Battlestar Galactica vs. Firefly

Haven't seen Firefly, but BSG is incredible.

Battlestar Galactica all the way. I like Firefly, but nowhere near as much as I like Battlestar. If you want something where you can pick up a boxset and a movie and be done with it, go with Firefly. If you want something that will last a while and are willing to stay with it, go with Battlestar.

I have the Firefly boxed set, have yet to make it past the pilot, but it's cool so far. Like a western in space.

BSG, on the other hand, is amazingly good. Plot, effects, acting...all top notch. Hell, my girlfriend even likes it.

2 frakkin thumbs up.

Guess I'll be the dissenting vote for Firefly. It's just looser and more enjoyable, and I love the space western theme. BSG is well-written sci-fi (most of the time, anyway), but it's a bit rigid.

As others noted, depends on what you are looking for.

BSG tends to be more serious, has more tension and darkness. Firefly has more horses.

I like both: Firefly for the humor and dialog and characters, BSG for the plot(s) and scope/mythology.

BSG is probably better for sci-fi nerds, Firefly is more for nerds in general.

Both are great shows. Buy the one you don't get. Both are worth it.

I love Firefly just as much as I love your Arseface icon, which is wholeheartedly. It's a brilliant show. I haven't seen Battlestar yet, but I'm hoping to get into it at some point.

Firefly

BSG isn't just a great scifi show, it's a great TV show in general. Firefly is just OK.

Battlestar Galactica hands down, no question.
Firefly is entertaining, but Battlestar is the sort of thing that people who dont even like Sci-Fi can get into, it's really that good.

Battlestar Galactica without a doubt.

I love them both.

I think that down the line, you should probably check out both. Actually, best buy usually has a coupon to pick up BG with either Serenity or some other set right there on the box for a discount.

It reminds me of two other shows that I enjoy, Spaced and The Office (BBC). I enjoyed Spaced as a comedy for so many different reasons than liking The Office, and I like Firefly for different reasons than i like Battlestar, but both can turn on the drama at the drop of a hat.

Or, like saying that Branded to Kill is as Crazy as Tokyo Drifter is Cool.

BSG all the way. Don't get me wrong, I love Firefly, and I think it's a revolutionary show; however, BSG just takes TV (not just sci-fi) to a whole new level. BSG is like the meat of a sci-fi platter; Firefly is the vegetables, and Stargate is like that rich gooey dessert you have that you know is terrible for you and will give you the shits, but you'll eat it anyway.

Firefly was a good show, and Serenity is better. Dave makes a good point about Firefly not taking itself as seriously. I'd give BSG the edge, but you should get both.

Well -- I JUST got hooked on BSG (yeah, late to the party, so sue me) with the last ep and am about to embark upon a watching of the first season and a half. It's a brilliant show, no doubt.

I feel the SAME way abotu Firefly. Here's a few things to consider in your choice. (it was 2 things, but then - well I lost control....)

1) Do you like Joss Whedon? If you don't like his dialogue style or haven't liked a show he's done, you may find Firefly not to your liking. I'm not saying you 100% won't, but it's worth considering...

2) On the other hand if you buy Firefly, you get the whole series - what there was of it. Battlestar, you're going to pour more money into it...

3)Horses and a literal western in space! (Firefly)

4) a great re-whatevering of an old (and let's face it - ok but not great - TV show) (BSG)

5) COWBOYS IN SPACE

6) Edward James Olmos (sp?) as Adama -- that man is great.

7) COWBOYS IN SPACE

Really, I'm devolving into silly.... you could flip a coin - honest truth you'll be happy with either one - both are great shows, IMO.

But look at it this way - Firefly will always be there - you aren't falling behind a canceled show. If you jump on BSG now, you'll have plenty to watch between current eps. I always find jumping onto a series while it runs more fun than catching up with it late when it's dead.

Haven't seen BSG, but Firefly is incredible.

My thoughts exactly. No reason why you shouldn't own both. Two of the best shows to have been on TV in the last 10 years.

