While Babylon 5 isn't the highest quality in terms of acting/fx (especially compared to today), I felt the story was great. As is the case with most sci-fi, the first season is indeed the weakest out of all of them.

BSG, the stories are pretty good with equal amont sof large scale stories and little ones based around a single character. Season 4 due to the writers guild strike was poor, can't wait for the final 5th series.
Firefly. This would have knocked the spots off everything in terms of fanbase and viewing stats but the pillocks on the network cancelled it. Morons. And, sadly, due to the film, it'll never come back as the ending has revealed some if not all of the answers.
Stargate SG1. Decent budget. Amanda Tipping. What more do you need?
Babylon 5. BUT the FX and acting is piss poor and in this day and age it ages very badly indeed, almost tot he point where it is no longer worthy due to the poor FX.

Oh come now, thats part of the charm, you'd think someone on GOG would understand that. They were innovating, CG was practically unheard of on episodic TV at the time and certainly not on that scale. Complaining that the effects aren't up to modern standards is like trying to deride original Dr Who for having wobbly sets & cheap looking monsters (they had a budget per season less than star trek the next generation did per episode and still managed to do things never before done for TV)

Exactly, FX in Babylon 5 is just neat :D I like it. Seriously, not up to date, but does the job and is pretty interesting to look at

Speaking of sci-fi, I'm probably the only person who likes Fringe, and I have high hopes for Dollhouse. I fall for any Whedon-made show. Oh yeah, Doctor Who, Torchwood and Primeval (not sure if it counts as "sci-fi" much).

Im not suprised the FX in Babylon 5 look dated, they were done on Commodore amigas with high end (at the time) software and an expansion card called the Newtek video toaster !
Considering that was from 1990 they have held up pretty well

it's cold outside, there's no kind of atmosphere

we're all alone, more or less...

Fun, Fun, Fun, In the Sun, Sun, Sun
(I thought standard end-credits version...)

Stargate SG-1, Andromeda, Doctor Who, Firefly.
I really enjoyed the first season of Earth: Final Conflict. Then the TV station it was on made it disappear (either pushed it into a bizarre timeslot, or dropped it altogether). It was years before I found it again, and had no idea what was going on anymore. I'd like to pick it up again, but can't seem to find it. Tried Netflix, Hulu, and Joost. No joy.
Total Recall 2070 was another good one that died young. Had more in common with Blade Runner than Total Recall though. I've been revisiting it since I discovered Hulu had it.

There are some licensing issues that prevent E:FC from being on any video sites. Universal owns the first two seasons while ADV Films has the rights to the last three. This has even screwed up DVD releases of the show. ADV did release seasons 3-5 on DVD in North America only, while Universal released season 1 in Europe only. For some reason season 2 has never made it to DVD anywhere.

I'm a bit of a sci-fi nut. The only one I really haven't been able to get into is Dr. Who.
Star Trek - all of them, from the Original through to Enterprise. Seen most if not all of the episodes (including the Animated series). Farscape. Firefly. Battlestar Galactica, old and new. Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis and soon Universe. Babylon 5. The X-Files. Smallville. Sanctuary. I watched Andromeda but lost interested about halfway through season 2 and have had no desire to go back and finish it (got really repetitive for me). Saw a few episode of Earth Final Conflict but couldn't get into that either. Can I say Star Wars? Star Wars is a movie yet, but its more of a series (and there IS the Clone Wars series).
I actually own Galactica (old and new), Farscape, Firefly, Babylon 5 (and Crusade) on DVD. I'd love to own Star Trek but I can't afford it at the moment (though its much more affordable now than it was when they first released those dvd's).

You actually got the best of it if you only saw the first season there are less official ways to get the show but I'd best not mention them. it's the only way I have all of it but if they ever get the licencing sorted and release the show on DVD as a 5 season box set (as they've done with Andromeda) I'll be buying it.
My one-noise reactions to the show broken down by season
Season 1: Ooh!
Season 2: Hmm!
Season 3: Meh!
Season 4: Ugh!
Season 5: Wha?
Andromeda had pretty much exactly the same reaction arc, started great, steadily trailed off and then got weird at the end. All the series of both shows had some gold in amongst the crap but you had to suffer a fair bit to enjoy it.

Just downloaded the first three of Sanctuary and watched them.
Oh My God! You'll never want for meat with your pickle sandwich, there is enough ham to go round for years!! The worst acting and bull I have ever seen.
Ridiculous accents, one where three Scottish witches were resurrected but had American accents, crap one liners and a Criminal Psychologist who states that someone is "Mad" just because the patient cannot remember anything apart from being kidnapped. The worst produced show I've seen for ages.
What a load of tosh. Ah well, at least I know my top 3 Sci-Fi shows won't need amending.