Best SciFi Series of All Time? Vote Here!

[KoshN]

For me, it's Babylon 5, no question.


http://m.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/the-best-scifi-television-series-of-all-time?page=1

 

[Springer]

Can't understand why so many people have given B5 the thumbs down. Sure people might prefer Trek or BSG, both of which are great and that's fair dos, but I've never understood some of the hate that B5 comes in for from certain areas.

Is Firefly really that good?

 

[KoshN]

Can't understand why so many people have given B5 the thumbs down. Sure people might prefer Trek or BSG, both of which are great and that's fair dos, but I've never understood some of the hate that B5 comes in for from certain areas.

Is Firefly really that good?

Probably just a bunch of really DEFENSIVE DS9-ers/Trekkers.

Firefly is OK, but nowhere near as good and indepth sci-fi as B5. The initial twangy mix of cowboy western with Chinese eastern and space scifi, plus the screwed up airing order, turned me off to it initially. Firefly only got 15 eps, and then a movie (same title as the 2 hour pilot that they showed LAST on Fox.), but a completely different story. I like Firefly, but you can't really compare it's 15 episodes and a theatrical movie to Babylon 5 and it's 110 episodes, and six TV movies.

 

[Springer]

Hmm, so might Crusade be a better comparison for Firefly, a similar number of episodes and one 'movie' each, A Call to Arms compared to Serenity? I've got a Firefly box set lying around somewhere that I never got around to watching; was going to start watching Defiance first, but maybe I should give Firefly a crack – but the bits I'd seen of it had put me off for the same reasons it had you.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

Can't understand why so many people have given B5 the thumbs down. Sure people might prefer Trek or BSG, both of which are great and that's fair dos, but I've never understood some of the hate that B5 comes in for from certain areas.

Is Firefly really that good?

A lot of it has to do with the smear campaign Paramount used against it back in the day. B5 was their only real competition and they wanted it dead. Trekies tend towards the fanatical, which means they're quick to anger and slow to reconsider things.

I converted a couple back in the day, but even five, six years ago when the Republibot site started, we got people showing claiming B5 was a ripoff of DS9, etc. Much like "The Empire Strikes Back," however, which most people really disliked despite it being the best of the movies, I think its reputation will grow over time. Heck, I think it already would have if Warners had handled it a little better after it ended.

But we can't blame it all on Paramount or the Trekies. B5 was a fairly cheap show, and it looks it. And it looked it then, though not as bad. The FX haven't aged well. The first season is slow and the final season is pretty awful, and the end of the Shadow War, after YEARS of buildup is - rather abrupt. The acting is all over the map. The music. I get how the whole package wouldn't appeal to most people.

These are all complaints that can and have been leveled against the classic Dr. Who, however, and while they're valid, they also kinda' miss the point: B5 was the smartest American SF show ever done up until that time, the most complex, the best, and there's an unspoken debt modern SF owes it.

Galactica and Andromeda were both done by guys who worked for DS9, and who secretly liked B5. Several B5 alumnis turned up on Lost, a show who's writers liked B5, Lost: the most popular SF show of all time. B5 introduced the arc to American SF, and nearly everything since then is derived from it to a greater or lesser extent.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

Hmm, so might Crusade be a better comparison for Firefly, a similar number of episodes and one 'movie' each, A Call to Arms compared to Serenity? I've got a Firefly box set lying around somewhere that I never got around to watching; was going to start watching Defiance first, but maybe I should give Firefly a crack – but the bits I'd seen of it had put me off for the same reasons it had you.

"Firefly" was intended to be fun. Period. End of sentence. There are some dramatic moments, there WOULD have been an arc (Though it was killed before that could really kick in), it would have picked up in complexity, and it probably would have been brilliant, but it was first and foremost intended to be a swashbuckling space adventure series with some not-insignificant comedic moments.

There's not really any comparison between it and Crusade or B5 or Trek, or whatever.

It isn't as great as the Wheedoites or Browncoats would have you believe, but it is DEFINITELY worth watchign the series at least one time through. It'll break your heart, though just becuase it died so young.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

There's a couple ways to rate things, depending on what you're going for. For instance, if I was gonna' rate SF shows in terms of smarts, the list would go like this:

1) The Prisoner (original)
2) Babylon 5
3) The Twilight Zone (Original)
4) Doctor Who
5) Star Trek (Original)
6) Stargate franchise
7) The Macross franchise
8) All Subsequent Treks

If I was gonna' rate them in terms of their comparative enjoyment, and not their brains, then it's more like this:

1) Doctor Who
2) Stargate Franchise
3) Trek Franchise
4) Babylon 5
5) Macross franchise
6) The Space Battleship Yamato/Star Blazers franchise.
7) Lost
8) Galactica (Original)

 

[Springer]

A lot of it has to do with the smear campaign Paramount used against it back in the day. B5 was their only real competition and they wanted it dead. Trekies tend towards the fanatical, which means they're quick to anger and slow to reconsider things.

