Poll of the Day > any good scifi or fantasy shows that aren't "Monster of the week"?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Thanks
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Nah, you're welcome.
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If you have not seen JourneyQuest, it's quite funny. The gargoyle may be my favorite character ever.
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Outer Limits, because it doesn't have a running cast >_>
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warehouse 13. it's more about artifacts, not creatures.

eureka.

red dwarf.
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Other than a miniseries or anthology, I'm not sure how you could manage a show without an episodic element whether it's a monster-of-the-week or an artifact-of-the-week.
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Altered Carbon
The Man in the High Castle
Stranger Things
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Yes, one of my fav shows that was super underrated I feel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_(American_TV_series)
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AFAK the only two that are currently airing are Star Trek: Discovery and The Expanse.
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Good Omens
Dark

Outlander is a really good show with time travel, but it's more of a romantic drama.

Older/ended shows:

Penny Dreadful (Coming back soon with a reboot starring Natalie Dormer)
The Terror (Also coming back soon with a new, unrelated story)
Carnivale (Show ended way too soon after only two seasons)
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I guess it depends on how you define "sci-fi" "fantasy" and "monster of the week"

I mean easy answer:
Game of Thrones (okay granted last couple of seasons weren't amazing, but overall it is good)

I never watched but I hear Babylon 5 was Star Trek: Deep Space Nine with less MotW more story arc (and DS9 was already the least MotW of all Trek at the time).

If we let Superhero shit count as Sci-fi, any of the Netflix Marvel shows.
If we count Urban Fantasy, as Fantasy, Vampire Diaries and True Blood

Probably a lot of other stuff.
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Black Mirror is an extremely good anthology show.

Blake's 7, ancient though it is (1978) is still the best ever science fiction series, in my opinion. Though if you watch it, then make sure you start with episode one of the first season and watch it in order. It does take a while to get going, and it does have some bland episodes (and lots of the last season are sadly below par), but overall it's utterly fantastic. And unlike most long running science fiction programs (four seasons of twelve episodes), dead means dead (so no annoying bringing-someone-back-to-life-for-plot-reasons deus ex machinas), the regular characters can die (some do), and the program is well written with some really good ideas and dialogue.

To give you an idea of how hard the program can be, I'll give an overview of the first episode:
The program starts out with Roj Blake, the main character, living on Earth, and he learns that he was once a freedom fighter against the corrupt Federation (who rule Earth and the outer planets) and that his memories chemically suppressed by the Federaion and been manipulated to speak out in favour of the Federation and denounce his fellow rebels.

The authorities, when they capture him again, decide not to re-brainwash him, instead they frame him for child-abuse and after a show trial they exile him to a prison colony on a distant planet.

It's a really brilliant program, with strong characters, great plots, really good dialogue, and often terrible effects (it wasn't exactly high-budget, even by the standards of 1970/80 television science fiction). It isn't always bleak either, with some good humour and some wins for the heroes, but some real losses to.
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Tanya the Evil.
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hmnut7 posted...

I never watched but I hear Babylon 5 was Star Trek: Deep Space Nine with less MotW more story arc (and DS9 was already the least MotW of all Trek at the time).

More accurately, DS9 was Babylon 5 with more MotW and Star Trek lore added in, because Babylon 5's creator originally pitched the whole thing, was turned down, left to make his own series, and th owners of Star Trek decided to use his pitched material to make DS9.

Also, I'm not sure how many fantasy or sci-fi shows there are that concentrate more on the overall plot than on the "monster of the week" or "simple fetch quest" stories per episode. Even after Charmed became more about its over-arcing themes or plots, and big bads, the monsters of the week and episodic nature continued. I imagine that it was difficult for TV producers to stray from this until the recent decade or so with the advent of Netflix shows and their ilk. The shows on TV that manage to get away from the MotW trend tend to be based on books, too, so there's that.
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Battlestar Galactica is great too imo, although a lot of people really dislike the finale
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Lost

Battlestar Galactica (2003 series should still be free on Amazon Prime.)

Avatar: The Last Airbender (Korra, too.)

Game of Thrones (until season 7 and 8).

Any Marvel Netflix show that isn't Iron Fist and Luke Cage. (Don't listen to the people who make excuses for those two.)

The orginal, animated Teen Titans show has some long story arcs so maybe it gets a mention here.
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JCvgluvr posted...

Any Marvel Netflix show that isn't Iron Fist and Luke Cage. (Don't listen to the people who make excuses for those two.)

Don't listen to anybody who trolls by suggesting that Iron Fist is anything less than fantastic.
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Dragon Prince is on netflix
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Babylon 5
Avatar: The Last Airbender (not sure about Korra)
Battlestar Galactica (recent version; not 1980s version)
The Prisoner (mid 60s but no monsters as far as I'm aware)

Wynonna Earp
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GastroFan posted...

(not sure about Korra)

Korra season 1 and 3 are good

season 4 was decent

Season two was absolute dogshit EXCEPT episodes 7 and 8, I strongly recommend watching only those two episodes and nothingelse from that stupid piece of shit season
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