Hardest Sci Fi

What's the hardest sci fi TV series, show or movie/film you've ever watched?

Film, probably Film/GATTACA. Series, maybe Orphan Black?

Columbo?

How is Columbo science fiction?

Anyway, I'd add Person Of Interest.

Let's say Mythbusters.

For argument's sake, sure. They aren't always right, and they don't do enough testing to be definitive, so yeah, we'll count them for now.

Except does it qualify for the "fiction" part? I've only watched a couple of episodes but isn't it science fact, not fiction?

edited 29th Sep '14 8:26:07 AM by tricksterson

Well I imagine their highly witty dialogue must be at least partly scripted.

Not to be a Britpop. But if you want some good quality hard science fiction you should go over the Atlantic and watch some British shows. They are generally have a much more realistic and intelligent science-fiction owing to a greater focus on screenwriting.

As a newly-started Doctor Who fan, I am skeptical of this claim. "This is my timey-wimey detector. It goes ding when there's stuff." :D

Which shows are you referring to?

What? Doctor Who is based off a actual events by the BB Cs.

Let me think... Red Dwarf is pretty silly but the writers do know their facts, and while I found it too grim my taste Black Mirror had some pretty interesting things to say about the future of media and technology in society.

At least in interstellar terms, the first few seasons of Red Dwarf seemed pretty hard. The whole 18 month trip only went as far as Jupiter's moons, and even at maximum speed, the trip back to Earth after 3 million years adrift was supposed to take so long Lister and the Cat had to go back into suspension to survive the trip. But that seemed to be dropped after the first, somewhat darker season.

@Trickster: It's an attempt at Science fact but their methodology wouldn't pass any scientific test whatsoever. They don't do enough repeating, they just build a smallscale to prove the concept and then do a few tests on the larger scale. Even with the tests we don't see, they don't do enough to qualify.

They've been called out for it on the show before, one of the mail in episodes had someone asking them to retest something they'd messed up on.

They're primarily entertainment with an eye on science.

http://xkcd.com/397/

edited 30th Sep '14 12:25:11 PM by metaphysician

*sigh*

Always raging on the string theorists. :'C

edited 30th Sep '14 5:06:28 PM by joeyjojo

Sadly, the bookkeeping IS a big part of science. If you can't repeat an experiment, it's not a discovery. It's at best a fluke with incomplete results and at worst a fraud. So they get half a point for teaching people about experiments, but not the full point.

But it works for a show like Mythbusters. If the myth is "x is impossible", than a single experiment demonstrating that x is possible is sufficient evidence to prove it wrong. If the myth is "x will always happen", then a single experiment in which it doesn't happen is, again, sufficient to prove it wrong.

Myths that are more along the lines of "x happens often/not often" can't be proven or disproven with a single experiment, but one or several experiments can still provide evidence without being systematic. For example, if you crash a car in several different ways and none of them explodes, that demonstrates that Hollywood's depiction of cars blowing up every time they run into or fall off something is not consistent with reality.

edited 1st Oct '14 5:16:35 PM by WarriorEowyn

PrimEval is pretty accurate as far as I know in regards to its depiction of dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasts. That's literally the only good thing I'm gonna say about it.

edited 1st Oct '14 5:41:44 PM by joeyjojo

A distinct lack of feathers, though. Unlike Jurassic Park, Primeval is recent enough for that to be an error.