What is the best evah science fiction TV series? The title is an obvious hint for my choice and I shall justify my choice over the fold and also mention a few worthy contenders.
I’m sure that everyone will agree.
Babylon 5 is the best science fiction TV series evah. Ambitious in its scope, Babylon 5 (B5 to the initiated) was a 5 year story arc centered around eponymous space station set in neutral territoryin the 23rd century. Babylon 5 was the fifth in a series of space stations built to try and prevent the simple misunderstanding that lead to the Earth-Minbari war. A war which brought humanity on the verge of extinction. This was the fifth Babylon station. The first two were subject to to sabotage in their construction phase, one burned down, fell over and sank into a swamp and the fourth one mysteriously disappeared (a mystery revealed during the course of the series).
There are plenty of interweb resources on Babylon 5 so I’ll forgo any further exposition. Sure nuff B5 suffered from dodgy acting and production values in the early days but that doesn’t detract from the strengths of B5. The obvious one was a coherent 5 year story arc. The interesting thing about series one, Signs and Portents, is that many of the events that were seemingly isolated actually were precursors to happenings later in the series.
The second strength of B5 was that the characters were shaped by the decisions and choices they made. There are no static entities in B5 (unlike many TV shows of the time). This was best exemplified by the tragic Londo Mollari. At the start of the show he is a drunken, philandering buffoon. A member of the crumbling Centauri republic, Londo’s decisions escalate in a series of disasters ultimately putting him on the Emperor’s throne in an attempt to do what is best for his people. The character of Londo grows through the show as he see the consequences of his decisions and tries to rectify what he has wrought. It has been said that in the end, Babylon 5 is Londo’s story.
But that is not the only story. There is Sheridan and Delenn. Susan Ivanova. The aforementioned G’Kar. Michael Garibaldi. The Psi-Cop Bester (Walter Koenig‘s best TV sci-fi role). Lennier. Not to mention the greater stages of the story. The Earth-Minbari war, The Shadow War and the Earth Civil-War.
B5 was also one of the first TV shows to use digital effects. While the CGI was a little clumsy at first by the end of series 5 it was state of the art. Also, as Wikipedia mentions, B5′s little foibles such as appreciating Newtonian physics have influenced contemporary productions.
The genius behind B5 was writer J. Michael Straczynski. He conceived B5 as having a beginning, middle and an end. And while he didn’t write every episode, he wrote quite a lot of them (91 out of 11 including all of series 3 and series 4). The control that Straczynski had on his vision (which wasn’t always appreciated by the television networks) helped keep B5 on the right path through its run.
B5, when you watch the entire run is an epic show, ambitious in its scope and in the end, in spite of a few obstacles, succeeded in telling a grand tale. There has never been a better sci-fi TV show.
Now a few contenders…
Battlestar Galactica
It could trump B5 on current form. The re imagined series has been awesome. It has taken plenty of gambles (especially the reinvention at the end of series two) and features strong characters with development. Some have called BSG a drama that happens to be set in space reinforcing the quality of the stories. Hopefully BSG will get to finish its run (there have been conflicting rumours about whether a fourth season will eventuate) and its storyline.
Joss Whedon‘s great hope after Buffy sadly suffered after FOX cancelled the show after only 11 episodes (14 had been produced by that time). Firefly showed plenty of promise with its imaginative mixture of frontier culture and the future. Of course there was Whedon’s uniformly excellent writing. Luckily we got a movie to show more glimpses of what might have been. If Firefly had been allowed to develop over a few series it may have been one of the best.
And of course there is Star Trek which to all television sci-fi owes a debt of gratitude.
I haven’t really seen much sci-fi tv… but the one show I’ve consistently watched has been Stargate SG1. I’m not sure what the appeal is… I think I was originally hooked in by the whole fusion of ancient civilizations with a science fiction plot. When the movie came out I was at the height of my UFO obsession (I was 12) and still took the theories of Erich von Daniken seriously. Have had a soft spot for the show ever since.
The only real SF series ever made was Star Cops, by Chris Boucher for the BBC. Actual attention paid to things like the laws of physics, and no magic radiation to save the day. Pretty damned bleak stuff, of course.
I have a lot of love for Farscape (once described as the adventures of an American astronaut trapped in the Australian S&M scene) and the new BSG (oh, and Heroes is great, too), but, seriously folks, Doctor fricking Who. Accept no substitutes. Old skool or the new Wales version. It’s all good.
