The practice of honeymoon began as early as the 19th century in Great Britain, when upper-class couples took ‘bridal tours’, often accompanied by friends and family, to visit distant relatives. The practice gradually became more popularized. Today, it is a common practice among young couples all over the world. Right after the wedding, couples embark upon a tour together to exotic places. It is seen that Indians take tours to foreign lands for their honeymoon. But, they often ignore the many places for honeymoon in India. With all its beauty, diversity and glory, India offers treasures to be discovered. Of course, it is hard to rank beauty, and hence it all depends of the taste of the couples. So let us take a quick look at 10 Best Places for Honeymoon in India.

10. Darjeeling

Located in West Bengal in the arms of the Lesser Himalayas, Darjeeling is often referred to as the Queen of Hills. It is one of the most picturesque and peaceful places for honeymoon in India, with a pleasantly cool climate, and Kanchenjunga framing the skyline. Nearby attractions include the Rock Garden, sunrise from Tiger Hills, Batasia Loop, Peace Pagoda, Singamari Ropeway, etc. There are activities like rock-climbing or paragliding, and a tour in the UNESCO World Heritage Site toy-train is a must. While summer is the ideal time to go there, couples can also choose the winter months.

9. Himachal Pradesh

Shimla, the capital of Himachal Pradesh, has always been a popular honeymoon destination, what with its romantic climate, plush hills, snowy peaks, British architecture and The Mall, along with temples, monasteries and churches. It is at its best during the summer, as well as winter months. Then there is Kulu and Manali, a favourite of Indian couples, with greenery and sprawling landscape. It is one of the best destinations for a trip filled with adventure sports, like hiking, skiing, trekking, mountaineering, paragliding, biking, angling, and river rafting, between October and February.

8. Rajasthan

For a honeymoon trip that will make you feel like the royalty, Rajasthan is, without a doubt, the perfect place. The very regal Udaipur has palaces, havelis and temples along crooked, rustic streets. Couples can cruise the calm lakes here. For a luxury desert destination with rides on camels and elephants, and much more, there is the majestic Jaisalmer. Other places worth visiting are Mount Abu, Jaipur, Jodhpur, and Bikaner. The best time to visit Rajasthan, especially Jaisalmer, would be between October and February, with the Desert Festival being held for three days in January.

7. Tamil Nadu

Be it a spiritual couple or wildlife enthusiast, Tamil Nadu is the place to be. The October-November as well as January-May periods are perfect for a visit to the evergreen forests in Valparai, with Anaimalai Tiger Reserve and similar national parks or wildlife sanctuaries. For a spiritual beginning, couples can Arunachala Temple or Ramana Ashram in Tiruvannamalai during February-August. In October-June, Ooty, nestled in the Nilgiri Hills, with Botanical Gardens, Rose Garden, Glen Morgan Tea Garden, and Dodabetta peak, alongside angling and boating, is paradise for honeymooners.

6. Kutch

Gujarat is the beautiful, colourful place for honeymoon in India, where there is history, architecture and culture for the guests. Between December and February, Kutch is the place to be for the newly-wed couple that loves shopping and would be interested in picking traditional mirror stoles and bags, furnishings or accessories with Kutchi embroidery, silver jewellery. Bhuj and its surroundings are great shopping destinations. Kutch comes during the Rann Utsav, with folk music echoing through moonlit nights. There is the colourful desert with white sands, and wildlife sanctuaries.

5. Goa

Another of Bollywood’s favourites, Goa is an exotic mix of fun and beauty, offering any new couple a honeymoon worth remembering, with warm sun, golden beaches, endless sea and swaying coconut palms, alongside colonial Portuguese buildings and churches, and other nearby places including hilly places. Adventurous couples may choose from activities like water-sports, deep-sea fishing, wind surfing, etc. India’s party capital serves the best sea-food, Goan sausages or pork vindaloo, paired with feni or other drinks, at the beach shacks. Summer and winter are both great for a fun holiday.

