Best SF Series that Almost Were
 

I don't mean just series that aired a few episodes and were cancelled like:

Mercy Point - Got cancelled after only 3 or 4 episodes.

Space Rangers - Cancelled after 6 episodes.

Otherworld - Bounced around the dial and never really given the chance to get an audience. Got cancelled mid-way through season.

But also series that went as far as the pilot stage then stalled like:

GENESIS II/PLANET EARTH - Gene Roddenberry's failed attempt to bring a post Star Trek SF series to TV. Ironicly it was a post-apocalypse series, which may be why it never got green lit.

THE OSIRIS CHRONICLES (aka Warlord: Battle for the Galaxy) - Had potetial. I actually reviewed this one a while ago (http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-qzcEL...UA-?cq=1&p=164). Made it to air as a UPN movie. It's a post fall galactic civilization space opera that obviously inspired whoever did the retooling of the GENESIS II concept into ANDROMEDA.

ISLAND CITY - At least I think that's what it was called. The actor from Will and Grace was in this. He played a number of different CLONES. Alas this is yet another failed post-apoc series. The pilot made it to air as a UPN movie.

I'm sure there's probably more out there.

Re: Best SF Series that Almost Were
 

First Mercy Point:

http://www.geocities.com/area51/dime.../tv_mercy.html

Own comment. At first glance, you'd think it would be a winner, but how many medical drama stories can you do on a space station?

You need a cadre of writers who can pump out at least eighty stories to make a viable series. The writing talent pool wasn't there. The interest wasn't there either.

Concept fail. A one shot movie yes. TV series no.

Re: Best SF Series that Almost Were
 

Space Rangers next.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Rangers_(television)

Short comment. Good stories ran out quickly and a good concept died because how do you write a cop show like "Fort Apache; The Bronx" in outer space?

You don't. Not for long anyway.

Re: Best SF Series that Almost Were
 

Otherworld had enormous problems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otherworld_(TV_series)

First of all the concept sucked. What worked for Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1910 or the nitwits who brought us "Land of the Lost" doesn't work for a modern audience geared up for serious science fiction. Pyramid transportation to an alter Earth? Lost me at the gate and goes downhill from there.

Also I don't buy into a Rift Earth universe.

The technology was laughable and the artificial social constructs (called plot contrivance4) top drive story made no sense.

:thumbdown in a big way.

Re: Best SF Series that Almost Were
 

GENESIS II/PLANET EARTH

http://www.moria.co.nz/index.php?opt...d=2923Itemid=1

:thumbdown

Logan's Run wanttobe. I HATED IT for the same exact structural reasons I hated ST:TNG.

Re: Best SF Series that Almost Were
 

THE OSIRIS CHRONICLES;

http://www.mjsimpson.co.uk/reviews/o...hronicles.html

Comment: Once again the guy who conceoved thois didn't think of how you can write eighty stories for a yawner.

This is Andromeda before there was an Andromeda. That was a premise fail too.

:thumbdown

Re: Best SF Series that Almost Were
 

ISLAND CITY

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110163/

This had potential: :thumbsup:

The problems are of course how do you explain a viable city in a waste world?

You need a Harlan Ellison or a JMS to pull it off. I can see a type of New Chicago story on a Buck Rogers type fallen Earth, but you have to have cojones to run with the concept.

Re: Best SF Series that Almost Were
 

Re: Best SF Series that Almost Were
 

Its hard to find a good science fiction series that almost made it. These series failed for good reason, either because they were unmakeable as I said for Mercy Point which was good, or they stank as story like Otherword; in addition to being unproduceable as a TV concept

That is the problem with the title of this thread. But if you want one that almost made it, but didn't,

Alien Nation:

http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/A...ober_1987.html

Just read that script. All five elements are present, well developed, and EASY to do for TV for a long syndication capable run. Brilliant concept.

Re: Best SF Series that Almost Were
 

KP -

I actually liked Otherworld - it had it's good moments, but like all TV series, it had some weak ones as well. I always felt that it somewhat felt similar to Fantastic Journey, which I also enjoyed. I wouldn't have minded either series getting more screen time to develop.

I never saw Mercy Point or Space Rangers - those shows were probably scheduled against something I already watched, by the time I got to them, they'd already been dropped.


Like you, I enjoyed the Genesis II & Planet Earth pilots - they seemed share a lot of Trek-isms in terms of story structure and characters, but I thought that they had potential. Too bad they never got that chance. I was actually disappointed when those concepts and characters were retooled in Andromeda to a degree, which I just never latched onto.

I never saw the Osiris Chronicles or Island City, so I can't comment on those, but I'll have to see if there's anything of them to take a look at.

Bryan

Re: Best SF Series that Almost Were
 

I suppose you also weren't a fan of the GAMMA WORLD RPG, either?

Roddenberry may have been inspired by Logan's Run but there's nothing of LR in this. The premise is a fail not because it's PA, but because Roddenberry tried to do ST in a PA setting, on earth.

Otherwise this was awesome silly stuff.

Re: Best SF Series that Almost Were
 

I find it hilarious you give this one a thumbs up since it WAS a Logan's Run knock-off. Actually this one was LOGAN'S RUN meets DAMNATION ALLEY with a twist of AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK. ;)

the people having crystals embedded in their skin is a obvious nod to LR. However I liked the twist that the crystals were for identifying genetic compatibility, which is part of why I think this would have made such a great series. In the right hands you have quite a bit to explore as that idea gives you a stratified social structure based not on skin color but crystal color. Plenty of room for exploration of cultural taboos via metaphor, I thought.

