this thread reminded me of a show called “threshold” that went out for 13 episodes like 15 years ago, that i used to watch when i was a kid. it’s v classic low budget scifi, about aliens taking over the planet in secret, but it’s notable for starring some ppl who are pretty famous now — carla gugino, brent spiner and peter dinklage, mostly. i just found out that every episode is on youtube so i guess that’s my evening figured out 
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Its a movie, and it’s been mentioned, AND I don’t even really know the budget but Primer is by far the most important piece of sci-fi for me. I’d interacted with sci-fi growing up a bunch as my dad loved stuff like SG1, Farscape, Star Trek and had a bunch of Michael Crichton novels. I also loved comics and my favorite comic,X-Men, had many arcs concerning time travel and even though they had mutant powers the writers were always upping the ante with gadgets and aliens and parallel dimensions.
Primer really made me get into Hard sci-fi though and got me to question classic concepts in a way I had never thought about. The real ramifications and logic of sci-fi premises captured my imagination and watching a writer brilliantly extrapolate (and turn on it’s head) a thing I had seen and read about hundreds of times was eye opening. There were no big special effects here, just a spotlight on humanity in the face of perception shattering new realities followed to their logical conclusion. I don’t need everything I see to delve into the technical details of their conventions, but I always appreciate a nod to this, even when it’s not the focus. Like a reference to the classics in great modern fiction, it can be a shorthand for telling you about the experience you are about to have.
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Oh, man, I got super confused and thought this was referring to the pretty alright TV show on USA, Colony. This is greatttttt.
Budget sci-fi, you say?
(You had to know. You had to.)
I’m sure people here are familiar with Full Moon, makers of a billion budget sci-fi and horror movies. There’s two from them that really stand out for me, Trancers and Arena. The former is just nuts, I think you can see the whole movie on YouTube, it’s only like 78 minutes and a super fun movie about a wannabe Rick Deckard travelling back in time via drugs to stop his arch rival from brainwashing people to change the future.
The other, Arena, is literally Rocky but set on a space station. Claudia Christian, Marc Alaimo and Armin Shimerman play major characters in it too! Babylon 5 and Deep Space Nine crew on one space station!!! This is another one that’s short and just super goofy and fun from start to finish, with some awesome costumes for the various alien warriors who compete. I love it. 
I don’t know why every science fiction show in the world hasn’t tapped the Jim Henson Creature shop for their aliens. it seems so obvious in retrospect.
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Anyone remember a show called Terra Nova from 2011? I may have missed it being mentioned earlier in the thread but I think it definitely fits in this category. It’s pretty crappy to be honest but it has dinosaurs and is only one 13 episode season long. There was a kind of intriguing foreshadowing of things to come in later seasons if I recall correctly, but of course it didn’t get renewed beyond the one season.
Other than that I’d also echo the earlier Stargate Universe mentions. I feel like the show was really hitting it’s stride and I definitely wanted to see where it was going when it was cancelled.
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AGREEEEEED! I really do think it goes beyond nostalgia and is just helpful for the eye to see something physical and relatable, if done well (which it usually is if Creature Shop is doin it).
I really appreciated that for Terra Nova they got Stephen Lang to basically play the exact same character he played in Avatar in a very similar situation.
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Also, an old cover! I realized this a few years back and whoa those lyrics
“In the Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus) is a 1969 hit song by the American pop-rock duo of Zager and Evans. It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks commencing July 12, 1969…The song was recorded primarily in one take in 1968, at a studio in a cow pasture in Odessa, Texas…The song has been covered at least 60 times in seven languages…Another version, with different lyrics, was used as the theme song for the short-lived science fiction series Cleopatra 2525.”
https://youtu.be/N03Uoj6p9QA
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This is so interesting, I had no idea it was a reworked hit