4. Uttarakhand

For the adventurous couple, November-March is perfect to visit Auli for a honeymoon marked with ski-workshops and speeding down snow-covered peaks. For the more romantic and calm couple, there is the quaint and beautiful Nainital, with the lakes, aerial ropeway, Jim Corbett National Park, etc., perfect for a visit during the summer as well as the winter months. Couples can also take a trip to Mukteshwar for a romantic getaway, which, at all times of the year, offers apples, pears, plums, apricots and peaches from orchards and food farms, and the excellent chocolates at Mountain Trails.

3. Jammu and Kashmir

The summer capital of the state, Srinagar, offers lakes with sparkling ripples, valleys lush and heavenly, and high mountains, with the exotic Srinagar ensconced among them, complete with houseboats and Mughal gardens that make the Kashmiri Venice one of India’s coveted honeymoon destinations. Winter capital Jammu offers forts, temples and caves. While Son Marg, Gul Marg, Pahalgam, etc. are scenic spots, couples can trek towards Ladakh, and visit Kargil. Bollywood’s favourite can best be explored between October and March. Don’t forget picking pashmina shawls.

2. Andaman and Nicobar Islands

The very idea of having a honeymoon on an island, surrounded by waters all around, is romantic. Be it the summer months or the winter, Andaman and Nicobar Islands are among the best places for honeymoon in India. It is exotic and private, with a mind-blowing repertoire of flora and fauna, from jungle life and hills to colourful fishes and sunken ships, alongside great food and accommodation. For the active couple, there is water-skiing, windsurfing, speed boats, glass-bottom boat rides, and much more. For underwater enthusiasts, Havelock Island is perfect for snorkelling and Scuba diving.

1. Kerala

Kerala unfurls itself in beautiful ways, be it in the summer months or the winter, and is a sought-after place for honeymoon in India. For a relaxed sun bath, there is Kovalam Beach. For a romantic cruise journey in Alleppey. Munnar and Wayanad, set in the hills, deserve a visit for a wonderful time. Couples can explore the backwaters, with the network of lakes, canals and rivers, in houseboats or discover the hidden treasures around Kerala. For a traditional holiday, complete with thick vegetation, diverse biology and the gentleness of the rural culture, Kerala is the ultimate place.

Sitcoms have a long and inconsistent history in television. Character development tends to take a back seat to a joke-a-minute format, which attempts to land as many laughs as humanly possible in their 30-minute time slot. The truly great sitcoms, however, grow as they progress, allowing its characters to take center stage with their eccentric and hilarious personalities.

Take Seinfeld or It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia for example, two of the best sitcoms ever that are chock full of colourful characters who find themselves in preposterous and gut-busting scenarios. It’s not as simple to accomplish as it seems, however, as many sitcoms skip that process and aim for cheap laughs instead, requiring no sort of commitment to the show. Chuck Lorre is at the forefront of this movement, promoting shows like Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory as good sitcoms when they are, in this writer’s opinion, pretty lackluster.

Uninspired sitcoms tend to be par for the course these days though, unfortunately. It’s a mine field full of trite jokes and cliche characters that somehow stay on air for an extended time. There are good ones out there, but it takes work and trial and error to find them. But this feature isn’t going to focus on the good ones. This is about the bad ones.

So sit back, get ready to yell at the computer screen in a fit of rage and enjoy this list of the 10 most overrated sitcoms ever. We encourage all to drop a comment below with your own selections or why you disagree with ours.

10. The Office

Look, I really enjoyed The Office back in its heyday. Its mockumentary style was clever for its time, before a number of shows adopted it, and its lead characters were funny and chock full of life. Unfortunately, the show endured a slow burn leading up to its eventual decline, running a few seasons too long. While it didn’t tarnish the experience completely, it still left a sour taste instead of focusing squarely on the memorable moments. Do I feel comfortable recommending this show to someone who hasn’t seen it? Sure. But it’s still overrated, mostly because it overstayed its welcome and couldn’t maintain its comedy level.

9. Family Guy

Family Guy, like The Office, started out very strong. The first seven or eight seasons were hysterical and rarely missed a beat, which is impressive considering its joke-a-second pace. I debated whether a cartoon should make the list, but it’s technically considered a sitcom and Family Guy is insanely popular. It’s random, it’s nonsense and it’s frankly pretty stupid, but that’s what made it funny. Perhaps it’s the style of the show, but it took a steep decline when showrunner Seth MacFarlane began making jokes run for minutes at a time, using its awkward length to burn time. The amount of time they waste is supposed to be the joke, of course, but when you start relying on this tactic it quickly loses its luster. Family Guy still has its moments, but it doesn’t appear as though it will endure the test of time.

