Top Seven Sci-Fi TV Series for People Who Don't Take Sci-Fi So Seriously

A lot of Sci-Fi TV series take themselves very very seriously. It's great if you just need to be serious all the time. Me, I like my science fiction with a touch of humor. So here's my list of the greatest TV science fiction series that didn't take themselves too seriously. If you have some others you'd like to add, let me know. So here's the list in no particular order:

1. Firefly - Okay, there is at least one series I put in order. Joss Whedon's epic sci-fi series was canceled far too soon. It was quirky, funny and the characters were wonderful. It puzzled some people who were expecting Star Trek's tidy socialist federation and fuzzy collectivist economy. Instead, Firefly creates an interplanetary Wild West frontier in conflict with a powerful collectivist government and follows a band of smugglers making a dubious living out among the frontier planets.
2. Star Trek the Original Series - What I liked about the original Star Trek vs the later versions
   
   was Shatner's lighter touch as captain. He never took things as seriously as the other captains. And he was a little bit randy too, which made him more interesting.
3.  Stargate SG1 - Colonel Jack O'Neill and his merry band didlots of serious stuff, but Jack had a cock-eyed view of everything and quick, dry sense of humor. The series was a favorite early effort by the SyFy channel back when it was still the Sci-Fi channel. Dom Deluise's boys were heavily involved and Dom himself made an appearance. One of my favorite episodes was the one where the alien was hired as a consultant for a TV show called "Wormhole Extreme" which was a parody of SG1. Really funny. It gave the show a human quality and gave us more than a few laughs.
4. Eureka - Another Sci-Fi channel original about a town full of geniuses doing work for the Department of Defense and the sheriff who tries to hold things together as the town's denizen's variously try to blow themselves up one day after another. The show is funny, poignant and smart and I was sorry to see it come to an end.
5. Warehouse 13 - An interesting Sci-Fi channel series about a secret warehouse where all the magical and cursed items of the world were kept. Again, the team that took care of the artifacts were funny and serious and grumpy and chirpy and got into the most bizarre situations you could imagine. The show was fun and fantasy and yet overlapped on occasion with the hard science fiction world of Eureka. I loved the strange world they inhabited. 
6. Chuck - While not exactly science fiction, this spy out ofwater series had a lot of science fictional elements to it and also had that sense of light humor and likeable characters that earned it the same kind of fiercely devoted fans the rest of the series in this list earned. 
7. Red Dwarf - A blatantly sarcastic sci-fi series as only theBrits can manages. They seem to have the market cornered on making open fun of science fiction. I didn't include any of the other sci-fi comedy TV series the British do as this list is only about light-heartedly serious science fiction. My daughter and I used to watch Red Dwarf on Saturday nights. It's kind of a sentimental favorite of mine.

What are your favorites? I know I left out a lot of people's favorite SF, but this was a very personal list and so I limited it to the ones that made me smile. Did I forget anything because I like to have lists of ten or twelve, so I have room to add more.  Just make your case in the comment section below.


© 2016 by Tom King

Incoming and Outgoing - Top 25 Things Gone Bye Bye and What Is Replacing Them

In my lifetime a lot of things have disappeared from usage in America. Makes me feel old quite frankly, so I'll make this quick.

WHAT'S DISAPPEARED................WHAT'S REPLACED IT

1.  78 and 45 rpm records...................Digital CDs/Mp3s                       
2.  Slide Rules.....................................Calculators  
3.  Massive Mainframe Computers.....Personal computers
4.  The Rolodex...................................The Internet
5.  Car phones......................................Cell phones
6.  Walkie-talkies.................................CB radios
7.  Refundable glass pop bottles..........Plastic and aluminum soda cans
8.  Microfilm........................................E-books & data bases
9.  Ticker Tape Machines.....................Fax machines
10. Full service gas stations.................Self-serve gas stations
11. Bruce Willis’ hair...........................Bruce Willis' bald head
12. Burma Shave Road Signs...............Pop up interactive ads
13. Olympic softball.............................Olympic synchronized swimming
14. Kodachrome slide film...................Digital cameras
15. Flash bulbs/flash cubes...................Electronic flash
16. Typewriters.....................................Word processor software
17. Freight Train Cabooses...................End-of-train-device
18. The Single Screen Movie Theater...The Multiplex
19. Folding paper maps.........................GPS/computer map software
20. Cathode Ray Picture tube TVs.........LED flat screen TVs
21. Analog NTSC television stations.....HD Digital television stations
22. Pagers...............................................Smartphones
23. Dot-matrix printers...........................Inkjet, laser and 3d Printers
24. Film movie cameras..........................Digital video cameras
25. Wire recorders/8-track tapes.............Digital audio recorders

If you read a lot of science fiction, you'll recognize a few things on the obsolete list that sci-fi authors of just a few decades ago missed the call on. The futurists could be forgiven for missing the rapid obsolescence of wire recorders, computer memory stored on tape and film cameras. Occasionally, they catch it. Star Trek got the look and feel of the cell phone right and even the bluetooth. Portable data storage, although they went for cubes instead of cards, was one of the things they got right. One wonders what will come and go in the next 50 years. You will probably be surprised.

© 2016 by Tom King

Ten things I Miss About Texas

...now that I'm stuck here in Washington State.

For some reason, God with his infinite sense of humor has placed me far from home under gray, cold and dripping skies. I miss the big old sprawling, boisterous and beautiful state of Texas where I was born and spent most of my life. Here are some of the things I miss about home.

1. Texas sunsets and fields of bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrushes
2. Canoeing Texas Rivers
3. Sailing Texas lakes (we have actual wind there)
4. Blue Northers (being that suddenly cold makes you know you are alive)
5. The Alamo (Texas's #1 sacred place)
6. Chuy's Mexican Restaurant  (Austin, Dallas and Tyler)
7. Buffalo Creek Barbecue (Cleburne)
8. Dinosaur Valley State park (Glen Rose)
9. The San Jacinto Monument, Battlefield and the Battleship Texas (Texas's #2 sacred place) 
10. Watching Tornadoes go past and miss me altogether (you know your angel is there beside you at times like these) 

There are lots of other things about Texas I like. Big Bend Country, the wide open spaces of West Texas, the Big Thicket, historic Austin, Ft. Worth Children's Museum and Planetarium, The San Antonio Riverwalk. Shakespeare in the Park in Fort Worth, The Caddo Indian Mounds, The North Texas Irish Festival, Padre Island, Jefferson River Port, Joe T. Garcia's Mexican Restaurant in Fort Worth, and Longhorn Caverns just to name a few. I love my state.

© 2016 by Tom King