Shaun,
Watched B5 from episode 1 until the final. A long time ago, now. channel 10? Early-mid nineties? Was addicted.
Lost my sci-fi interest along the way, somewhere after Star Trek-Voyager with Capt’n Janeway – but what a great first female commander! – so have missed Battlestar Galactica (except the old video game!) but i’ll put in a big vote for the original Star Trek. The relationship between kirk, bones and spock…eerrwwhhh (i can’t drag from the memory banks tonight, any classic dialogue) but it was such a giant leap forward in the 60/70′s – as it was intended to be….. the multicultural crew (& one alien) and a hot black babe, Nichelle Nicols in the micro-est-mini as Lieutenant Uhura. I remember watching some program and all these black american actresses and singers were saying what a HUGE impact Nicols’ role in Star Trek had on them, and the whole community – as the first black female actor on US TV, not playing a maid or other demeaning role. (even the first actual black female astronaut credits Uhura for inspiring her etc..)
Uhura and Kirk also had the first interracial kiss on US telly, and it was a pretty good kiss too.
Whatever has come after, can never match the cultural impact of the original star trek. (And this is aside from any other themes in the series!! – the casting alone went where no TV series had gone before.)
and B5 again.
What about Andromeda? Star Trek but with irony. And Nietzscheans. And insubordination. And, you know, Kevin Sorbo. Er, um…
http://www.andromedatv.com/
Andromeda sounded quite promising for a while, with one of Deep Space Nine’s best writers on board as show-runner. Then he got fired and the en-dumbening began. Around that time I realised that there was just too much TV SF being produced to actually pay attention to all of it.
I’m with the OP. B5 is the bestest so far (I’m rewatching it at the moment, actually), and you’re spot on about Londo. But I think BSG will trump it if it keeps going the way it has started. And Firefly … Firefly makes me mad everytime I think of what might have been!
Star Trek was one pioneer, yes, but so was Dr Who. And Blake’s 7 has to be mentioned somewhere, as an antidote to the goody-two-shoes Starfleet personnel, and a precursor to the rather more fun spaceship crews of Farscape and Firefly.
nick caldwell, affirmative.
how could I have forgotten Dr Who. Can I put in a vote for all the Doctors? – including the yummy David Tennant?
(Was Space Cops broadcast in Oz? Sounds good.)
And a vote for Red Dwarf.
And Lost in Space. I so wanted a chimp with long ears called Debbie, and a hydroponic garden.
Nick, if you can easily get hold of the dvds, still worth a look, particularly if you’re a fan of the actual characters. But you’re quite right, the narrative arc suffered both in coherence and scope, and it became a bit too Kevin-centric.
Yes! Blakes 7! You can never have enough Blakes 7!
<img src="http://www.knightwriter.org/AA/DemonB7/SevenCyc/a13/Avon.jpeg"
<img src="http://www.knightwriter.org/AA/DemonB7/SevenCyc/c13/Serv.jpeg"
Aside from all the obvious things (and Avon and Servalan), costume design in Blakes 7 was really outstanding.
i saw an episode of Space Cops on cable once, years ago. It’ll have dated hideously — it was from the brief mid-eighties renaissance of BBC SF that also led to the Tripods adaptation. Maybe we’ll get a DVD release.
Also good SF — the 1998 techno-thriller with vampires show, Ultraviolet. I still remember the ABC trailers that made it look like a drama about a counterfeiting ring. Also notable for never mentioning the word “vampires”.
That was groovy. I couldn’t find it in any ABC stores, but you can buy the dvd from them online. It’s as good as I remembered it.
Speaking as a jaded connoisseur of film and tv spacecraft, I can confidently state that the Liberator is one of the greatest media starships EVER. And the production design on its interiors was first-rate. I still want one of those pilot’s chairs with the big white round ‘pillows’ as my office chair.
i havent seen blakes 7 since it was first broadcast (like all these series), but seeing the pics, i might track it down! )…i vaguely remember “space 1999″ – was that any good?
and lastly, the prisoner with patrick mcgoohan.
thanks SHAUN, this has been fun!!
Twilight Zone. Didn’t have one coherent character/story situation, true, but nearly always had amazing shit to think about. And some of the best show-opening rituals of all time.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Is it sci-fi? Well, maaaayyyyybeee. Depends how ya define yr terms. Still, season one is the funniest thing that’s been on TV in ages. And it has the Mooninites!
