4 was split into two mini seasons.

Kona, apart from maybe the early episodes of s3, you might be disappointed if that's what you are after. 

oh dear. just checked, i'm up to s2e5. 

Yeah the main problem was it was a bit silly. Especially with that doctor? dude. Annoyed the tits off me. It's still okay though. 

A thoroughly miserable experience, but that's just me not really having the stomach for serious "horrors of actual wars that actually happened" type-stuff any more.

I thought the last act was utterly ludicrous though - the Germans must have had like a billion opportunities to shoot Brad Pitt whilst he was gunning totally exposed for about 10 hours straight. Pffffttt. 

you mean to tell me WWII wasn't won entirely by americans on their feet with thompsons? 

No, it was won in the factories of Detroit. 

No, it was won in the factories of Detroit. 

Really seems to divide people.

I am on the side of : It's the best damn sci-fi show ever created :P

I can't even be objective about it. That show had a direct line to every pleasure center in my brain and knew exactly when to pull the strings. I agree that S4 got a little wavey but the first three seasons are absolutely frakking fantastic tv.

Special mention for their depiction of space combat. Huge bulks of slow metal firing missiles, flak and bullets at each other while fighters duke it out in the middle. It felt like a submarine fight in space. Newtonian physics as well. And while some of the CG haven't aged as well as you might hope, it's still an absolutely beauty to watch in motion. I love what they did with the camera shots in space.

Ok I started gushing. Time to go! 

 

I'll just leave this here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oFBydWOO7E&list=FLKzfWxIitHmZX2nqKm_5lxA&index=19 

Ruined an otherwise great film. 

yeah the cgi I really liked, the way everything appears floating, and that camera gimmick they do where it rapidly zooms in on something, it's quite cool. 

I liked BSG but not without willfully ignoring things (like JIMI HENDRIX OUT OF NOWHERE WHY ARE YOU IN SPACE JIMI)

Speaking of inappropriate music in BSG, there was a single episode where classic Cylons show up and speak in the classic Cylon voice and it's so outrageously "Intergalactic Planetary" I had to pause the episode to stop laughing (and go youtube the song). 

Good god, Jonathan Banks has been completely underused. 

Just finished watching and thought the same thing. What a performance! 

that was the lamest part of s4. But I can forgive that when it's still strong overall. 

Jimi Hendrix (or Bob Dylan? Both?) is the final Cylon!
I didn't mind it so much, and I thought McCreary's orchestral version was pretty cool.

Yeah, that last Saul episode was great. 

Watch Blade Runner. Then watch BSG. Then realize "Adama" was in Blade Runner and BSG is Blade Runner except instead of replicants they are Cylons even down to the use of the word "skin jobs" in Blade Runner as a slur to the replicants and the "is he/she human or not" air of mystery. BSG was great for the first 2 seasons regardless, then loses all focus.

"And they have a plan" --- Seasons 3 and 4 destroyed that and that was the mystery that made the first 2 seasons great, the feeling that some unknown and unseen subplot was going on.

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Kona mentioned Star Trek above. I'm curious as what Star Trek he meant. The Next Generation is about unwatchable, loaded with cliches and smarmy humanocentric feelgoodisms. Maybe 15 episodes are pretty solid.

The entire first season could be used to torture prisoners of war in ...

A Clockwork Orange style. 

Re BSG music... oh that classical intro music is so out of place and wrong. I like classical music, but not here.

Haha maybe your just not a Star Trek fan Baker. But if you think The Next Generation is cliche, don't watch The Original Series. I did last year and by todays standards it's really quite bad. Just about every episode has the same few main characters getting trapped on a planet of humans that somehow took on a distinct era of human history and never evolved from there. I forced myself through the series once, that was enough for a lifetime.

But I'd put them in this order:
TNG > Voyager > DS9 > ............ TOS

Voyager was overall probably better, it's just Captain Janeway that annoyed the shit out of me. Equally as annoying as DS9's idiot Sisko. Picard on Voyager would have been great.

Never bothered with Enterprise.

DS9 suffered from the same thing as BSG - too much political drama.

Star Trek's casting has always been a bit sketchy, usually a few good characters mixed with poor ones that bring the whole thing down. 

DS9 suffered from the same thing as BSG - too much political drama.

I would say that the politics are what made BSG and DS9 more interesting than the other shows you mention. I liked TNG too, when I was a teenager, but when I watch it now I get so irritated by the bullshit deus ex machina storylines. This is what BSG did much better. The Star Trek shows you mention just repeat the same 5 cliches that Berman and Braga invented in the 80ies. So did Enterprise, but that got better when they fired the writers. But even after that, it still had a horrible cast except for captain Archer, which I thought was a great casting choice. 

allegories of normal life are just exploration of unseen worlds etc.

Blade Runner, I actually rewatched the final cut on blu rya a couple of weeks ago, loved it but I hope that the upcoming sequel which has Harrison Ford signed on better not make it 'clear' that he wasnt a replicant. 

 

Star Trek started out as an altered form of the Twilight Zone, essentially, with Rod Serling replaced with a spaceship. The Enterprise was a vehicle for the writers to explore the history and present condition of humanity. That's what science fiction is used for when it's used to say something: examining a possible future to turn a lens on the present.

With TOS they hadn't learned how to be subtle with that in a way that made it feel natural. TNG was better at it but took a half a dozen seasons to figure out how. DS9 and Voyager then started to wander away from that by getting too absorbed in their own canon: the thousand-starship battles at the end of DS9 probably made all the fans totally squee, but didn't really serve any higher purpose than making all the fans totally squee.

Based on what I know about Trek, it honestly doesn't seem like that universe ever really got a direct, accurate, meaningful slam-dunk expression of what it was always trying to be about. Unfortunately, they've handed the reigns to JJ "Lensflare" "Don't think about the plot" "Damen Lindelhof is a good writer" Abrahms, who's been quoted saying he thinks Star Trek was too philosophical.

It seems like no matter what nerdy thing you're a fan of (trek, star wars, aliens, doom, buffy, indiana jones, etc) it seems like your ultimate fate is always eventually going to be to put your face in your hands and groan.

Fox didn't kill Firefly - they saved us from ever having to watch it die. 

Is that it's not science fiction in the usual sense at all. Also it had Whedon as it's show runner, and he's good at maintaining a tight and clear vision over a long run. 

Haha maybe your just not a Star Trek fan Baker

The TNG is safe, cozy, optimistic futuristic sci-fi in a social and political environment where the characters are never in error and humans reign supreme and everything is spoon-fed. It is good science fiction.

The original series is dangerous, unknown science fiction where the characters have to make rule of thumb decisions and live on the brink and constantly face unknowns well beyond their control. The crew never completely understand much and the unknowns generally do not get fully resolved.

One isn't better than the other (apples vs. oranges), but the original series presents complex choices and leaves some unknowns for the imagination.