HeartBurnKid

I don't see how anyone can think B5 was overrated. There were some poor filler eps. but on the whole it was , and still is, one of the only "epic" SF shows to ever be on American TV. It had an arc, and IT ACTUALLY ENDED! Give me an example of a SF show that ended because of plot rather than just running out of an audience and being cut off.

A3rd.Zero

I second this.

cloudhunter

reddingofish

ithidet

lever2k

lever2k

Darkweave

oldandintheway

oldandintheway

"I know some folks are burnt out by Star Trek.

But how can the original series be considered over-rated; if there are two spin-off series? And if those 2 series amount to a greater percentage than the original?"

Um, Star Wars? Jurassic Park?
Anything that makes a profit is likely to spawn sequels.
-Kle.

Klebert L. Hall

There are worse shows on the list (much worse), but Old Trek is so incredibly idolized that it's clearly the most overrated.

Second would probably have to be Old Who (though most folks understand it's cheezy), then Prisoner. Prisoner might be higher on the list, if anyone other than a tiny handful of freaks had ever heard of it.

I like some episodes of Old Trek, but watched it too much as a kid to still actually like it. Old Who and Prisoner, I can still watch.
-Kle.

Klebert L. Hall

Einstein-Intersection

Mister Adequate

IntoAshes

+ Watch video

Einstein-Intersection

Remember, the criteria is "overrated." Whether something is overrated has virtually nothing to do with the quality of the show. Both crap and works that will some day enter the Western canon can be overrated.

I like B5. I like a number of the other shows on the list. But as compared to, say, Star Trek, where praise is almost always cut with a nod to its weaknesses, (or, for instance, Doctor Who, where the weaknesses are considered part of the charm). B5 tends to draw out responses like the one you posted.

I know of no other major sci-fi tv series of which I often hear such a response. Either I recognize it's manifest greatness or I'm a cretin? The world needs not be drawn so sharply, and that's why it gets my vote for most overrated.

Slatz_Grobnik

But how can the original series be considered over-rated; if there are two spin-off series? And if those 2 series amount to a greater percentage than the original?

radio1

moosetoga

"We found your blankety blank flying saucer!"

ElijahDProphet

braak

I still usually concede arguments that DS9 was a generally superior show to TNG, though.

braak

Not everybody liked it. So what? Whether it's overrated is hard to say, since I'm not sure what "overrated" really means. As compared to what? Science fiction in general or classic television in general? If it's science fiction, exactly what do we use as the baseline to measure it against?

NefariousNewt

@Einstein-Intersection: I strongly disagree with you, my good sir.

Shiryu

How's this for substance: B5 = lack of original ideas, poorly scripted, lots of talky-talk instead of actual plot movement, highly derivative second-hand content ranging from EE Doc Smith, Lord of the Rings to I, Claudius to Bester, Clarke and Wolfe...

It's crap man, and has nothing to do with my thumbs.

tezby

Giant Floating Bubbles

/END OF

Jakus

twee

Don't mess with Number 6!!!! ;)

(is that really even considered sci-fi? Seems more spy-tv to me. ?? Just an opinion)

moviegeek

Sabrina Lloyd AND Kari Wuhrer... it's like trading up from your cute, sophmore girlfriend to smoke pot behind the bleachers with a slutty, class-skipping senior.

DCI Gene Hunt

lever2k

@Einstein-Intersection: You could say that, certainly.

I AM somewhat curious as to how exactly one defines 'classic' as opposed to... what exactly? I mean there's plenty of shows left off that list that are probably more hyped than the ones listed (Blake's 7 for example, or since we included Lost In Space, why not Red Dwarf?) Are we going by the 'older than a decade' yardstick? Or is there some arbitrary designation I'm missing?

Furiursa

"Do you fasten and then zip, or zip and then fasten?"

StrangelyBrown

Einstein-Intersection

moff

Just because you are too stupid to UNDERSTAND a show does NOT make it 'overrated'... It just shows your lack of intelligent thought processes.

I'm sure in your gibbering ADD twitching 'need action NOW' brains the show was probably boring, but here's a hint: the show uses novel concepts like PLOT and CHARACTER INTERACTION and FORESHADOWING... something your underdeveloped brains probably can't handle, so it's okay, we forgive you. When you grow opposable thumbs and your cranial ridge diminishes a bit you'll probably be evolved enough to understand the show, and then we can talk.

Furiursa

ndgmtlcd

Einstein-Intersection

I voted for V. Technically, it isn't really overrated, because there just aren't that many people out there championing it. Still, as I look back, it was clearly lame, so I certainly over-rated it!

Can't vote for Lost in Space nor original Battlestar any more than I could vote for Gilligan's Island in whatever category it might find itself. Goofy, yes. But lots of fun and pretty good for the time.

