Sci-fi series that started strong and ended stupid

paladin · Post by **paladin** » 2003-01-17 08:35pm

Which Sci-fi series do you think started very strong and full of promise and ended just plain stupid?

I vote for First Wave. The first and second seasons were quite good but the third season just sucked. It really got bad when they showed the leader of the
Gua. The Gua leader was a rip-off of the Emperor from SW, black cloak and all. The series final just sucked. The hero, Cade Foster, destroyed some device that stopped the Gua army. I think an open ended final would have been better.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2003-01-17 08:38pm

SeaQuest and Sliders. Seaquest was good for about 1.5 seasons. Then it turned to crap. Sliders was good for about a season or so.

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2003-01-17 08:40pm

Well if it wasn't absolutley obvious, STAR TREK! Look at the TOS, corny yes, but brilliant (some episodes really madja think). The we got TNG, first season sucked, season 2 picked up, season 3 and 4 are good, starts to lose a little steam, bows out gracefully in the end. DS9 (never a huge fan) was absolute crap till about season three when they go tto the nitty gritty fo the war. Voyager = crap. Enterprise = blasphemous crap.

'Nuff said.

paladin · Post by **paladin** » 2003-01-17 08:42pm

I agree with you about Sliders. The original idea of going to different Earths where history when different was cool but the last season of Sci-fi was very dumb.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-01-17 08:44pm

paladin wrote:Which Sci-fi series do you think started very strong and full of promise and ended just plain stupid?

Andromeda - It had a lot of promise and a brilliant start. Then it went down the crapper and turned into Hercules: In Space.

X-Files - It went from on of the best Sci-fi shows on Tv to crap and a season. They should have ended it when David Duchonovy left. Part of what made it great was the relationship between Mulder and Scully with that gone it went downhill fast.

beyond hope · Post by **beyond hope** » 2003-01-17 08:53pm

Quantum Leap - I really enjoyed it for several seasons, but after a while I started getting a sense of deja vu. By the time the "evil leaper" showed up, I knew it was time to give it up.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2003-01-17 08:58pm

Andromeda had such potential, had a writer that cared about consistency and consequences. Things carried over from show to show and the caharcters actually grew.

THEN he was fired and teh shit began. It is now currently unwatchable and I refuse to subject myself to the horros of what once was a series that could have rivalled B-5 in good writing turn into Hercules in SPace.

paladin · Post by **paladin** » 2003-01-17 09:03pm

Space: Above and Beyond. That was any series I thought started well and ended bad. The thing I really hated about the series was the stupid X-files like conspiracy regarding the Alien species. The whole thing about Aerotech knowing about them and not letting anyone else know was stupid.

Enlightenment-alternate · Post by **Enlightenment-alternate** » 2003-01-17 09:12pm

Babylon 5. Started half decent, got good, finished (S5 not including SiL) awful.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-01-17 09:20pm

Enlightenment-alternate wrote:Babylon 5. Started half decent, got good, finished (S5 not including SiL) awful.

I've got to agree to a degree with that. The uncertainty of the final season's fate clearly hurt season 5. It was a still a great show but the pacing is clearly off when compared to the previous four seasons. You can tell JMS wanted to carry the Earth Civil war into Season 5 (season four would have ended about the time Intersections in Real Time). And the telepath arc would have been interlaced with the war and the Centauri crisis rather than an arc of it's own.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2003-01-17 09:21pm

I'll go with First Wave as great potention but ended up sucking with Andromida either a close second or taking the lead

Dunno

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-01-17 09:25pm

Mr Bean wrote:I'll go with First Wave as great potention but ended up sucking with Andromida either a close second or taking the lead

Dunno

I think Andromeda will take the lead since it hasn't been cancelled yet to my knowledge.

Enlightenment-alternate · Post by **Enlightenment-alternate** » 2003-01-17 09:51pm

Stormbringer wrote:I've got to agree to a degree with that. The uncertainty of the final season's fate clearly hurt season 5.

It's not just S5; most everything produced after the end of S3 seems to have suffered an encounter with brain-eating parasites. S4 was poor; S5 was an insult to the intelligence of anyone with an IQ higher than that of a moron, and the movies were questionable at best.

Another candidate for this list would be TNG, except for the fact that it started badly and finished badly but was pretty good in the middle (S3-S6) and had some excellent episodes in there, too.

Biddybot · Post by **Biddybot** » 2003-01-17 10:06pm

Earth: Final Conflict -- Tacky, cheap and unintentionally funny the first season, and the aliens were great! Went downhill as soon as they got rid of the male lead and replaced him with that wooden jerk at the start of the second season. Couldn't watch it anymore by the third season.

