Monday 20 September 2010

Bad Sci FI

A recent discussion about good sci-fi made me think about the opposite. What blunders have I seen put out on TV which really should have been left behind in the production meeting.



  1. Space Precinct - perhaps the ropiest TV show ever. Ropey models. Worse acting. Personal relationships taken from the Big Book of TV/Movie Cliches. I can find little to recommend.
  2. Lexx - Perhaps the most innuendo-tastic sexual referenced Sci-Fi (that isn't on the pron shelves). I mean the spaceship looks like a giant Phallus - you know you are off to an innuendo filled start. Most of the plots involved Lust in some form or another. Just felt weird....and was always late night viewing over here. Worth watching while drunk....
  3. Tekwar - another ropey production based on a bunch of hacky Sci-fi books supposedly written by William Shatner. I mean - who the $#@! has a Hero called Jake Cardigan. Cardigan??? You may as well have called him Jake Knitwear... The show itself is some rehashed sort of fluffy cyberpunk-esque near-ish future stuff. Nothing particularly inspiring.
  4. Robocop the TV series. Yup - it's Robocop for Kids. Seriously - they replaced all his guns with Net shooting weapons and stuff. Was practically unredeemable, except for the OCP adverts that popped up in each episode - they were sometimes funny.
  5. Then we've got Alien Nation. A morality play a week 80's TV series about aliens coming down and moving into earth culture. The key characters are two TV cops, who basically, through investigating alien/human crime explore various social ills etc. About as "Right-on" a sci fi series as was ever made IMO. With the possible exception of the next entry.
  6. V - the TV series - So many parallels to Naziism it's not funny. Should have really been called "Nazi Lizards from space". Anyone know if the new remake was any good? It's only a couple of quid in the local supermarket.....
  7. Not sure if this counts as Sci-Fi - But Dark Skies was a sort of Sub X-files storylined program which dragged every 1970s conspiracy theory into an unholy mess. Got boring quite quickly IMO. Reedemed slightly by the fact it Had Jeri Ryan in it..(7 of 9 from voyager)
  8. Highlander The series. Yup a series about that quintessentially 80's film Highlander. Plot (virtually every week). Duncan Mcleod (for he is the central character) has some angst with girlfriend/friend/fact he is immortal. Another immortal turns up who appears hard to defeat. Duncan chats to his confidant (They change through the series). Duncan kills immortal. One wonders why people continued to watch it. At least it wasn't as bad as the Highlander II film I suppose...
  9. ALF. Again - I'm not entirely sure if you will class this as Sci - fi, but since the central concept was about an alien living with your Average US family - it counts. It was just an awful run of the mill sitcom. Don't think i'm going to dignify it with more words..
  10. Babylon 5 Crusade. I wanted to like this - I really did. But it's overreliance on character development to the exclusion of meaningful plot developments made it pretty boring for. Throw in the poor TV movies he's done, and I I hope J Michael stays away from babylon5 for a while.

Just missing out - War of The Worlds The TV series

Gah.
Sad as I am I will still watch these when they are repeated on TV. Mostly in the hope that they have improved with age - like a fine wine......

While researching this blog I found this excellent bit about the lifetime of Sci-fi shows and why they go bad. It fits X-files and Star Trek TNG to a T - I must say....