8. Frasier

Frasier is a decent show. It had its moments and its lead characters did a fine job in their respective roles, especially considering it’s a sitcom. Still, the show’s use of flowery language starts to wear thin as the seasons progress. I wouldn’t suggest that Frasier is a bad show, far from it in fact, but its reputation seems a tad overdone considering the type of humour it promotes. This is, of course, a subjective topic as comedy is rarely cut and dry, for lack of a better term. Again, Frasier is a decent show for what it is, but it’s hardly worthy of the top 10 status it seems to command by some.

7. How I Met Your Mother

How I Met Your Mother presented an interesting premise as viewers stuck around for years to find out who, in fact, was the mother of the central character’s children. The problem, however, is that the sitcom ran for a few years too many. Like The Office, it suffered from overextending its reach and not ending on a high note. Unlike The Office, How I Met Your Mother never quite reached those heights to begin with. It was a serviceable sitcom, for sure, but it was never ‘gut-bustingly’ funny. Barney Stinson, played by Neil Patrick Harris, was the standout character in the show and truly elevated it to another level, even though that level never made it too high.

6. Friends

There are episodes of Friends that I truly enjoyed. I would even suggest it’s a pretty good sitcom overall. But when people think of sitcoms, Friends almost always comes to mind. It enjoyed a rather large reputation and is still revered to this day. Go ahead, check what’s on television right now and I bet you’ll find a rerun airing. While characters like Joey and Chandler provided great chemistry on set and made the show what it is, there wasn’t enough to keep the momentum going, as the show eventually grew stale and attempted to lure viewers in with inorganic relationships.

5. According to Jim

According to Jim is the epitome of inconsistency. It had some funny moments, but it’s also littered with misfired and predictable jokes. That seems like a preposterous claim considering it ran eight seasons, but enduring it in its entirety would be a banal experience. Jim, as an average every-man father, does a good job in his role, but he can’t save the show by himself with a rather weak supporting cast who come across as an annoyance more than anything. Brother-in-law Andy has his moments and also helps raise the show’s comedy level, but even between the two of them the show fails to maintain consistent comedy.

4. Mike & Molly

We get it. The characters are fat. Hilarious. The show beats this joke until it’s a pile of finely-ground powder… of mediocrity. The jokes are simple, predictable and subsequently trite. There isn’t much aboutMike & Molly that works even on a basic level, but there it is, large as hell for everyone to see. I mean look, fat jokes are to be expected here, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But when it’s the basis of your comedy, you’re in trouble. Evidently they did just fine…and that’s why Mike & Molly stands before you now on the list of most overrated sitcoms.

3. Two and a Half Men

Jeez, where to start here? Charlie Sheen completely lost his mind and came up with such memorable sayings as “winning” and “tiger blood” in the meltdown that subsequently lost him his job. Poor Jon Cryerwas just trying to enjoy the success of a hit sitcom before Angus T. Jones also lost his mind and then noted sitcom star Ashton Kutcher also came on board for a ludicrous amount of dough. It rarely worked, but it was watched by many. It had some funny moments, mostly from Cryer and Sheen, but it lasted way too long and the inclusion of Kutcher was just overkill. Yet another example of a show overstaying its welcome.

2. Sex and the City

The sitcom is terrible and the movies are terrible, but Sex and the City just refuses to go away for good. It’s basically a collection of scenes promoting selfishness, materialism, narcissism, crazed sexual needs, home-wrecking and just general disrespect to the modern, educated woman. Besides the last point, all that is fine. Those are actually decent ingredients to make a solid sitcom, but Sex and the City misses the mark consistently. It’s just not funny, and the central characters are cringingly bad across the board. I realize this is complete sacrilege to the show’s fans, and that’s fine, and maybe I’m missing something here, but this still stands as one of the worst shows on television.

