his name uh the main actor

that plays uh captain sheridan

easily my favorite science fiction

captain yeah uh he

is wonderful in every regard the type of

guy that

you would go to war for he was

what i've said about the red rising

series i pierce brown is how much i love

daryl's speeches now they'll make you

want to fight for him

same with uh with with captain sheridan

i would fight for this guy no matter

what no matter what the odds

but uh yeah j michael jordanski's

writing in this was just

stellar absolutely stellar and

the gentleman who plays jakkar

man that is a powerhouse of an acting

performance and it's one of those things

where you

at the time you felt like okay science

fiction it's still kind of hokey

whatever

this was the first one where i felt like

science fiction tv can be very

very serious and very realistic and have

thespian actors

that really really buy into their roles

and the gentleman that played your car i

can't think of his name right now

he absolutely stole

the scene every time he was in it

because he was just that good because he

really

really bought into this world that

srizzki created and it's just

it's absolutely wonderful i tell people

if

you're struggling with that first season

stick with it because you're going to be

super super impressive where it goes and

there is

one moment in season two god i can't

think of

the episode number now but they actually

want a hugo award for it for so good

but just the emotion that you'll feel

not because of a character death not

because of something really sad but

because of something

super powerful we're talking like right

of the rohirrim and lord of the rings

powerful it is just such a kick-ass

moment

and this was the first science fiction

series i saw

where the ladies were every bit as

badass as the men sometimes

in more regard of bonneva oh my gosh she

is just a beast

one of the best i mean just i can't say

enough about that whole group guerrilla

baldy is one of my favorites uh i i

could talk about i can make a whole

episode that's just about babylon five

and it's just a shame of what happened

to it at the end there

that would probably put it to number one

and guys do you know what number one is

i mean i'm sure you've been peeping the

shirt the whole time

so say we all battlestar galactica the

modern version

is my number one science fiction show of

all time

for a multitude of reasons i watched the

original one when it came out when i was

a kid

after star wars i just wanted anything

that was more sci-fi

and you know what even at that age i

thought it was pretty hokey pretty corny

uh so i was concerned when the uh when

the rubric was happening i told myself

it's probably gonna be a little weird uh

but you know hey give it a fair shake

the time i was watching just about

anything on sci-fi channel stargate was

still on

um the fire escape was still on and i

thought sure actually i think farscape

had just ended

uh prematurely and i said okay i'll give

it a try and i was just absolutely

stunned by what i found

i was watching the west wing a lot of

the time and i was like holy cow this is

like

the west wing in space i really believed

that it had

every i still say that the in world

politics and palestine galactica

best i've seen done on television they

are stunningly

good and amazing i mean you just see

we're down to like 40 000 people left in

the human race

and the politics are just as brutal as

they were you know on on caprica

so it's it's it takes everything that

you would love about a standard science

fiction series

puts basically a real world spin on

everything yeah there's social

commentary in there for sure

for sure but but not not like it is

today it's actually like

thought-provoking uh not accusatory

but um what i tell people is

this is the best show on tv that takes

place in space but at the time i was

like i can't think of a show that's

actually better

right now maybe lost at the time that

was about it but

edward james almost is a

beast in this series every scene that

that man is in

again that's someone i want to fight for

but the whole mystery of who was a cylon

and who was not

at first i thought this is just a cheap

ploy so they don't have to use the cgi

to make the cylons it worked it worked

really really well because i mean for

five years we're arguing

i think this person's asylum how could

that happen i went wait wait wait this

person's asylum what and it was the

first series where if you missed an

episode you were lost

you were absolutely that was unheard of

for science fiction at the time

if you missed an episode all of a sudden

be like wait wait wait wait wait wait

wait wait wait number three which i'm

about number three

wait that one's a side what what cylon

number six what are you talking about

it just has the best fan community that

i had seen for a science fiction series

at the time it might just be because

you know the internet was blowing up we

were still doing bullets and boards back

then but you know

uh things like reddit weren't really

huge yet but you know you had

so much speculation and theories on

battlestar galactica

and here's the best part about it

it got my wife in the science fiction my

wife is an educator

so when you have this whole idea this is

how i sold it to her

i said well what's really cool about it

is all

of the politicians basically nuked and

the highest ranking person left

is the the department of education and

laura roslin

and so basically a teacher becomes the

new president of the world

you know the new leader of the world of

surviving race and that guy to watch it

and she

just absolutely loved the series just as

much as i did and on a re-watch

every bit is good and the last episode

will make you

bawl like a baby so

sure there are lots of things i i think

that people still argue about on it but

i think that just kind of

builds on its legacy that people are

still talking about it you know 15 years

after it ended

about 15 years how long has it been now

what was it like 2008 or something

all right so it's been a while since it

ended right and

uh this whole like gender swapping thing

that's just like the craze

in media now i feel like battlestar

galactica was like the pioneer of it you

know they

they made starbuck a a female and it

was awesome because she was an awesome

awesome character

so uh yeah you now you might see more

people like upset

about that or more people that are for

it or whatever at the time it was just

like wow

what a bold decision you know because it

wasn't just like what everybody was

doing

it really thought ahead and again ronald

d moore

from star trek this was his brainchild

and

i will watch anything ronald d more

makes after this i mean i'm watching

outlander because ron will be more

rights for that show

rodney moore is the best mind working in

science fiction television

and i think he should have more stuff

out there so guys

that is my list yes it went a little

long because it's hard for me not to

talk about these things without getting

enthused

but uh what is your list drop in the

comments let me know

what you're thinking and so say we all

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