Sci-fi gets to its most embarrassing when it pretends to have an actual basis in fact.

It's often notable that the best sci-fi steers itself clear of any real talk of science... Heroes doesn't have people trying to explain the superpowers - people express amazement that they violate the laws of physics with such ease but no one ever starts using big made up words to try and explain it. Neither did Farscape or Babylon 5... and Battlestar Galatica hasn't either. BSG never really tries to explain anything. Hell, they had an episode where their never explained FTL drive got broke and all that was involved in fixing it was pretty much like changing a fuse.

Star Trek... well, as it progressed - it just got embarrassing. By Voyager the script was just dominated by meaningless Treknobabble... some of it actually impossible... expressing the power output of something in Dynes? Wasn't that show supposed to have a science advisor? It seems unlikely he had more than a subscription to New Scientist... although the closest they probably got to reading it was using it as a coaster. Furthermore, beyond simply becoming a significant proportion of the dialogue, the jargon actually became a plot point that allowed the writers to avoid any kind of thinking or originality. Bad guys got you down? Get one of your bridge staff to reel off 15 nonsensical science sounding words and BAM! You killed them.

Of course, it's clear that they did actually learn from their mistakes in this case because Enterprise was clearly a setting envisaged to avoid the kind of babbling previous treks had become synonymous with. Of course, that meant there was only about half as much dialogue in there and they had to introduce the obligatory catsuit in the first episode. More on that later.

Stargate SG-1 became increasingly guilty of treknobabble as it got more worn out. Was there any need to have Carter spout out gibberish every so often? Actually, there was... that's about all she said... and given that the format of SG-1 dialogue was generally:

O'Neill - flippant comment.
Carter - treknobabble.
Jackson - simple summation and conclusion.
Teal'c - Indeed.

The obvious change when Ben Browder came onboard was this.

Mitchel: pop culture reference.
Carter: treknobabble.
Jackson - simple summation and conclusion.
Teal'c - Indeed.

SG-1 probably thinks that because they acknowledged that their treknobabble was frequent and gibberish - generally by O'Neill raising his eyebrow and looking like he'd rather be in a vat of boiling acid. That doesn't change the fact that they became increasingly Voyager like in its usage... transiting from explanation to plot point.

It probably isn't coincidence that the shows that babble on and on about pseudo-science nonsense are those of inferior quality aimed at dullards who will watch anything with tight tops and explosions every thirty seconds and those that don't tend to be the more critically acclaimed and just plain better.

Babylon 5... a name that will set the pulse of sci-fi fans the world over racing.

It seems that only a decade later that something has surpassed it - and that's Heroes... which is a wholly different proposition in its attitude, setting and style... so for the moment, let us focus on more "pure" sci-fi. Just why is it that Babylon 5 didn't lead to more "video novel" style shows?

It would be fair to say that the only things that really came close to B5 were Farscape and BSG.

Farscape took a while to get up and running - though, it could be argued that this was the case with B5... but really, even the pilot was setting up plot points for the future - but when it did, it actually became something approaching a serial. Of course, then Sci-Fi went and axed it... despite it being their highest rated show. While the show still had plenty of "oh no! A PROBLEM!" the bit before and after that tended to impart quite a lot of character and drama. It seems clear that there was some kind of envisioned plot... which unfortunately had to be wrapped up rather quickly in Peacekeeper Wars.

The show was certainly esoteric but what made it enjoyable was that the characters - and cast - evolved and changed over the seasons, more than almost any other comparable show... and unlike some shows, where the introduction of new characters felt jarring - a somewhat ironic example being Farscape's own Ben Browder hammered into SG-1 -in Farscape it generally felt natural... but then Farscape seldom conformed to the sci-fi norms. Few other shows have only had one human as a regular character... and TWO weren't even humanoid. Plus, we didn't have any of the "praise truth, justice and the American way!" or "humans are unique and special!" either... In fact, it seemed that the show often went out of its way to point out that humans were pretty rubbish compared to all the other species portrayed.

Still, it had a direction and a continuity that only grew as the show developed. Some have bemoaned it being a soap opera... but really, that's just whinging fanboys who think that any interaction between characters that doesn't involve technobabble or CGI is soap opera and the way the different characters interacted in Farscape was almost certainly what made it such a popular show. Sad that rubbish like Smallville, SG-1 and Voyager gets to run for years and an innovative show like Farscape gets the chop just because it's not cheap... but regardless it maintained a solid narrative that made it a far more interesting proposition than hundreds of cookie cutter episodes.

