I love the Pern books, Hill Street Blues, the first ST and ST-TNG and several other things you named. So I think you have exceptionally good taste and to heck what anyone else thinks. Hah!
I don't read romance novels, but other people in my family devour them. It's whatever works for each person. I watch disaster movies (OH NO, an asteroid is coming!!) and what is the value of them? They entertain me.
The one book I recommend to anybody who is willing to even consider reading sci-fi is Dune by Frank Herbert. It's the greatest sci-fi book ever written or it's the story of Muhammad coming out of the desert, or...
But I'm sure there are a lot of people who hated it, or couldn't get past the first few pages.