1. The Big Bang Theory

I’ve given The Big Bang Theory multiple chances, mostly because of its positive reception from viewers, but I just don’t think it’s funny. It’s painfully unfunny from my perspective, and its central characters are walking cliches. Rather than embrace the geeky culture it attempts to emulate, the show tends to laugh at nerds instead of with them, and that’s the biggest shame of all. It should come as no surprise that Chuck Lorre, responsible for Two and a Half Men, is the mind behind this unoriginal and repetitive sitcom. The Big Bang Theory tops this list because it continues to enjoy massive success despite its weak characters and cringe-worthy jokes. That may seem a little harsh, and perhaps it is, but it’s truly mind boggling how revered this show is by the average viewer.

Do you like to watch television? Yeah, we do too. And we love to marvel at the awesome females who are on the silver screen right now. These are the 10 highest-paid TV actresses in 2015, and they are astounding. Some of them have been acting for almost their whole lives while others found themselves in the spotlight all of a sudden. They star in dramas, comedies, and even sketch shows. Some of these women hold multiple roles, from spokesmodels to writers, producers to humanitarians.

These are some females who will inspire you, no matter you gender, race, or age. They are all beautiful in their own right and have the acting skills to hold their own against the female or male competition. Plus they are super-rich! Not that it matters, but wow, their net worths are sky-high! We hope you enjoy reading a bit more about these deserving women and how they have found a place in television history.

It is not always easy for a woman to be taken seriously these days, especially in the media. They are either seen as sex symbols or they have to be ditzy and static characters. Yet these women break the mold and give us hope that a lady can be strong and confident without being a … you know.

10. Kerry Washington

Kerry Washington has made a splash as an actress on both the silver and big screens. She is eye-catching to look at but also has the acting chops to play with the big boys (and girls!) She stars in the hit ABC showScandal and is lauded for breaking the mold and shining bright for African American women in the media. Her awards include an NAACP Image Award for Best Actress, the President’s Award for her civil rights service, and she has been honored with a spot on President Obama’s Committee of the Arts and Humanities. She is also a beauty and is the face for Movado.

9. Mindy Kaling

Mindy Kaling came to the forefront in The Office and then broke out with The Mindy Project. She also clinched a deal with Hulu Plus and is a gorgeous funny woman. She has a net worth of $15 million and earns $150,000 per episode. She is the author of a best-selling book titled Why Not Me? and is admired for her quick wit and down-to-earth personality. She is not only an actress, but a writer, comedian, executive producer, and director. Oh, and a totally awesome female. She has won loads of awards and has been nominated umpteen times. Her work in television and film is so admirable.

8. Amy Poehler

Who does not love Amy Poehler? She is so much more than a light-hearted cast member on Saturday Night Live. And while we absolutely love her SNL work, it would not do her justice to only mention that. You know Parks & Recreation? Yeah. Need we say more? Amy earned about $4.5 million from the show and has also starred in hits such as Mean Girls. She has ample awards including a Teen Choice Award, Daytime Emmy, Comedy Award, Critic’s Choice Television Award, Golden Globe Award, Producers Guild of America Award…quite honestly, we would be here all day if we gave you an exhaustive list.

7. Alyson Hannigan

She is a co-star along with another woman on our list – Cobie Smulders. Yet Alyson Hannigan can definitely hold her own. She starred on the hit show How I Met Your Mother, making about $340,000 per episode. She has a net worth of $18 million and has been attracted (and attractive) to the screen since she was just a young girl. She appeared in commercials and now is a full-fledged super actress! She was set to star alongside Ben Affleck and Matt Damon in a new comedy More Time With Family, and although the show didn’t get picked up, the future is still bright for Hannigan. She is living proof that being in your 40s is fabulous and you can have it all!

6. Cobie Smulders

Cobie Smulders is another one of the stars of the CBS comedy How I Met Your Mother. She made about $340,000 per episode and has a net worth of $18 million. Nice! So besides working alongside the fabulousNeil Patrick Harris, Cobie has starred in big-screen films such as Captain America: The Winter Soldier.She is a Canadian actress who has stolen the heart of America and fights for the protection of our beloved marine animals. She is a gem! She has also won the Ewwy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy and the People’s Choice Award for her work in How I Met Your Mother (she won in the category of Favorite TV Gal Pals with Alyson Hannigan.)

