erinja:My "boobs" moment for Enterprise was some 1st season episode when everyone was scantily clad and moist in the decontamination chamber. It seemed clear that they cared more about sex appeal than about plots, and I stopped watching.

Heh. That was in the very first episode, and my reaction was exactly the same as yours. The opening theme had me scratching my head, saying "wtf?", but then they had that soft-porn scene, and that was enough. If I'd been a 15 year old boy that scene might have had a bit more appeal, but I was over 40 by then - if I really want porn I can get it elsewhere; I don't need it in an episode of Star Trek.

I DID give the series a few more tries (as frequently the first episode of a new series is one of the weakest), but it never did get any better that I could see.

I agree with what everyone is saying about Battlestar Galactica. Top notch.

RiotNrrd:
Heh. That was in the very first episode, and my reaction was exactly the same as yours. The opening theme had me scratching my head, saying "wtf?", but then they had that soft-porn scene, and that was enough. If I'd been a 15 year old boy that scene might have had a bit more appeal, but I was over 40 by then - if I really want porn I can get it elsewhere; I don't need it in an episode of Star Trek.

Hah, so it was. I did catch a few more episodes, then, after that, but I don't think I made it even halfway through the first season. And I think I only got that far because I remembered liking Scott Bakula on Quantum Leap years ago.

I lasted about a year on Voyager. DS9 I watched up till the last year, then stopped watching. I didn't like the new Dax, stopped watching more or less when she came in.

Re: British TV - I'll have to check out Life on Mars, it sounds good. My mom and I are currently working our way through Spooks ("MI-5" in the US market) but I'm always on the lookout for new series. And of course I think Doctor Who should start back up again in about a month or so, at least in the UK. Ever listened to the audio commentaries the BBC posts online? Completely threw me for a loop the first time I heard one with David Tennant commenting. He puts on a fake English accent to play the Doctor, it was kind of trippy to hear him speaking in his (real) Scottish accent.

Agreed on Torchwood's gay angle. Although HBO had plenty of that stuff (see Six Feet Under) so I think they would pick it up if they thought there was a US market for it. I think of Torchwood as a sort of "Cardiff X-Files" with way more sex/profanity/violence. Perhaps that wouldn't play well even on HBO.

I agree that Enterprise was clearly not as socialy and politically oriented as TOS and TNG were, as they were true science-fiction and not just fiction. I also agreed the first 3 seasons of Enterprise (especially the 3rd) wasn't that great. But I did found it entertaining nontheless, and the fourth seasons was clearly what I (and I beleive lots of fans) expected it. It was giving a lot to cannon and it had still a lot to offer when it was cut short (and I'm not talking of naked T'Pol!).

I'm not sure how you didn't like DS9 when your praising B5 that much. Don't get me wrong, B5 remains in my opinion the best sci-fi serie ever and I do emphasize the word ever. But, unfortunately, this was too complex and too hard for mainstream. That's why I had to stay up till 1:00 AM on tuesday night to watch the final season and also why Crusade never worked out.

I loved Quantum Leap. The USA network played every episode last year...I got the end of it. I never got a chance to tape them all

erinja:

RiotNrrd:
Heh. That was in the very first episode, and my reaction was exactly the same as yours. The opening theme had me scratching my head, saying "wtf?", but then they had that soft-porn scene, and that was enough. If I'd been a 15 year old boy that scene might have had a bit more appeal, but I was over 40 by then - if I really want porn I can get it elsewhere; I don't need it in an episode of Star Trek.

Hah, so it was. I did catch a few more episodes, then, after that, but I don't think I made it even halfway through the first season. And I think I only got that far because I remembered liking Scott Bakula on Quantum Leap years ago.

I lasted about a year on Voyager. DS9 I watched up till the last year, then stopped watching. I didn't like the new Dax, stopped watching more or less when she came in.

