1. Babylon 5 - This is one of my all time favorite sci-fi shows, I own all five seasons on DVD. This is also a drama in my opinion. It deals with politics and xenophobia. Each season is a large story with each episode in the season building upon each other to weave a complex story. Then The five seasons make for an over arching story. If anything this show is epic. The human race has just come out of a war they should not have won. In fact the only reason they won was because the Minbari stopped fighting right before they hit earth. Now the five large alien races and a league of smaller alien races met on Babylon 5 (a space station) to work out their arguments. Allies are made and lost. Plots to take over earth's government and other governments take place. The show sometimes looks at the large scope of things, but never forgets it's characters in the process. If you've never seen this show you are missing out. The graphics are a little bad in the beginning, but that because they were developing them. Without this show all the computer CGI out there might still be way behind. They pioneered most of the space CGI used out there today. My favorite episode from this show is in season 5, The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father. In this episode Walter Koeing (Pavel Chekov) plays his reoccurring role as Bester from the Psi Corps. He's usually the bad guy in the show but in this episode is all in his perspective. You see a conflicted villain just trying his hardest to do what he think is right. A show worth watching.
2. Firefly - Joss Whedon's space western with Nathan Fillon in it. I watched one or two episodes when it first aired, but they were hard to catch. They played on Friday nights, which is almost always the kiss of death for TV shows. The show was also shown out of order which can be confusing since it builds on itself. There was only one season, but the DVD sells were good enough to have a move made, Serenity. I love this show. Captain Mal fighting the Alliance by being a smuggler. Mal is cooler than Han Solo and has a better crew. They even have zombies roaming out on the fringes of known space. Okay they're not real zombies but they do eat people. This is a must watch for anyone who says they enjoy sci-fi. I've watched it a quite a few times. My favorite episode is Jaynestown. I love Jayne Cobb (Adam Baldwin), he's a dirty mercenary.
3. Fringe - If you're not watching Fringe, what is wrong with you? This show is so awesome and crazy at the same time. During the first half of the first season I thought it was just going to be new X-Files show. I was so wrong. Fringe is an amazing sci-fi show. You have so much more than investigating strange things and aliens. At first I though the show was going to be about aliens only to find out it was about alternate dimensions! Plus Peter Bishop is awesome and Leonard Nimoy makes appearances in the second season. This show also has so much drama in it. One of my favorite episodes is from the first season, The Dreamscape. The opening scene with the butterflies will scar you. You'll never want to be around butterflies again. This show is a must watch show.
4. Misfits - British juvenile delinquents that get superpowers. That alone should totally sell the series. Main thing they do is kill people. The first kill was by accident, they were protecting themselves from a person that went insane. The thing is these kids weren't the only ones to get powers. There was this big storm and a lot of people got odd powers. The show really focuses more on the problems with having these powers. They think they have to find them at first. Then they think they need to tell people about them, but trouble just keeps happening. This show has very few episodes per season. The episodes that do exist are awesome. You are getting their A game for each episode. It's hard to pin just one episode as my favorite, but right now I would say that Hitler episode is one of my favorites. I love a goo time travel alternate reality show. So this show is awesome, but it is British and it's an R-rated TV show. Lots of language and violence and a little nudity.
5. Grimm (supernatural) - This is a new show on Friday nights's on NBC. The first couple episodes were pretty bland and like what ever, then the show kicked it up. I've been slowly hooked into this show. It's about this cop who is related to the Grim Brothers. Now the Grimm brothers did more than learn the stories of the old world, they also hunted monsters. The show is filled with these monsters that hide themselves as humans. The Grimms are a line of people that can actually see them for their true colors when they loose control of their emotions. Regular humans have a harder time with this. The thing is not all monsters are bad. Nick (the main character) is a cop in Portland who's Aunt tells him about his gift. The Aunt is ruthless and kills all the monsters she can. Nick doesn't follow this path. He wants to think that everyone can coexists. My favorite character in the story is Monroe. He's a bultbad or wolf type monster. He's turned his way against eating meat and works on clocks. Clocks of any size. The show is awesome. My favortie episode so far would be Danse Macabre. It's about the piped piper. Pretty awesome.