5. Ellen Pompeo

Have you ever heard of a little show called Grey’s Anatomy? Yeah, we think that sounds familiar. Ellen Pompeo has her claim to fame thanks to the hit show, and she can boast a net worth of $30 million. She makes about $350,000 per episode of Grey’s Anatomy and easily makes this list of top-paid actresses on television. She has also been publicly recognized for her work in the entertainment industry by the National Italian American Foundation. She is in charge of a production company called Calamity Jane and shows no signs of slowing down. Well, maybe a bit to have an adorable baby with hubby Chris Ivery, but that is all!

4. Julianna Margulies

What has Julianna Margulies not done? She has won an Emmy and a Golden Globe, she is a producer, she is a regular fixture on television, and she is gorgeous. This actress definitely has it going on! She is most known nowadays for her work on the hit show The Good Wife and she also was a breakout star on ER. Her net worth is valued at $22 million and is so rich and powerful that she can manage to refuse a $27 million contract. Whoa, talk about awesomeness! Another prize she can add to her collection? A ranking on Peoplemagazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People in the World.”

3. Kaley Cuoco

She once played Bridget on 8 Simple Rules opposite John Ritter, and now Kaley Cuoco is a front-running star in her own right. She plays Penny on The Big Bang Theory, which is one of the hottest comedies on television right now. Plus she is under 30 years of age! She is doing quite well, making $11 million and $350,000 per episode of The Big Bang Theory. Forbes was happy to place this young gun on their list of highest-paid TV actresses. She also has a hottie husband, knows how to rock it on the red carpet, and is breaking out in filmdom in the future.

2. Mariska Hargitay

Who loves Law & Order: SVU? You probably are one of the many folks who gather around the television to watch episodes of this thrilling crime drama. Well you have Mariska Hargitay to thank for those riveting moments. She makes a whopping $13 million per year and has been carrying that show for years. Law & Order: SVU is 16 seasons strong and viewers have come to love Mariska’s tough-as-nails character. She is a compelling female lead who does not take any smack talk from anyone. That is what we are talking about! Mariska also founded The Joyful Heart Foundation to help young sexual abuse victims.

1. Sofia Vergara

At 42 years of age, Sofia Vergara is not only hot, she is the highest paid actress on television right now. She makes $37 million and has stolen the hearts of millions of people by starring on the hit show Modern Family. She also stars in endorsement commercials for Pepsi, usually tossing her gorgeous brown hair over her shoulder and pouting her luscious red lips. Sofia is also a spokesmodel for Cover Girl, Head & Shoulders, and in one episode of Modern Family alone she makes $325,000! Talk about girl power! She is muy caliente. She has broken into movies and has a fragrance deal as well as something in the works with K-Mart.

Television series have always used movies as inspiration. In many cases, shows were directly based off movies, a trend that continues to this day, such as the new series following the movie Minority Report and another based on Rush Hour. Many of them were poor ideas that didn’t last long, such as the attempt to turn Working Girlinto a short-lived sitcom starring a then-unknown Sandra Bullock. Or to flip it around, the Bullock thriller The Net turned into a USA series that was nothing more than a female version of The Fugitive. In so many cases, the shows are forgettable and just serve to distract from how great the original movies were.

But there have been a lot of successes over the years, with the ’70s war comedy MASH as one of the top examples. The key is that the best adaptations don’t just replicate the movie but actually expand on the ideas and potential the film set up and use the freedom of having more time to bring them to fruition.

Indeed, in some cases, the work is so great that it’s the show, not the movie, which comes right to mind whenever a title is mentioned. Here are ten series that achieved this impressive goal, ten shows that in many ways are actually better than the films that inspired them and expanded wonderfully on already great ideas.

10. Fargo

The Cohen Brothers are known for their unique projects, filled with dark humor and biting commentary.Fargo is one of their best and the most fitting for a TV project. But rather than ape the film, the Cohens helped to produce a series that uses the name but offers a different plot, yet still manages to capture the movie’s tone nicely.

Billy Bob Thornton is magnetic as a contract killer who spreads chaos in a small Minnesota town, helping to encourage a salesman, played by Martin Freeman, to commit murder. Allison Tolman makes one of the most impressive debuts ever as the deputy investigating these crimes.

