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My 20 Favorite sci-fi TV Shows

Updated on January 28, 2012

Catherine and Vincent from Beauty and the Beast

David Tennant in Dr. Who

Darrin McGavin as Kolchak

Dr. Sam Beckett gets ready to Quantum Leap

Andre Morell as Quatermass

My favorite lady, Gillian Anderson

My 20 Favorite Sci-Fi Shows ever:


I’ve always been a sci-fi fan. I grew up watching the original Star Trek and films like the Thing and Forbidden Planet, and old serials such as Flash Gordon, starring Buster Crabb. There’s something about sci-fi that stirs the imagination in a way nothing else can. Over the years, there have been a lot of sci-fi television shows. The first one was Captain Video in 1949. It was a silly show but it was successful and it launched the genre of science fiction television. There have been a lot of terrible sci-fi shows (Land of the Giants), and some mediocre ones (Space: 1999), and some disappointing ones (Star Trek: Voyager). This is a list of my 20 favorite shows, and—in my opinion—the best. They are listed alphabetically.

Babylon 5: This is an ambitious space opera which began as a two-hour made-for-TV film. The Premise: The year is 2258. It is 10 years since the Earth/Mimbari War ended. The space station Babylon-5 has been built as an interplanetary UN, where representatives of various planets in the galaxy will meet to resolve their differences, discuss commerce and deal with other matters, in order to prevent any more wars among the volatile group of disparate races—many of who have legitimate reasons to want to fight other races of the League of Non-Aligned worlds. The station has also become a sort of Casablanca-like home for poor refugees and travelers, who were searching for a better life somewhere but got stuck during their travels and ended up living in seedy shanty-towns (the equivalent of slums) on the unoccupied lower levels of the station. The station is under the command of Earth’s military wing, who have to keep the different species from going to war, despite a sabotaging hidden agenda by covert forces within the Earth government; and they also have to keep order in the crime-ridden lower levels of the station.

This show started off a bit slow in the first year but it really picks up speed once the plot starts to come together. Everything is so well-connected in this series that you have to be impressed with how well series creator J. Michael Straczynski planned out the detailed mythology of the backstory. Unlike most shows, you’ll find no continuity errors in B-5. The convoluted strands of plot all weave together brilliantly. The show had an epic feel, especially during the ‘Shadow War’ storyline. Bruce Boxleitner starred as Captain John Sheridan (replacing Michael O’Hare as Captain Sinclair who left the show after the first season.) The show peaked in season 2-4, but the final season is rather weak. Still, this show had the best crafted 5-year story arc I’ve ever seen.

Battlestar Galactica: (The Remake) The new version of BSG is a revamp of the campy cult series from the 1970s, but given a darker and more mature spin. The Premise: In another galaxy, where the parent-race of humanity lives, there was a war with the robotic race known as the Cylons. 95% of the humans were wiped out. The fleet of surviving refugees sets out in a rag-tag group of ship, hoping to find the legendary planet called Earth, where early human pilgrims supposedly travelled to centuries ago. The refugee fleet is protected by the last remaining warship Battlestar: Galactica and pursued by the persistent Cylons.

The original 1970s BSG had a rather light-hearted approach, considering how grim the premise of the show was, and it often slipped into campy humor. Not so with the 21st century remake. The new version—Starring Edward James Olmos as the leader and protector of humanity Captain Adama; a role played by Lorne Green as commander Adama in the old show—is much more serious, delving into the psychological pressure of the humans flight from their enemy and the seeming hopelessness of ever finding Earth. It also delves into the politics and power struggles that go on within the hierarchy of the human fleet. Further, the new show has a more interesting take on religion than the old one did, with humans as a polytheistic race and the Cylons being monotheistic. Sometimes the new BSG can be too relentlessly depressing and watching a marathon of episodes all at once can be a downer. However, this show is one of the most well-written and most politically/socially relevant sci-fi shows ever made.