It depends on what you want out of your sci-fi shows. They're so different, even though they have genre similarities. Firefly is damn good and innovative for its time, but I'd have to say BSG is the superior show. It helps that its still on the air and kicking ass.

You're not going to lose unless you hate both space westerns AND dark holocaust stories.

If you want cowboys in space the anime Cowboy Bebop did it way better, and first, and it also had Jazz music. If you want the U.S. Navy in space, BSG is your show (they're in space and they don't kill any whales, but it's the U.S. Navy anyway). It is probably the best thing on TV I bet, although I don't watch much TV. Is there a star trek series still going on? Meh. I'm still waiting for a hard sci-fi series on TV, never happen I know... still, David Pulver's Transhuman Space could make for an interesting series. Too much to hope for!

Well hell by that logic, didn't Starship (Spaceship?) Yamato do navy in space first? (or starblazers for those of you who watched the series in the states?)

I can still hear the Starblazers theme in my head.....

Seconding this. I'd definitely be unable to choose between BSG and Firefly.

I keep hearing this.

Bebop is not even remotely cowboys in space (the program they get bounties off of has a cowboy theme, and the title has Cowboy in it, that's it). It's Midnight Run in space, if anything. I actually avoided the show for a while because I thought it was like Midnight Star (which, near as I can tell, is cutesy cowboys in space...but I only saw half an ep), because of the name.
Bebop's a fantastic show, but it's further away from what Firefly is than BSG.

And yeah, you should get both shows. Both are fantastic, for completely different reasons.

Ironicly, both have effects done by Zoic Studios.

My wife usually keeps me company on the couch while I'm watching my "geek shows." She never once looked up from her reading when Firefly was on, but 10 minutes into an episode of Battlestar Galactica and she was asking, "Who's that? What's their backstory? Why'd that happen?" She even asked me to fill her in on the episodes she'd missed.

Now, I love Firefly, while I just like Galactica (so far). The Serenity brings a sense of infectious fun that speaks to my sensibilities, while the Galactica's professionalism reminds me of an actual aircraft carrier.

In other words, you pay your money, you take your chances. Or you just rent the disks from Netflix or Blockbuster and then decide which you'd prefer on your shelf.

As someone who loved Firefly and Serenity, this thread convinced me to check out the first episode of BSG off of iTunes. It's clearly a well done show, and it has me intrigued. Firefly had me hooked from the get-go, but I could certainly see Battlestar growing on me. Enough so, that I might have to go out and pick it up on DVD this week.

BSG is a bit on the histrionic side, and often gives me a soap opera vibe that bothers me. And the whole Baltar's "invisible Cylon babe" thing got on my nerves after a while. But when the show comes together (like the episode where Starbuck interrogates the Cylon prisoner, or the one where they finish the stealth Viper), it's just outstanding.

Note to first time BSG viewers: The mini is much slower in pace than the series. They go well together, but the intensity ups once the series starts.

And that silly glowing Spine of Lust only makes one more appearance.

BSG has a few flaws, its by no means perfect. It does take itself very seriously, and its a testament to how good the show is that most people don't think it takes itself too seriously. Whedon doesn't have that problem, which is part of what makes him such a spiffy writer. But Firefly, in the end, doesn't even attempt to tackle the more complex themes that BSG dives right into.

Well, in fairness to Whedon and Firefly, they had much fewer eps and Fox on their back screwing with things...

Given his space, I think they might have done more.

Okay, here's a question since the convo here so far has been so informative and interesting.

How do you think the departed show Farscape compares to Firefly and BSG?

It has more puppets.

I think by the end it got too big for its britches. When they didn't take themselves too seriously, it was a fun show. But at the tail end of the fourth season, I stopped caring about the plot. My favorite characters were still there, but the story wasn't. The Peacekeeper Wars didn't help either.

Don't get me wrong, though. When Farscape was great, it was one of my favorite shows.

^^my sentiments (re: Farscape) exactly.

