RDM has been something of a darling of the sci-fi world since he brought a re-imagined BSG back to the small screen. It's no secret that some feel that the show was flagging a bit in season 3 - in much the same way it did in season 2 - but even so, it effortlessly beats everything except Heroes.


Season 4 isn't starting until 2008, so to tide hungry sci-fi fans over - we have been treated to Razor... a film covering events on board Pegasus, from the time of the Cylon attack to before the discovery of New Caprica... Centring almost entirely around a previously unmentioned and unseen Pegasus officer and showing key events on Pegasus from her point of view - specifically several instances that had been mentioned in Galactica.

It suffers from the rather unfortunate inevitability that almost all prequels do - that people and events of a pivotal nature aren't mentioned... ever. As such, it's somewhat throw away but good clean fun nevertheless. In fact, it's more likely to whet your appetite for the show - if only because it plays very much like a feature length episode.

The episode plays out as a number of flashbacks from the point of view of our newly introduced Pegasus officer. Namely three incidents mentioned in BSG - the initial Cylon attack, Kane shooting one of her officers and the seizing of personnel and equipment from a civilian fleet. That is all essentially setting the scene for the meat of the piece... a trip back to the 70s where we finally see OLD SCHOOL CYLONS!

The exact significance of the "hybrid" isn't really elaborated upon beyond the fact it's some kind of bridge between the mechanical and organic stages of the Cylons and hence needs to be blown up, naturally things don't go quite as planned but the Cylons are dispatched and everything wraps up nicely... with just one possible tie-in for the show.

As Galactica goes, this is about as solid as they come... it's not really action packed but it has the high drama that Galactica seems to do so well and without any of the smaltzy romance that marred much of the latter half of season three. It certainly doesn't feel as if it's required viewing - although any BSG fan of merit would see it - but it's certainly fun and it breaks the somewhat longer interim between seasons 3 and 4.

The fact that considerable amounts of time are spent outside of the main cast is surprisingly acceptable. We do KNOW all the characters - except the female lead - and have some acquaintance with them and we get enough of the main cast that we don't forget this is BSG and not BSP but it does distance you somewhat and to have the lead as an unknown makes things just a little harder to swallow. Not that she is a deficient actor. She's quite adept at being the hard ass XO but it's hard to get a lot of character building into ninety minutes...

Still, all in all - a solid effort that any BSG fan could watch and enjoy.

Futurama always somewhat smacked of Matt Groening wanting to show the world that - yes, he COULD be more than the Simpsons... even if it wasn't really that different but then, there are various archetypes that permeate the sitcom genre.

Futurama was always somewhat more confused than the Simpsons... while the yellow family have occasionally "tackled issues", comedy has always been the alpha and the omega of the show... even if it's been ever more scarce in the past decade. Futurama sometimes liked to toss in some poignant aspects that were ill at ease with the comic and whimsical nature of the show.

Regardless, like Family Guy, it was cancelled and yet, has been born again... this time, as a film - Bender's Big Score. Despite the name, the film doesn't really feel "big"... as can happen with film outings of TV shows, it felt much like an episode... just one that happened to last five times as long.

Unlike the Family Guy movie which shamelessly broke into episode sized acts, this is really more one single story and it works quite well. It's not exactly epic in scope or laughs but it's enjoyable and if you've missed the quirky show since it was cancelled, this will certainly fill the Futurama shaped hole in your life.

The plot involves that perennial sci-fi favourite, time travel - Fry has a tattoo with a key to time travel on his ass - ... and actually plays upon the existing show continuity for plot. There are never any really big laughs but there's a consistency. You won't go more than a few minutes without a joke or just a moment of inanity to bring a smile to your face. Even in the actiony ending, there are still very Futurama moments that will make you laugh to yourself.

All in all, it's a good reminder of the show and an enjoyable effort on several levels.

It seems these days that the typical way to deal with an established, popular franchise that has fallen on times, is to give it to some flavour of the month type writer/producer, who will then proceed to "make it their own"... which seems to mean pissing all over it by ignoring continuity, deliberately antagonising established fans (because who cares about them? They'll watch it if you show them paint drying) and doing what they want, regardless of how rubbish it is.

It happened to Doctor Who, it happened to Alien vs. Predator and Transformers and of course, JJ Abrams is working flat out to make sure that Trek fans would rather have a root canal than pay money to see Star Trek XI... naturally, they will but they'll be wishing it was a root canal.

Abrams doubtless thinks that he's hot stuff with the success of Lost - despite the fact that viewership is starting to drop off as the slow minded public start to realise that it'll drag on and on and then at the end, it'll all be a dream... - and MI:3, which is a bad thing. It seem as soon as people get on the Hollywood gravy train, people start sucking... Just look at Kevin Smith and M. Night Shimshamwallawallawhatavideo. Both pulled an Orson Welles and started with quite impressive films, then instantly slid into mediocrity and of course, Abrams wasn't even good to begin with.

This isn't all baseless speculation though... Instead of forging ahead with some interesting new ideas has committed himself to returning to the Kirk era AND time travel. So, boldly going where we've gone in 70+ episodes and 6 (and a bit) films have gone before. Of course, in keeping with screwing over fans, pissing over continuity and generally being unimaginative we can't have the surviving crew don corsets and shine up their Zimmer frames to star.

Nope, we need a new younger cast... that's actually fairly reasonable. The cast were making jokes about how they were past it in films over two decades ago and it was true then. However, the new cast will be playing considerably younger versions of the well known crew. Why? TIME TRAVEL!

Yes, proving how incredibly innovative he is, Abrams whips out just about the biggest sci-fi cliche - which handily gives him a level of immunity from fans complaining about continuity violations... In any event, those pesky Romulans apparently want to kill Kirk or some such and it's up to Spock to make sure that drunken, inter-species womanising and outrageous bluffing become the Star Trek way. Which leads to Old Spock and Young Spock meeting up and us getting Star Trek - the college years.

Fanboys should start putting down tarps now... because it seems certain that there will be a lot of foaming at the mouth to do in the next 12 months... You can start on this - Winona Ryder is Spock's mother. She's going to shoplift the components for him to build a time machine or something.