Battlestar Galactica is interesting... in that it seems to have started out thinking about itself as directed and focused and then lost its way somewhat. Certainly with seasons two and three it felt as if the story episodes had been written and then some generic drama had been introduced. It remains to be seen whether the show can manage to pull itself together to give a more coherent story.

While it may not quite be a B5 or even Farscape in that respect, it does have continuity. It's not a case of Voyager where half the ship is destroyed one week and then next week it's back to normal... resources do tend to be a problem for Galactica and the ship has really taken a pounding. The start of season 3 marked one more or less continuous storyline but then after that it was more... things to be attended to.

Regardless of some of the greatly inferior work that JMS has gone on to do since B5 - and Legend Of The Rangers is enough to make anyone raise an eyebrow - there is little doubt that B5 was all alone until Heroes rolled around... and possibly did the concept of a video novel better than B5 itself.

Still, you have to wonder why no one even attempted it again... certainly, B5 wasn't a massive success but it was good television. It is is quite possible that it was simply the force of will and creativity that JMS represented. Perhaps it is simply the difficulty of the feat. Sad that... because episodic pap like Star Trek just spoils it for everyone.

Heroes is back...

Hooray! Not many shows could create such an epic cliffhanger and STILL manage to come up with a satisfactory resolution. Of course, it's clear that such a rich tapestry - and I doubt that many productions have ever gone to the trouble of creating so much ancillary content such as blogs, comics and alternate reality games.

It creates a very rich tapestry for those who wish to see it... naturally, those that just want to watch their 42 minutes of awesome TV won't be impeded but for those interested in a little mind, it's all very enjoyable and simply adds to the already elaborate plot.

In any event, it was good to see that Heroes hadn't painted itself into a corner or similar by making itself too good...

Ah, Sunshine... this could possibly be the perfection of the space disaster film.

Director Danny Boyle clearly didn't feel like following the clichés of similar sci-fi disaster films like The Core, Armageddon and Deep Impact... there's no people sitting around going "Hmm, something bad is going to happen!" type build up. Nope, Cillian Murphy gives us an explanatory voice over that cuts that down to about thirty seconds.

The science of this fiction is more fantasy than anything but unlike other films, it doesn't really try and explain away issues like... the apparently normal gravity on a ship that isn't discernably rotating and at a point in time where it seems unlikely that you'd be able to pipe gravity through a ship like central heating. Nothing about WHY the Sun suddenly starts to die, how a bomb the mass of Manhattan was transported into space, how it will work... How any material could do the kind of job of dissipating the heat of even a dying Sun at close proximity and allow for people to live comfortably just a few metres away is beyond me... and let's not get started on the travel times - although, mercifully they managed to get the travel time for light from Sun to Earth correct.

Presumably, this is because - as is traditional with Danny Boyle - it's about the interplay of characters facing suitably challenging circumstances. Of course quite why the big ol' bomb can't just be fired at the Sun sans crew is... well, that would be a much shorter and less dramatic film... Anyway, despite there being only eight members of the crew you'll be hard pressed to really get a feel for anyone except Mace - aka Johnny Storm - and Cillian Murphy - aka Scarecrow.

Naturally, things all start going horribly wrong after not too long and as with all of these "saving the world from disaster" type films, we have to see a lot of people struggling to sacrifice themselves first and naturally, they succeed. The film seemed to dally to some extent with the supernatural but really, that's more to do with human perception than anything else. That and the frequent shaky, epilepsy inducing fast cuts...

All-in-all, it's a passable waste of time... don't expect anything that will blow you away, change your perceptions of the world or make you wet your pants because this is a fairly by the numbers film. You never really - despite the fact it's mercilessly hammered home several times - get the sense that life is in the balance. Nor do you really feel for the character plight - they seem to follow the classic profile of most sci-fi crews... as soon as things go wrong and professionalism and not going mental are required... well you can guess. In fact, this film is probably what "The Core" would have been if it was set in space and not written by an imbecile. Of course, when the plot of the film is "restart the Sun WITH A REALLY BIG BOMB!" you're never going to be achieving new heights of excellence. Although, it DOES trump 300 in the no wins stakes... Think you're screwed fighting against a million Persians? Try being on a bomb the size of Manhattan accelerating toward the surface of the Sun!

Ok, so you've got a webcomic - good for you. You may even have made it enjoyable, funny, clever or just plain awesome... these things are all good.