Wish it had been picked up.

Re: Best SF Series that Almost Were
 

*AHEM*

The following used the same basic premise/concept/plot conciet:

STARGATE
STARGATE SG-1
STARGATE ATLANTIS
SLIDERS
FLASH GORDON*

(*) The sciffy atrocity.

There's more but I trust my point has been made that the concept not only did NOT suck but, with the right story forumulae, actually was quite the success. Granted Stargate refines the idea and gives us a lovely McGuffin to look at, the titular Stargate, and actually constructs plausible sounding fictional tech to explain it as travel via wormhole. But the entire point of OTHERWORLD was the family was just your average Joe's, thus such an explainationg wasn't really needs as they wouldn't know anyway.

Besides the point of the series was a slow reveal as the plot progressed over time. If all you've seen of this is the Sci-Fi re-airing YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THIS SERIES. Go to IMDB and look in the external reviews. Find the one titles "Mise-en-scene Crypt".

There's even a few screen caps. :)

Re: Best SF Series that Almost Were
 

No. I wasn't a fan. GURPS and Traveller. I run a little PBM game on the web for a group of Internet friends. I have them stuck with a dilemma that its taken them three weeks to figure out. It'll be two years that this game plays out this April. I happen to be running Chapter V of what looks to be a scripted series. We archive the plot-lines and this we have instant scripts. It actually works out quite well. You'd be surprised how close to a working script you can get when you have a template posting format and a gamemaster who can edit quickly in Word.

Story
Character
Production (read edit)
Direction
Setting

That works for a character generated storyline.

D.

Re: Best SF Series that Almost Were
 

From where I sit ER was a piece of festering fecal matter. I never watched it. In fact I'd go so far as to say that I find medical dramas to be rephrenensibly cliched drivel that offer nothing new, innovative, informative, or entertaining. Seen one? You've seen them all.

Yet, you know what, I tuned in to MERCY POINT.

Why?

Curiosity.

Why?

Because it was a sci-fi series, with aliens, set in space, aboard a space ship, with decent VFX cut scenes for the time, about a medical team, dealing with aliens, in space and THAT made it out of the oridinary from the SAME OLD SAME OLD SAME OLD medical show garbage that's been recycled for the last 50 some odd years.

Would I have watched more than the episode I caught?

I'll never know since whatever channel it was didn't give it a solid time slot and it disappeared from the dial without ever getting a change to find an audience and make it care for it. Though even I will admit that this novelty would have worn thin after a while without a larger universe to care about.

Re: Best SF Series that Almost Were
 

*AHEM*

The following used the same basic premise/concept/plot conciet:

STARGATE.........................wormhole teleportation.
STARGATE SG-1.................wormhole teleportation
STARGATE ATLANTIS...........wormhole teleportation
SLIDERS............................brane intersection and pass-through.
FLASH GORDON*.................that abomination used the Slider's premise but failed so it comes under the heading of magic.

Otherworld was out and out MAGICAL TRANSPORT based on pyramid power and dream sequence. The arrivals had a world of artificial social constructs based on actual physical border control (separate worlds maintianed by a state). Please give me a break. There was no McGuffin that even remotelely could explain the trash the producers of Otherworld tried to foist as their "universe". When the "rules" don't make any sense, then I'm out the door on it leaving the suspension of disbelief in the dust.

Re: Best SF Series that Almost Were
 

I never knocked Logan's Run by the way.:LOL: just the failures that tried to imitate it.

Why do you think its odd that I lkke Island City?

D.

Re: Best SF Series that Almost Were
 

Agreed. I recorded this off Sci-Fi many years ago and every time I try to sit down and watch more than an episode or two my eyes glaze over.

Still I think the series had potential.

Space Rangers has aired, in it's edited "movie" format, on ION. I caught part of it last year. It's not as good as the original episodes (used to have one on tape many moons ago) and watched it a few times so I know they've dropped a lot of dialogue. But if you see it on ION tune in. You can still get a feel for the series. Sadly this is also the only version that's ever been relased to VHS.

As for MERCY POINT. I have no idea. By the time the HEAVY METAL issue with a write-up for the "new" series came in my mail box it was long gone. Never even repeated an episode, AFAIK, ever. Don't think it's even been released to VHS.

1st Season was the only good season of Andromeda, IMO. After that it became inchorent nonsense. Of course that could be my memory of it because I never watched but one or two episodes every now and again when nothing else was on so I had no idea what was going on most of the time. :rolleyes:

Osiris Chronicles really is, like Damocles said, Andromeda before there was an Andromeda.

It's VHS title is The Osiris Chronicles. It aired on UPN as Warlord: Battle for the Galaxy. My review linked to a (very poor resolution) trailer. Not sure if it's still up though as that review is old.

Re: Best SF Series that Almost Were
 

Just re-read my post.

Where in what I typed do I say anything negative about Island City?

FWIW: I liked Logan's Run. Own it on DVD. I even own AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK on DVD and have DAMANATION ALLEY on DVDR (thanks to a FMC broadcast a few years back), so I must like them too.

Are you sure you didn't confuse this thread with the other thread? This is the WE LOVE SCI-FI AND THESE ARE THE SERIES THAT WE THINK WOULD HAVE BEEN GREAT IF. . . thread.

:salute:

Re: Best SF Series that Almost Were
 

Psst: Alien Nation DID have a series.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096531/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096783/

In fact the series spawned several TV movies.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115505/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109078/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112319/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118582/