Beauty & the Beast: It’s rare for a sci-fi show to have a larger female following than a male following. This usually happens when there is romance involved, such as in the Twilight stories. Well, romance was the main focus of this fantasy/adventure, which was a modern update of the classic Beauty & the Beast tale. The Premise: Beautiful lawyer Catherine Chandler is attacked and left for dead in Central Park one evening. She is found by the mutant Lion-man Vincent, who brings her to his underground home—called “the Tunnels”, which are old, forgotten caverns and tunnels that stretch underneath Manhattan—to minister to her wounds. Vincent was raised in the peaceful underground society by his adopted dad and nominal leader of the tunnels, who is known only as ‘Father’. Leonine Vincent and gorgeous Catherine fall in love, and a hopeless romance begins between them. As Catherine says, “Even though we can never be together, we will never, ever be apart.”

I don’t normally gravitate toward romantic stories but this one had me hooked in a way Twilight never did. The impossible love between Vincent and Catherine was impossible not to get invested in. Whenever Vincent read poetry to Catherine, even a hard-hearted cynic would have to admit it was very romantic. Ron Perlman (Who played Vincent, and who more recently played Hellboy) and lovely Linda Hamilton (Who played Catherine but who is probably best known for playing Sarah Conner in the Terminator films) had incredible chemistry together. Sadly, Linda Hamilton left the show in the third season after becoming pregnant, so the character of Catherine was killed off early in year three. The show sunk in the ratings after that because no one wanted to see the Beast without the Beauty.

Blake’s 7: An interesting space opera which is not well-known in the US but it should be because it has an clever twist on the norm, with Earth as the bad guys. The Premise: In the far future, Earth is the center of a conquering galactic empire, and any trouble-makers are brainwashed into submission. One of those trouble makers is Roj Blake, who once led a failed revolt and has been stripped of his memories and reduced to a worker drone. His memories and fighting spirit are revived when he witnesses a massacre that the Earth government tries to cover up. He escapes aboard a prison ship and organizes a group of five fellow outlaws and a super-computer with a personality, as the core of a new rebellion. The seven freedom fighters try repeatedly to overthrow the corrupt Empire.

This is sort of a ‘Robin Hood and his Merry Men’ in space, with Earth as the bad guys. Gareth Thomas plays the hero Blake. Blake’s second-in-command is the less-altruistic, more nefarious and very cunning Ker Avon (Paul Darrow.) The internal power struggle between noble Blake and ruthless Avon made for a very compelling dynamic. When star Gareth Thomas left the show after the second season, you might expect the series to wither and fade. But it didn't. If anything, the series became even more interesting when devious anti-hero Avon took over the series as the new leader of the revolution. (The show was still called Blake’s 7, even though Blake was gone) Instead of good guy against the bad guys, we had bad guy against worse guys. The closing moments of the final episode make for one of the most unexpected endings in TV history.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: A great show based on a not-so-good movie. The film version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with Christy Swanson and Luke Perry, was such a disappointment to writer Joss Whedon because of the way the director and studio twisted his premise, that he started from scratch when he made the TV series, correcting all the errors that made the movie so cheesy. The Premise: Once every generation, a girl is born with super strength and speed, and is destined to be the “Chosen One” who will defend the world from vampires. The latest in an endless line of ‘Slayers’ is Buffy Summers, (Sarah Michele Geller) who originally wanted nothing more than to be a typically shallow teenager but couldn’t escape her destiny. She is trained by her mentor Giles (Anthony Head) and assisted by her two best friends Willow and Xander to protect innocent people from vampires, demons and all types of nasty creatures.