What isn't good is when you ask people to support your webcomic by clicking on a link and that link leads us to something that requires registration? None at all. click and vote - sure. Register? No

Good news, middle class people in the developed world... no need to worry about climate change - it's going to fuck the poorest people in the world worst. Hoorah, eh? The most northern and southern areas will do best.

So, well done Europe - all we need do is build a giant wall to stop the immigrant invasion... Let's make it as fatal as possible.

The inherent fallacy of gravy trains should be obvious from one man - Ricky Gervais.

Few people would dispute The Office as a masterful piece of comedy, the awkwardness of the workplace and so on. Critically and popularly acclaimed... well, the first two series. Many found the Christmas Special to be a rather... saccharine wrap up to the show which had done so well because it didn't force a happy ending on us. That should have been a warning sign.

Naturally, though - someone that makes such a hit becomes rather popular with producers and given the deluge of affection for The Office, not to mention the shower of awards it won... it's no surprise that Extras so quickly graced our screens. Hardly surprising but then, hardly the success of its predecessor.

Many people would - perhaps - accept that a creation like The Office would be a peak which they'd never surpass. Ricky Gervais clearly thinks he's great - criticism of the vastly inferior Extras garnered his irritation. Not just that - he seems unable to bear the criticism that marred the release of The Office and made references to it several times in his startlingly mediocre stand-up.

Now Gervais parades around chat shows, struggling to contain his irritation. Clearly burdened by his obscenely large ego. It's hard to know why he's irritated - one assumes he's doing pretty well for himself. Ironic that his ego grows as the quality of his work drops but that's the gravy train... but we'll have to endure the sucking for a while longer.

The genius that came up with biofuels must be patting himself on the back now... as the USA grudgingly starts dragging itself toward lowering carbon emissions - except Al Gore, he's just renewed his hypocrite license with his astronomical number of air miles and hilariously high electricity bill - the demand for biodiesel and similar increases.

What people only just seem to be working out is that... biodiesel is made from stuff that is edible. So, in other words - we're trading a significant percentage of arable crops to make a fuel which is of questionable benefit in the "fight" against carbon emissions. I suppose no one remembers the basic economics of supply and demand... increase the demand for wheat, the price goes up.

On the bright side - that's a double whammy for CO2 emissions. Lower the output of the developed world with biofuels and starve people in the less developed world because dead people don't need electricity... Let's just hope they don't burn the bodies, eh? Still, this could be an example of joined up thinking.

Thanks climate changeologists - for saving the planet and killing the poor. Ace.

300 seems to have been described by many as nigh pornographic.

Why? Because it's just money shot after money shot. There is scant plot - but then, there doesn't need to be. 300 Spartan warriors fending a mountain pass against an army of hundreds of thousands of Persians - in what is possibly the best known last stand of history - doesn't exactly need a great deal of plot or characterisation for that matter.

Few films - and one gets the impression that this is probably the level of visual impact that Quentin Tarantino will strive for his entire life and never get within a mile of - can claim to so regularly deliver such a punch. Not just with the battle but in most aspects of the film. Clearly, Frank Millar's influence here was by no means titular and given the propensity of Hollywood to screw over writers - in the sense of either doing a horrible job of adapting their work or actually weasling their way out of handing over money - who have their worked adapted for the silver screen, you can't blame the man for making sure he didn't get shafted.

And - aside from getting some Iranians to whinge about how Frank Miller was making a propaganda piece - it seems that the proles are happy... and rightly so, there is wrong with this film. It does not pretend to be anything more than it is - a rollicking action film that hits the ground running and doesn't stop until the end credits roll. Naturally, some will criticise the historical accuracy or try and attribute some kind of messages about freedom and the fighting of tyranny etc. but the film doesn't really attempt to elaborate on any of these... it's just some Greeks (with Scottish accents) slaughtering Xerxes' hordes in an apologetically bloody, stylish and awesome way... if only more films could be like this.

Isn't it jolly nice to have non-ebrities and politicians - who most likely would struggle to scrape together enough credits for a weeks worth of a BSc - telling us how CLIMATE CHANGE IS THE GREATEST THREAT WE HAVE EVER FACED. That's nice of them. Also interesting, in January 2005 5% of people in the UK thought that the environment was a priority... by the same time in 2007 this had jumped to 20%...

Proles, pseudo-intellectuals and the more discerning of you should all realise that there is one REAL reason that politicians are so keen to talk about climate change - various unqualified non-ebrities are doing it because they're publicity hungry self-serving hypocrites - and it is this. It allows politicians to spout endlessly about something that is unlikely to happen any time soon.

