the 80s Sci-Fi Television Series thread

I sometimes feel like I should watch the series one of these days, but I get the feeling I'll be hugely disappointed.

mmmm Erin Grey in a white jumpsuit

(and yeah, I remember Otherworld too)

Also: MAX HEADROOM!!! there was a great show.

I also vaguely remember a show that imdb sez was called "Fantastic Journey." Similar to "Otherworld," but set in the Bermuda Triangle. Also in the "we're lost and gotta get back home" genre: "Sliders," "Quantum Leap," "Battlestar Galactica," and probly some others. Pretty much the Book of Exodus with laser guns and a hot chick.

And how long did it take to realize the pun in the "Alien Nation" title? Longer than I'd like to admit.

Yeah, on NBC. Dark-haired teen from another planet has superpowers. I think it was like "Starman," the series, but I never watched that one.

there is no Babylon 5 thread that i could find, just odd conversations here and there. and it's 1994 but...

So Series 1 Episode 1. it's a bit ropey isn't it? sets are obviously sets, actors not the best i've seen by some way. most suprised that the CGI that everyone lauded at the time has aged so badly in little over 10 years. still, ST:TNG was also a bit cardboardy for the first season and i know B5 gets better.

i knew i recognised talia winters from somewhere, turns out she was in nypd blue for ages. plus 'spaceman in a crater' in bones.

actually, it looks like a good 50% of the cast has gone on to do JAG and NYPD Blue at some point. Delenn being the only other one who is still vaguely famous.

back to 80's sci-fi
Does anyone remember a tv show (I think it was on NBC) in the mid to late 80's that focused on a bunch of mutants. One was an ex rock star, who kinda looked like Kevin Bacon, who could absorb electricity and then shot lightening bolts out of his hands. Another was a black scientist who could make himself shrink to about smurf height. I think there was a young woman but I can't remember her power.

Misfits of Science. Wasn't the young woman Courtney Cox?

Misfits of Science. Wasn't the young woman Courtney Cox?
yes and yes

-totally forgot about the iceman character
-and not surprising that the creator of heroes was a writer on this show

http://mos.cheshirehall.org/

does Alf count as Sci-Fi

How did I never see this thread!

I bitch about sci fi TV now, but I loved all of this stuff. I spent about an hour a couple weeks ago watching scenes and intros from a lot of these shows on youtube. It's funny how obvious it is now that Automan was trying to remind people of Tron, that Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers would probably have never made it to air if not for Star Wars, etc.

I watched V at a friend's house because his parents would tape it and then we'd watch it the next day after school - I don't remember if it was on after my bedtime or if there was some other reason I had to watch it this way. But it made it that much cooler, because at lunch we would talk about the show and what was going to happen, when we weren't trying to figure out how to beat the latest King's Quest.

Otherworld, though, really blew me away for some reason. It might have been my first introduction to "parallel universes"?

When I bought V on videocassette I was amazed at how short it was - I remember it being this big event, and you can watch both miniseries in like an afternoon.

My babysitter let me stay up and watch the miniseries ... I vividly remember the scene where the girl, starchild? has the rash on her arm and she scratches it and then she goes into a cave and she goes all cocoony turns into a grown-up O_O I think that scared me more than the lady eating the mouse.

But it was awesome, I loved watching it. And my babysitter dug it too.

I am actually watching it RIGHT NOW, is the funny thing. It's been on the Sci Fi Channel all afternoon.

I think I was the only person in america who watched cliffhangers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliffhangers_%28TV_series%29

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SASkqWyn40

lol

Man, we were really futuristic 11 years ago. What happened?
sydbarrett5 4 months ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WZW4groJro

WTF is that Phoenix show?!

I was explaining Space: 1999 to my wife the other day. She'd never seen it. My cousins had the board game!

http://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic430531_t.jpg

I had some space:1999 merch but I can't remember what

wish I had the soundtrack, that theme song is jamming

how do you explain space 1999 btw

I'd be like "martin landau is in space" the end

The Phoenix only ran for like 4 episodes, but my dad and I were riveted for every single one!