The series often straddles the line between comedy and drama but remains essentially a drama, despite the high level of comic relief. There is a lot of witty, fast-talking banter that would make Howard Hawks proud. Sarah Michelle Geller is a perfect combination of strength and vulnerability as the often reluctant heroine Buffy. Her romance with the brooding, good-hearted vampire Angel (David Boreanaz, who left after year three to star in the sequel Angel, and who currently stars in Bones) attracted many female viewers to the show. When Angel left, James Marsters replaced him as Spike, the bad-boy who became Buffy’s new vampire boyfriend. I’ll admit that the show peaked during the second and third seasons and it was pretty much downhill from there, but when Buffy was good, it was great. Watch the first three seasons and you’ll forgive the disappointing later years.

Doctor Who: The longest running Sci-Fi show in TV history, and arguably the best. This ever-popular fixture of British television began life in 1963 and ran consistently for 26 years until 1989. After a 16 year hiatus (during which a made-for-TV move was produced in America) the show returned to the airwaves in 2005 and has remained a big hit ever since. New episodes are still being produced for the 2012 season. The Premise: Our brilliant hero, known only as “the Doctor” (Not Doctor Who) is from a super-advanced alien race who have mastered devices to travel through time and space as easily as we drive cars. The Doctor, frustrated by his people’s academic ‘Observe, don’t interfere’ philosophy, flees his home-world of Gallifrey in a stolen TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space) and sets out to explore the universe. Along the way, he uses his incredible intellect and resourcefulness to defend the weak and innocent of the universe against menacing creatures of all shapes, sizes and species.

There have been 11 different actors who have taken on the role of The Doctor in the past 48 years. The first was the late William Hartnell and the current one is Matt Smith. The two most popular have been Tom Baker and David Tenant. Each actor has his own unique interpretation of the mysterious Doctor. The way the show keeps reinventing itself, combine with the open format—it can take place anywhere, anytime—keeps it fresh and explains why it is still running almost 50 years later.

Eureka: This is currently the best American-made sci-fi show on television. It sometimes seems more of a comedy than a serious show. I guess you’d call it a Dramady. The light hearted tone makes it all the more entertaining. The Premise: The town of Eureka seems normal on the surface but (literally) underneath is a different story. All the inhabitants of Eureka (except one) are super-geniuses gathered from around the world to work for Global Dynamics, a militarily funded think-tank, building inventions and weapons that seem decades ahead of current science. The hubris and competitiveness of the people at GD cause constant oversights or sabotage that lead to a never-ending string of malfunctions and accidents that threaten to destroy the town or the state or the country or even the world. The man who continually saves the town is Sheriff Jack Carter (Colin Ferguson), the only guy in Eureka who isn’t a genius, and yet his down-to-earth approach, natural instincts and courage are always what save the scientists of GD from their own hubris.

It’s true that there is a lot of repetitiveness to the show. Every week is a new malfunction and every week it’s the non-science oriented Sheriff Carter who comes through with a way to save the day, using his everyman logic. In many shows this formulaic approach might make the program short lived, but since much of Eureka is focused on humor, the repetitiveness becomes a running gag and allows the writers to run the same formula into the ground without it seeming like lazy writing.

Hercules…The Legendary Journeys: The world’s first action hero Hercules came to TV in this breezy, often campy action show. The premise: The half mortal/half God son of Zeus,( king of the Olympian gods), lives on Earth, raised by a human mother. When evil Hera (Zeus’ wife and Herc’s step-mother, who resents Hercules because he is a reminder of Zeus’s dalliance with Herc’s mother) kills Hercules’ wife and kids, our demi-God hero goes on a crusade to stop the Gods from treating mortals like their own personal toys. Wherever the Gods are abusing humans, Hercules is there to stop it.

The show started as part of a series of made-for-TV movies, called The Action Pack, which featured legendary actor Anthony Quinn as Zeus. Series star Kevin Sorbo didn’t have the body-builder physique of other actors who played Hercules, such as Steve Reeves, Arnold Schwarzenegger or Lou Ferrigno, but he carries off the role wonderfully. He is a perfect mixture of heroism, charm and self-deprecating humor. This series introduced Lucy Lawless as Xena, who would go on to have her own spin-off series.