Britain is apparently "foremost" in the fight against climate change... yeah. The real reason for this is the following - Gordon Brown and David Cameron know it's easy political brownie points. Something happening in a decade or two is a million miles away. A grand diversionary tactic with little substance or sincerity. After all, it's a lot easier to talk rubbish about the inevitable devastation than it is to tackle the very real, very pressing problems of crime, poverty, social inequality and so on.

So, 40 or more days until Heroes allows us to bask once more in its radiance - time to look back on eighteen episodes of excellence.

It's often been said that it takes a while to start a show. To establish characters, plots and so on... in fact, Star Trek fans are used to giving a show three seasons to approach being good... a rule TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT ALL seem to adhere to and it's really not that uncommon for a show some time to hit its pace... naturally, there are exceptions. 24 - perhaps by its nature - had to hit the ground running... Lost, lost the plot before the end of the first season but still had a strong start and so on... but I don't think I've seen anything since Oz, that manage to so effectively propel itself.

It hit the ground at super speed... and it has yet to stop. With many shows, you can expect some lapses... Even 24 tends to have some more problematic episodes. Heroes hasn't had any "flat" episodes... there have been ones where we've had less action but they more than compensated with more revelations and the show so often delivers a gratifying cliffhanger... Something that has probably been absent from the screen since the hey day of Dr. Who.

Not only that but for a show which has so much in common with comic book superheroes, it has managed to - almost studiously avoid the generic cliches... Though, admittedly it's early days. For all we know, people could be donning spandex, going to alternate universes and people repeatedly being killed and coming back to life... just because they're too popular to die. The real risk though, is that Heroes has set the bar too high. That once the first storyline is wrapped up, that it will struggle to meet the high standards it set itself. This is, of course, a danger for any show of quality. That it will struggle to remain good. Let's just hope Heroes can continue to be one of the best shows - if not the best - on TV.

One has to wonder why Star Trek enjoys such a substantial and loyal fan base. Naturally, when originally conceived it was rather radical. The idea of a ship where people of all colours, creeds and nations worked together represented something totally inconceivable at a point in time when equality was still a long way off and the Cold War was decades.

Not only that but - and it's hard to believe these days - but the effects were something akin to cutting edge at the time. Understandably, this and the raunchy antics of Kirk made it popular. Then of course it got cancelled and wouldn't grace the small screen again until Patrick Stewart et al donned their pyjamas in The Next Generation.

Inherently, these spin-offs tended toward the original format of the original series - with the exception of DS9 and even it followed many of the conventions. There wasn't anything particularly earth shattering about any of the new shows... the effects were no longer cutting edge, the stories may have been at times interesting but they were seldom controversial or original. In fact, it would be fair to say that as time progressed, the show became even more standardised under the auspices of Berman.

Ignoring DS9 - which didn't come under Berman's control - one can see the Star Trek "product" become more and more refined. While one could lay many criticisms at the door of Enterprise and Voyager, their episodes were all incredibly polished and refined... to the level of almost mathematical precision. Of course, that tended to trap the shows in their own rut... where they just churned out episodes with no soul, just 40 minutes of life filler.

Enterprise finally managed to change with its third season and the Xindi war but - as with DS9 - there were regular breaks from the story arc for relatively unrelated stories and it had a somewhat improbable ending. At least it actually had an ending though, in stark contrast to the ill-fated Temporal Cold War which didn't really end, so much as just stop - making as little sense as it ever did.

As to DS9... well, it was the first attempt by Star Trek at long term story arcs - The Emissary one and the Dominion War - but really, the Emissary element was far more understated and the Domion War didn't really even get under way until the end of the season 2 and really, it was only season 7 that had consistent arcs... and they only bookended the season. We had a pretty grim and gritty start, followed by some of the most insipid episodes - Take Me To The Holodeck is an abomination - and then the closing arc... which managed to end with something akin to a clip show (with Terry Farrel notable by her absence).

Even if the quality of DS9 was on the wane after season 5, at least it could occasionally throw off the feeling that each episode could happen independent of the other. Voyager regularly threw its characters episodes which would probably scar most people but consistently hit the reset button to make sure they never remembered... shame they didn't use it on the Borg kids or Naomi Wildman. The problem being that you never really got a feeling that the characters were progressing.