6. Battlestar Galatica - What can I say about this show. You either love it or hate it. Everyone I've talk to about the show have very strong feelings. I for one liked the show. It has space battles, politics, robots, and the human race fighting to survive. Although sometimes the show feels slow and drags on. It's one of those shows you can watch once and then step away for a few years and watch again, but you need time off from it to breath. There is so much drama in this show. It deals with spies inside the community to religion trying to rule everything. It can be a little to intense at times. Plus no one is safe from being killed or becoming the villain in the show. I don't really have a favorite episode for this show. The whole show kind of melts into itself and you can't really define where one episode ends and the next one begins. That's how it is in my head.
7. Stargate Series - I can't limit this to just one show. Stargate is a large universe of shows. You have SG-1, Atlantis, and Universe. All three shows have good things and bad things about them. SG-1 was the first show based off the movie. This show follows the leading team from the stargate project across it's many adventures to save earth and make new friends. A lot of the episodes are fun to watch. Sometimes it gets campy, but all and all it's fun. Atlantis is the series I've seen the least amount off. A new team finds a stargate address to a fare away planet. They go and get stuck there. They learn that it's the mystical city Atlantis. They fight bad guys and have crazy adventures like SG-1, but in a different galaxy than ours. Stargate Universe never got enough love. The first season was decent, but trying to find it's own feet. The second season found it's voice and was well done. Stargate Universe is about a human base that gets attack on a distance planet from earth. They have to take the stargate to a mystery location. They end up on a starship many galaxies away from ours with no way home. All and all the show is decent for a franchise and deserves a watch for sci-fi fans.
8. Doctor Who - This is a new addiction of mine. I remember seeing an episode from season one and season two on sci-fi. I didn't watch the entire episodes and was very confused. They were quite campy, but not in a bad way. I put Doctor Who on the back burner thinking this show is to weird for me. Cut to last year and Allison saying all her friends liked the show. She wanted to watch it and I was like okay, but I'm not promising it'll be good. I don't know how I could be so wrong. I've seen the first three seasons and can't wait to get into the fourth. It can be very addictive. The Doctor is such a compelling character. He sucks you in. Plus he flies around in time and space in a little police call box. So far I've learned two very important things from Doctor Who, 1. Don't Blink 2. Never look in the corner of your eyes. My favorite episode so far is Blink from season three. It's about these weeping angel statues that kill. It's so good. If you like fun sci-fi this is so your show. It can be over the top sometimes, but it so well done over the top. I could totally live in the Doctor's world.
9. Dead Like Me (supernatural) - This show was on was on Showtime, so I had to watch it on DVD. It's so good I own the two seasons on DVD. What happens to us after we die? We go somewhere, but where? This question is not answered at all in Dead Like Me. No, instead we get to learn about the undead, the reapers. The people who take our souls from our body and show us the way to where we are going. You would be surprised how much they are just like us. How they are trying to deal with the afterlife just like we are dealing with our lives. The show is awesome and very dramatic.10. Star Trek Series - Can you really talk about sci-fi and not include Star Trek? I love Star Trek. I enjoy all the TV series. I've been watching Deep Space Nine recently and realized it was way better then I remembered it. If you don't know about Star Trek than I'm surprised you read this blog at all. Everyone has their favorite characters and series in Star Trek. I love Data and Geordi Laforge. Just get a series and watch it. Sometimes they might be campy, but that's sci-fi for you.
I hope you enjoyed my look at dramas today. I know I really only looked at sci-fi dramas, but I don't really like most dramas. They seem silly to me. Why do I need more drama in my life, especially if it doesn't have spaceships or alternate realities. What are some of your favorite sci-fi or drama shows?
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