The show uses the frozen landscape to its fullest; a sense of dread permeates throughout, with black humor used to enthrall alongside the brilliant performances. It keeps viewers guessing, as proven by how, right in the middle of an episode, it suddenly jumps ahead a year in time to shake things up. The first season is fantastic and one can only hope for more in the second season to show how a TV series expands on a movie’s potential very nicely.

9. Nikita

The USA Network was first to try a series based on the classic Luc Besson action movie. But this CW series was even better, helped by a fantastic lead. Maggie Q was gorgeous but also believable kicking ass left and right as a former spy trying to take down the black ops group she once belonged to.

She brought emotional depth to things with her guilt over her past and the series was smart balancing her quest with how a “newbie” recruit is actually a mole placed into Division by Nikita. Throw in Shane West as her lover/hunter and Melinda Clarke and Xander Berkley as the cold bosses and you had a recipe for thrills.

Through it all, Maggie Q dominated with a fantastic lead character you could root for and the unexpected twists of characters with dark secrets and plot turns kept you on your toes. Overall, it was a show that truly deepened the source film by showing how one can never let go of a life of killing no matter what.

8. Parenthood

The 1989 movie was a fun comedy with a great cast that included Steve Martin, Mary Steenburgen and Rick Moranis. The NBC series took the same title and concept of a large family and their significant others and delivered one of the best dramas in years.

The comedy was high as members of real families can more than relate to the Bravermans’ constant bickering, arguing, bonding and more, just like real families do. The casting and writing were top notch, as it genuinely felt like a real family, which helped the show click with viewers.

7. M*A*S*H*

More than one person has joked about how this series lasted over twice as long as the real Korean War did. The 1970 Robert Altman film was a straight-up satire of the war, a wild comedy focusing on the medics during wartime.

At first, the CBS series replicated that feeling with Alan Alda and Wayne Rogers as Hawkeye and Trapper, a pair of medics who acted like frat boys but were still good doctors. While the comedy was ever-present – complete with laugh track – the show offered some powerful commentary on war.

Its final episode, which holds the record for the most watched finale of any television series with 121.6 million viewers, was stunning television with a shocking that showed how, even as you laugh, war is always hell.

6. Friday Night Lights

The 2006 big-screen movie was little more than adapting the book it was based on, which relates the story of a small Texas town whose residents’ lives revolve around the high school football team. The NBC series, however, blossomed amazingly well thanks to its fantastic cast and writing.

It’s the most realistic version of high school life of any prime time television show. It’s not adults in kids’ bodies making witty pop culture references. They screw up, they think they’re smarter than they really are, they get over their heads and act like true teenagers. Combine that with the unique filming style that makes you feel like a fly on the wall and the way they talk like real people do, and it’s no wonder this series drew such a passionate fanbase.

The show used football as a metaphor for life and while it had some slumps, the series shone far better than most others for a sustainable period, with Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton providing one of the best marriages any television series has showcased. Its ending is one of the best finales in television history, going out on the perfect note and solidifying a show that elevated its source material beautifully.

5. Teen Wolf

You could almost hear the massive eye-rolling when this was announced. MTV attempting a series based on a 1980s Michael J. Fox comedy? Little did anyone know the show’s producers had a lot more in mind than just replicating that goofy idea of a high school athlete turned werewolf.

Instead, they added in some moody storylines, wild sexy touches and more. Better was how they played with audience expectations, such as how seemingly shallow dimwit Lydia was actually a genius with her own powers or how innocent love Crystal was a top hunter. Tyler Posey handled it all as the lead in a series that does a fantastic job of pushing emotion over just “hot teens.”

The show’s going strong, as it’s more popular than when it began, serving as proof that even the craziest of movie ideas can shine properly on television given the right care.

4. Highlander

There’s no greater compliment than how so many newer fans will go “wait, this was a movie first?” The 1986 film introduced the idea of the last of a race of Immortals who engage in sword duels, with the winner taking his foe’s head and unleashing a force of energy called “The Quickening.”

Any ideas of a franchise would have appeared to die with the horrific sequel but the television series soon broke out nicely. Adrian Paul played Duncan MacLeod, a 400-year old Scotsman; each episode would feature flashbacks set among his long life. At first, the show appeared to be leading up to the events of the movie with talk of a “Gathering” for the final Immortals. But the producers smartly realized how limiting that was and thus rewrote the film’s ending to allow the Immortals to survive.