Obviously, Data and The Doctor both undergo a degree of humanisation but fundamentally they're still the same people seven years on, somewhat less irritating to their crew mates but not really much else. Tom Paris is a cock any season you view. Sisko might shave off his hair, grow a goatee, get a promotion and change uniform but he's still prone to shouting. The format just didn't encourage writers to do anything permanent to characters... hell, it actively DISCOURAGED any change to the status quo... it was almost like the perma-stasis of a sitcom, everyone frozen in a moment in time for years on end.

Not only were the characters unchanging... but so were the episodes. Aliens of the week, random energy anomaly, ship malfunction (including everyone's favourite - the holodeck!) or "personal" episode - the ones where people undergo a life changing event... and then promptly forget pretty much sum up the staple of episodes. Naturally, with some time travel or season finales thrown in for good measure. Things were getting pretty repetitive by the time we got to the Xindi war... which offered only some relief.

When you think about it, Star Trek really hasn't done anything for its fans. Even the Xindi war was a kick in the teeth to fans - as if the whole Enterprise/prequel idea wasn't bad enough - as it meant the Earth/Romulan war (well known to many fans) was eschewed for something totally different that put in an entirely new race that - much like the Denobulans - were never seen or heard of in subsequent (chronological) shows... that and the Temporal Cold War was introduced

Of course, Voyager personified the problems with Star Trek - although, on the plus side... it so disgusted Ronald D. Moore that he went off and made BSG - unlike Enterprise, it never underwent a change of management... it might have been cancelled if not for the introduction of 7 of 9 and her slutty catsuits. Just as well fanboys saved the day, eh? Not really... Voyager just provided more of the Berman brand homogeneous product. If you want to waste 40 minutes (60 with ads) why bother with Star Trek... you could do it with anything and quite possibly better.

If anything, Star Trek actively kicked its fans in the nuts... Voyager, Enterprise, Star Trek: Insurrection, Star Trek: Nemesis... hardly delivering fans love. Berman and Braga made a good job of making substandard episodes. Generic and soul sucking. You'd go to anything for a franchise that fucked you over repeatedly? If you love it... it hates you.

As if it was needed there is confirmation that the next Star Trek film is to be a great step backward. Perhaps this isn't as dire as the original concept for Star Trek XI, which was to be - apparently - set in the very near future and to not really be about space but nuclear war... or something similarly half-baked.

Of course, this was to be expected. When a director/producer is given what is generally considered to be a beloved franchise, the last thing you ever want to hear out of their mouth is the confession that they're a "big fan" or "have a lot of respect for the films". This is code for either "never seen it" or "don't care", or most likely something that amounts to the fact that their vision must be paramount above all other considerations. Continuity, fans and logic are not considerations when it comes to this vision.

While it's easy to see why Abrahms wants to go back to Kirk et al - he's got no idea what to do, they're still probably the best known Trek characters, it lets him put in younger, edgier actors like MATT DAMON - it seems to be ill conceived. If a prequel didn't work before, it seems naive to think a prequel/remake combined is going to fair any better. Not just that but you're messing around with characters that are very much identified with specific actors. Shatner's OTT hamming up, Nimoy's indifference, DeForrest Kelly the drunk... Scotty the fat bastard - these are all images that are well engrained upon the collective consciousness of Western society.

So, really there are two options available. Either try and redo it, being as true to the original as possible... which is going to be - at best, hard - or just strike out in a new direction and thus, more or less invalidate the reason for using the characters again... except if you say "this will have Kirk in it!" you can guarantee that slavering fanboys will turn out just to see that - even if they have gone "BUT IT'S NOT SHATNER" for eighteen months solid.

Not to mention the issue of the set... will things be recreated verbatim from the 1960s show? Or will we have that perverse situation of things looking more hi-tech, despite it being set before the first show of the TV series? Enterprise still looked helluva better than TOS ever did... and there's also the most pertinent question for Trek fans...

Where will this put any potential TV show? Presumably, if the film is a success - and it could go either way - it will be an incentive for either further films or continuation of the television franchise... Given the likelihood that the film will have big name actors - its seems hard to imagine a TV show containing the same cast...

All in all, this selection of premise is poor - not as bad as the uber prequel idea - and if it's thrusting big name actors into the well established roles, it's going to take a feat of supremely good writing, acting and directing to make this film come close to being a fan pleaser. Of course, the proles are who will doubtless be targeted for the commercial success of the film because, even if there is a loyal Trek following, willing to see the film several times to make it "succeed" they pale to the demographics of the many. So, don't be too surprised if you get Matt Damon or similar hamming it up in a summer popcorn movie because this could be another great step back for Star Trek... and of course, if the film doesn't break even or just scrapes it - Star Trek might well not get parole from purgatory.

