DS9 suffered from the same thing as BSG - too much political drama.

I would say that the politics are what made BSG and DS9 more interesting than the other shows you mention. I liked TNG too, when I was a teenager, but when I watch it now I get so irritated by the bullshit deus ex machina storylines. This is what BSG did much better. The Star Trek shows you mention just repeat the same 5 cliches that Berman and Braga invented in the 80ies. So did Enterprise, but that got better when they fired the writers. But even after that, it still had a horrible cast except for captain Archer, which I thought was a great casting choice. 

allegories of normal life are just exploration of unseen worlds etc.

Blade Runner, I actually rewatched the final cut on blu rya a couple of weeks ago, loved it but I hope that the upcoming sequel which has Harrison Ford signed on better not make it 'clear' that he wasnt a replicant. 

 

Star Trek started out as an altered form of the Twilight Zone, essentially, with Rod Serling replaced with a spaceship. The Enterprise was a vehicle for the writers to explore the history and present condition of humanity. That's what science fiction is used for when it's used to say something: examining a possible future to turn a lens on the present.

With TOS they hadn't learned how to be subtle with that in a way that made it feel natural. TNG was better at it but took a half a dozen seasons to figure out how. DS9 and Voyager then started to wander away from that by getting too absorbed in their own canon: the thousand-starship battles at the end of DS9 probably made all the fans totally squee, but didn't really serve any higher purpose than making all the fans totally squee.

Based on what I know about Trek, it honestly doesn't seem like that universe ever really got a direct, accurate, meaningful slam-dunk expression of what it was always trying to be about. Unfortunately, they've handed the reigns to JJ "Lensflare" "Don't think about the plot" "Damen Lindelhof is a good writer" Abrahms, who's been quoted saying he thinks Star Trek was too philosophical.

It seems like no matter what nerdy thing you're a fan of (trek, star wars, aliens, doom, buffy, indiana jones, etc) it seems like your ultimate fate is always eventually going to be to put your face in your hands and groan.

Fox didn't kill Firefly - they saved us from ever having to watch it die. 

Is that it's not science fiction in the usual sense at all. Also it had Whedon as it's show runner, and he's good at maintaining a tight and clear vision over a long run. 

Haha maybe your just not a Star Trek fan Baker

The TNG is safe, cozy, optimistic futuristic sci-fi in a social and political environment where the characters are never in error and humans reign supreme and everything is spoon-fed. It is good science fiction.

The original series is dangerous, unknown science fiction where the characters have to make rule of thumb decisions and live on the brink and constantly face unknowns well beyond their control. The crew never completely understand much and the unknowns generally do not get fully resolved.

One isn't better than the other (apples vs. oranges), but the original series presents complex choices and leaves some unknowns for the imagination. 

"Fox didn't kill Firefly - they saved us from ever having to watch it die."

Haha true, but that's kind of the same with all tv series. Rarely do they end on a high note with high ratings.

Firefly had plenty of issues though. I personally didn't care much for the whole "wild west sci-fi" theme. First time I saw the intro I thought wtf is this dr quin medicine women shit? But I got okay with it in the end. What I liked about Firefly was good characters (except the lead was a bit of a douche) and exploration. They weren't pinned into the same place all the time. Which is what Defiance consistently suffers from, they're just in the same cheap looking cargo container film set all the time. Does anyone watch Defiance?

Anyway back to Abrams, yeah he makes films for the masses, they make money so the studios are happy with him. But he can obviously do some good if he wants to; he created Alias and Fringe, both of which were fantastic in my opinion. Lost was okay too. 

whilst enjoyable was far from fantastic IMHO.

Re Abrams, he was obviously picked to mainstream Trek and he did that reasonably well with the first movie (second one above average). 

gets extra points for having Christina Hendricks in it. O_O 

Oh god yes... 

fringe was laughable

I literally watched that show only because it made me laugh every episode 

I'm really into Sci-Fi, I love many space-set movies, but Firefly, BSG, Star Trek...none of those hooked me, they even kind of put me off often. After what Baker says maybe I should try BSG season 1 and 2 properly but...