I was there at the beginning and while I wasn't online I was aware of some of the sniping between fans in the pages of genre magazines. I know about Paramount's smear campaign too - telling stations they could only show Paramount shows if they dropped B5. But I consider myself a Trekkie and B5 has its share of overly fanatical fans too. I know you are right and it does hark back to the B5–DS9 rivalry but it still makes no sense to me. They were both good shows.

Much like "The Empire Strikes Back," however, which most people really disliked despite it being the best of the movies, I think its reputation will grow over time.

I'm still waiting for that to happen to be honest and sadly I'm not holding out much hope. TESB and Blade Runner found their fans I guess by the 90s, Trek took off when it hit syndication just a few years after it ended. If B5 was going to find a larger fanbase it would have happened by now. It'll remain a cult classic, but an increasingly forgotten one - hopefully the Free Babylon 5 campaign can prevent that!

But we can't blame it all on Paramount or the Trekies. B5 was a fairly cheap show, and it looks it. And it looked it then, though not as bad. The FX haven't aged well. The first season is slow and the final season is pretty awful, and the end of the Shadow War, after YEARS of buildup is - rather abrupt. The acting is all over the map. The music. I get how the whole package wouldn't appeal to most people.

Whenever I watch it today I constantly ask myself, does this look dated? Does it look cheap? Yes it looks cheaper than Star Trek (which I think worked against Star Trek – particularly in DS9 its sets were so shiny and clean and too 'perfect' none of it seemed realistic to me) but it doesn't look so cheap that you'd switch off in horror like some crappy sy-fy channel movie. Most of the acting of the regulars is fine, many of it is brilliant. The FX even hold up for me in most places (though it's hard to tell on the crappy DVDs). But yes, I agree that first season can be a problem for newcomers. Don't get me wrong I like the first season – love it in fact – but I can see how a newcomer who has heard all the hype and is waiting to have their mind blown might struggle through the first few episodes - at least until MInd War, Sky Full of Stars and Signs and Portents. The advantage we had watching it for the first time was we had no expectations, so we could lap it up without expecting more.

Galactica and Andromeda were both done by guys who worked for DS9, and who secretly liked B5. Several B5 alumnis turned up on Lost, a show who's writers liked B5, Lost: the most popular SF show of all time. B5 introduced the arc to American SF, and nearly everything since then is derived from it to a greater or lesser extent.

That's the thing, I can see the influences but do the creators of these shows ever talk about B5 publicly? I've never seen them. Why do they have to 'secretly' like B5? Why can't Ron Moore come out of the closet and say, 'yeah, I really liked what they did on B5?' It makes me wonder if B5 was actually the influence on them we think it was, or whether a new wave of arc-shows was inevitably coming anyway as screenwriting for TV became more sophisticated and B5 just got in there first.

Of course, none of them have actually done an arc show like B5. JMS knew where he wanted to end up (although we are increasingly seeing now that the road there was far bumpier than we might have imagined). BSG was fantastic, one of my favourite shows, and its ending was okay but it could have been fabulous if they had just stopped to plan out where they were going rather than making stuff up on the fly (the Cylons, and the writers, never had a 'plan'). Lost was all over the place by all accounts, though I never watched it. Even stuff like 24 with its season long arcs is made up as it goes along, which has resulted in several of its seasons having extremely shabby mid-sections because they writers didn't know where they were going with it, only to pick up near the end of the season when they'd thought of a decent conclusion. At the moment it feels like writers and producers are either learning the wrong lessons from B5, or maybe they should sit down and watch it and learn.

Edit: and there's another difference, B5 had plenty of standalone episodes, or at least episodes where it was about something in particular that would be resolved by the end of the episode., while seeding things for future episodes. A lot of arc shows today do not do this and it results in a lot of slow-moving plot lines. Let things bubble away beneath the surface sometimes while there is some more immediate action to enjoy so we don't all fall into a stupor watching it!!