Hollywood has always been pretty lax when it comes to adhering to science as we understand it - even out with science fiction. The most obvious things that one can expect to see - as the site Intuitor is often at pains to explain - are sparking bullets, the infinite clip, people able to fall substantial distances or smash through windows without injury, the amazing exploding car and of course

Perhaps the favourite science cliche in sci-fi is that anti-gravity is just about THE first thing a space faring race will develop. Not only that but it can be pumped through a ship like central heating and is a thousand times more robust than everything on the ship - including critical systems like... life support. Just about the only time artificial gravity ever failed were in Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country... and very briefly in the B5 TV movie - In The Beginning.

They really ought to try and build consoles with the same technology... because they do explode an awful lot. It's really saying something about your ship when your biggest worry is a computer blowing up in your face, rather than explosive decompression. Probably not a good thing either. Barring Dell's exploding laptops, there is little in the terms of equivalence.

Of course, these are generic sci-fi clichés... like the starfighters acting like they're in an atmosphere or Star Trek space battles being akin to being fought by pick-ups being driven around in a car park, firing nerf at one another... they're just things that are done for dramatic effect and such. However, once every few years there is just a film that is so stupidly idiotic that it shouldn't be bothered with.

Sunshine seems to be the next torch bearer, surpassing The Core. OUR SUN IS DYING! ONLY A BOMB THE SIZE OF KANSAS CAN SAVE US! Where to start... the inaccuracy. The fact our dying sun would consume the Earth rather than go off like a light bulb? The idea that a sun that has depleted its (massive) amounts of fuel can't be "reignited" by a bomb... and even if it could, the Earth is 1/109th the diameter of the Sun. Even though, it's akin to throwing a match on a dead fire. Not that logic ever applied to Hollywood.

One has to wonder why the mainstream media bother to try and make the general public aware of security issues... such as the dangers of unencrypted wireless Internet, phishing, what not having a firewall could do and so on.

The chances are, if you watch and know what they're talking about - you're sufficiently knowledgable to avoid these kind of pitfalls... in much the same way the average person might avoid stepping in a bear trap or off a cliff. However, those not sufficiently imbued with knowledge on these matters are likely unable or unwilling to do anything about it.

Which makes them rather pointless. They're simply insulting the intelligence - or perhaps, allowing people to sit back in a moment of smug superiority - of people "in the know" and not doing much more than making people who are at risk worry because all they'll do is bring on some "expert" who will tell us -"WIFI IS UNSAFE" but then make little if any effort to inform people how they might go about securing it.

It actually might be useful if they did because if you know anything about the more prolific viruses or larger DoS attacks these days, you'll know that they are in fact all down to people who allow their computers to be sequestered by trojans etc. which are then used to proliferate said virus or participate in an attack. Which of course, degrades everyone's Internet experience.

Ever notice that sci-fi shows will introduce an enemy - either an individual or a race - who are pretty awesome. Obvious examples would be Star Trek's Borg and Species 8472, SG-1's Replicators and probably the Daleks...

Species 8472 and the Replicators were BOTH notable for something that made them immensely unique in terms of televisual science fiction. They weren't humanoid! Actually, neither were the Daleks but they're not relevant to this particular point. Both 8472 and Replicators were hard ass mofos, hell 8472 blew solar systems apart for kicks... and the Replicators were usually only a few episodes away from galactic domination.

Both of them were of the strong and silent variety - generally not saying anything, just being relentless in their pursuit of the enemy... beyond reason and the like. Which, naturally put them above the average bad guys... the Borg were somewhat similar but let's leave them for a minute. 8472 were no prominent in Voyager but they fell prey to the bad guy budget effect. That means that if you have a cool race of bad guys - but they're kind of expensive (as CGI effects lik 8472 and Replicator) you want to have them but not the expense. So, what do you do? HUMANISE THEM!

Even BSG did it - albeit for somewhat better founded reasons. In Stargate and Star Trek though, the reason was abundantly clear, they wanted to have their cake and eat it. What they seem to have failed to appreciate is that when the Replicators went from evil mechano to the generic SG-1 bad guys... they just lost their appeal. Species 8472 went from being all conquering and evil to being just misunderstood... Aww!