With the success of BSG, maybe they'll "reimagine" Buck Rogers? Haven't seen it since I was a kid but that show OWNED.

I'm not the most educated person to cast my vote, since my experience with Battlestar is limited to the miniseries. Still, Firefly's pilot intrigued me a lot more than BSG's 4-hour start did.

BG got off to a slow start, but now it is one of the few shows I make a point to watch.
It is vastly better then the original series. I really wonder if the writer and producers decided early on to scrap almost everything from the original, and just keep the name because it was a selling point and had some nostalagic appeal to Sci Fi fans.
I enjoyed Firefly, but I thought it was not nearly as clever as it thought it was. And Whedon overplayed the "Sci Fi Western" bit to the point where at times I thought "Why not just make it and out and out Western, Joss"?
And the behaviior of the browncoats has really kind of turned me off to the whole thing.

I caught a mini-marathon on SciFi a few months ago.

Sorry to tell you, it was only renting.

Re: Buck Rogers

I have three words for you - biddy-biddy-biddy

I think Firefly speaks to me because I can relate to it. I'm a Herc guy, not a fighter guy. The Serenity is basically a space Herc: it's ugly as hell, it hauls a lot of stuff, and it gets you there. Herc bubbas tend to be relaxed and funny, and there's a lot of interplay among the crew. Viper pilots, on the other hand, are fighter guys: high strung and hypercompetitive, out there all alone with nothing but a wingman for company. I can put myself in Wash's shoes a hell of a lot more easily than I can Apollo's.

Especially since Wash isn't around to stop you.

I won't believe the rumours 'til "Serenity" goes from "very long wait" to "shipping today" in my rental queue.

Possibly. But it seems like Firefly was conceived to carry many of the same themes as westerns and space shows. Nothing wrong with that. BSG has all sorts of issues like war, genocide, politics, military life, terrorism, etc on the brain. The fact that it mirrors our own world so closely makes it more, I dunno, vital?

yeah, scope-wise, I could see what you're saying.

Still catching up on Battlestar, so I haven't seen everything it has to offer yet.

I love the western in space angle and while it's VERY western, I like that quite a bit - it's a spin on an old TV show idea. I thought it worked well. Other's mileage may vary. Besides, you cannot do westerns on network TV - unless it's HBO and they have their already. (of course, given Fox's handling of Firefly, you apparently can't have SciFi either)

As for the Browncoats (who were mentioned a while back) being a bit obnoxious - if I stopped watching/reading/playing stuff that attracted fans who were borderline rabid and over-the-top, I'd have very little to watch.

Ah, it can be cowboy even if the characters are clad in stylish jackets instead of the Firefly "space dusters". I associate outlaw bounty-hunting, gambling, and gunslinging with cowboys and Cowboy Bebop had a lot of that. My main point was that it's better than Firefly- which had cowboy themes to the point of absurdity. I think BSG is also a better show, even though U.S. Navy fighter pilots in space is rather absurd as well. Also naked Boomers is good. If only they could really produce and sell naked Boomer bots. They would kick Furby's ass.

I am troubled by people who think that Cowboy BeBop is better than having a catheter inserted. It's nonsense. I hated every minute of the episodes I forced myself to watch.

Firefly and BSG

...don't hold a candle to "Space : Above and Beyond"!

(ducks)

I loved that show on TV. I bought the box set DVD and haven't been able to make it past the second episode. Horrid.

"Space: Above and Beyond" had the best accidental ending to a series EVER.

If it had just been the season ender, everyone woulda come back and been ok. Instead, almost everyone dies. Accidental genius I tell ya.

But I can't imagine trying to sit through it again....

cowboy bebop isn't that bad. it may not be everone's cup of tea, but its much better than most anime. shinichiro watanabe just follows a strange muse.

Firefly suffered from Whedon's greatest weakness -- everybody always says the most clever thing possible in any situation. No one just talks, it's a quip-fest. I enjoyed the show when I watched it on DVD, but there were times when I wanted to shake the television in hopes the characters would just have a conversation.