Not A Rolling Stone

Leah

Rolling Stone knows Science Fiction almost as well as they know music and their list proves it.

This list is embarrassing.

I have seen this list from time to time and I am sort of dumbfounded every time. You will see "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" being placed ahead of TNG.

If you see where I am going with this, you will know that the list is shit.

It also includes "Thunderbirds" which no critic has ever called a "best" sci-fi show. Worse, it does so at the expense of a show like "Farscape".

On top of that, I can't take any list seriously that touts the "X-Files" as good sci-fi.

It is a show that is the epitome of network, episodic TV. While I have watched it (most of it) and there a few good episodes sprinkled over a season, the rest is a mess of mediocrity that in the end added up to a big mess of nothing. Yes, Scully & Mulder were great characters, but that doesn't change the fact the show blew it's entire myth arc in the end. The reveal of what happened to Mulder's sister was the Capone's Vault of sci-fi shows.

It's more like the top 40 science fiction shows I could remember, because too many of these are recent are not really sci-fi.

You can tell because they forgot "Deep Space 9" and "Farscape" and a few other important ones, while the current Marvel superhero shows do are all promotent. And if they are going to include new shows, and they do, then "Dark Matter" should be included, its first season was one of the most promising starts to show in quite awhile.

Rolling Stone, having no idea what they're talking.

My Curated Fun List

Leah

A note of warning, this list does change from time to time, some shows get added, others get a hard second look and get removed. But that doesn't mean that the list itself is less valuable that it was when you last saw it.

The rules are simple.

The show has to be fun on some level. That doesn't mean that it has to be funny. Though I did add a couple of campy shows on the list because, some guilty pleasures are allowed.

They are roughly grouped together by theme. But since a lot of them are over lapping you will see some broader genres being listed in "best fit" categories. This isn't an attempt to stick them in a different genre.

Sci-fi / Supernatural

  • Continuum
  • Orphan Black
  • The 4400
  • Alphas
  • Ghost in the Shell
  • Dollhouse
  • The Twilight Zone
  • Ascension
  • Black Mirror
  • The Outer Limits
  • Alcatraz
  • Sapphire & Steel
  • Torchwood
  • Flash Forward
  • Threshold
  • The Event
  • Journeyman
  • Warehouse 13
  • Eureka
  • Stargate Universe
  • The Pretender
  • Person of Interest
  • Agents of SHEILD

Fantasy / Supernatural / Drama / Crime

This is a really wide range, a lot of things just don't fit in the above and I needed a catch-all for those hard to place stories.

  • Eerie, Indiana
  • Buffy the Vampire
  • Twin Peaks
  • Millennium
  • Penny Dreadful
  • Haven
  • Lost Girl
  • Sleepy Hollow
  • Hannibal
  • Supernatural
  • Kolchak: The Night Stalker

Reality TV Happened

Leah

70's 80's and especially 90's had so many more sci-fi shows on tv than now. Granted, many of them were not good, and plenty were crap, but at least it was on TV. The reason is that it is much cheaper to commission a realtity TV show, and even easier to get the viewers. That is why the Nineties was a golden age for TV in sci-fi and fantasy. That was an awesome decade be a geek.

  • Farscape
  • X-Files
  • Buffy
  • Deep Space 9
  • Babylon 5
  • Stargate SG-1
  • Sliders
  • Seaquest DSV
  • Space Above and Beyond
  • Voyager

From the UK:

  • Doctor Who
  • Blake's Seven
  • The Tomorrow People
  • Tripods