Kolchak…the Night Stalker: A forerunner to the X-Files, this spooky 1970s horror series had a short run but is well-loved today. The Premise: Off-beat, burnt-out reporter Karl Kolchak has the unholy knack for coming across supernatural creatures in almost story he investigates. He doesn’t look for them but somehow, no matter what story he’s covering, there is a monster involved somewhere. Since no one believes him, he ends up having to kill the creature on his own. After he vanquishes the menace, no one ever believes it happened since he never has any concrete evidence of his encounters.

The strength of the show was Darrin McGavin’s performance as the sarcastic Kolchak. He is the epitome of the world-weary reporter who’s been in the business too long but doesn't know how to do anything else. He is the most reluctant of heroes. He doesn't want to be a monster-fighter, but since no one else knows the creatures exist and he can’t convince people otherwise, it’s up to him to use his wits to save the day. The series requires a huge suspension of disbelief to accept that Kolchak keeps randomly running into monsters no one else ever sees, but if you can get past that, this show is a lot of fun. The creators of the X-Files say that this show was the inspiration for that series.(There was a remake years later with Stewart Townsend as Kolchak, but don't bother with that one. Darrin McGavin is the REAL Kolchak and he's the one to watch.)

Quantum Leap: Long before he starred in Enterprise, Scott Bakula became a favorite of sci-fi audiences in this thoughtful time-travel series. The Premise: Brilliant physicist Dr. Sam Beckett develops the ‘string theory’ of time travel, postulating that a person could ‘leap’ through time within his own lifetime. He steps onto his ‘Quantum accelerator’ and vanishes into time, reappearing seemingly randomly in the years between 1956 and 1999, but always being seen as someone else. He always takes the place of a person in trouble and can’t ‘Leap’ through time again until he has solved that person’s crisis. Sam theorizes that some higher power (God? Fate?) is manipulating his leaps and using him as a temporal repairman to fix errors in time that messed up people’s lives. (“To put right what once went wrong”) Sam’s only contact with 1999 is through Al (Dean Stockwell), a friend and co-worker of Sam’s who appears in the past in the form of a hologram only Sam can see or hear. Sam continues to leap from life to life, always hoping the next leap will be the one that finally brings him home.

There were only two continuing characters on the series, but that was all it needed. The relationship between Sam and Al was very well written and their dialogue, whether they were bantering or arguing, was always entertaining. The role of Sam was a tour-de-force for Bakula, since the character leaped into a new life every episode, forcing Sam to have to adapt to his new surroundings, friends, family, job, etc., each week. He could be any race, any age, male or female. One time he even took the place of a chimp. Bakula always managed pull it off

Quatermass: Not really a proper TV series. The character Quatermass appeared in a trio of multi-part serials in the early 1950s, (The Quatermass Experiment, Quatermass 2, Quatermass and the Pit) making him the first serious sci-fi hero of the TV era. The Premise: Brilliant Professor Bernard Quatermass is an innovative and highly moral pioneer of the British space program, working for a group called the British Experimental Rocket Group. Each of the three serials had an alien threat coming to Earth and Quatermass used his genius to thwart the invading menace.

Quatermass was played by a different a different actor in each of the three serials (Reginald Tate, John Robinson, and Andre Morell respectively) and each brought a lightly different spin on the character. (Morell is considered to have given the definitive portrayal of the character.) The BBC execs and writers decided not to overuse their new character and kept him in reserve for later projects.

Red Dwarf: Unlike others on this list, this show is a flat-out comedy, but it also falls under the category as sci-fi. The Premise: Dave Lister was the lowest-ranked crewman aboard the massive merchant mining ship Red Dwarf. Lister is locked up in stasis for a violation of rules, and while he is frozen, a radiation leak kills the rest of the crew. The Red Dwarf floats in space for three million years until the last of the radiation is completely gone and the ships artificial intelligence computer Holly can finally release Lister. Lister learns that in the three million years he was sleeping, the human race has become extinct and that he is the last human in the universe. As Lister and Red Dwarf wander the universe, Lister’s only company is a holographic recreation of his old bunkmate Rimmer (Who Lister hates), a mutated cat-man (Descended from Lister’s pet cat) and later, an android named Kryten.