Nudemanatee

shadownode

eh?

Byronotron

moff

Couldn't agree more. What a terrible, awful show, little more than a pastiche of Lord of The Rings and I, Claudius with great swathes of classic sf plots propped up against card board sets. Eep.

tezby

Not really anything! They never went anywhere! The Changeling didn't change shape often enough! The Ferengi shtick grew tiresome quickly! Sisko, STOP BROODING!

Do you know what that show was? It was Benson in Space, without a laugh track.

moff

I mean, Sliders and Alien Nation circled the bowl -- they could only be called "overrated" if you could find anyone who would say "you know, Sliders wasn't all that bad." V, Buck Rogers, original Galactica and for that matter Lost in Space and Space 1999 were milestones of camp at best. How can a show that was completely retooled in mid-run (and not for the better -- the Asimov? 1980?) be considered a TV classic?

And where is The Outer Limits -- old or new? You can't put Twilight Zone on an "overrated" poll and leave of its knockoffs. What about the other Irwin Allen shows, like The Time Tunnel, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and Land of the Giants? The Six Million Dollar Man? Robotech? Land of the Lost? Blake's 7? Quartermass? Red Dwarf (which was on at the same time as Quantum Leap)? Come on, people! If you really have to toss around the word "classic," can it at least have some meaning?

That having been said, anytime I see a poll with "overrated" and "Babylon 5" together, I have to vote for it. I'm sorry, but RDM's Galactica is making JMS look like the hack he was.

StrangelyBrown

moff

Grey_Area

Plus Bakula gets a retroactive charisma downgrade for Enterprise and me finding out what bacula means.

femto

TheRealVeon

Byronotron

When it comes to overrated genre shows, there isn't even a contest for me.

TheAlmanac

I'm voting for Alien Nation. I always found that show utterly boring.

atrus123

fwi1298

JamisonRD

TNG IS BULLSHIT. It's so godawful. Why? Every single time they had a great sci-fi principle or idea, rather than focus on interesting ways to fuck with your characters, or finding a cool way of envisioning hard sci fi we got TECHNO-BABBLE. EVERY SINGLE EPISODE. Perfect expample, in "The Scotty Episode" ("Relics" to the trekkies) They come across a Dyson Sphere, which is essentially a solar system sized orb with a sun in the middle, kinda like Halo. Instead of exploring the goddamned thing, the whole episode is about Scotty, the grand master of techno-babble. What's the climax of the episode? Scotty and La Forge (techno-babble grand master to the 2nd power) Excerpt from the end of the episode:

"You know, if we can get these engines back on line, we could track them with their impulse ion trail."
"Are you deaft?? The main drive assembly's shot, the inducers are melted, the power couplings are wrecked, we need a week just to get started! But! We don't have a week, so we've no sense crying about it. Come on, we'll see what we can do with your power converter."

Total waste of my time. For a sci-fi show about interstellar explorers, they hardly have time to explore anything, what with all the warp drive malfunctions. AND! The prime directive may as well have read: Do whatever you want as long as it makes you feel good about yourself. Also, who's the director for that big view screen? It is just a giant motion control camera right? No toilets? EEEEWWW. Children on capital ships? BAD IDEA. Also how did Magnum P.I. become a commander?

No but seriously, Star Trek: TNG I think is both the best AND worst Sci fi show ever and definitely takes the prime spot for most overrated and underrated classic scifi tv show.

Byronotron

After seeing Firefly and the new BSG, I can't even watch any form of Star Trek without gagging.

What a bunch of self-important, pseudo-utopian fantasy nonsense.

Paul D

etho

Darkweave

bitgod

Them's fightin' words Newitz!

But I see that everyone else has tarred and feathered so, I'll just egg them on.

corpore-metal

Sharpless

shehanum

I had to go with Avengers just because it doesn't fit teh genre as well as the others ('tho one can make the case with Prisoner as well, but I dig Pat McGoogle so there!) I mean, yeah Diana Rigg was hot in those leather pantsuits (quite literally I'm sure) and I remember as a lad getting a lil' 10 year old woody watching her get felt up on one of the episodes on a PBS repeat in the middle of the night. But is it sci-fi? Mmmmmmno.

shehanum

sumocat

While I'm digging Lost at the moment I really do have to say it's a Prisoner rip off.

(Is the theory that the island in Lost is Fantasy Island still still doing the rounds? I was desperate for them to find Ricardo Monteban and Tattoo in the hatch.)

I think Star Trek's been superseded by nearly every sci-fi show since and even by Babylons 5 at the time. I love TNG like some sort of symbiotic parasite living in my thigh, but shows like B5 and Battlestar and to a certain Doctor Who seem much more engaging.

underhill

Ameesh

Cacafuego

I mean come on, Sliders??? Where's VR5 or whatever the hell that awful show on Fox with Lori Singer was called? A few thousand people watched that, and she's somewhat hotter than Jerry O'Connell.