Agree about Lost in Space. Dr. Smith and Robot are two of the best characters who’ve ever been on any show. And it was completely stupid, and completely insane. (I have more to say about Lost in Space, but I’ll wait and see if this thread has any legs before wasting yr time…)
I’ve been meaning to go back and revisit Blakes 7. I was scheduled for Buffy but may make a detour now.
I’ve noted that BSG has been condemned to a late Sunday night time slot by Network 10. This was the same fate suffered by B5 during its run on Nine. Very late at night, often postponed for sporting events and shuffled around. Given how sensitive tv stations are to ratings I’m not surprised. But sci-fi tends to take time to develop a good following. Given how poorly some of the shows in prime-time rate giving BSG a go in a good time slot would not have made much difference.
Nick’s comment re Andromeda (which a mate quite liked but I never got into) is a good example of the differences in how tv execs see sci-fi and how the writers and fans see sci-fi. A good example was the b5 spin-off Crusade where the tv execs for some reason wanted more sex and violence rather than a coherent plot.
I’m always disappointed by the treatment SF gets on television in Australia. Relegated to late-night or Sunday afternoon time-slots, broadcast on different nights each week, broadcast with little or no regard for the order of the series (even in series with a story arc), and consistently placed after things like the Footy Show, which runs over-time and makes recording the shows by setting the video/PVR on a timer impossible. Before all these series came out on DVD, being a SF fan in Australia was a source of endless frustration. Of course, given the treatment the shows get on network TV, they rate poorly, and thus don’t ever get treated with the respect they deserve from TV networks.
Farscape was one show which received such treatment, despite the fact it was filmed in Australia and featured many recognisable Australian actors. It was painful watching it on TV, but I’ve recently bought all four seasons on DVD (JB HiFi has had it for as cheap as $50 a season), and it was worth watching again. Like Firefly, it was cancelled before its time – season 4 ended with a cliff-hanger, and season 5 was never made. Luckily, also like Firefly, they made a movie to tie up some lose ends.
For any fans of Red Dwarf, check out Lexx (on DVD, but also appeared occasionally on Foxtel). Low budget, but very funny.
I did love B5, and remember being very emotionally moved by it, but I think Firefly, brief as it was, was already better. But maybe I’ll have to find it on DVD and re-watch it, just to be sure.
Oh, and don’t bother with the follow-up series from B5, Crusade (I think) – it was crap. JMSs other series, set in a post-apocalyptic US where everyone over the age of puberty had died, was starting to look okay when I caught a few episodes a few years ago. Can’t remember what it was called, but it’s certainly been axed by now.
No disagreement from this little black duck (thank you, Mr Garibaldi) about the stellar quality of B5 – though season 5 was a bit of a disappointment.
Part of its excellence is related to JMS’ original decision to map out a five-year arc for the story he wanted to tell, and stick to that. Unfortunately, he has compromised the original vision by trying to milk the concept via a series of failed spin-offs.
But the original approach was sound, and one that others would do well to emulate. I think we’d see a lot more quality story-telling on TV if creators could take the view that they have a limited number of installments to get their ideas across, rather than just grag everything out for as long as possible.
BTW – B5 also set new standards in effects, including its use of virtual sets.
I only recently finished watching season 5 and it wasn’t as disappointing as I remembered. However Byron was still bloody annoying.
Note that JMS is producing new B5 material direct to DVD under the banner The Lost Tales. The sales of the B5 DVDs have been quite good hence the go ahead for the project. First one should feature Sheridan and the now Colonel Lochley. If only they could get Claudia Christian back onboard.
Science fiction relegated to bad timeslots? What about Smallville, Charmed and Passions?
I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who disliked Byron intensely. I can’t even put my finger on why, exactly. His smugness had something to do with it. But at least the acting was better than for Lyta.
On timeslots: at least BSG had its whole first season shown in primetime. That’s surely long enough to see if it could find an audience. (Shunting it to after midnight seems a bit harsh though.) B5 was treated far worse by Channel 7 — they showed the first season in random order! You could do that with Star Trek and nobody would notice, but not with arc-based show like B5.
I watched the first season of Blake’s 7 recently and enjoyed it greatly. I had only seen a handful of episodes the first time round (it was on after my bedtime!) so my judgement isn’t clouded by nostalgia (though the production values are often very reminiscient of 1970s Dr Who, unsurprisingly). The writing was mature and the dialogue sharp. Avon and Vila in particular are great characters. It holds up much better than other sci-fi of that era (Buck Rogers, anyone?) And yes, the Liberator is one cool spaceship
I never got to see Star Cops, but I can tell you that Space Precinct was absolutely dire. It was just a New York police procedural set on board a space station, or something, down to the office furniture, the uniforms, the hooker with a heart of gold and the Irish cop who is actually a bug-eyed monster.
