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Special Effects on TV

post #1 of 32
6/19/09 at 3:28am
Thread Starter 
Don't know if this has been discussed before but the search function failed me.

I thought it would be interesting to talk about special effects on TV. The good, the bad, and the laughable.

While most special effects on TV are mostly in the bad to laughable range, there are those rare instances where a TV show or movie has SFX that's above its paygrade.

The one that always comes to mind when it comes to extraordinary special effects is Battlestar Galactica. The space scenes with the handheld look are the showstoppers but one can't overlook the awesome job the show did with the cylons and making multiple copies of the same person look natural. I'm sure there have been episodes where the CGI hasn't been amazing but I sure haven't seen it.

Less consistent but still able to wow from time to time is the show Heroes. Yeah there's some cheesy CGI on there but you also have the time stopping effects as well as the flight effects on there.

Lost is all over the map. Sometimes you have amazing stuff going on with the smoke monster while other times you get effects as bad as Xena with the half rendered submarine. Overall, the effects tend to be better than most on TV.

That's all I can think of at the moment. What other shows have better than average effects or effects so bad they derail otherwise good series?
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post #2 of 32
6/19/09 at 3:45am
I watched the first season of Babylon 5 when it first aired, and the exterior/space shots always drove me nuts. They looked cool in a way, but the weak CGI always took me right out of the show, not that I ever got into it that much to begin with. Looked straight out of those "Mind's Eye" videos.

I'd always switch over to Deep Space Nine around the same time, and be super pleased how that show looked by comparison with "older school" FX, other than Odo's (once per episode!)morphing action, which still looked pretty good for TV. No idea how well it's aged.
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post #3 of 32
6/19/09 at 3:39pm
The shark on the series finale of Pushing Daisies distracted the hell out of me. Usually I don't have any problems with the show's effects, but man was that bad.
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post #4 of 32
6/19/09 at 9:36pm
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was the first show I remember that had the big special effects shot. The shots of the Seaview cruising just under the ocean surface at sunset were particularly spectacular to my young imagination. I thought it was real until my dad pointed out that if you looked really closely at the "bubbles" rising to the surface behind the propellors were actually water. Turns out they'd turned the model upside down above the pool surface and sprayed water droplets out by the props and filmed the thing at sunset.

Ever after that I sought out anything that had "effects" to see if I could figure out how they did it. For a while I was really into models and would try to get our Polaroid camera to take shots of my models in little dioramas that could look like they came from a tv show.

Those experiments failed pretty spectacularly, but I always had a continuing interest in the modelwork and stuff.

edited because I can't spell for shit tonight
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post #5 of 32
6/19/09 at 9:51pm
I just remembered the literal "hand of God" from The Stand and shuddered.
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post #6 of 32
6/19/09 at 10:03pm
I think BSG has some of the best SFX of all time for TV. It would have to be a toss up between the suicide attack in the season finale and the escape in Exodus. I also remember that show Surface having some pretty cool effects around the sea monsters.

Farscape generally did very well with a limited budget also. Heroes has some of the worst I have ever seen. The flying scenes are laughably bad.
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post #7 of 32
6/19/09 at 10:15pm
The Tribbles and Tribulations episode of DS9 is probably some of the best effects I've seen on a TV fx budget. The way they intergrated the original and new material was really impressive. Granted it's been a while since it aired, but I remember thinking it was awesome.
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post #8 of 32
6/19/09 at 10:35pm
I don't much care for the show but, some of the effects work I've seen on Primeval has been pretty good for TV.
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post #9 of 32
6/20/09 at 2:16pm
I think the special effects in the original BSG were movie quality and looked really good for the time.The same goes for the V mini series.

I'm watching UFO now & lovin it.Gerry Anderson did some great work with minatures.Stuff still looks good today.
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post #10 of 32
6/20/09 at 2:34pm
I made the mistake of watching Charmed once. The effects were probably the least of the show's problems, but ho boy did they suck.
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post #11 of 32
6/20/09 at 2:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nexus-7 View Post
I watched the first season of Babylon 5 when it first aired, and the exterior/space shots always drove me nuts. They looked cool in a way, but the weak CGI always took me right out of the show, not that I ever got into it that much to begin with. Looked straight out of those "Mind's Eye" videos.
The effects improved over the years, but they're still more than 10 years old, and it shows. Even so, the effects were very imaginative and a joy to watch. The Last Big Effects Shot still holds up. But things have really changed, and Firefly and Battlestar Galactica set the gold standard now. The effects in 'Scar' are just outstanding.

I'm really enjoying the hell out of the remastered Star Trek right now (I love the Enterprise's purple walls). The artists did a great job of keeping the feel of the old effects intact. They don't upstage the live action PD at all or go too far in any way. It's good work.
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post #12 of 32
6/20/09 at 3:05pm
Supernatural has some pretty awesome gore effects and save a creature or two they "bad guy" designs have been damn good.
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post #13 of 32
6/20/09 at 7:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BubWilliams View Post
I don't much care for the show but, some of the effects work I've seen on Primeval has been pretty good for TV.
agreed.
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post #14 of 32
6/20/09 at 8:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by buddhabliss View Post
I think the special effects in the original BSG were movie quality and looked really good for the time.
Part of why the series was so expensive. And part of why those shots were endlessly recycled throughout the course of the show.