Space:1999 had the absolute scariest fucking thing I had ever seen up to that point in my life, an episode called "Dragon's Domain":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tbXhu09m5s

Space:1999 had the absolute scariest fucking thing I had ever seen up to that point in my life, an episode called "Dragon's Domain":

Agreed. That episode freaked me out in very fundamental way. Kinda Lovecraftian.

Oh, hai, excuse me while me glowing vagina pulls your body in then spits out your charred skeleton kthxbye.

http://a264.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/55/l_b9d5eec55e3ea6fcf96a4236d99ea687.jpg

marriage

I think I was the only person in america who watched cliffhangers

Oh you of little faith:

Defend the TRULY Indefensible and yet Stupidly Genius -- NBC's early 1979 effort _CLIFFHANGERS!_

The Phoenix only ran for like 4 episodes, but my dad and I were riveted for every single one!

Saw them all as well, I'm pretty sure!

I should have known

xp

I was a big fan of the Starman TV show, with Robert Hays, the kid from Day By Day/Brady movies, and Erin Grey:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoISB8FK0vM

I was also obsessed with 'Otherworld'. It was refreshingly bleak.

Speaking of refreshingly bleak, I'm rewatching 'Noah's Castle' (technically 1979, but now shown in Aus until early '80s)--incredibly bleak 7-part kids series about Britain wrecked by hyperinflation and food shortages and martial law, with the main characters being the put-upon kids of an authoritarian food-hoarder. Grim grim stuff. Dated but very good.

does anyone remember Star Cops (or Space Cops?), about how in the near future there are so many space stations that they need (British) police force to keep an eye on them all?

Or Comrade Dad, set in an alternate universe where Britian had gone Communist, and the guy who played Arthur Daly was a loyal apparatchik trying to climb the socialist career ladder? It was billed as a comedy.

Or Star Fleet, a supermarionation knockoff in which puppets defended Earth from insectoid puppet aliens, complete with Brian May soundtrack?

Or Terrahawks, the last and possibly greatest of the actual Gerry Anderson supermarionation programmes?

Terrahawks was the best. Childhood saturday afternoons were all about Terrahawks and Dukes of Hazzard.

Also - Tripods

Probably my favorite 80s SF series was the Twilight Zone reboot. Scripts by Harlan Ellison, George RR Martin. Adaptations of stories by Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, etc.

Some of the comic strip programmes were very SFey. I particularly remember a bizarre post-apocalypse one which was low on funny but high on weird. And also Space Virgins From Planet Sex.

for some reason I initially forgot about Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

"Hiya Buck!"

Star Fleet >>> Terrahawks.

Benji, Zax and the Alien Prince, anyone?

ooh Star Fleet, that's the one with the huge 3-sectioned robot.

I remember my mate was just obsessed with that show, he had a broken leg and could watch them in the mornings while i was at school. He was frothing at the mouth over an episode where the robot punched the shit out of zeldas(?) ship. i've still never seen that episode.

zelda might have been terrahawks, can't remembmer the villain in SF

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A769377

oh god i'm so looking for these when i finish work

"Space:1999 had the absolute scariest fucking thing I had ever seen up to that point in my life, an episode called "Dragon's Domain"

This x 1000 - also, for some mysterious co-production reasons, guest star in that episode was Italian b-movie star Gianni Garko.

I was also scared to death by English mini-series Sapphire & Steel - watched again recently, and it is still disturbing in its own way.

Oh man, I love Sapphire and Steel. I didn't discover it until much later - six or seven years ago maybe. Some incredibly creepy shit there.

saw this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi23kQXoggI last night at Lost Weekend's Cinecave, died laughing. The obvious inspiration for "Heat Vision and Jack". (Was followed by the Ray Wise vehicle "Condor" which was also great but couldn't stay to see it to the end).