Syndicated 90s sci-fi/fantasy: The best sci-fi/fantasy

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The TV IV > Syndicated 90s sci-fi/fantasy: The best sci-fi/fantasy

pentyne: Nov 7, 2012

This thread is dedicated the best of the 90s sci-fi/fantasy TV series. For decades after Star Trek TOS the state of TV sci-fi fantasy shows was in the gutter. No network wanted to take the risk of a special effects laden series that appealed to a relatively minor niche with the hope that it became a crossover hit. Some of the shows produced in this era had a single season that still today people hold up as marvels of television production. Some were always one episode away from cancellation and never able to reach their potential while others ran for 3+ seasons and ended up choking on their own success. Here are some of the best.

Many of these shows were filmed in Canada, and one of the best things about them are the guest stars you can recognize from major TV shows they’ve appeared in since.

(It’s been a while since I’ve seen these shows, and many of them I’ve only watched sporadically, watching random episodes on syndication when I was much younger, so I hope more seasoned fans can explain it better or write up much more compelling descriptions.)

Earth 2

An early example of the ‘dying earth let’s colonize a foreign planet and deal with the natives’ genre. Is that even a genre? I like to think so. Earth 2 takes a cast of misfits to help settle and terraform a newly discovered world after pollution has destroyed Earth. There is really only 1 thing you need to know to get interested in this show. It has Tim motherfucking Curry as a charismatic villain. TIM CURRY AS A HAMMY VILLIAN. Oh and the sickly boy they bring along is supposedly the Alien messiah or something, that was never too clear.
Major Guest star: Locke from Lost.

Forever Knight

A police detective show about a 800 year old vampire named “Nick Knight” (get it?) who works as a homicide cop to solve crimes while hiding his true nature and attempting to be human. It belongs to the Highlander class of shows that follows an extensively long lived protagonist in the present day while flashing back to events of his past. I’m amazed this show has not gotten a reboot. It’s got a vampire detective in a romance with a human woman (sort of) and an old vampire flame while dealing with the evil ambitions of his former maker, who now runs a late night call in radio talk show (I am not making this up). The show is quintessential 90’s, with one murder plot hinging on finding out who rented a VHS porno tape that was found at the scene of the murder
Major Guest stars: Almost all of the cast of the Stargate TV franchise.

Highlander: The Series

I don’t know what to say if you’ve never heard the phrase “There can be only one”. For a relatively minor show it’s catchphrase has entered the cultural lexicon and become a staple of the 90s culture. Don’t watch any of the movies past the first. The second one has the Immortals as alien refugees and it only gets worse from there.
Major Guest Stars: A shitload of people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...bers#Guest_cast

Legend

This show stars Richard Dean Anderson and John de Lancie as the main cast. MacGyver and Q. Colonel O’Neill and Q. Oh and de Lancie is basically Nikola Tesla inventing a bunch of crazy stuff. The plot revolves around the main character, Ernest Pratt (Anderson), a cowardly drunkard who writes fictional novels about a heroic renaissance man named Nicodemus Legend and how the brilliant scientist Bartok (de Lancie) uses his technology to make people think Pratt is actually Legend so they can save people.

Seaquest DSV (exec. producer Steven Spielberg)

This was a huge deal when I was young. I remember watching it and being amazed like nothing else. For the first season it was like Star Trek underwater before the writers wanted to make it more “dramatic, sexier, riskier” etc. the buzzwords some exec uses to change the show for profit. It starts off as following the most powerful ship in the UN keeping order and enforcing the peace. It takes a strong environmental tone, with Dr. Robert Ballard delivering lectures during the end credits and generally being amazing before it falls apart. The main actor, Roy Scheider ends up leaving the show in by the 3rd season and after that it becomes a lot more militaristic and brings in time travel and alien influence.

There are some other shows I have a very small passing familiarity with and would love for someone to write up a much better description then anything I could crib from Wikipeida.