Re: British TV - I'll have to check out Life on Mars, it sounds good. My mom and I are currently working our way through Spooks ("MI-5" in the US market) but I'm always on the lookout for new series. And of course I think Doctor Who should start back up again in about a month or so, at least in the UK. Ever listened to the audio commentaries the BBC posts online? Completely threw me for a loop the first time I heard one with David Tennant commenting. He puts on a fake English accent to play the Doctor, it was kind of trippy to hear him speaking in his (real) Scottish accent.

Agreed on Torchwood's gay angle. Although HBO had plenty of that stuff (see Six Feet Under) so I think they would pick it up if they thought there was a US market for it. I think of Torchwood as a sort of "Cardiff X-Files" with way more sex/profanity/violence. Perhaps that wouldn't play well even on HBO.

Erin, you may like a new series we have running on our independant channel (ITV).
The series is called primeval, it is less cheesy than Dr Who.
You can find a trailer for it here.
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/cult/a41256/in-video-f...

The star trek incernations have all been good in different ways. I do think the new film will be a let down though, I would have liked to have seen how the federation started.

Islander:I'm not sure how you didn't like DS9 when your praising B5 that much. Don't get me wrong, B5 remains in my opinion the best sci-fi serie ever and I do emphasize the word ever. But, unfortunately, this was too complex and too hard for mainstream. That's why I had to stay up till 1:00 AM on tuesday night to watch the final season and also why Crusade never worked out.

Have you watched very much DS9 after the time when you watched B5? I watched B5 and DS9 concurrently, then a few years passed when it was only B5, then about 6 months ago, I decided to watch DS9 from the beginning, thinking that it would be not as good, but still very good. I was a little shocked at what I found actually. It was not nearly as good as I remembered it, I think I was spoiled by B5 and BG.

I found the episodes not as well-written, the acting (by and large) not as good, bigger plot holes, more predictable endings. It also reminded me in some respects of an old Simpsons episode when they find out that Principal Skinner isn't really who he says he is, and at the end of the episode, they all say 'Now let us never speak of this again'. I find that in DS9 (and in Star Trek in general), while a few actions have consequences that extend to later episodes, the characters seem to forget what has happened before. If the DS9 characters were in the B5 universe, Miles and Keiko would have been divorced long ago, Odo would not have re-gained his shapeshifting ability after losing it, Sisko would have been kicked out by the Federation for insubordination, Bashir would have been kicked out for lying about his genetic engineering, and certain of the senior staff (probably Worf) would look at Sisko's position as a religious icon with increasing suspicion, leading to distrust. And so on, and so on.

And in all Star Treks, I dislike how they make use of the "particle of the week" to get themselves out of their problems. If you think about it, in Babylon 5, they almost always use simple ingenuity to solve their problems (with a few exceptions). There is rarely a novel use of hardware; usually it's all about the people and their plans, rather than machines saving the day. In Star Trek, it's mostly about reversing the polarity of the wave-emitting array on the photon torpedo to magically deactivate the enemy's secret weapon. I feel like they use techno-babble to cover up for the fact that the writers aren't willing to come up with a more plausible solution to the problem. I also find Star Trek to be a little too "issue of the week". It's pretty obvious what they intend to be the allegories. "Oh, this is the episode talking about wartime sex slaves", "This is the one about biracial children left after wartime occupation", etc. It's not to say that it's a bad thing to include that stuff but it gets to look preachy. Babylon 5 definitely a few of those, especially in Season 1, but it wasn't so widespread. What it basically comes down to, for me, is being well-written. And I think B5 was better written. I don't finish watching a B5 episode thinking "Well, wasn't that convenient" or "Good thing they found yet another particle no one has ever heard of to solve the problem". TNG also had the same problems but for some reason, it wasn't quite as annoying to me. Perhaps because we were spared some of the sillier combinations - Quark engaging in a Klingon dual?

I also didn't like Crusade that much, it seemed like the "Voyager" of the Babylon 5 universe. It was obvious to me that they were pandering to a lower-level audience. I wasn't that sad when it died, although I had hoped that if it lasted a bit longer, it might improve (first season TNG was also pretty rotten, I thought)

Rope:
Erin, you may like a new series we have running on our independant channel (ITV).
The series is called primeval, it is less cheesy than Dr Who.
You can find a trailer for it here.
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/cult/a41256/in-video-f...