I absolutely loathed Lost in Space as a child. I mean, they never go anywhere in that stupid flying saucer spaceship of theirs! I know it was the sci-fi equivalent of Gilligan’s Island, but come on, it’s just not right. Mind you, I always wanted more combat scenes in Gomer Pyle, USMC too …
Zarquon, Charmed and Passion are not sci-fi (actually be buggered what genre Passions would even be in) and neither is Buffy (one of my favourites). To me they are fantasy/supernatural themed shows and though the genres overlap, I think there is enough distinction to draw a line.
As for Smallville, it is the OC dressed up in super hero clothing. It may be successful but I see it as an exception to the rule.
Even Buffy ended up in the late night TV ghetto.
As an aside I quite enjoy the show Supernatural as a guilty pleasure. Some good ideas and genuinely spooky episodes. Good fun for a Monday night.
Sliders was my other favourite.
Re – Lexx – as mentioned by dr faustus. I think it was on channel 7 in about 2000 – and they might have shown about 2 or 3 eps. Definitely up there with Red Dwarf. Glad to here it’s on dvd.
Clearly it is a scientifically-provable mathematically-certain fact that Dr. Who is the greatest SF series of all time. Anyone who disagrees is wrong
BSG is damn fine, though the underlying right-wing themes are a little annoying at times.
Animated SF series should get a mention as well. Aeon Flux was legendary, with more imagination and innovation than any live-action series I’ve seen.
Hmm… SF Greats.
It’s reassuring to see that most of my faves have already been mentioned by others. Many tips of the hat for different reasons here. Different shows at different times deserve medals for different types of innovation:
Star Trek, the Original: for introducing the space-opera vision on the small screen and multi-ethnic crew (first ever mixed-race small screen kiss, remember!). Shame about the hackneyed, episodic stories (by modern standards). I don’t know whether I’d still find it watchable except for old times’ sake. It’d be too much like watching The Making of Galaxy Quest.
Dr Who: for nearly killing me as a 4-year old (I tried to jump over a harbour wall in a British seaside resort to escape from a Dalek which turned out to be coin-operated), showcasing the Beeb’s ability to achieve miracles of imagination on a shoestring, and coming up with regeneration as the key to series longevity. What a vehicle for Mssrs Troughton, Pertwee, Baker and Eccleston in particular…Must admit, the new-series CG special effects are a bit of a cheat. We want zips up the backs!
Blake’s Shot In Old Gravel Pits (thanks to erstwhile BBC radio show The Burkiss Way for that one: [spoiler] a series where the lead character went AWOL! [/spoiler]. Which left more screen time for Avon and Servalan…. And yes, a good early experiment to see if rogues in space were more fun that goodies-two-shoes…
Red Dwarf (original): for when The Farce Is With You.
Babylon 5: The long story arc with continuous character evolution, as mentioned by others. And what characters. Susan “Right Hand of Vengeance” Ivanova in particular. Grand and fascinating. Doesn’t need to be original, which is good given the influences from Lord of the Rings and I, Claudius (see below). It is a crying shame that the networks were allowed to mess JMS around for the sequel series Crusade, which was prematurely terminated after most of a first series, with the running order and continuity of episodes scrambled.
Firefly: more adult, gripping, and funnier than Joss’ supernatural tales. And again, killed prematurely by the TV execs because it was too cross-genre and non-formulaic for them. The portrayal of low-tech, cod-Western space riff-raff was excellent. Beautiful characters (too pretty to die). And only the first hints of their back stories and the deeper darker secrets of their universe…
Farscape (aka: Ockers and Muppets In Space): More space riff-raff, but multi-species rather than human-only. One true human lead character, hopelesly lost. Anyone else who looks human is, or was, a Bad Guy. More great characters and long arcs, but inclined to lighten up the serious stuff with funny, sexy or vomitous moments. One of the most fantastic Henson creations ever in the form of Pilot, but could have been improved if the other puppet regular Rygel were killed painfully. Every episode, ideally. The Australian regulars, extras and Channel 9 involvement should have led to this being a huge success in Oz, but again, this was thoughtfully prevented by showing random episodes at random times on random days, I believe (we don’t bother with a TV and are catching up with all 4.5 seasons on DVD at the moment).