Babylon 5 thread

Sliders thread

Stargate thread

Space Above/Beyond

Seven Days: An entire show about a time traveling PTSD marine who keeps getting sent back to fix the world's (mostly the USA's though) problems

Dark Angel: Big time director James Cameron's TV show

Astroman posted:

In the year 2193, over a hundred criminals became fugitives of law enforcement by travelling back in time two hundred years, using a time machine called Trax. Darien Lambert (Dale Midkiff) was a police detective of that period who was sent back to 1993 in order to apprehend as many of the fugitives as possible. He was assisted by the Specified Encapsulated Limitless Memory Archive, or SELMA (Elizabeth Alexander), an extremely small but very powerful computer (described as equivalent to a mainframe) disguised for the mission as an AT&T MasterCard and communicated through a holographic interface which took the visual form of a prim British nanny. Lambert was also equipped with an MPPT (Micro-Pellet Projection Tube) disguised as a keyless car alarm remote, which could stun the target or engulf the target in an energy field, rendering her or him transportable to the future. This process, executed by SELMA, incorporated a transmission sequence to send the criminal on his way. Lambert's biggest enemy was Dr. Mordecai Sahmbi (Peter Donat), who was responsible for sending the fugitives to 1993, and who tried several times to kill him.

X-files: The major conspiracy show that was a cultural hit in the mid 90's before slowly losing steam. 9 seasons, 2 movies, and was the longest running Sci-fi show until Stargate passed it.

Now and Again:

JethroMcB posted:

Now and Again was the poo poo. A smart update on the Six Million Dollar Man premise - the government has biomechanically engineered the perfect body for a super soldier but still need a brain, which they take from an obese Chicago insurance agent (John Goodman cameo!) after a subway accident mangles his body - with the added twist of giving the hero a family who he's forbidden to contact (A rule which was, of course, broken about every other episode.) I'm still waiting for resolution from the finale's cliffhanger - The Eggman escaped from prison (With Mick Foley in tow!), Michael escaping from government custody and on the run with his family, and a very determined Dennis Haysbert on his tail commanding a team of heavily armed agents to "Find him." (It was Haysbert's performance on Now and Again that made me say "Yeah, I'll give this '24' a shot" the following year.)

Earth: Final Conflict:

Tsaedje posted:

I'll take on one of my favourites from the list in the OP:

Earth: Final Conflict - A deeply flawed gem

It's a show with a great premise: seemingly benevolent aliens (called the Taelons) with a hidden agenda and double agents working simultaneously for and against them.

There's very little black and white, in terms of characters - nearly everyone has his/her own motives, even the "good guys"

It started off great, and the first season is actually quite good - a mixture of one off mystery episodes and running threads. Unfortunately there was a sharp decline after the end of the first season and the show as a whole suffers seriously from horrendously 90s things, the worst being an obsession with all things Irish (mostly awful stereotype characters with terrible attempts at Irish accents and nonsense celtic mysticism). One of the main characters is a 90s l33t h4x0r type.

By the third season almost every character had fallen completely into either a moustache twirling villain or a heroic action hero.

Season 5 is best never watched. I don't know the actual reasons, but it seems the producers really wanted the show to be a bad Buffy knock-off. The Taelons turn into scenery chewing vampires being beaten up by a leather-clad blonde.

High points: every minute of magnificent bastard Ronald Sandoval's screen time, Da'an's characterisation. The organic technology is pretty neat and well executed for 90s special effects.

Low points: CELTIC FORTUNE TELLING RUNES, everything about Season 5.

Starship Troopers Roughnecks: A better Starship Troopers then the movies by far.

Kindred: The Embraced: Based of the World of Darkness tabletop RPG lore.

The Outer Limits: Revival of the 1960's show based around each episode being its own individual story. Kind of like the Twilight zone but all episodes were geared towards sci-fi themes like aliens, genetic engineering, dystopian future etc.

Tales from the Crypt: Like the Twilight Zone but horror stories

Friday the 13th The Series

Dark Skies

Millennium Like the X-Files but more gruesome and mysterious, it follows a man who can see through the eyes of murderers and serial killers and hunts them

Astroman posted:

Yeah, we've been talking about Andromeda over in the Trek thread, and I've waxed poetic about it before, but it's always worth a revisit.

When they show debuted, I was a bit skeptical. Roddenberry had some good ideas, but he had some stinkers too, and in the wrong hands they could be pretty lame. It could very easily have been a cash in too. I'd never been a fan of Hercules and Xena, so I wasn't the least bit impressed with the casting choice of Sorbo. Wolfe being involved was a bit of a pedigree though.