 

[Springer]

And yeah, if we're going to rank shows, my top five would look like this:

1. B5
2. Battlestar Galactica (remake)
3. Star Trek TNG
4. Battlestar Galactica (original) - yeah, most of it is rubbish but I have a huge soft spot for this show
5. The X-Files

And I'd also consider Star Trek TOS, DS9, the original V miniseries.

 

[KoshN]

Hmm, so might Crusade be a better comparison for Firefly, a similar number of episodes and one 'movie' each, A Call to Arms compared to Serenity? I've got a Firefly box set lying around somewhere that I never got around to watching; was going to start watching Defiance first, but maybe I should give Firefly a crack – but the bits I'd seen of it had put me off for the same reasons it had you.

Yes, Crusade and Firefly are a better comparison. The networks screwed with both shows (notes and messed up airing order). The order on both DVD sets is wrong. The 2-hour TV PILOT "Serenity" is what you should watch first. The 2-hour feature film "Serenity" is the END of the story. For Firefly, try this order:

(from http://epguides.com/Firefly/ )

11 1-11 1AGE79 20/Dec/02 Serenity (1)
12 1-12 1AGE79 20/Dec/02 Serenity (2)
1 1-01 1AGE01 20/Sep/02 The Train Job
2 1-02 1AGE02 27/Sep/02 Bushwhacked
3 1-03 1AGE05 04/Oct/02 Our Mrs. Reynolds [Recap]
4 1-04 1AGE06 18/Oct/02 Jaynestown
5 1-05 1AGE07 25/Oct/02 Out of Gas
6 1-06 1AGE03 01/Nov/02 Shindig
7 1-07 1AGE04 08/Nov/02 Safe
8 1-08 1AGE08 15/Nov/02 Ariel
9 1-09 1AGE09 06/Dec/02 War Stories
10 1-10 1AGE11 13/Dec/02 Objects in Space
13 1-13 1AGE10 UNAIRED Heart of Gold
14 1-14 1AGE12 UNAIRED Trash
15 1-15 1AGE13 UNAIRED The Message
Featured Movie S1 20/Dec/05 Serenity (119 min)

 

[JonFrain]

1) Farscape - more fun and relate-able than B5 for me - better characterization
2) B5 - Great arcs but weak dialogue and so-so humor
3) X-Files - some of the best sci fi episodes ever but the show really went off the rails
4) Nu-BSG - Loved it until Season 3, then I just liked it

 

[Ragzus]

I agree that babylon 5 is the best scifi series for the important reason that it did so much first.
Star trek had already given us space combat between ships similar to submarines but babylon 5 opened up fighters and huge Cgi before other people caught on.
They were also first to set and follow a huge storyline where not every point matters but many points build to carry on, Back in the days star date 1111.2.3 and 1111.2.4 could be about completely different things.
Babylon 5 was a static station of which major events in its universe changed it.
Rather than the actors directly making changes to a universe that felt static rather than the entire plot being a static "the unchanging crew" (for the most part) take on another challenge.

Perhaps best explained that star trek TOS/VOY/TNG were a single stone thrown into a lake making the ripples, While babylon 5 was the water being effected by the stones thrown by others, Deep space nine attempted to do similar but the station was never really important, it was just next to the wormhole a travel hub because of where it was, Babylon 5 was a nexus because of *what* it was.

The invention of the defiant is a perfect example of how badly DS9 was failing at the time, Though B5 had similar problems i believe and all great scifi do.

Firefly is a great series but it can't be the greatest because it just didn't go long enough to see how things panned out, Like with buffy and angel if given the time to shine it would've but Fox were too pushy and it was ruined, Its still great however.
I don't really have a top 5, I know b5 is my favorite the rest shift around, I've re-watched a lot of scifi
Space above and beyond is almost my number 2.
Star - Trek/Gate/Wars - Farscape.
Andromeda while not *great* like the others can be is still one of my favorites. (not season 5 though)
(new) BSG is okay too.

I like most scifi, except a few really my biggest being...
Doctor who ; I could say it looks and feels old but i like ST:TOS.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

I was there at the beginning and while I wasn't online I was aware of some of the sniping between fans in the pages of genre magazines. I know about Paramount's smear campaign too - telling stations they could only show Paramount shows if they dropped B5. But I consider myself a Trekkie and B5 has its share of overly fanatical fans too. I know you are right and it does hark back to the B5–DS9 rivalry but it still makes no sense to me. They were both good shows.

