Outstanding Television Shows
This is a list of the television programs which, in my opinion, are truly extraordinary. These are shows I consider good enough to build video tape libraries of, and which I would highly recommend to others. They're all science fiction, and none of the titles are commonly known household names in America.
Believe it or not, I hardly ever watch television any more. When I do, it's an old show which I already know I like because all that the networks seem to make any more is degrading, vomit-inducing garbage. I don't like much television, but what I do like, I consider to be artistic, innovative, beautiful, or just plain fun. Each program listed on this page can be watched just as easily by children as by adults, in my opinion.
One thing which really unites the programs on this page is that each is unique, at least in America. In a world in which people have made tens of thousands of programs, unique might be a dangerous word, but I haven't heard of any other programs which are like the ones listed here.
Another thing that unites the programs on this page is that they are all serials, with long story arcs. The episodes are much more enjoyable, and in some cases the viewer catches more of the subtle nuances, when they're viewed in order. I like epic stories.
If you came here from my home page, then it will be no surprise that first on the list is Earth 2. This one-season program from 1994-1995 was a truly moving experience. Earth 2 was a single, season-long story told with greath depth, consisting of a very human, very spiritual theme. Its use of a science fiction platform to tell human stories without emphasizing tons of action, its realistic characters, its wonderful cast, its sound, its directing, its cinematography, its music, all combined to make this show something incredible.
21 episodes (1 hour each, except for the pilot episode which was a 2-hour movie).
Doctor Who was a show made in England (on a low budget, so don't expect a load of great special effects), featuring an eccentric, brilliant scientist called "the Doctor." The Doctor could travel anywhere in the entire universe at any point in time, and this feature alone made this show unique.
Doctor Who was also unique because it was a series of serials -- individual stories were told one after another, but each story took a varying number of episodes to complete. Each episode ended with a cliffhanger until the story's conclusion, making this show much like a visual comic book in format. The Doctor used his wits, his brains and his compassion to get involved in old-fashioned comic-book style adventures, wherein he would outsmart the bad guys and the invading alien armies. Very campy, very cheesy, but magical nonetheless.
The show had no sex or romance, yet it couldn't be called a strictly children's show in the classic sense, for people died on Doctor Who in almost every episode. Doctor Who was a serious show that knew when not to take itself too seriously, if that makes any sense.
The Doctor's power to regenerate his body into a different-looking person whenever he was mortally wounded allowed different actors to play the role, enabling Doctor Who to become the longest-running science fiction show in history. It ran for a whopping 26 seasons, from 1963 to 1989 (the first six seasons were in black and white), and was followed up by a 1996 TV movie in a failed attempt to restart the show.
160 stories, including the TV movie, told over a span of 702 episodes (mostly one-half-hour each), 109 of which are missing. All the missing episodes are from the first six seasons.
2004 update: This show is back on the air.
Animated science fiction drama with adult themes is big in Japan. Japanese animation, called anime (AH-nee-may), is now largely available in the United States, but in the early 1980's, very little came overseas. The best anime project to hit America, by far, is Robotech, a fascinating blend of science fiction action and a soap opera storyline, with around 40 main characters. Its animation, its dramatic storytelling, its songs and its epic scale made Robotech breathtakingly beautiful. It is violent, and it deals with death in a very powerful way, but the violence is actually the backdrop of a very moral storyline, and in that respect it's great for kids, as well. (An earlier anime import called Star Blazers was also really good, but in my opinion didn't quite have the depth or beauty that makes Robotech unique.)
85 half-hour episodes, plus one 90-minute theatrically released film, plus one 90-minute movie which was a failed attempt to start a sequel.
Blake's 7 was another show made in England on a small budget, but it was certainly ambitious. Broadcast from 1978-1981, it featured a band of rebels, criminals and malcontents who joined together to escape the clutches of the evil Federation and to fight it. It wasn't good guys vs. bad guys, it was bad guys vs. worse guys! The characters were dynamic, the stories were engaging, the dialogue was hard-hitting, and the cast was amazing. The stories were full of tension just because everything was delivered with such intensity. Since the main characters were self-serving criminals who stayed together by necessity, there were constant conflicts, power struggles and secrets amongst them. They not only had to put up with each other, they had to deal with the top Federation villainess, a charmingly evil, ruthless woman named Servalan. England's best sci-fi TV writers, such as Robert Holmes, Chris Boucher and series creator Terry Nation, turned out some fantastic storytelling, which the cast executed wonderfully.
52 one-hour episodes.