But the premise...well, that had some promise. Basically you have the Systems Commonwealth, a ginormous intergalactic Federation-like entity. Earth and humans are members, and becoming quite influential, but they aren't founders like on Star Trek. The whole shebang was started by the Vedrans, centaur-like aliens who once had a huge empire but went democratic, who are very old and wise.

Humans have split into regular humans and genetically engineered supermen, a la the Augments on Star Trek. These "Nietzscheans," so called because they follow the Ubermensch philosophies of Nietzsche, are a huge force in the Commonwealth in their own right.

Sorbo plays Dylan Hunt, who is the Captain Kirk of all this. He's a star captain in the Commonwealth fleet, of one of their top ships, crewed by hundreds. His first officer is a Nietzschean, but they are BFFs and have served together for years.

However the Nietzscheans rebel, and hatch a huge plot to take over. Even Hunt's first officer is in on it, and betrays his ship and best friend. They set a trap by a black hole to wipe out the fleet, a la the Cylon attack at the beginning of BSG. At the exact moment the whole civil war starts, Dylan and his XO (notable for being played by the same actor who was Cain's XO on BSG who she shot) fight it out, the crew is evacuated or dead. Hunt kills the XO, and the ship is trapped in a black hole for hundreds of years.

He gets picked up by a salvage vessel, and it's centuries later. The "Federation" of this show, the Commonwealth, has fallen. The Nietzscheans failed to successfully take over and instead it's an intergalactic Dark Age. The Vedrans shut themselves off from the universe. It's anarchy.

And Hunt, just as a Kirk or Picard would, says "gently caress that noise" and decides to singlehandedly restore the Commonwealth. Planet by planet, ship by ship. He somehow talks the salvage crew into joining up with him, Maquis/Voyager style, and he takes his big gently caress-off flagship, now the most powerful ship in 3 galaxies, and starts off. The ship had a bunch of planet killer bombs, so he was pretty well armed.

And it was great, at first. They would go to a planet of the week, which could have any sort of crazy degenerated society, and fix poo poo and try to talk them into rejoining the Commonwealth. Crazy worlds which had been cut off from civilization for years. Real great space post apocalyptic stuff. They had a series long arc here which could have lasted years. The characters were great and interesting. Sorbo acquitted himself quite well as the Kirkian action hero captain.

And the worldbuilding they had was absolutely second to none:

This was their website, courtesy of the Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20001014...ndromedatv.com/

Now, this has all the standard stuff you'd expect from a tv show's website: forums, cast and episode info, multimedia, etc.

But that wasn't all. They also put this up: http://web.archive.org/web/20001019...org/window.html

It's basically the series bible. A fully formed, in universe "encyclopedia" with all the knowledge about the show's setting and backstory as it existed at episode 1.

It's like they took the concept of a Memory Alpha, with all the info you'd want to know about a long running show, and totally fleshed it out, and put it online before the first episode aired. That takes balls. That, to me, is saying "this show is so important you're going to want to delve into it. We're fully fleshing out the universe." They expanded on the series bible, normally something only the writers see, and put it online. I've never seen a show before or since have this much attention to detail. But at the same time, because most of the info was hundreds of years out of date, there was still a lot to learn, and it didn't really spoil the plots.

They even had a whole site about the ship for the tech nerds: http://web.archive.org/web/20001018...aascendant.com/

So the show is doing pretty good the first couple of years. Some high concept stuff. The episode titles put B5 to shame. They were really fleshing out some good stuff with military, politics, religion. I hesitate to say it was close to Firefly levels of quality but the potential was there.

Then the producers decided...surprise, surprise, the show was getting too ~~"cerebral"~~ "intellectual" and Wolfe got fired or quit, I can't recall which. Sorbo was given huge creative control. The result? They quickly wrapped up the entire "restore the Commonwealth" storyline which would be the equivalent of Voyager getting home at the end of Season 2. They then just went on "regular," less serialized weekly adventures as a regular ship of the Commonwealth. There was also a big push to make the show more "sexy" with the ladies and Hunt more "heroic" a la literal Space Hercules.

The show lost it's direction and purpose, and I pretty much checked out. It wasn't the show I started to watch. It did manage to go on another 3 seasons though, but I can't tell you much about them.