Created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, the series started out as a sort of Odd Couple in space, focusing on the dynamic between Lister (Craig Charles) and Rimmer (Chris Barrie). Lister is sloppy, lazy and undisciplined, whereas Rimmer is a stern, humorless stickler-for-detail and neatness. Their clash of personalities carried the early episodes. As the show went on, more traditional sci-fi plots were introduced to test the four inept crewmen of the Red Dwarf. The show kept getting better and better, peaking in year six, which was the pinnacle of the show. However, in year seven, after Chris Barrie left—and Lister lost his foil Rimmer—the show dipped in quality. Rimmer returned in year eight but changes in the writing staff after Rob Naylor left the program ruined the series and it was cancelled. But for six years, the show was consistently hilarious.

Smallville: The legend is reborn. This is a revisionist take on the Superman mythos, focusing on his early years and what made him the hero he would later become. The Premise: Young Clark Kent is a shy student in Smallville, Kansas, where he was found by Martha and John Kent after his rocket ship landed there when he was a baby. He'd been sent to Earth from the planet Krypton by his real father Jor-El. Clark wants to live a normal life but as his amazing powers begin to develop and increase, and new villains keep turning up in Smallville, Clark starts to realize that it isn’t easy to avoid your destiny. Clark slowly learns how to use his powers and to accept his destiny as the protector of the Earth.

Tom Welling initially gave a rather weak performance as Clark, which was perhaps intentional, since in the early episodes, Clark was meek and trying to avoid his destiny. Welling grew into the part, just as Clark Kent slowly becomes a more focused and determined figure who accepts that he will one day become the greatest super hero of all. Sometimes on the show, Clark seemed a bit dim and makes some stupid decisions, but we can assume that this is the writer’s way of telling us that young Clark is still learning and has a long way to go before he is ready to don the blue and red costume. Clark often seems too trusting and a bit too much of a kinder, gentler hero than we are used to seeing, but he gets the job done. It’s a bit frustrating for long-time fans that he doesn’t learn how to fly until the last episode, (Which was mandated by the producers who said, “No flights and no tights” until the last episode) which was when he finally put on the famous costume. Erica Durance plays the young Lois Lane and Michael Rosenbaum is excellent as the young Lex Luthor.

Star Trek: The original! As a child, this was my favorite TV show in the world. I absolutely adored it. I was a huge Trekkie when I was younger. I had almost every episode memorized. The Premise: In the 23rd century, Earth is part of an intergalactic alliance for peace known as the Federation. The Federation does have a military wing, however, called Star Fleet, composed of a fleet of powerful space vessels known as Starships. The Starships have a dual purpose; to protect the citizens of the Federation, and to explore new worlds and new civilizations; “to boldly go where no man has gone before”. The flagship of the Federation is the Starship Enterprise, commanded by dynamic Captain James Kirk. Captain Kirk is assisted by his brilliant alien first officer Mr. Spock; a southern doctor named McCoy; and a Scots engineer named Scotty.

William Shatner played Captain Kirk. Say what you want about Shatner’s over-the-top acting style, he was a heck of a lot of fun to watch as the macho, womanizing Captain Kirk. Leonard Nimoy stole the show as the logical Mr. Spock, who was more popular than the series star. Star Trek was not a success during its initial run. It struggled along in the ratings for three years and was unceremoniously cancelled. Months after its cancelation, the 1969 moon landing made the idea of space exploration more interesting and appealing to the public. During the 1970s, people who never watched the show during its original airing discovered the reruns and Star Trek became the most popular syndicated re-run ever, at that time. The show has gained a huge fan-following over the years, spawning several spin-offs and feature films, novels and even a cartoon show.

