There aren’t many of the classics I haven’t watched to death.
Farscape, I have seen too many times. The re-imagined BSG is my all time favourite, I have seen it more than too many times.
Right now, I am watching TOS. It is good. After that, I have been considering seeing the first three seasons of Andromeda again, or continue with B5 after the shadow war, which I haven’t seen since I was young. DS9 is an option, because I have only watched the whole thing once.
My preference is for ship-based shows, but a space station will do in a pinch.
Some of these fit your theme better than others and not all are meant to be taken too seriously: Lexx, The Expanse, Final Space, Hyperdrive, The Orville, The Bad Batch, Stargate Atlantis.
The Expanse deserves to be highlighted more. God damn it is so good. Just bear in mind that season 1 is their worst rated season. All other seasons scored above 90% on rotten tomatoes from both viewers and critics. A couple seasons scorred literally 100%. It is so damn good. You just need to get through the only somewhat good, first season.
Thanks. Some, I have seen. Some, I didn’t like. I will have a look at the others.
Stargate Atlantis was great, saw all of them fairly recently. Started with the film, through SG-1, Atlantis (in story order), and finishing with SG:U. As a BSG fan, SGU’s obvious copy of that show was too much for me when it was new. As the years have passed though, I can enjoy it as its own thing. I wish it had more than two seasons.
Seasons 1 and 2 of lexx are some of the best sci-fi ever made
firefly.
A classic. Definitely deserved more than one season.
The Orville? I’ve never been into any of the shows you listed, but my partner and I do like The Orville. Seems to struggle to decide if its a joke show or serious, but its definitely enjoyable.
It tried to start off as a joke show as that was Seth McFarlane’s claim to fame and the only way he could get it greenlit, but it steered straight into TNG territory because that was his passion project and what he wanted to do.
You could tell also because he specifically got TNG set designers, script writers, composers, etc. It basically became a spiritual successor to TNG with some humor still thrown in.
I think what I really like about it was anyone on the Enterprise was “best of the best”, but The Orville takes the premise of “what happens when space is commoditized and you just need a person to staff a ship as their job, not their calling?” And you know what? It works really damn well.
It didn’t take long to dive into some fairly heavy topics, but the comedy nicely balances that out.
The characters are definitely quite relatable, but I have no experience with Star Trek, so I have nothing to compare it to.
You say you have seen the classics. Does that include these?
- Red Dwarf
- Blake’s 7
- Space: 1999
- Buck Rogers
I’ve seen Red Dwarf.
I’m not sure I can think of many you haven’t listed already that specifically qualify as ship-based, but I could certainly think of some that are closely (or perhaps less closely?) related. The Expanse, for example, is pretty darn good.
If you don’t mind some anime in with your space ships, I’d recommend Planetes for your Kessler Syndrome alleviation concerns, or Legend of the Galactic Heroes for grand space opera.
Are non-space ships acceptable as well? I could certainly offer some good water-ship (Das Boot) or air-ship based shows (Masters of Air). And if lunar bases are your cup of tea, you could try For All Mankind.
Thanks. Yeah, I think some other ship content would be good, I am mostly looking for a sci-fi fix though. I loved the Das Boot film. I had forgotten about the TV show, but I think it did not appeal to me.
I will check out those anime. I have seen Legend of the Galactic Heroes.
Expanse was good for a while, but lost me along the way. Usually, I find modern sci-fi to be quite off-putting.
If you liked Firefly and like anime, Cowboy Bebop might be a similar option.
Yeah, for Das Boot, I was definitely thinking more of the movie, so maybe it wasn’t correct to include. Then again, at something like a 4 hour runtime, it’s nearly miniseries length. :)