Along with War of the Worlds, Andromeda is in my top 5 list of "Shows That Were hosed Royally By Executives."

Tekwar

Astroman posted:

This was the series that was based on the books "by" William Shatner. They were ghostwritten, but he came up with the concepts and outline and had been working on it since the early 80s as a tv show for himself to star in. I read most of the books, and they were pretty good. By the time it got to series, the Shat was too old to be a plausible hot cop running around in the lead role, so they cloned him with Greg Evigan and Bill became his boss.

Set in the year 2045, the series follows Jake Cardigan, a former police officer who lost his badge after being framed for crimes he did not commit: dealing in tek (an ilicit narcotic-like substance) and murdering his fellow officers on a bust. Although he was sentenced to fifteen years in cryo-detainment, Jake is released after serving four years, three months, and twenty-seven days. Shortly after his release Jake is contacted by Sid Gomez, his former partner from the police force. Sid is now in the private sector, working as an investigator for the large security firm Cosmos. After Sid reveals that it was Cosmos's CEO, Walter Bascom, who arranged to have Jake released early, Jake agrees to meet the man. At the meeting Jake agrees to go to work for Bascom as a private investigator going after Tek Lords in return for Bascom's help in clearing his name.

Tek is kind of a VR drug, which is kind of like the holobands and VR worlds on Caprica, but they are limited so you have to constantly buy more and it's very addicting. The show was OK, nothing spectacular. They did 4 made for tv movies in 94, and the show had a season of episodes that ran til 96, but was pulled before the last few were aired. Perennial Vancouver scifi favorite Lexa Doig was a recurring character.

Chairman Mao posted:

That reminds me of another hell themed series.

G vs E (1999) was a show about two ordinary guys who fought demons for a living. It follows primarily, Chandler Smythe, a reporter killed on his 35th birthday by a Morlock (a demon that brokers souls in Faustian contracts) and Henry McNeil, an orange volvo driving relic from the 70s. Every week they would track down a morlock, get the person signing the contract to recant, and then kill the morlock. Well, in theory. Part of what made this show so fun is that Chandler and Henry were just awful at their jobs and would sometimes (often) make the situation worse. The writing is snappy and clever and the retro vibe actually works for the show's intentionally cheesy low rent grungy aesthetic.

Good vs Evil (2000) on the other hand, the show Sci-Fi turned G vs E into after it got cancelled by USA in its first season and sold off, was a loving mess. Sci-Fi decided for some reason to turn it into a serious drama, strip out all the comedy elements and just sucked out its soul. Gone was the witty banter, replaced by pathos. They sort of wrote a finale for the show and gave the characters some degree of closure but they ended up airing it out of order.

pentyne fucked around with this message at Mar 11, 2013 around 08:02

# ? Feb 27, 2013 12:41

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# ? May 21, 2013 19:35

Chairman Mao: Apr 24, 2004; The Chinese Communist Party is the core of leadership of the whole Chinese people. Without this core, the cause of socialism cannot be victorious.

pentyne posted:

Forever Knight

A police detective show about a 800 year old vampire named “Nick Knight” (get it?) who works as a homicide cop to solve crimes while hiding his true nature and attempting to be human. It belongs to the Highlander class of shows that follows an extensively long lived protagonist in the present day while flashing back to events of his past. I’m amazed this show has not gotten a reboot. It’s got a vampire detective in a romance with a human woman (sort of) and an old vampire flame while dealing with the evil ambitions of his former maker, who now runs a late night call in radio talk show (I am not making this up). The show is quintessential 90’s, with one murder plot hinging on finding out who rented a VHS porno tape that was found at the scene of the murder
Major Guest stars: Almost all of the cast of the Stargate TV franchise.

Oh man, this show was low budget Canadian television at its low budget Canadianest. I still point out Geraint Wyn Davies when I see him in other shows. I kind of wish they'd done a better job on the Season 1 DVD though. They use the CBS cut of the show, which is chopped down considerably.

There are several edits of Season 1, the as-transmitted Canadian version, the American version (which is unfortunately also the DVD version) with about 7 minutes cut from each episode for time, and the German version, which is uncut and features full frontal nudity in scenes specifically shot for the overseas release.