I don't think we can really compare B5 fanaticism to Trek fanaticism. Trek fanaticism was geared around utterly completely totally destroying all competition to Trek and obtaining complete genre-dominance. B5 fanaticism was more along the lines of "Why don't you bullies stop beating up on our show?" IOW, there's attackers and attacked. The B5 side was the attacked one.

I'm still waiting for that to happen to be honest and sadly I'm not holding out much hope. TESB and Blade Runner found their fans I guess by the 90s, Trek took off when it hit syndication just a few years after it ended. If B5 was going to find a larger fanbase it would have happened by now. It'll remain a cult classic, but an increasingly forgotten one - hopefully the Free Babylon 5 campaign can prevent that!

Dammit, now I'm depressed.

Whenever I watch it today I constantly ask myself, does this look dated? Does it look cheap? Yes it looks cheaper than Star Trek (which I think worked against Star Trek – particularly in DS9 its sets were so shiny and clean and too 'perfect' none of it seemed realistic to me)

Honestly, I never liked the DS9 sets. Yes, they were huge and sprawling, but they weren't amazingly inventive or visually striking, and they frequently didn't make much sense. I would have been just as happy, or happier if the show had been set on a standard federation starbase, where at least we know what things are supposed to look like. DS9 tried to look exotic, and totally botched it.

The advantage we had watching it for the first time was we had no expectations, so we could lap it up without expecting more.

I started watchig it out of boredom. Then they said somethign in episode six that seemed to contradict something I saw in ep 1. So I started taking notes of each episode from memory, and by the time I got up to episode 6, I had like 10 pages of notes. At which point I realized B5 had done more worldbuilding in a month and a half than TNG had done in 5 years.

That's the thing, I can see the influences but do the creators of these shows ever talk about B5 publicly? I've never seen them. Why do they have to 'secretly' like B5? Why can't Ron Moore come out of the closet and say, 'yeah, I really liked what they did on B5?' It makes me wonder if B5 was actually the influence on them we think it was, or whether a new wave of arc-shows was inevitably coming anyway as screenwriting for TV became more sophisticated and B5 just got in there first.

A little of both, I think. DS9 was based on B5, so technically B5 influence DS9. Technically DS9 influenced Andromeda and BSG (BSG being 'the anti-trek'), so there's that. I think I heard RHW say he liked it, and his original outline for Andromeda had a lot of stylistic similarities to B5.

Lost is a different one, though. I've heard it said that Paul Dini was a fan, but he was also major into arc-driven storytelling by that point anyway, so he may have been a fan but it may not have influenced him. But having a couple B5 alumns on the cast, absolutely they were at least AWARE of the show.

Of course, none of them have actually done an arc show like B5. JMS knew where he wanted to end up (although we are increasingly seeing now that the road there was far bumpier than we might have imagined).

I was involved in developing a pitch for a TV show that went nowhere (So far) and learned a lot of stuff from it. Namely: laying out a 110-episode story when you're not guranteed more than 13 episodes is insane. Very few shows get a multiple-year deal up front, so it's hard for them to plan in advance. Few shows even get a full-season committment.

BSG was fantastic, one of my favourite shows, and its ending was okay but it could have been fabulous [...]writers and producers are either learning the wrong lessons from B5, or maybe they should sit down and watch it and learn.

Stargate did this really well. They generally had their first season written out before they started filming, so they knew where they were going before they started. There were exceptions. Thus the 2nd 10 of a season might differ from the 1st 10 of the season a bit while they were fine-tuning or course-correcting, but they did it well. Dr. Who does it 13 or 26 at a time in the planning stages. "Justice League Unlimited" was awesome.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

And yeah, if we're going to rank shows, my top five would look like this:

4. Battlestar Galactica (original) - yeah, most of it is rubbish but I have a huge soft spot for this show

Why is it rubbish? I consider it way ahead of its time: It had huge, impressive sets, a sprawling cast, generally good acting, eye-popping (If overused) special effects, an awesome enemy, an awesome score, and a really interesting tone. It was an ensemble show before there was such a thing. And their decision to build a visual style from the ground up, rather than do what was trendy or copy anyone else means it holds up really well. Apart from the disco haircuts, there's nothing to really 'date' the thing, you know? It's iconic.

There are downsides - an over-reliance on recycled movie plots, endlessly repeated FX, but I still really honestly think it's a good show. And it took a lot of storytelling chances in the last third.