SF not-so-greats:
however long one could watch Amanda Tapping, or likes the Ancient Egypt motif, Stargate is a bit.. Star Trek in its episodicity, isn’t it? Visit new planet. Encounter new Goa’uld-related threat. Kill off extras. Come home victorious…Which is presumably why it has run for 10,000 seasons without getting wrecked by the networks. Still good, but not quite Premier Division…
The X-Files: a bit low-key, and is it really SF?
SF-not-seen-yet:
yes, I’m hearing good things about the revamped Battlestar, and will have to check it out. Likewise Lexx, which sounds to be faintly in updated Red Dwarf-meets-Farscape territory from the reviews I’ve seen, which agree with Mark’s and Faustus’ comments.
SF-not-wanting-to-admit:
all the Gerry Anderson series. Particularly UFO and Captain Scarlet. The purple wigs of Moonbase really astounded me when I first saw UFO in colour…
I foreshadow a discussion about what is and what is not SF
And also wonder how we will ever persuade networks in Oz and the US to treat SF, particularly non-formulaic SF, with a little respect. Either agree to finance a series and show it, in order, at a consistent time, or not to bother, and let someone else have the option. NB: programming (in the sense of timetabling) in the UK is more rigid, so this is less of an issue there.
Fox now has the Sci-Fi channel.
What is it with sf nowadays, all the production crews seem to be pining for the days of black and white. Think the Matrix, where black-and-green makes a close substitute for black-and-white film, or the awful (but technically accomplished) ‘Final Fantasy’, where you got brown-and-white. They’re all so fucking dull! The worst thing about sf has to be the colour-scheme.
Oh, and the best sf series ever was Dr Who, there’s no comparison, really. Star Trek, original series, pales in comparison.
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers!
*ducks shower of glasses, empty bottles, orange peel, other computer table debris and drained dilithium crystals*
Yeah B5 was good. The Shadows were the best genuinely spooky and unhuman SF TV baddies since the Mysterons, who after all were only battling little wood and polyster puppets.
Dr Who of course should be mentioned here. It had many ups and downs but can you think of any other SF series that has so really woven itself into the cultural fabric of a nation?
And a shout out here to Nigel Kneale. ‘Quatermass 2′ had some really unsettling paranoia going on amid the cardboard sets and wooden acting and ‘Quatermass and The Pit’ and ‘Quatermass’ (1979) dealt intelligently with some seriously unsettling ideas about alien interaction long before the X-Files and such like. And Nige also came up with some other great out there TV shows like ‘The Year of the Sex Olympics’ and ‘The Stone Tape’.
As for SF TV hotties, what about the very young nubile and nebular Julie Christie in “A For Andromeda” or Aeon Flux?
Mystery Science Theater 3000 should also be applauded for introducing a new generation to truly crap SF.
You know what’s ripe for TV serialisation now? “The Day of Triffids”. Genetic engineering run amok, malfunctioning SDI tech istead of asteroids blinding people, smart capable female leads, interesting meditations on how social units would morph during cataclysms where petty warlords and vigilante communes are thriving and Weta Digital CGIing up the stalking, communicating carnivorous shrubbery.
I’d also like to see a thoughtfully written and imaginatively designed TV presentation of Ballard’s ‘Vermillion Sands” stories. It could be like ‘Twin Peaks’ on Mars only much weirder and more exotic. And it certainly couldn’t be any worse than that fucking awful TV version of Bradbury’s ‘The Martian Chroniciles’.
And am I the only person here who thinks Blake’s ‘Liberator’ looks like the kind of light fitting you’d expect to see Franco Cozzo peddling on the box at 3am?
I am so old style that my B5 is on Video. A pox on Channel 7 for putting it on so late that my eyeballs would be down by my knees the next morning after taping every episode. If Sci-fi isn’t popular, how come they put in every ad ever made. I’m sure I had RSI operating the remote. I only missed two episodes, both times in hospital but one I watched through a haze of morphine which was the best way to watch, I really got into that ep.
There was another space ranger type show with the Japanese actor Carysomethingjapaneseorother. Anyone remember that?
Yeah! It was actually called “Space Rangers”, and also had Marjorie Monaghan in it, who was later the leader of the Martian resistance in B5; and Linda Hunt of all people. I couldn’t decide at the time whether it was crap or had potential. One thing I liked was that they used regular guns, not 40W phased plasma rifles and the like. But it last less than a season I didn’t get a chance to find out. Some info here: http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Contrib/SciFi/SpaceRangers/
My, what a collection of SF geeks this post has unearthed!