And since we're on the subject of the German version anyway:

Nick Knight: Der Vampircop

# ? Feb 27, 2013 13:05

particle409: Jan 15, 2008

I watched all of Earth 2 on Netflix, and I really wanted to enjoy it. It just got too metaphysical. Any time they focused on surviving on an alien planet, it was good. Then they'd have a full episode devoted to aliens having human feelings or some poo poo.

# ? Feb 27, 2013 13:44

bobkatt013: Oct 8, 2006; Yes join me

I know it is bad but I like Highlander. The show has some good episodes and usally if Methos or Roger Daltrey is an a episode it is good. I then tried to watch the spin off Raven and holy poo poo is it bad. Just watched two or three episodes and had to stop it was that bad and I have a high tolerance for bad tv shows.

bobkatt013 fucked around with this message at Feb 27, 2013 around 14:11

# ? Feb 27, 2013 14:02

CaptainQuirk: May 9, 2009

How can you mention Highlander without noting that Kurgan is in Earth 2?

# ? Feb 27, 2013 14:09

ComposerGuy: Jul 28, 2007; Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

And of all the ones you mentioned, "Highlander" was by far the most successful. It ran a full 6 seasons and had 119 episodes, like a real TV show!

# ? Feb 27, 2013 14:59

LASER BEAM DREAM: Nov 3, 2005; Oh, what? So now I suppose you're just going to sit there and pout?

Sliders is probably the first SciFi show I ever watched and still one of my favorites. The first 3 seasons were awesome focusing on a group of travelers that "slid" between alternate versions of Earth. Each one had a corney gimmick, like magic is real or the Wild West days never ended. They had a convenient plot device in that they had to slide out of the dimension within a set ammount of time or they would be stuck there forever.

After season 3 the show was moved the the SciFi channel and they made major changes to "broaden" it's appeal. A few of them were Ok(at least to 12 year old me), but even I could tell by season 5 that the show had gone to poo poo. The departure of most of the original cast and a change to more action and plot focused episodes really ruined the show. Despite that you should really watch the first three seasons. They're available on Netflix Instant.

# ? Feb 27, 2013 15:07

JethroMcB: Jan 23, 2004; Dude, calm down. It's not a ghost, it's just music. You can't touch music.

But music can touch you.

quote:

Now and Again

Now and Again was the poo poo. A smart update on the Six Million Dollar Man premise - the government has biomechanically engineered the perfect body for a super soldier but still need a brain, which they take from an obese Chicago insurance agent (John Goodman cameo!) after a subway accident mangles his body - with the added twist of giving the hero a family who he's forbidden to contact (A rule which was, of course, broken about every other episode.) I'm still waiting for resolution from the finale's cliffhanger - The Eggman escaped from prison (With Mick Foley in tow!), Michael escaping from government custody and on the run with his family, and a very determined Dennis Haysbert on his tail commanding a team of heavily armed agents to "Find him." (It was Haysbert's performance on Now and Again that made me say "Yeah, I'll give this '24' a shot" the following year.)

# ? Feb 27, 2013 15:08

ComposerGuy: Jul 28, 2007; Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

LASER BEAM DREAM posted:

Sliders is probably the first SciFi show I ever watched and still one of my favorites. The first 3 seasons were awesome

The first 2-and-a-half seasons were awesome. This show ended for me the moment Arturo died.

# ? Feb 27, 2013 15:24

bobkatt013: Oct 8, 2006; Yes join me

ComposerGuy posted:

The first 2-and-a-half seasons were awesome. This show ended for me the moment Arturo died.

Our Arturo is still alive

On the subject of Highlander there is really no over arching plot. The only things that come back are certain immortals and the watchers (a group that watches and records an immortals activity). Every episode is basicly he meets an immortal, has flashbacks, and then beheads the evil immortal. However, where the show really shines is its supporting characters. Jim Dawson even though he is basicly Mr. exposition is pretty great and then Methos is awesome. Methos is one of the oldest immortals and he does not really give a poo poo about anything. Then the guest stars are pretty great.

# ? Feb 27, 2013 15:30

Joe Don Baker: Jun 20, 2004

I'm not trying to be nitpicky, as some of those shows bring back some nostalgia, but a lot of the shows you mentioned weren't syndicated in their original run.