The Replicators clearly proved such a good idea that the immensely original Stargate writers decided to interject a (very slightly different) version of them into Stargate: Atlantis... guess what! They were human too and much like the human form Replicators from SG-1, they proved to be little more than t-1000 clones, albeit with the mincing bad guy Stargate cliché. There was something sinister about evil Mechano, having Five go all emo over Carter was just laughable and played more like the kind of drama you'd except from Internet social sites than anything... and to add insult to injury, they essentially became whipping boys once they got anti-Replicator guns...

Which brings us to the Borg... anyone that has seen their introduction to the Star Trek universe "Q Who" or the seminal "Best Of Both Worlds" from TNG will probably remembering thinking the Borg were immensely powerful. A juggernaut that was as unstoppable as it was relentless. In fact, writers remarked that they would have liked to use the Borg more but they found it hard to think up ways to beat them... what with them being so bad ass and all.

This changed around the time of First Contact. Presumably for reasons of scripting - it might have been hard to play against mute drones or "resistance is futile" for 90+ minutes - we had the introduction of the Borg Queen, who was essentially an arch-villain in the James Bond cat-stroking tradition that Stargate so keenly emulates/parodies. Far be it from Star Trek to let sleeping dogs lie... but we had the obligatory resurrection of the Borg Queen in Voyager.

Where she ostensibly took part in some manner of interstellar lesbian love triangle with Janeway and 7 of 9. Sounds like something out of a badly written slash fic? There can't really have been any other logical explanation for the lengths she went to in attempts to reclaim Jeri Ryan. She was one level below slavering, con attending, mace resistant, can't tell the difference between TV and real life fanboy in her devotion. Which is presumably the explanation for how the Borg went from hardcore to Voyager's whipping boy. Did people writing those episodes know about Wolf 359? An entire fleet wiped out by a single cube. Seemed like a single Voyager could wipe out a fleet of cubes (even without future tech).

It's the inherent danger, you create an enemy so powerful that you want to have them back again but the only way you can have them back is to nerf their power, which of course all but invalidates the reason for having them back in the first place. One notable exception to this nerf rule seems to be the Daleks... once upon a time, all you needed to do was run up so stairs, or to tip them over. Now they're tin pot titans that can fly, suck your face off and take a casual stroll in laser cross fire. That and they came back from being - apparently - erased from time... three times.

Who likes bandwagons more than politicians and the media? Oh, content creators!

Hollywood and the gaming industry are the people who do it to death. With the papers and politicians, they'll drop them after a few days but because of the time involved in making a film or game, it often seems we glut on something... one might argue that the fad for RTS and FPS games that started the better part of fifteen years ago never really ended - to the detriment of other genres.

The problem is that games aren't cheap any more - apparently the next-gen (isn't that term meaningless now?) consoles aren't even going to turn a profit until 2008... all the more reason to make games for the PC, fools -and the days of Billy Nomates in his room making a game that might be commercially viable have passed.

It's rather sad that the variety of games has lessened... while the QUALITY of games has increased dramatically - beyond simply the graphics, production values have improved substantially - it seems as if the games themselves are less original. God games are seemingly a thing of the past - oh, sure you could play the rubbish that Peter Molyneux puts out but really, how much should you be willing to trust someone who left Bullfrog because EA bought it (ostensibly for the purpose of disbanding it), only to go on have his own study sell its soul to them...

As time passes and computer and video games become an increasingly prevalent form of entertainment, it seems somewhat perverse that the diversity of games produced is so much less than it used to be. While there are SOME games that aren't in the FPS/RTS mold - or the large number of generic sport/fighting/racing game of the year that EA knock out - it seems abundantly clear that we need more companies willing to take risks... or we're all going to have to learn how to shoot better.

Perhaps even more lumped together than things that fall within the huge umbrella of "science fiction" are cartoons. Since the rise and rise of The Simpsons, cartoons directed toward adults have been increasingly prevalent... however, despite the fact many of them are totally different - they're all just kind of assumed to be the same and often looked down upon because, obviously cartoons are just for children.

Anyone acquainted with the likes of The Simpsons, Family Guy and South Park - probably the three best known cartoons in the West - will know that while there are some similarities (they're all cartoons, aimed at an adult audience with the intent of being funny) they are three very different shows. These days, The Simpsons favours wacky acomedic adventures... but then, I guess if you'd done over 300 episodes you'd struggle to be funny. Family Guy is mired in pop culture references and cut-aways... And of course, South Park - never far from controversy and easily the most offensive and funniest of the three.

