Thanks to Tulpa’s intensely compelling recommendation, my partner and I got blazed and watched Farscape. We watched them on YouTube and only realized afterwards that the episodes are in the wrong order on there, so we watched episodes 1 and 3.
I have to say, I’m shocked at how great this show is, right from the pilot! I never would have guessed from the out-of-context bits we saw previously that this would be anywhere near this good.
You know how some media, when viewed from the outside, looks utterly dismal… but if you give it a serious go it’s actually great? This has got to be one of the most extreme cases of that. It reminds me of another late 90’s sci-fi series I’m always thinking about, Animorphs. Those book covers looked absurd and trashy, but the series was actually punching way above its contemporaries, and still holds up pretty well. You’ve gotta love stuff like that.
Oh also while watching the episode about a giant space bug infestation, we found a bug in our apartment, so that sucked but it was also good ludonarrative consonance or whatever.
There’s a couple story lines that I honestly can’t remember if they’re late Farscape episodes or late SG-1 episodes just because of the shared cast members.
Also since I brought it up up thread, Space Above and Beyond rules, plus it’s implied that the same thing behind the killer LCD screens episode of X-Files caused the replicant revolt in the show’s backstory.
I’m still watching Farscape and loving it. I keep thinking about the ttrpg comparison. It’s so apt!
The crew are the player characters, and Pilot is the DM’s NPC character that ends up becoming a major part of the campaign.
The way the characters are all introduced at the beginning is so tabletop. Very adventurers-meeting-at-a-tavern opening.
The early episode where the crew is boarded by supersoldiers with amphetamine-dispensing gauntlets, and they steal one of the gauntlets and every main character gets a turn wearing it, and every time it makes them superpowered but they gradually become paranoid with delusions of grandeur until the other characters make them take it off. It’s totally a D&D party passing around a piece of cursed armor and failing every saving throw!
The fucking space wizard episode, enough said.
Every episode where a sudden situation causes a character to explore their backstory.
When Chiana’s introduced, that’s just the tabletop group bringing in a new player who missed the first several meetings, didn’t do any prep, and just told the DM he wanted to be Pris from Blade Runner.
I don’t think I’ve ever had this much fun with a sci-fi show.
I think Enterprise is edging out Voyager for me. They both have some pretty weak episodes but I have not encountered long stretches of dullness, relative to the premise, while watching Enterprise
I actually totaled up the results of this, like, a month ago.
Before we get to the actual ranking, I’d like to first hand out honorary awards, based on things I typed into my spreadsheet when I was doing the tally. If you didn’t get one, you should feel pretty bad. Pretty much everyone else got one. What did YOU do wrong?
Extreme Honor
Losers
Clean Plates Club
Alyx, Tulpa, jsnlv, Tegiminis, elvis_shrugged
Off Topic
Laurel Soup
#1 Troll
Jujotech
Most Normie
Tegiminis, captain love
Bajoran Sabateurs
Felix & Mikey
#1 Seaquest DSV Fan
Laurel Soup
And now without further ado…the results!
It should surprise no one that DS9 took the number one slot by a landslide and TNG came second. But the upset is Babylon 5 in third. Babylon 5, folks: objectively better than Farscape. Though it does seem like Tulpa’s incessant lobbying for Farscape had an affect.
So anyway, now you know: objectively best Star Trek? DS9. No further arguments. Polls are closed. Carve it in stone. Tattooed to your forehead.
I went to a screening of From Beyond last week and it seemed like more people I was talking to there knew Jeffery Combs as the Dominion dude(s) rather than as Herbert West.
It surprises me that it’s not even higher for how iconic it is, and how good some of the episodes are, or because of how campy it is. I guess enjoying it does require being able to stomach a good deal of sexism and the attendant qualities that either make something campy or embarrassing. But still!
TOS is harder to stomach if the main 60s show you’re watching is The Twilight Zone, but seems radically feminist if you watch like any 60s sitcom, so I think that might be part of why the dubious parts are easier to stomach for some? But It’s still gonna have a lot of caveats if you tell someone to watch it now. But damn, when TOS is good? It’s so good.
Balance of Terror is the best submarine battle episode of anything pretty much ever, for example.
Also for some reason nobody brings up the sexism in TNG. I think probably because so much of it is how women were treated behind the scenes,but you still get Dr Crusher wants to Fuck the Candle Ghost.
Ds9 also has this issue (I love you Ezri, I don’t love why you exist).
I’ve never talked to anyone about tng who isn’t like “so uh what was up with the rape gangs exactly???” or hasn’t expressed displeasure at the counselor troi space impregnation episode at least.