# ? Feb 27, 2013 15:56

Baronjutter: Dec 31, 2007; ...the engine tracks thousands of details for each unit meaning it will be a far deeper game than your grandpa's chess.
Pre-order CHESS now and receive the DLC "queen" unit.

Vancouver sci-fi is best sci-fi

# ? Feb 27, 2013 17:41

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

Joe Don Baker posted:

I'm not trying to be nitpicky, as some of those shows bring back some nostalgia, but a lot of the shows you mentioned weren't syndicated in their original run.

Yeah let's expand it to all 90s scifi so I can talk about a show that I completely forgot existed until I saw it in a related video sidebar on Youtube this week: Space Rangers. I was very excited to watch this show and loved it and then suddenly it disappeared. I'd tune in to the right channel at the right time week after week and it was never there. I didn't really understand about shows getting "cancelled" at the time.

Also Space Above and Beyond. I got burned hard by 90s scifi shows I liked getting cancelled as hell all of a sudden.

# ? Feb 27, 2013 18:52

hcreight: Mar 19, 2007; Realistic Sucking Action

Joe Don Baker posted:

I'm not trying to be nitpicky, as some of those shows bring back some nostalgia, but a lot of the shows you mentioned weren't syndicated in their original run.

Yeah. Now and Again was a CBS show, if you can believe it.

I agree with zoux on the syndicated qualifier not being necessary.

# ? Feb 27, 2013 19:06

cultureulterior: Jan 27, 2004

What about Dark Skies? I always liked that.

# ? Feb 27, 2013 19:21

pentyne: Nov 7, 2012

hcreight posted:

Yeah. Now and Again was a CBS show, if you can believe it.

I agree with zoux on the syndicated qualifier not being necessary.

I never caught any of these shows first run. To me the 'syndicated' aspect of them is how my only exposure to them and I suspect many people was seeing them on syndication on either local or cable channels. I couldn't think of a better term to encompass the shows I was trying to highlight.

But absolutely, any of these sci-fi/fantasy shows from that era are fine. Just mention them and I'll add them in the OP.

# ? Feb 27, 2013 20:07

Overlord7517: Jul 9, 2007; I AM A BAD POSTER I MAKE BAD POSTS.

This long and no mention of Babylon 5? That show was awesome. In the latter seasons they dealt with lovecraftian elder gods.

I loved coming home from school and watching Forever Knight re-runs on TNT, even in middle school I knew they were terrible yet somehow charming.

# ? Feb 27, 2013 20:14

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

Would Hulk Hogan fighting crime with Knight Boat in the Caribbean qualify?

# ? Feb 27, 2013 20:22

Fister Roboto: Feb 21, 2008; JAZZ HANDS

Does anyone remember a show where the protagonist's virtual reality video game comes to life because ~*science*~ and he has to fight a new bad guy each week? All I remember is Christopher Lloyd was the main villain and there were a bunch of guest stars from Star Trek/Wars, and it was incredibly cheesy.

# ? Feb 27, 2013 20:28

Xealot: Nov 25, 2002; Showdown in the Galaxy Era.

pentyne posted:

Forever Knight
A police detective show about a 800 year old vampire named “Nick Knight” (get it?) who works as a homicide cop to solve crimes while hiding his true nature and attempting to be human. It belongs to the Highlander class of shows that follows an extensively long lived protagonist in the present day while flashing back to events of his past.

This show is amazing. It's Anne Rice crossed with Angel, but manages to be even lamer and more 90's than this intersection would imply. Though this isn't germane to this thread (since it's from 2008), a criminally underrated show with a similar premise is New Amsterdam, which stars Jaime Lannister and cuts out the vampire element (he's immortal, but it's more about the ennui and nihilism of living forever than it is guilt and lust.) It's actually legitimately good, not "horrible-awesome 90's" good.

It's not relevant that these shows actually be artistically good, right? Because the 90's was a bizarre renaissance of scifi and fantasy series that were horrendous and shoestring. The Raimi-produced ones are probably most famous: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess, Young Hercules, M.A.N.T.I.S., etc. I didn't realize a lot of them were actually early 2000's (Cleopatra 2525, Jack of All Trades, and BeastMaster*.) But I think they count, spiritually. Also, they all seem to end in 2001-2002...I blame 9/11.