South Park tends - especially these days - to be rather topical. Totally irreverent, not afraid to make fun of itself and there is often a message in there... beyond the one that is hammered home with all the subtly of a sledgehammer. In many ways, this is the kind of counter-culture The Simpsons had in its earlier years, before it lost sight of its roots and simply became a bland, inoffensive kid's show.

Admittedly, if you'd been going for 18 years it would be hard to have the same set of characters go and do something new and exciting every week and probably about the first 7-8 were (well, after season 1/2) extremely enjoyable, well written, clever and not afraid to be satirical and comment - albeit rather backhandedly - about various social situations in the USA. Now though, just wacky adventures... which is rather sad. The only way in which the new episodes are an improvement is that they happen to have a far more polished quality of animation... outside of that, this is a shadow of the original show.

Family Guy started out being rather edgy... and relied a LOT less heavily on pop culture references that are probably lost on most people who don't keep up with contemporary American celebrities and far less of the cutaways, which -as South Park pointed out several times - mean that all the jokes are interchangeable. It's a valid point - Family Guy episodes seldom have any plot of merit and ever since it returned from televisual oblivion many of its episodes have been hit and miss. Not to mention that - by and large - the show has been far more bland and inoffensive since it returned, presumably after the episode with the Jews in it - they got told to cool their jets.

South Park is probably the most consistent of the three... although, admittedly, it's got half the episodes of The Simpsons. It has become more topical - and somewhat more preachy - lately but it's aware of that and it's still as offensive and funny as ever... and while Family Guy had some implausible or surreal elements, South Park uses them with such regularity, it can go pretty much any direction and still be South Park.

Amusingly, Matt Groening has recently said that he thinks that The Simpsons could go on forever... One assumes that means he hasn't watched it in the last ten years or he's just keen on getting the bags of cash that being an executive producer on a cash cow like the The Simpsons entails. Ironic that the words of one of the show's own characters summed it up... "Who knows how long there is between now and when the show stops being profitable."

In any event, they're three rather different programmes and simply because they're all cartoons does not mean that they are instantly analogous to one another... Far from it. Simply because Frasier and Friends were both live action sitcoms, they didn't warrant being lumped together... why should cartoons be any different?

What the hell qualifies as sci-fi?

No - this is not going to be a debacle about "future fantasy" and other such time wasting concept... it's about sci-fi... the non-genre, because sci-fi ISN'T A GENRE. In a sense. Perhaps the delineation was more obvious a while ago.

These days, it seems as if everything is getting tossed into the genre. Lost, Heroes and so on and so on... even Buffy and Angel. All unceremoniously dumped into it... even Smallville. Naturally, science fiction leads to the notion of people flying on rocket ships... that's what sci-fi used to be.

Sci-fi seems different now. We must refute the notion that superpowers constitute sci-fi... a century or close, means they're their own genre. Perhaps more legitimately than sci-fi. Lordy, if Heroes keeps it up... they'll be struggling to make enough superhero films and shows.

But it's not really sci-fi, hell the Sci-Fi channel thinks that horror, giant snakes and pro-wrestling are sci-fi...

Sci-fi is sometime in the future, involves techology beyond us and such... anything else probably needs a better name NOT FUTURE FANTASY.

How are women and the disabled ideologically similar?

They are both groups of people who - despite not being the same as their opposite numbers (men, the able bodied) they want to be treated equally. That might be all well and good... but they don't REALLY want to be treated equally.

How often do cripples go "oh, we want to be treated equally"? Lots... but guess what YOU'RE NOT EQUAL. Equality is - amongst other things - one of the lies of democracy. Most women are probably smarter than most men... black people can run faster than white people, the list goes on. The fact of the matter is that, women and disabled people want to be treated equally... but y'know not really.

The examples are not quite the same, women still except men to romance them, pay for dinner, open doors, inevitably lose custody of children and of course, sexually harass them... but the idea is the same. People who are not the same, not expecting the same but pretend they do.

If cripples said - we want to be treated like disabled people but with normal rights... that would be different. If women said - we want equal pay but ignore the fact we have babies, are moody 3+ days a lunar cycle etc... well, perhaps there are valid reasons to treat people with a degree of equality... but let's not lie. Billy can't walk isn't the same as Jim able bodied.

Ask for things that are SENSIBLE. Equality is a big fucking lie, you're reading this blog... well, that probably means you're better off than 90% of the world... so, don't preach.