I think star trek ages better because they used practical effects and models rather than relying on CGI, which really wasn’t ready for prime time at the time, as Babylon 5 did. I admit I’ve only seen first season episodes so far but I can’t imagine the technology improved that much on future seasons.
Come on the effects on Ghost Busters held up better.
What bothers me most about re-watching “Buffy” is that, when it was first being aired, I bought into it being some particularly unique, “smart” television show. I was so naive, apparently. Now I see it and it looks like an exceptionally awkward mashup of teen soap opera and “Batman” camp (with every episode ending in an obviously choreographed fight scene.)
Better? Sure. All those old coots doing bit parts have disappeared, died off… I don’t watch most network TV, but when I did I loved old coots who were interesting and brought something to the party. (Not old relics hanging around who need a few bucks to supplement their social security checks. Sam the Butcher on the Brady Bunch? pbbbt… Mr. Mooney on I Love Lucy? Lucille Ball’s ancient buddy, throw him a bone.) …Ruth Ann on Northern Exposure? Spunky, with a real story. David McCallum on NCIS? A national treasure… I don’t know who/what/where/when/how the elderly are portrayed on tv now, but if you love them, good for you!
Yup.
There’s a line in a Heinlein book – I think it was I Will Fear No Evil – when the very, very old protagonist talks about having gone to a nightclub the previous night and there’d been a stand up comedian. And the way he passed the time during the act was trying to remember during which decade he’d first heard each joke.
Mid-season 3 Babylon 5 battle (big spoilers)
These are haphazardly edited series of scenes from a mid-season 3 episode. The CGI got quite a bit better than the very dodgy season 1 stuff, but it still remains bound by its budgetary and '90s limitations. For what it’s worth, Ghostbusters had no CGI effects and instead used standard special effects, but also had a budget of $30 million in 1984 dollars (roughly $70 million in 2016 dollars).
Compared to the effects in the last episode of Star Trek: TNG, with a much bigger budget and made a year or so before that particular B5 episode. You can see that the models do look better, but the limitations of working with them mean that you can’t move the camera around nearly as much and therefore some of the action shots look much slower and less exciting than the comparatively less real but faster/less limiting CGI.
Seinfeld was the definition of “topical.” It made a choice to be very much now, and so when it was on, it had tons of material to mine that other shows weren’t touching because they were afraid to be dated. It made Seinfeld special in the 1990s. But it also made it a time capsule. Early seasons were dated before the series was even over. I was a huge fan when it was on, and I will freely admit it, but there are only a few episodes I like in rerun because they are either exceptionally good, or are personal for me.
I have to disagree. I rewatched that about four years ago, and thought it still looked pretty good. Great performances, too.
No. That show always sucked. I was only about 12 when it was at its peak popularity, and I still could tell it sucked.
Good points. Its not so much that I love them. The conceit of the day is that we are an inclusive society; racially, sex and genderwise…sure. But we exclude the older folk and ignore the fact that they have wisdom to share. We are so afraid of aging.
I want to reiterate, I do like old folks who are GOOD in a role. I was referring originally to those folks back in the 50’s and 60’s, the shopkeepers, lawyers, barbers, spacemen, and cowpokes played by anonymous senior citizens. (You don’t see them on tv shows any more. It’s all nerdy young men, hot young women, no one much over the age of 50.) But if they have charisma and talent and are integral to the show, bring 'em on!
Some would argue it was never good (I disagree) but Sex and the City is very much a product of its time.
To give an example of a show most would agree was good at the time, I found it hard to rewatch The X-Files as everything about it screams “90s!”
It’s funny, I’ve read a lot of posts here that says it’s hard to re-watch something cause it screams “70s” or “80s” or etc… so the poster reasons it doesn’t age well. But maybe that’s cause you lived through the “80s” or "90"s.
Someone born in 2000 may start watching the X-Files and it won’t scream “90s” to them. Yeah, it’ll look like an older time, much like when I was a kid watching a show from the 1950’s, but the viewer won’t be hampered because it reminds them of a decade they lived through. So for them, it hasn’t aged at all. It would be no different if they went to a movie based on a historical event that took place in the 1990’s.
It’s all a matter of perspective.
I don’t know what it is about “Upstairs, Downstairs”, but it really seems like a filmed play to me. Maybe the lighting? Or the sound?
Is a filmed play a bad thing? In what way, may I ask? I remember seeing Steambath on PBS and it was awesome.
Back in the day, pretty much all BBC drama and comedy series were videotaped in a studio; exterior scenes were shot on film. I don’t know exactly what the video/film ratio is today, but I suspect 100% filmed series are a lot more common than they were in the '60s.
Digital technology is no doubt changing things as well.
The same with I, Claudius, which was great!
Dukes of Hazzard particularly so, since most channels yanked it off the air in the wake of that sperg out over the confederate flag recently. Never mind that the Duke boys were the nicest, least bigoted people you’d ever be likely to encounter, they painted a flag on their car! TRIGGERED!!!111`111!~~1 Pull it from the air!
I’ve watched a few Hulk episodes lately on MeTV, I think it holds up better than if it had been a truer adaptation of the comic. It’s pretty much the Fugitive with a bit of a temper problem. Anything that doesn’t hold up is mainly just due to the dated fashions on display, not the fairly minimal FX. The storied are fine.
What really becomes apparent is how much respect Bill Bixby has for the show and the characters. You gotta remember when that show was made most of Hollywood still considered comic books and characters from comic books beneath them. Most people (writers, directors, producers and especially actors) didn’t want to have anything to do with comic book characters. So a veteran actor of Bixby’s stature, being dedicated to the character and premise was unusual but appreciated by the comic fan viewers.
Speaking of The Incredible Hulk, has anyone seen the Nicholas Hammond Spider-man series episodes recently? It’s never been released on DVD. While I watched it when it was new, I can’t remember if it was any good. And how were the effects? I can’t imagine they did very good spidey-moves back then, especially on a TV budget. Probably easier to do Hulk smash than web swinging.
With the X Files, it is more than just the technology and fashion that makes it feel 90s. The mid and late 90s were a time of peace and property for most of us that we hadn’t seen in a long long time. Things were going so well, the entire premise of the show is that no not really. Deep down where you don’t see things are actually going horribly. Essentially the 90s had so few problems we had to make them up.
Now that seems quaint. Things on the surface don’t feel like they are going well (whether that is accurate or not is worthy of debate but the feeling is real). Watching fantastic conspiracies play out is less fun when wide swaths of the population (including Presidential candidates) believe in conspiracies for real. It makes the show feel sillier than it was intended.
It doesn’t help that the Mythology was all a bunch of nonsense (even back then I liked the Monster of the Week episodes better) but that is not the subject of this thread 
MAS*H
Loved it when it originally aired and for a while afterword. Now it is just too politically correct for me (except for Hawkeye’s womanizing, which makes it hypocritical).
Things were not going well in the 90s. Remember Rwanda? The slaughter in the former Yugoslavia? The bombing of the World Trade Center and several other terror attacks by All Queda?
We smugly ignored the simmering cauldron of violence and danger around us.