Star Trek-Deep Space 9: The second spin-off from Star Trek, this was a darker version of the ‘Trek’ franchise than we’d seen before. The action took place aboard space station Deep Space 9, orbiting the planet Bajor. The Premise: Bajor has recently thrown off a longtime military occupation by the hostile Cardassians, and have now aligned themselves with the Federation, who send Star Fleet troops to take up residence in an old Cardassian station orbiting Bajor, as a first line of defense against any returning Cardassian ships. But the Federation has another motive for being in the area. Bajor is close to the galaxy’s first-ever stable, permanent wormhole, which allows travel to distant parts of the Galaxy. Living within the wormhole are the strange, bodiless alien beings who are worshipped as ‘the prophets’ by the Cardassians. Benjamin Sisko is the Commander of the Star Fleet troops on Deep space 9, and when he becomes the first person to actually speak to the prophets, he starts to become worshipped by the Bajorans as “the Emissary”.

Avery Brooks starred as Commander Sisko. Over the first few years, viewers complained about Brooks’ lackadaisical performance but he made a comeback in the later years, showing that he was a worthy successor to previous ‘Trek’ captains. The real main character of the show was Bajoran first officer Major Kira Nerys, played by Nana Visitor. ST: DS9 delved more into politics and religion than previous Trek shows. Many people make comparison between DS9 and B5, but other than some surface similarities, the two shows really aren’t very much alike.

Star Trek-The Next Generation: The first of the ‘Trek’ spin-offs, and the highest rated of the entire ‘Trek’ franchise. Many people did not believe that a worthy spin-off to the original Trek was possible, and there was a lot of resistance to the idea by old fans when ST: TNG was first announced. The first two seasons seemed to prove them right because ST: TNG started off pretty badly but it actually got better as it went along. The Premise: its 75 years since the travels of the original Starship Enterprise. The new version of the Enterprise—bigger and faster than the original—is under the command of veteran fleet Captain Jean Luc Picard. Like the earlier ship, they are assigned to seek out new life and boldly go where no one has gone before. Picard’s crew includes womanizing first-officer Riker, an android science officer named Data, a gorgeous telepathic psychologist named Troi, blind engineer Geordi La Forge and Klingon security officer Worf.

Patrick Stewart played Captain Picard and he is probably the finest actor to be a regular cast member on any of the ‘Trek’ shows. His gravitas and acting ability made some of the bad first year dialogue sound passable. The early scripts were bad rehashes of classic ‘Trek’ stories, and the show had trouble finding its footing until year three, when new head writer Michael Pillar and new producer Rick Berman refocused the show and gave it its own identity. The show just got better and better from then on, becoming a favorite of fans who had previously condemned it for daring to try to follow up original ‘Trek’.

The Twilight Zone: This is the first great sci-fi TV series and many consider it the best. It’s hard to argue with that. The Premise: Unlike the other shows on this list, this is an anthology series, with no recurring cast. It uses sci-fi concepts to tell morality tales. The show was a short of modern Aesop’s Fables, with each episode having a moral about human frailty. Many up-and-coming actors who would later become famous, and even a few fading stars of yesteryear, appeared on the show.

The creator, head writer and overall mastermind behind this smartly written show was Rod Serling, an award winning playwright who authored Requiem for a Heavyweight. Serling served as the on-air host/narrator of the series, as well as the creative mind behind it. Twilight Zone was first and foremost a writer’s show. The clever plot twists, imaginative scenarios and subtle moral lessons made the Twilight Zone a one-of-a-kind treat.