From there, the show truly thrived; Paul was well cast, handling Duncan in his various time eras – note how his accent gets thicker the further the show went into the past – with some good supporting characters like the feisty Amanda and the 5000 year old Methos. Another smart move was introducing the Watchers, a group that studies Immortals, allowing viewers to learn more about their history.

It dealt with the deaths of major characters and truly pushed the hardship of someone being alive for so long. Plus, it was fun watching the epic sword fights! Its six-season run did more than just push the Highlanderconcept; it also helped a show about Immortals possess a very long life with fans.

3. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

The debate over Genysis continues but a common comment popping up from fans is “why couldn’t they just continue the Sarah Connor Chronicles?” Running just two seasons, this series was amazing in how it took the mythos of the Terminator movies and elevated them nicely.

Lena Headey was an excellent choice for Sarah, not aping Linda Hamilton but giving the role her own drive, a protective mother mixed with soldier out to ensure her son becomes a future savior, but willing to stop this future if she could. Thomas Dekker started off rough but soon grew into the role of John; his performance grew darker as he saw this future as inevitable, having to stand up to handle it. And Summer Glau was an inspired choice for Cameron, the reprogrammed Terminator; she was totally believable as a robot handling human oddities and such. For its lower TV budget, it was filled with great action sequences involving other Terminators and the like.

The show truly blossomed more in its later run, playing with the idea of glimpses at the dark future and the war against Skynet. It added Brian Austin Green as John’s uncle, becoming a new mentor and a new edge to the war as well as Shirley Manson stealing the show as the T-1000 posing as a businesswoman. The show took the idea of Judgment Day being inevitable yet still offered hope for preventing it.

2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Believe it or not, Joss Whedon was once just another writer, nothing special amid the sea of Hollywood talent. His 1992 Buffy the Vampire Slayer had the fun idea of a high school girl discovering she’s a vampire hunter but it didn’t make much of an impact. So you can understand the skepticism when the WB turned it into a weekly series. Little did we know that the results would be a show that would take off and kick-start a fresh new style for sci-fi/fantasy series.

The key was how Whedon used high school as an allegory for battles against evil and Hell, balancing monsters with going to the prom and relationship issues. Few shows have tackled coming to grips with sexuality so well even amid the wicked smart dialogue that could make you laugh out loud one moment and leave you stunned the next.

The cast were key as Sarah Michelle Gellar made the title role a truly relatable heroine, often feeling overwhelmed by her duty but doing her best to handle it. Meanwhile, Alyson Hannigan, Nicholas Brendon and Anthony Stewart Head helped her out as her loyal gang.

The show never played it safe: characters would die, beloved vampire Angel went bad, evil vampire Spike became a key ally and they even killed the main character and brought her back as a mental wreck. It was far more emotional than detractors would give it credit for and while the last two seasons have flaws, they still retained the magic that made the show break out. If nothing else, it helped launch Whedon’s career as a geek icon and that alone makes Buffy a standout for TV shows based on films.

1. Stargate SG-1

1994’s Stargate was a unique sci-fi movie that pushed the idea of aliens creating the pyramids, offering a gateway to a distant world. It was a decent success but when Showtime announced a regular series based off it, there were doubts it would work on the smaller screen, especially without original stars Kurt Russelland James Spader. But instead, the series launched its own amazing franchise.

It took the idea that the Stargates were about thousands of planets, allowing Earth to explore new worlds and such. It also posited that the movie’s villain, Ra, was only one of the Goa’uld, a race of worm-like aliens possessing human bodies and basing themselves off the Gods of ancient Earth. Thus, the series kicked off into a wild new direction that would utilize time travel, alternate realities and full-scale invasions for its ten-season run over two networks. The special effects were cutting edge and just got better as the show continued to show full-scale space battles and a truly universal sense of adventure.

The series stands as a fantastic example of a show that took the concept of a movie and just ran with it in beautiful fashion. It would inspire two spin-offs and win over tons of fans, serving as one of the best sci-fi shows of the 2000s and still being popular today. Truly, this a case where the show is far better than the source film.