 

[Ragzus]

I like trek, and have done so before i watched babylon 5 but i never jumped into the fan boy boat of "my interest is better than yours because i'm overly attached to mine and i should rage at you now" lol

Babylon 5 was great at its time, i wish more people would've seen it, I wish we would've had it re-air'd as much as star trek has been.

The re-used *old* bsg reminded me of my only pet annoyance of the Space above and beyond series re-used cgi lol
but low budgets what ya gonna do?

 

[Springer]

Maybe I was being a little too flippant when I said old BSG was rubbish – I love the show to death, love the characters, love the actors, the music, the spaceships. I grew up with it and always been a fan, picking up the modern day book and comic sequels, meeting the actors etc. But it doesn't hold up to the standards of new BSG or B5 or decent Trek. For one the cylons were a rubbish enemy - they looked cool but they were slow, lumbering, stupid (Lucifer, on the other hand...). And the plots could be simplistic, the storytelling trite, the attempts at humour often incredibly forced and so I can't put it on a pedestal. It is of its time really, which isn't a condemnation, just a fact. It just so happens that I love shows from that era, partly because of nostalgia, and Battlestar was a particularly good one - for its time.

But yeah you're right, it had a lot of things going for it, the sets, the acting, the special effects, and when it was good, like Saga of a Star World, Lost Planet of the Gods, The Living Legend, War of the Gods, it was great. So i'll take it back, it wasn't rubbish at all, not to me anyway. I did place it fourth on my list after all!

 

[Springer]

I don't think we can really compare B5 fanaticism to Trek fanaticism. Trek fanaticism was geared around utterly completely totally destroying all competition to Trek and obtaining complete genre-dominance. B5 fanaticism was more along the lines of "Why don't you bullies stop beating up on our show?" IOW, there's attackers and attacked. The B5 side was the attacked one.

I also saw a lot of gloating from B5 fans attacking Trek, saying how bad Star Trek had become whereas B5 was far superior (which of course, to us, it was). B5 fans were revelling in having found something they liked better. But Trek had been so successful it had indoctrinated a lot of people into thinking science fiction could only be done the Star Trek way. When B5 came along, those who had got bored of Trek and were looking for something different really latched onto Babylon 5, while the people still invested in Star Trek could get defensive. I wouldn't say B5 fans were entirely innocent - neither side seemed to be able to accept that someone else could like something different.

For me, as a teenager, I was still relatively knew to the SF field. Reruns of old BSG and original Star Trek aside, I only really watched TNG and stuff like Space Precinct until B5 came along, and I hadn't yet had chance to grow weary of Star Trek or enter the fandom, so I never fell into that 'one or the other' mentality and liked them both and still do.

I was involved in developing a pitch for a TV show that went nowhere (So far) and learned a lot of stuff from it. Namely: laying out a 110-episode story when you're not guranteed more than 13 episodes is insane. Very few shows get a multiple-year deal up front, so it's hard for them to plan in advance. Few shows even get a full-season committment.

B5 never knew from year to year if it was going to get renewed. Other shows have arc stories or long-running plots from season to season without knowing whether they'll get renewed and many get cancelled, their stories never finished. That's the risk. But at least have some idea where you want to take the show if you do get renewed. Don't say the Cylons have a plan when the writers don't even have a plan!

Stargate did this really well. They generally had their first season written out before they started filming, so they knew where they were going before they started. There were exceptions. Thus the 2nd 10 of a season might differ from the 1st 10 of the season a bit while they were fine-tuning or course-correcting, but they did it well. Dr. Who does it 13 or 26 at a time in the planning stages. "Justice League Unlimited" was awesome.

The first season of 24 did this well too – it initially only had 12 episodes, so they planned out those episodes, with a way to finish the story early if necessary (Gaines would have just told Jack the story before Jack killed him). But in subsequent seasons it was clear they didn't really have much of a plan. Hopefully the new mini-series coming up next year will be more focused and tightly plotted because they have fewer episodes.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

I like trek, and have done so before i watched babylon 5 but i never jumped into the fan boy boat of "my interest is better than yours because i'm overly attached to mine and i should rage at you now" lol

Babylon 5 was great at its time, i wish more people would've seen it, I wish we would've had it re-air'd as much as star trek has been.

The re-used *old* bsg reminded me of my only pet annoyance of the Space above and beyond series re-used cgi lol
but low budgets what ya gonna do?

I liked B5 because it treated me like a big boy. Stuff changed. It wasn't the same from week to week. Things happened one week and there were consequences the next, as opposed to everyone forgetting about it. And it's fun to learn about new episodes. But while I felt B5 was definitely better than Trek, I really didn't jump into the fanboy boat until B5 was made subject to a focused and premeditated attack by Paramount.