Quote:
Originally Posted by BubWilliams View Post
I don't much care for the show but, some of the effects work I've seen on Primeval has been pretty good for TV.
It's by the same company that did all the Walking with Dinosaurs specials. In fact, I want to say I read somewhere that Primeval emerged from someone being impressed with the Walking with specials and wanting to do more.
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post #15 of 32
6/20/09 at 8:37pm
Favorite overall bad special effects:


Dark Shadows - vampires, werewolves, Frankensteins, zombies, ghosts, all shot live-to-tape in a flimsy studio.

Favorite maybe not super-real but still just pleasant to stare at FX:


The matte paintings of the motherships in V.

Favorite cheap-as-hell yet still terrifying effect:


The giant balloons that would smother you in The Prisoner.
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post #16 of 32
6/20/09 at 9:23pm
Aftershock: Earthquake in New York had the best special effects made for TV that I can remember.
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post #17 of 32
6/20/09 at 10:12pm
Buddhabliss, The guy in charge of SFX of...Glen A. Larson's Battlestar Galactica, was John Dykstra, who also worked on a little film called...Star Wars, and one of my favorite Clint Eastwood films...Firefox. I especially liked seeing...The Colonial Fleet at full strength before...Baltar, the EEEEEEEEEvil traitors plans came to fruition. The destruction of the...Battlestar Atlantia was particularly spectacular.
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post #18 of 32
6/20/09 at 11:15pm
The History Channel's Life After People has some really good FX work in it.
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post #19 of 32
6/20/09 at 11:38pm
It's been mentioned over in the LOST threads, but that submarine in the penultimate episode looked HORRIBLE. The worst part was how totally unnecessary the shot itself was.
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post #20 of 32
6/20/09 at 11:38pm
I remember being blown away by the effects at the end of the Supernatural episode Red Sky at Morning, with all the watery effects at the climax. That's the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the thread title.
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post #21 of 32
6/21/09 at 12:35am
I love The Prisoner, but Rover is not even remotely threatening.

Time for the obligatory mention of Whedon shows! Firefly was pretty much batting 1000 for good FX, from what I remember--granted, spaceships have to be one of the easiest things to make look good, and that's mostly what the FX are, but I still think it topped any other show with spaceships. Even BSG, though it has to be said that they were a lot more ambitious with their space battles and whatnot.

Buffy and Angel both have some really dreadful FX and some really excellent ones. The first couple of seasons of Buffy always struck me as really solid, FX-wise, but by the end of season 3...Fake the Snake reared his ugly head.
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post #22 of 32
6/21/09 at 12:39am
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Prankster View Post
I love The Prisoner, but Rover is not even remotely threatening.
Bullshit, son
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post #23 of 32
6/21/09 at 2:22am
Not CGI,but Peter Benchley's The Creature had some phenomenal animatronic effects by Stan Winston. I mean if you needed any more proof of how fucking brilliant Winston was, look no further than that. He took the ridiculous and goofy design concept of half man/half shark, and turned it into something that was creepy as hell and just absolutely awesome looking!
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post #24 of 32
6/21/09 at 1:01pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson View Post
The History Channel's Life After People has some really good FX work in it.
The mini-series or the actual weekly series? Cuz the miniseries was pretty horrible in the effects department. But on that same track, I would have to say that the "Walking With...." series has had some impressive special effects especially "Walking With Prehistoric Mammals".
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post #25 of 32
6/21/09 at 10:20pm
Watching Impact on ABC. The effects are pretty crappy.

A meteor strikes the moon, sending it on a collision course with the Earth.

It stars James Cromwell, who was also in Deep Impact.
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post #26 of 32
6/21/09 at 10:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson View Post
The History Channel's Life After People has some really good FX work in it.
You know, I heard they did one on Detroit and didn't even need to use special effects.
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post #27 of 32
6/21/09 at 11:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil View Post
It's a great, trippy visual, it's an amazing and inventive use of their low budget, and OK, the noise is a little unsettling. But it's still a fucking weather balloon.
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post #28 of 32
6/21/09 at 11:34pm
That SMOTHERS YOU!
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post #29 of 32
6/22/09 at 5:37am
I just saw the trailer to Pacific that Devin linked to at the main page (couldn't find a thread for the article though), and that show seems to set a new bar for TV SFX.
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post #30 of 32
6/22/09 at 5:43am
If we're talking practical effects, then the X-Files had probly the best I've seen on TV.
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post #31 of 32
6/22/09 at 6:34am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Humanoid View Post
If we're talking practical effects, then the X-Files had probly the best I've seen on TV.
Farscape wins for sheer quantity and variety.

I'd like to defend Hercules and Xena a bit. Their FX may look hokey now, but the idea of delivering Harryhausen-style imagery on a weekly budget was insanely ambitious for the time. Also, those shows deserve credit for serving as boot-camp for a lot of the Lord of the Rings crew.
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post #32 of 32
6/22/09 at 7:25am
Fringe has some good shots as well, altough not in every episode...
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