Red Dwarf, Cowboy Bebop those are about the only 2 in space series I enjoy for now.

Firefly really irked me, urghhh I dunno why. Horror. The vibe, something so wholesome about it...dreadful...*shudders* 

Ah that's the redhead, yeah she was hot, especially when trying to seduce everyone. Good god, what has she done to her breasts though? I like Summer Glau.

Re Fringe, Lun you watched almost 70 hours of a non-comedy tv series that you found so bad that it was laughable? If you only watched season 1, Fringe was pretty average in the beginning, though if you really hated s1 you probably wouldn't have liked any of it. But it wasn't until probably midway into season 2 that it started to get good with the main story arc becoming the focus instead of self-contained episodes. I thought the whole parallel universes and the way their time travel worked was pretty cool (but hard to understand). The changeup in season 5 with it all set 30 years in the future was interesting too.

Anna Torv wasn't really the best lead, but Nimoy playing an antagonist was great. 

was done really badly and in a very broad brush dumbed down way.

I much preferred s1 to both s2 and s3 and then found the first 2/3 of s4 to be worth watching again. 

In general, any movie prior to the late 1960s has a high risk of being unwatchable.

Culturally, they must have liked loud blaring music and trumpets back then.

There have been a few classics that I have tried to watch but if it starts blaring music or trumpets it gets disqualified immediately.

I also wonder what the fascination was with musicals back pre-1970.

Was it because most entertainment historically was via plays (Shakespeare, etc) (and possibly variety shows?) and movies/television was a transitioning period away from real-time live action? 

Basically the only movies from before 1970 that I've ever liked enough to actually watch, are by Hitchcock, or are 2001: A Space Odyssey.

It was awesome in Firefly how Christina Hendricks' character repeatedly pretty much got away with murder by being hot and playing naive. The best episode of that show was Jaynestown (or however its supposed to be spelled), which was a pretty clever commentary on the wish-fulfilment nature of legends. 

I saw the movie Serenity but never watched Firefly the series. I guess I'll watch on it Netflix since everyone keeps talking about it. 

are we seriously just writing off pre 1960s/1970s cinema now? 

I'm writing off pre-80s too. 

Do You Actually Want To Watch It?

I've seen enough to say, no. Sure Metropolis may have inspired Dark City, but damned if I got any enjoyment out of watching Metropolis. Film pre-1970 is more or less a dead language for me. It's cheesy. It's silly. It's overacted to the extreme. Anyway sorry, but yes I am writing off pre-late 60s movies, unless they're Hitchcock.

I personally, and intensely, hate Charlie Chaplin.

All of that said that one movie which was a movie about making a silent film with a vampire in it, pretending not to be one, was good. 

but Metropolis absolutely trounces Dark City IMHO.

And hating Charlie Chaplin...I've only seen Modern Times myself but that was excellent. 

I'm not a specialist on old movies, but most of Kurosawa's and Ozu's stuff shits all over most of what is produced nowadays.

Fringe was pretty bad, dunno why I watched so much of it, the only worthwhile character was the old dude (whe he was being funny), the story was a complete mess. 

some science fiction takes scientific precepts and explores what a world would be like based on x real physical/scientific principle

some science fiction focuses on the world and not the explanation, and suspends disbelief with strong characterization and storytelling

then there's shit like fringe which sounds like a guy who heard some science words on TV trying to use them to impress people, but even people who don't recognize exactly what he's saying can still tell he's a self-serious idiot

I didn't watch all 70 hours - after the episode where they used "soul magnets" to attract leonard nimoy's ghost to haunt anna torv, demonstrated via anna torv doing a bad leonard nimoy impression for four weeks because nimoy had retired from acting, then "went into" her subconscious to ask him to leave or something? and everything in her mind was somehow a really poorly-done richard linklater style CG animated world. yeah after that I realized I just couldn't take any more. 

lmao - do you realise that's as dumb as those people who say "all games more than 10 years old are crap because omg the graphics suck how can u play with those sucky graphics".