I think the old BSG's real problem was that they signed Dykstra to do FX for 7 hours of TV (or 9 according to some) and ended up adding 13 or 14 hours to the order, with no real lead or prep time. So he quit after doing his bit. Had he still been on hand to add a few new effects per ep, rather than relying soley on canned stuff, it would have worked out better.

At least it never got as bad as Buck Rogers from a year later.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

But yeah you're right, it had a lot of things going for it, the sets, the acting, the special effects, and when it was good, like Saga of a Star World, Lost Planet of the Gods, The Living Legend, War of the Gods, it was great. So i'll take it back, it wasn't rubbish at all, not to me anyway. I did place it fourth on my list after all!

Apology accepted

What always bugged me about the RDM BSG fans was their relentless need to bag on the old BSG. "This isn't like that stupid old show with the disco haircuts!" It wasn't an awful show, I'd point out. Buck Rogers was a stupid show. BSG was unquestionably a trainwreck-in-progress behind the scenes, but that gave it a strange kind of energy, and despite some definite klinker episodes it had elements of an arc. "Nah, it's just stupid 1970s crap."

Then I'd ask "Well, if it was so unredeemably bad, why'd they bother remaking it?"

Then they'd say "You just don't get it, man." Thing is: these people were either too young to have seen the original show (I'm 46), or they hadn't seen it in 25 years, and were relying on very fuzzy memories. They were just insulting it because it was trendy, not because it deserved to be insulted.

One guy once told me, "Well, they're remaking it because the new show goes back to the source material."

"What freakin' source material? There were no books, no comics, nothing that predated it! It was entirely original."

Gah. Nothing worse than party-line toting fans. Particularly ones who are ignorant of everything except their favorite show.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

I also saw a lot of gloating from B5 fans attacking Trek, saying how bad Star Trek had become whereas B5 was far superior (which of course, to us, it was). B5 fans were revelling in having found something they liked better. But Trek had been so successful it had indoctrinated a lot of people into thinking science fiction could only be done the Star Trek way. When B5 came along, those who had got bored of Trek and were looking for something different really latched onto Babylon 5, while the people still invested in Star Trek could get defensive. I wouldn't say B5 fans were entirely innocent - neither side seemed to be able to accept that someone else could like something different.

I'm sure some took it too far, but I never really saw that, or at least I can't remember it. I do remember being pretty evangelical in my support for the show, but that was just 'try it' to people who didn't like SF (Where I was generally successful) and to trekies (Who generally just said 'it's a ripoff of DS9 and it's evil and it detracts from the great god Roddenberry, who'd be ashamed of you, and you're probably gay anyway for watching that show.' And then I'd just shake my head sadly and wander off.

For me, as a teenager, I was still relatively knew to the SF field. Reruns of old BSG and original Star Trek aside, I only really watched TNG and stuff like Space Precinct until B5 came along, and I hadn't yet had chance to grow weary of Star Trek or enter the fandom, so I never fell into that 'one or the other' mentality and liked them both and still do.

I never really felt the need to pick one over the other, but I drifted away from Trek during the 1-2-3-4 punch of awfulness that was the final season of TNG, the 1st season of Voyager, the generally why bother first three years of DS9, and that terrible, terrible "Generations" movie. I remember suffering through all that, and giving voyager a shot, engjoying the first ep, was bored silly by the second ep. And by the third ep, I remember saying, "Well, if they're not even going to bother to try, why should I give a damn?"

I didn't boycot it until they tried to sink B5, whcih they may have been trying to do all along, but I didn't find out about it until a year or so later.

B5 never knew from year to year if it was going to get renewed. Other shows have arc stories or long-running plots from season to season without knowing whether they'll get renewed and many get cancelled, their stories never finished. That's the risk. But at least have some idea where you want to take the show if you do get renewed. Don't say the Cylons have a plan when the writers don't even have a plan!

No argument. Really that whole final episode was sort of a disgrace. The music was nice, though.

The first season of 24 did this well too – it initially only had 12 episodes, so they planned out those episodes, with a way to finish the story early if necessary (Gaines would have just told Jack the story before Jack killed him). But in subsequent seasons it was clear they didn't really have much of a plan. Hopefully the new mini-series coming up next year will be more focused and tightly plotted because they have fewer episodes.

Never actually watched the show. Should I check it out? More to the point, what parts should I specifically avoid?