War Of The Worlds -- Another cheap, but fun one. The show knew it was silly and milked it--used to love the pretentious biblical episode titles, and I got a charge out of how they managed to work in the old WAR OF THE WORLDS movie footage. The episode about the three alien leaders having to find a bunch of fresh human brains in order to distill a medicine to cure one of their members of chicken pox is still one of my picks as a camp classic. Like E:FC, went downhill when the entire scenario was 'reworked' for season two and the fav male lead was stupidly killed off.

'Reworking' the premise also ruined Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers, IMO...

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2003-01-17 10:09pm

paladin wrote:Space: Above and Beyond. That was any series I thought started well and ended bad. The thing I really hated about the series was the stupid X-files like conspiracy regarding the Alien species. The whole thing about Aerotech knowing about them and not letting anyone else know was stupid.

REPENT or die!

The whole consipiracy issue was brought up since the 4th episode, in The Farthest Man From Home and was further confirmed in Eyes, Choice or Chance & The Angriest Angel it was made ubundently clear throughout the entire series that the deaths and suffering of the 58th were almost to a point needless. Not to mention that fucking Fox cancelled the show after it's final season giving us no closure.

Space: Above and Beyond, just got better and better with each episode, and especially it's last few it blew everything out of the water; the two part season finale And if they lay us down to rest... ...Tell our Mom's we done our best. left me feeling like crap. How could you say that this ended poorly?

Imagine if it had been picked up for a second season; what's up with the Chigs? They are like thousands of years more advanced then us, have they been fucking with us all this time? What happened to Vansen and Damphousse? Who will be the 58ths new CO? Is there going to be a 58th? Is Wang's body ever going to be recovered?

Glen Morgan and James Wong outdid themselves with this excellent show. However your assertation that it was a little too X-files, how can this come as a surprise, as they were two of the best X-files writers?

paladin · Post by **paladin** » 2003-01-17 10:57pm

Crown

The whole conspiracy was too over done. Aerotech knowing the Chigs were there was why I did not like the conspiracy angle. I would have liked it better if Aerotech was unsure about the existence of the Chigs. In that Aerotech treated the reports of sightings of Chig ships like UFO sightings are treated. The reports would be dismissed as imagination or mis-identification of objects. Of course this would change when the Vesta colony was attacked. To me it would have been a better reason for Aerotech with holding the Chig info.

Anyway, S:AAB did have some episodes I like. My favorite was the Angriest Angel.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2003-01-17 11:08pm

My vote would go with Earth: Final Conflict. They seemed to be doing interesting things in the first season. But when they replaced Boone, the whole show started turning to shit. Totally unwatchable by season 3.

Post by **Ghost Rider** » 2003-01-17 11:13pm

Andromeda heads my list if for nothing else, it had continuity...and then after a while just went to crap and became worse then Xena in Space.

And it still lives on?......oi

SyntaxVorlon · Post by **SyntaxVorlon** » 2003-01-17 11:15pm

I really hate to agree with Enlightenment on anything pertaining to B5, but S5 seriously could have used rethinking. A few too many inconsistencies(probably plot lines to be followed) and awkward moments where the show just seemed to be sitting there. I wish the Civil War had had more coverage. Damned networks, they want to make money but they can't stand to part with it to make a good show.
I also think First Wave and Andromeda had some good points. But you could tell that they were destined to taper off. Andromeda started getting bad in the first season, with the main character spouting off glittering generalities about government and ideals, and the fact that WAY too many little things from 3 centuries in the past from Hunt's life just happen to pop up. The Vase of whoever episode where something he did comes back to bite him in the ass, or the episode where the mission to assassinate a dictator on some planet comes back to bite him in the ass. Or worse the episode where his buddies from back when he was a demigod pop up to bite him in the ass(Oh wait).

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-01-17 11:39pm

Andromeda. Bastards.

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2003-01-18 10:44am

Battlestar Gallactica -- Even in the pilot movie it started out really cool and then got booooring. Carry the series until Gallactica 80 and things are sucking big time.

Cosmic Average · Post by **Cosmic Average** » 2003-01-18 10:44am

Star Wars.

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2003-01-18 10:44am

I guess you could include the Buck Rogers tv show since the pilot movie was much much better than the episodes in the last season.

Artanis · Post by **Artanis** » 2003-01-18 01:49pm

I know I'm going to be beaten to death with a burlap sack for this, but Farscape.

Farscape started out so-so, and quickly improved into one of the best Sci-Fi series of all time. After Talyn and Crais died, though, it's like they ran out of stuff to do to Moya's crew...the show just kinda got lost. And then cancelled

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 2003-01-18 01:50pm

Believe it or not and this probably isn't considered straight Sci Fi, but "Hercules." the Legendary Journies or whatever. I know, go ahead and laugh. ; )

It didn't take itself too seriously, but it was a fun show, this is before Xena came out mind you. The jokes got worse, and the presense of Xena using the same/similar plots/characters/sets/etc made it obvious they ran out of ideas fast.

But I think it started out pretty good, then turned into silly crap.

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Sci-fi series that started strong and ended stupid

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