*not Raimi-produced. Thought it was, but it isn't.

# ? Feb 27, 2013 20:46

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

So what happened? I'm assuming it was TNG's success that ushered in the era, but was there some factor that led to their end. I saw the bulk of these shows on Saturday afternoons on weird affiliates, do such channels just not exist anymore. If they do, what do they show now at 2 o'clock on a weekend?

# ? Feb 27, 2013 21:10

Combaticus: Jan 14, 2008; Perfection

Dominance

Ultimate

Fighting

Biotechnology

zoux posted:

Would Hulk Hogan fighting crime with Knight Boat in the Caribbean qualify?

I remember this, wasn't it the same boat that was used in that Street fighter movie with Van Damme.

# ? Feb 27, 2013 21:12

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

Combaticus posted:

I remember this, wasn't it the same boat that was used in that Street fighter movie with Van Damme.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8BKiigBsa8

I think when it's all said and done, we're gonna be more ashamed of the 90's than the 80's.

# ? Feb 27, 2013 21:19

Awesome Welles: Nov 1, 2010; A BIG DISH OF PEAS YOU SAY?!

IMPOSSIBLE. MEANINGLESS.

Fister Roboto posted:

Does anyone remember a show where the protagonist's virtual reality video game comes to life because ~*science*~ and he has to fight a new bad guy each week? All I remember is Christopher Lloyd was the main villain and there were a bunch of guest stars from Star Trek/Wars, and it was incredibly cheesy.

The closest thing I can think of is Harsh Realm but I don't think that's it. Still a good addition to this thread, though.

# ? Feb 27, 2013 21:25

hcreight: Mar 19, 2007; Realistic Sucking Action

Fister Roboto posted:

Does anyone remember a show where the protagonist's virtual reality video game comes to life because ~*science*~ and he has to fight a new bad guy each week? All I remember is Christopher Lloyd was the main villain and there were a bunch of guest stars from Star Trek/Wars, and it was incredibly cheesy.

You're thinking of Deadly Games. I remember it vaguely.

# ? Feb 27, 2013 21:28

HUMAN FISH: Jul 6, 2003; never seen the light of day

Space Rangers was awesome. I fondly remember watching it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsW78sWVb8Y
Super Force - An ex-astronaut fighting crime in a power suit and an awesome motorcycle? What's not to like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUYesRQsDz8
The absolutely #1 show of my childhood was Captain Power. My uncle used to tape the episodes (since it was on satellite and we didn't have that) and mail me the VHS cassettes. The quality of the CGI effects still blow my mind, keeping in mind when the show was made. Maybe it's just the nostalgia but I think it still looks great. The coolest show.

edit: The only thing I remember of Earth 2 was that the baddies used worm bullets that ate their way through the victims body. And that there was an android.

# ? Feb 27, 2013 21:31

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

I don't know how many of you watched Friday the 13th: The Series, but it was a first run syndication and it scared me shitless. I was probably like 11 when I saw a certain scene and I can still remember the nightmares it gave me vividly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wfexn8a2dNI

# ? Feb 27, 2013 21:33

Boogaleeboo: Sep 13, 2011; Can't post for 11 days!

zoux posted:

I think when it's all said and done, we're gonna be more ashamed of the 90's than the 80's.

I remember the 90s.

I regret nothing

# ? Feb 27, 2013 21:38

Luigi Thirty: Apr 30, 2006; Emergency confection port.

Overlord7517 posted:

This long and no mention of Babylon 5? That show was awesome. In the latter seasons they dealt with lovecraftian elder gods.

I loved coming home from school and watching Forever Knight re-runs on TNT, even in middle school I knew they were terrible yet somehow charming.

Babylon 5 has its own thread already.

# ? Feb 27, 2013 22:02

Pedro De Heredia: May 30, 2006

zoux posted:

I don't know how many of you watched Friday the 13th: The Series, but it was a first run syndication and it scared me shitless. I was probably like 11 when I saw a certain scene and I can still remember the nightmares it gave me vividly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wfexn8a2dNI

This show loving ruled.

# ? Feb 27, 2013 22:14

pentyne: Nov 7, 2012

What were some of the great single episode plot shows besides The Outer Limits and Tales from the Crypt? I remember that genre being really popular for a while. There are some episodes of Outer Limits I can still remember the entire plot 15 years later from memory because of how good they were.

