well since Blake's 7 is long dead dink, the former.
-best final episode any show ever
Depends if a 3hr miniseries counts as a final episode?
My absolute favourite is
Farscape. The reason is a cumulation of a lot of things it gets so very right. When I first saw Farscape I made the mistake of thinking it was some silly Star Trek like show, with muppets. Thinking back that was such a stupid thing to do, its really, really retarded. Very embarassing, but I suspect a hell of a lot of people make that mistake. Even though I had this false assumption the aspethic value was something that really had me watching, its got some of the best alien effects makeup on tv shows because its radically different. Not everyone is a 6ft7 bipod with a facial attachment, you get a birrage of very unique and very alien looking aliens. In a similar vein, it visually is in a different colour scheme to the rest of the genre (barring possibly shows like LEXX). You have very vivid and wide range of colours on the screen and it once again looks very alien. But most of all, its got to be character development and story arks. Whilst the first series is a bit more episodic, the further on you watch the more unstoppable it is, the stories pan into 2 parters, then 3 parters in addition to the season long ark, and series 3 and 4 is pretty much all relevant to a singular continual story. So that puts it firmly outside of the Star Trek fluffy camp which i dispise. The characters are all very appealing, and as the show went on they picked up and lose more. There's something about the characters thatis so very different, they always do the wrong thing first. They always mess up, always, and it makes it all the more addictive. There's an earlier episode that seems pretty nasty when you step back and see what the characters do;
when given the opportunity to get star charts to get home, D'argo and Zhaan rip off one of pilot's arms as payment. There's just not that many shows where central character's do the wrong thing. And despite the weird and wonderful, its still down to earth and gorey, blood (quite a bit), sweat, puss and tears... there's some pretty gorey effects, mutated aliens and deformity seems to be present. By series four farscape is flying, the series builds and things just get worse and worse, which means they got more reactionary and desperate which means they make more mistakes, which means lots of fighting and the reason the show is so active is because it just keeps building. I was very happy for the PeaceKeeper wars miniseries (great miniseries btw, i'd watch that over any hollywood scifi movie any day, and do) and even though it allows for a level of completion (and its the cumulation of the four series of pressure that's built up on Crighton), the show just leaves you wanting more.
You can tell that every single person involved in the show loves it to bits, and you'll obviously know that fan reaction to it is overwhelming.
So visually and creatively its superior to any series I've ever seen, the story and characters are some of the best executed and appealing of any show, it well shot and put together. It really is just a simple matter of it being superior to pretty much any show comparatively, there might be shows that have moments of excellence, but Farscape just gets better and better.
Its brilliance makes you feel like a complete moron for the early misconception that people seem to get.
I can't describe the feeling i got from sitting down and watching all of the farscape episodes for the first time. Tops any other, and I am a long time fan of another scif show that I love to bits that people don't normally put down when asked "what's your favourite scifi show?". Yet, until Farscape it was a clear favourite, an absolute classic and one of the best series in two particular genres. Scifi and sitcom. Obviously that means I'm talking about
Red Dwarf. When that first came out... wow, what a real kick in the teeth to star trek, and comedy as a whole. It was really funny, based on truely great writing. Some of my favourite quotes come from Red Dwarf, and i recommend it without hesitation. On top of the fact its piss funny, it also has a really great pessimitic viewpoint
there are absolutely no aliens in red dwarf, humans have travelled all over the universe and not seen a single intelligent alien. On top of that, its highly suggestive (and infact stated) there's no indication of God either. That makes it even funnier because they've got absolutely nothing to do or reason for living. Series 7 and series 8s were a downer, although watching 7 now i'm a lot more tolerant of it than i was. Series 6 is without a shadow of a doubt the best series, as much as i adore series 1 and 2... and 5... and 4, 6 has to be the best.
Futurama is another great scifi comedy. It really was very well written and is well deserving of the come back. It was a mistake for fox to cancel it, and i'm surprised they took so long picking it back up. Its better than the simpsons. If it weren't for south park it would be the best cartoon without competition.
I'm extremely anti-star trek, i've seen pretty much every episode of ds9 and most of tng and tos, and voyager, and dispise them for what they do. There's no continual storyline, and very little hook beyond that. The characters are very shallow, with very little mistakes or lapses, they might do something wrong and must overcome a challenge by the end of the episode, and then its completely forgotten for all time. Its the same kind of "oh reverse the drive plates" kind of attitude that makes weak stories; its all forgotten and has no impact on its existance, there's no message or statement, etc.. I just don't have any emotional attachment to it. Sure everyone loves patrick stewart, etc. but to be honest, all i ever got from star trek was an appreciation of what William Shatner and Patrick Stewart, etc. play up them being in star trek (ie they do some great comedy shows, etc). But as for the shows, not really any value for me.
Carnivale is a very, very good show. I really loved it. Its a totally different kettle of fish to Farscape, and visually its one of the best series I've ever seen also. Very high production value, very twisted storyline; heaven vs. hell, good vs. evil.
I might come back and give a list of recommendations and shorter whys later when i'm not so tired.
by mxyzptlk on Thu May 04, 2006 7:31 pm 
BTW did anyone else think the ship was kinda ripped off in Lexx? As in the portal inside the bridge?
There's meant to be 2 more series of Carnivale, but the network thought otherwise and wanted more cardboard sheilds in rome 