Plague: thanks for the mention of Mason & Dixon, which is one of the best novels ever.

danwaterhouse

"GET OUT!"

(Is Spaced classed as science fiction yet?)

CargoCult

Also people who vote for the original Battlestar Galactica will get me shaking my fist at them in an intimidating manner, just be glad you didn't vote for the current Battlestar.

se7a7n7

I'm not sure judging these shows by contemporary standards makes sense. Some were groundbreaking in their own ways, though basically ridiculous and terribly cheesy most of the time. Perhaps a better question is which, if any, really should be considered classics that stand the test of time.

Mathmos

DCI Gene Hunt

For my money, V was and is a steaming pile of bad writing, bad acting and bad hair.

BadUncle

Garrison Dean, King Awesome

But is it overrated?

Garrison Dean, King Awesome

Plague

I got sick of Ferengis, and WTF is "gold pressed latinum?"

Terry Farrel was hot though.

I loved The Prisoner! I just watched them all again a couple of years ago and they hold up really well. That big balloon thing is still scary.

RAHfanboy

Grey_Area

Loserface

Monty

Garrison Dean, King Awesome

It was crappy then, and it's old and crappy now.

strider_mt2k

Spiral

jomc

Star Trek is always overrated, but that's tempered by raging fan wars and mainstream derision.

I've got to go with Dr. Who.

Seth L

vurtscribe

Garrison Dean, King Awesome

DSTRYA

Rasselas

Garrison Dean, King Awesome

Star Trek - OG
TNG
Twilight Zone
The Prisoner
Doctor Who
Battlestar Galactica MK II

Outside of Buck Rogers fans, I'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who cared about Buck Rogers. The shows on the smaller list have some heft and relevance to mainstream culture at large... And that's where 'overrating' really happens, when a show starts to symbolize the genre, or becomes a reference point for non-hardcore fans.

Boil the list down to that essence, and I'd vote in two ways. Either the original Trek - for being the oldest, and least culturally relevant show that has been dwarfed by countless imitators. Or the new Battlestar Galactica, because it has generated an obscene amount of hype, but because it's so new, it hasn't demonstrated any long-lasting cultural impact.

DCI Gene Hunt

Garrison Dean, King Awesome

Spiral

Grey_Area

//I'm part of that 4.6% picking on DS9.

t3knomanser

But I really to wonder what classic means in THIS context.

foolish-rain

Darcy

I actually love the Prisoner tho. I'll be very sad if that or the Twilight Zone wins this poll. That's why I voted for Babylon 5. I never quite "got" why that was supposedly such a great scifi show.

Spiral

Plague

jomc

SnotFare

MonkeyT

foolish-rain

Charlie Jane Anders

Charlie Jane Anders

foolish-rain

Annalee Newitz

Where are the flying cars?

How this list doesn't have the Jetsons on it, I'll never know.

darcymcgee

NefariousNewt

...A-AND it's THE most over-rated TV show ever, not just scifi. BLECH.

DSTRYA

Rasselas

NefariousNewt

vurtscribe

Still, Patrick Stewart talking to aliens that only speak in EPIC METAPHOR...

braak

MilesFromNowhere

NefariousNewt

Miranda Kali

vurtscribe

B

braak

BloggyMcBlogBlog

braak

If I could pick an aspect of a show I thought should be forgotten, I'd have to go with the Federation from ST. I'll buy Klingon's, Transporters, and Warp Speed over the shear absurdity of an organization like the Federation ever existing. The future is Dick's, not Roddenberry's.

Epaminondas

aleph null

Charlie Jane Anders

Charlie Jane Anders

Ignoring that idiotic statement, I'll just say that most of these aren't even "classics". "Sliders"? Are you kidding?

Listage. Feh.

Plague

Charlie Jane Anders

I would have voted for Star Trek, too, but it redeems itself by acknowledging humanity has quite a ways to go.

Space 1999, V, BG (classic), Lost in Space and BRinT25C are not overrated by any stretch.

ManchuCandidate

Klappstuhl

There's a case to be made form everything on that list. But then that could be said about 9/10s of everything when judged by current standards. or any standards, for that matter.

Gyrus

Annalee Newitz

SavannahJack

Lost In Space is more of a Sid and Marty Kroft goof-fest than sci-fi, and everything else on that list isn't rated highly enough to be over-rated.

Except Sliders, which is awesome. The best thing Kari Wuhrer ever did, ever.

DCI Gene Hunt

vurtscribe

aleph null

ggodo

Marcus