Looks cool, thanks for the suggestion.

Nice Muse soundtrack on the video clips. I'm hearing more and more of their music on TV lately.

All I was saying is that DS9 turned to a multi-seasons arc and a more "spiritual" theme much like B5 was. We coudl easily find several other similarities between the shows: they originally ran concurently and they both inspired one another (to a certain degree).

As far as how you described the plots and characters would have turned out in B5, I don't agree. Both Sinclair and Sheridan represented religious icons for the Minbari Priests. In time, they both accepted that fact and it's impact in the B5 universe. That didn't turn either of their crews to be suspicious or distrusting of them. And as far as the insubordination part, I'm pretty sure we could find episode were Kirk, Picard and Janeway would also qualify and diserved to be "kicked out".

Again, don't get me wrong. I still think B5 is the best sci-fi show ever made, but that doesn't stop me from liking other shows. And all incarnations of the ST franchise have shown a more "jolly" utopic (and somewhat unrealistic) future; that's the ST trademark. That is probably why it became more popular than most other sci-fi shows.

As far a voyager goes, the first that came to mind when it was first anounce is: Red Dwarf.

Islander:As far as how you described the plots and characters would have turned out in B5, I don't agree. Both Sinclair and Sheridan represented religious icons for the Minbari Priests.

Actually, I didn't have a problem with the fact that DS9 had a lot of spiritual-type plotlines. I didn't really mind that aspect of it, I though it was fine. And actually I thought that having characters who were religious was more realistic than the earlier Star Treks, where religion only seemed to exist on primitive and un-technological planets. I thought the Bajorans were a nice addition to the Star Trek universe (of course they were around since TNG, but weren't well developed until DS9).

I just thought it was a strange plot element that Starfleet seemed relatively accepting of it, rather than telling Sisko that he has to either publicly refute it or leave Starfleet.

In time, they both accepted that fact and it's impact in the B5 universe. That didn't turn either of their crews to be suspicious or distrusting of them.

Perhaps you've forgotten what happened when Sheridan came back with Lorien after he died at Z'ha'dum. Garibaldi (who, of course, had by this time been manipulated by the Psi Corps to increase his natural suspicion) did quite a lot of complaining about it to the other characters. If I remember correctly, he didn't like Sheridan parading around "as if he were the second coming or something".

And as far as the insubordination part, I'm pretty sure we could find episode were Kirk, Picard and Janeway would also qualify and diserved to be "kicked out".

Certainly! The problems in DS9 are endemic to the franchise, not just confined to the one show. And of course it's creative license as well, TV characters hardly every face real-world consequences for their actions. Although Janeway was beyond anyone doing anything to her at all for most of the series, and Picard was generally pretty responsible about his actions.

And all incarnations of the ST franchise have shown a more "jolly" utopic (and somewhat unrealistic) future; that's the ST trademark. That is probably why it became more popular than most other sci-fi shows.

Yeah, I always thought it was funny that the Star Trek universe (until DS9 at least) didn't really have money anymore. That's among the least realistic things I've ever heard. Plus the characters never seem to use the bathroom or bathe (until Season 7 of TNG, as I recall)

Garibaldi (who, of course, had by this time been manipulated by the Psi Corps to increase his natural suspicion) did quite a lot of complaining about it to the other characters.

Wasn't he a private detective and no longer a member of the crew by that time? And a struggling alchoolic? And, as you stated, manipulated by the Psi Corps... That just cannot count!

Although Janeway was beyond anyone doing anything to her at all for most of the series

I did like the episode were that alien tried to have them accept his ship under "false advertisement" so he could send the crew into borg space to get back at them for making a deal with them causing his race to be assimulated. Obviously, they got out of it, but I'm sure that's something that would have made the characters think about their actions more.

Plus the characters never seem to use the bathroom

Get into the 24th century my friend: they had micro transporters up their ass! Wasn't it you who said they always had a technolgical answer to anything?