Charmed isn’t SF, it’s straight-up magical fantasy. I’ve only seen the musical episode of Buffy (which is a contender for the ‘best episode of anything ever made by anybody anywhere’ award) but it doesn’t look SF either. I’d say Ultraviolet was SF, because it was about dealing with vampires using technology, and the vampires were motivated by bio-medical issues with the human blood supply. (I loved the concept of the video camera sights on their firearms. If your target *doesn’t* appear in the sights, they’re a vampire)
Smallville… maybe SF, but I think comic books are a genre of their own.
I always had a soft spot for “Third Rock from the Sun”, ‘The Tomorrow People’ fascinated me as a kid, as did the look of ‘Space: 1999′ This modern stuff that the young people are watching, I don’t see much of that – although I keep hearing good things about the new Battlestar, so I guess I’m going to have to catch up.
An incomplete list of Shows That Made An Impact On Me:
The Prisoner
Salvage (‘once there was a junkman who had a dream…’)
My Favourite Martian
The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy
Misfits of Science
Holmes and Yoyo
Time Tunnel
Gemini Man
The Invisible Man (starring, oh what’s his name – Ilya Kuriakin in The Man from U.N.C.L.E.)
The Man From Atlantis
the Clone Master
Battlestar Galactica
The Six Million Dollar Man (and the Bionic Woman)
V
Alien Nation (Hmm, bit of a Ken Johnson theme developing here)
Metal Mickey
Ark II
Inspector Gadget
Star Blazers
Robotech
Marineboy
Rocket Robinhood
Sealab 2020
Sealab 2021
Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space
Neon Genesis: Evangelion
The WB ‘Duck Dodgers’ cartoons
And some story about a brother and sister who have to hold onto rocks that keep getting hotter in order to defeat aliens that look like grown-ups and smell of cabbage. What it was called I have no idea.
d
“And some story about a brother and sister who have to hold onto rocks that keep getting hotter in order to defeat aliens that look like grown-ups and smell of cabbage.”
I think that was actually a ‘Today Night’ story.
“Today Night’”
‘Today Tonight’ I meant of course. One of the many primetime shows hosted by a Reptilian.
Speaking of reptilians, Craig Baldwin’s Tribulation 99″ is now available on You Tube in 5 minutes bites. It makes the X-Files look like a popular TV show. Or does it?
Or how about …
THE AVENGERS!
Apologies for my previous comment. It makes no sense at all, and I stand by every word.
Thank you Brett, I’d forgotten ‘Something is out there’. I have the original mini-series on video and also have a film called ‘The Hidden’ with Kyle McLachlan. Duck Dodgers, Best. Cartoons. Ever.
Firefly is the hands down winner, even with only 14 episodes.
I don’t accept any arguments to the contrary.
Actually, regardless of whether they’re sf or not, maybe someone on this thread will be able to help me. Why were The Avengers called ‘The Avengers’? They didn’t ever seem to be out to avenge anything in particular; a cup of tea was usually enough to satisfy them.
The Avengers was so named because of its original premise, about a surgeon avenging.. um, something. He was aided and abetted by John Steed, who then became the central character when the show was rejigged.
You know, I love Firefly, but with only 14 episodes, the fact that at least two sucked out loud becomes a problem when handing out the all-time-best-evar awards.
Oh, and I just remembered. Sapphire and Steel!
Nick: “Oh, and I just remembered. Sapphire and Steel!”
Yes. David “Invisible Man From UNCLE” McCallum and Purdy/Patsy Lumley, being inscrutable and sorting out problems with the continuum of the multiverse, or some such.
I’d probably love it if I saw it on DVD now, but hardly ever saw an episode live on TV in the UK back in the First Age, ‘cos it was on commercial TV and clashed with other things. I do remember the intro being unbearably pretentious, though…
Actually, ITV tried hard to compete against Dr Who. There was also The Tomorrow People, mentioned above, the first few seasons of which were excellent, and before that, the even better Ace of Wands, which possibly wasn’t 100% SF in that it’s lead was a mere conjuror-cum-supersleuth battling very weird supervillains, with nice clothes and fast cars but no high tech, just genuine psychic ability. And Kate Beckinsale’s mum Judy Loe as his assistant in the first two seasons of which the tapes have been lost/destroyed
…