I’ve been thinking about requesting a time slot to show some classic TV sci-fi. I’m debating between three.

#1: Star Trek (on a “best of” basis)

No need to explain the plot here, I think it’s baked into popular culture enough that even non-fans know about it. The adventures of (mostly) human starship crews as they explore the galaxy with hope in their hearts. There’s a lot of good Trek but also a lot of mid and bad Trek, so I’m thinking of just showing the best episodes from the original 1960s series and the 1980s/1990s The Next Generation. It would probably work out to about 10-15 from TOS, and maybe 30-40 from TNG. Perhaps with a sprinkling of DS9 or Voyager episodes as well for variety.

Pros: I think this would have broad appeal. Not many CWs to worry about in the episodes I’m thinking of screening, no worries about missing part of long story arc, lots of variety in the episodes, no real chud-ism among the main characters.

Cons: There’s some dated sexism stuff in even some of the good episodes, especially in wardrobe.

#2: Babylon 5

By the mid-23rd century, humans have developed basic star travel and taken a place in the local galactic neighbourhood as a middling power. A disastrous first-contact misunderstanding led to a very advanced alien species called the Minbari launching a genocidal years-long war against humanity. The Minbari were mere hours from launching an unstoppable full-scale attack against Earth itself when the Minbari unexpectedly surrendered. The Minbari spent the next decade making reparations and establishing a peaceful alliance with humans. Nobody in the galaxy knows why the Minbari surrendered except the nine members of the Minbari leadership - the Grey Council. One of the reparation-funding projects was a series of massive human-controlled space stations in neutral territories, each home to hundreds of thousands of humans and aliens. The Babylon stations were intended to be places of diplomacy, commerce, and cultural exchange in the hopes of preventing wars. But darkness is rising on the rim of known space. The last of the Babylon stations is all that stands between the darkness and the light.

The story is one continuous arc with occasional standalone episodes fleshing out the world and characters. It’s what I’d call a “spoiler danger” series where it’s easy to accidentally be spoiled if one reads up on it. It’s best to go in completely blind and simply trust me that the slow burn of the first season will pay off, and that the grande finale is very earned and conclusive and satisfying.

Pros: There’s basically zero misogyny, the creator/showrunner/writer (J. Michael Straczynski, known to fans simply as JMS) worked directly with the actresses on how to better portray their characters and write realistic dialogue. JMS wrote almost all of the episodes by himself which is very good for continuity and consistent characterization. There’s a strong pro-labour-union, pro-working-class undercurrent. Few if any CWs to worry about. It’s a very non-horny show, so hopefully any ace comrades will feel comfortable watching it.

Cons: It’s very long, 5 seasons (110 episodes), not everyone might want to make that sort of time commitment.

Fun trivia: JMS created the character of She-Ra in the 1980s while he worked in the TV cartoon industry. His professional background is largely in cartoons and comics. B5 is his passion project.

#3: Farscape

From the late 1990s/early 2000s. An American astronaut and physics PhD named John Crichton is working for the fictional IASA, the International Aeronautics and Space Administration. He’s developing a new theory of reactionless propulsion for spacecraft. During a test flight in his one-person space pod deployed from a space shuttle, he’s accidentally shot through a wormhole into a distant part of the universe. He finds himself on board a prisoner transport ship that the other prisoners aboard managed to commandeer from their jailers, a major interstellar fascist empire called the Peacekeepers. A relentless Peacekeeper military leader chases John and his ex-prisoner alien friends throughout the galaxy because John may have the key knowledge needed to control and weaponize wormholes.

Pros: A lot of the aliens were made by the Jim Henson Company. They wanted to avoid Star Trek style “funny nose bumps and wigs” human-looking aliens, and CGI wasn’t remotely good enough at the time to do realistic aliens, so they made highly-detailed and highly-articulated alien muppets. This has helped the show age very well, the muppet aliens are among the best work the Jim Henson Company has ever done, they’re in every single episode.

Cons: This is another long one, 4 seasons with 88 episodes total, another major time commitment for viewers. It’s less episodic than Star Trek but more episodic than Babylon 5.

YMMV: It’s a very horny series, as horny as was legally possible for American TV in the late 1990s. Ace comrades may or may not be comfortable with some scenes or even entire episodes.