V: (The original)This started as a two-part TV movie, which did so well in the rating that the story was continued in a three-part mini-series, and later as a full-fledged weekly series. The ‘V’ of the title stands for “visitors”. The Premise: An alien race known as the Visitors arrive on Earth with an intimidating fleet of ships. The fearful humans of Earth are relieved when the aliens announce that they’ve come in peace, offering to use their superior technology to solve most of our problems. They quickly work their way into the fabric of our society, gaining followers, making alliances, and secretly eliminating their critics. Very soon, the Aliens are running the show and Earth has become occupied. It turns out that they want us for food and they also want to steal our water. Only a small band of resistance fighters stands against them.

The show was clearly a sci-fi allegory for the way the Nazi takeover of Germany happened and is a warning that such a thing could always happen again if we put too much trust in the wrong people. When the story became a weekly series, the lower budget and the need to stretch out the story weakened the whole concept and as a result, the weekly series was nowhere near the quality of the earlier chapters. As a whole, though, V was a splendid storyline. (There was a fairly good remake of V last season, but I like this one.)

Xena…Warrior Princess: This spin-off from Hercules proved even more popular, and was arguably better, than the parent show. The character of Xena started off as a villain in Hercules but soon reformed, setting up this spin-off. The Premise: Xena, once feared as the ruthless ‘Warrior Princess’, ruler of a rampaging army of savage pillagers, has had a change of heart after her last encounter with Hercules and is trying to make amends for her life of evil by doing good deeds and saving innocent lives, using her sword and her razor-sharp chakram. She is assisted by young Gabrielle, who Xena rescued from danger, and who becomes her sidekick and best friend.

Lucy Lawless was perfect for the role. Tall, fit, dark-haired and beautiful. The fact that she was dressed all in leather didn’t hurt, either. Her guilt-ridden character was much more complex than the noble Hercules, and she had to overcome her inner-demons, just as she was overcoming evil warlords. There were strong hints of a lesbian relationship between Xena and Gabrielle, but nothing was ever made clear about that.

The X-Files: A scary, spooky, moody show that started off with low ratings and almost got cancelled near the beginning but the network was smart enough to give it some time and the ratings grew, and grew, and grew; and this show became a bona-fide hit, running for nine years. Series creator Chris Carter was inspired by Kolchack: the Night Stalker when he thought up this celever show. The Premise: FBI agent Fox Mulder has been obsessed with otherworldly, unexplainable and paranormal phenomenon ever since he was a child, when his sister vanished. Mulder believes she was abducted by aliens and so he has devoted his life to learning about the strange and paranormal secrets that silently exist just outside the periphery of people’s awareness. He runs a branch of the FBI known as the X-Files, which contain cases that were dismissed as hoaxes or deemed unexplainable. As he slowly begins to unravel a massive government conspiracy, people in high places start to get nervous, so they assign him a partner who is supposed to debunk him. Beautiful, red-haired doctor Dana Scully is a pure science-minded cynic, and she constantly clashes with her partner. He thinks she is too unimaginative and she thinks he’s too quick to jump to crazy conclusions. Yet somehow, the two become close friends (and ultimately more than just friends) and begin to work closely together to expose the greatest government conspiracy ever.

I’m going to admit some biasness toward this show, because I LOVE Gillian Anderson. I am absolutely crazy about her. She’s my flame-haired dream girl. Even if the show weren’t very good, I’d still have watched it for Scully. But it was good, mostly because of the relationship between the two leads. David Duchovny (Mulder) and Gillian Anderson (Scully) have a terrific on-screen rapport and they play off each other perfectly. When Duchovny left the show after the eighth season, it was never the same. Scully got a new partner, Agent Doggit (Robert Patrick from Terminator 2) and in the final season, even Scully’s part was reduced when Doggit and his new partner Agent Reyes became X-Files: the next generation. But those first seven years, when Mulder and Scully was the central characters, it was a great ride.


. . . . . . . . . .


So there you have it, sci-fi fans. Twenty shows I’d recommend to any lover of good science fiction. Check them out. You might like them.



Rob




working

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AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)