# ? Feb 27, 2013 22:51

Tsaedje: May 11, 2007; a very unhappy baby whale

Gerry Anderson(RIP)'s SPACE PRECINCT is where it's at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkW_k8FZMGY

Guaranteed explosions every episode and all the 90s hair you could ever need, what more do you want?

# ? Feb 27, 2013 22:51

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

pentyne posted:

What were some of the great single episode plot shows besides The Outer Limits and Tales from the Crypt? I remember that genre being really popular for a while. There are some episodes of Outer Limits I can still remember the entire plot 15 years later from memory because of how good they were.

Amazing Stories.

# ? Feb 27, 2013 22:56

Chairman Mao: Apr 24, 2004; The Chinese Communist Party is the core of leadership of the whole Chinese people. Without this core, the cause of socialism cannot be victorious.

bobkatt013 posted:

Our Arturo is still alive

Arturo probably got the happiest ending out of all of the original four sliders, and that's probably only because they forgot what happened to him in that episode when they wrote him out of the show.

# ? Feb 27, 2013 23:32

JethroMcB: Jan 23, 2004; Dude, calm down. It's not a ghost, it's just music. You can't touch music.

But music can touch you.

Tsaedje posted:

Gerry Anderson(RIP)'s SPACE PRECINCT is where it's at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkW_k8FZMGY

Guaranteed explosions every episode and all the 90s hair you could ever need, what more do you want?

That show aired at like 1 AM on the station that would become our local WB Affiliate. All I remember about it is that something about the combination of the aliens' prosthetics/makeup and that old British video look scared the piss out of me as a kid.

# ? Feb 28, 2013 00:07

RentCavalier: Jul 10, 2008; I mean, who dreams about taking a shit with another guy?

No mention of Babylon 5? The best sci-fi TV show possibly ever? I cannot approve of this thread. A gripping political drama set against the high courts of a space station at odds with half a dozen alien races all vying for dominance in their own alien ways, with a cast of beleagured humans struggling to do the right thing in the face of overwhelming odds? Unacceptable. Plus it has the best sci-fi character, Michael Garibaldi, who shares the screen with none other than Anton Chekov himself!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aEcPqkAN20

# ? Feb 28, 2013 00:56

Astroman: Apr 8, 2001; CARTMEL MASTERPLAN AND/OR LOOMS APOLOGIST

RentCavalier posted:

No mention of Babylon 5? The best sci-fi TV show possibly ever? I cannot approve of this thread. A gripping political drama set against the high courts of a space station at odds with half a dozen alien races all vying for dominance in their own alien ways, with a cast of beleagured humans struggling to do the right thing in the face of overwhelming odds? Unacceptable. Plus it has the best sci-fi character, Michael Garibaldi, who shares the screen with none other than Anton Chekov himself!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aEcPqkAN20

Just the two on this page!

# ? Feb 28, 2013 01:02

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; I got the wim-wams
somethin' terrible!

cultureulterior posted:

What about Dark Skies? I always liked that.

I loved this show. A pity it never had a chance being on NBC's Death Night (Saturday). The series was planned out for five seasons with the story ending in 2001. At least they solved the music rights issues and released the series on DVD.

# ? Feb 28, 2013 01:10

Tsaedje: May 11, 2007; a very unhappy baby whale

Astroman posted:

Just the two on this page!

Also the character from Star Trek played by Walter Koenig is Pavel Chekov, not Anton Chekhov, 19th Century author.

# ? Feb 28, 2013 01:32

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# ? May 21, 2013 19:35

RentCavalier: Jul 10, 2008; I mean, who dreams about taking a shit with another guy?

Tsaedje posted:

Also the character from Star Trek played by Walter Koenig is Pavel Chekov, not Anton Chekhov, 19th Century author.

Well MAYBE it should have been Anton Chekov and MAYBE I made a mistake but the important thing is, at the end of the day, we can all sit back and look fondly on the good works we've done here today and know that maybe, just maybe, we can all make the world a better, more interesting place.

# ? Feb 28, 2013 01:34

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The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The TV IV > Syndicated 90s sci-fi/fantasy: The best sci-fi/fantasy