One great thing about YouTube is that it has a lot of full runs of short lived shows and I found that it had Nightmare Cafe which only lasted like 6 episodes and debuted in 92. Kind of an anthology series where two deceased people in a diner helped recently departed souls. Loved it as an 11 year old and added it to my list to rewatch. I also liked the concept of Terra Nova (future humans moving back to the Jurassic Era due to pollution) but I think it could be better told in a book form. No Ordinary Family was another along with M.A.N.T.I.S and The Police Academy tv series (yes I’m an unashamed fan of those movies). I guess I’ll throw in the 02 Twilight Zone. Was better than the garbage that Peele did.
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Here's a really obscure show that I think most people here will like: Ascension - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascension_(miniseries)
It's about a colony ship sent from Earth to another planet way back in the 1960s, but kept secret from the general public. If that sounds a little too far fetched, consider this:
(1) the technology actually existed back then! It used nuclear bombs for propulsion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pulse_propulsion - in the '50s they were talking about building spaceships the size of aircraft carriers, because with nuclear-pulse propulsion, the larger the spacecraft, the smoother the ride.
(2) the british interplanetary society specced out a design that used this engine and could reach barnard's star in just 50 years (it was a flyby, but still) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Daedalus
(3) in the 1950s, the public's perception of nuclear weapons wasn't "catastrophized" like it is today. It was the atomic age and they viewed nukes as just another tool, not the agent of armageddon. So, it kind of makes sense that a government project of this type might get going, then decades later realize there was zero public support for it.
Do not read too much about this series - if you find my description at all compelling, just watch an episode or two. If you read too much about the series' plot, it will spoil it for you. There is a major hidden twist that you want to experience in the show, if you like the show.
One final thing: the orion engine is also used in the novel, Footfall, which is also excellent.
I couldn’t believe Sci Fi didn’t give Ascension a series. Especially with how it ended
Yeah, same here. Someone definitely fucked up. It was a really unique concept and didn’t require any expensive special effects or locations - can’t have been too expensive to make.
SyFy Channel was a commercialized trash heap that pandered to the beer guzzling wrestling crowd while injecting woke-slop into every science fiction show it made. 'Progress' and 'future world building' was just a pretext for them to create a world where woke-slop was the norm.
Even back then there was a scene in Ascension that surprised me where this reporter who was a lesbian asked the head of the group a why he excluded gays and he said if they are trying to start a colony they can’t have people who choose not to reproduce. In 2014 I was surprised to see that even though it makes sense.
Sounds interesting but the 'SyFy' channel was well on its way into becoming a woke-slop incubator at 2014.