If you’re not a fan of Doctor Who, you probably wouldn’t know it, but the recent episode “Kill the Moon” has been divisive, to say the least. Most of the disagreement hinges on one thing: the believability of the plot. Scientific accuracy in science fiction is often a sticking point for fans. Some enjoy very “hard” sci-fi, kept extremely realistic by using only technology that is plausible today. These kinds of shows are rare, since that means no faster-than-light travel, no artificial gravity (which is very hard to film), no humanoid aliens, etc. The alternative is “soft” sci-fi, which bends the rules of reality for the sake of storytelling. On TV, this is often not just story-influenced, but influenced by the budget, as well. Star Trek didn’t use human-like aliens because they wanted to; they didn’t have a choice, as puppetry or stop-motion would be too expensive, and CGI wasn’t an option in the 60’s (and barely an option for TNG in the 80’s). Even today, CGI often breaks the budget, so having CGI aliens in every episode isn’t possible. So why are some deviations from real science okay, and some not?

While I don’t want to focus too much on “Kill the Moon,” some discussion of it is necessary, so spoilers for that episode ahead, if you care. Read more

There’s been a bit of a theme as of late, with most of my recent posts dealing with cancellation and renewal and cliffhanger endings. So today we’re going to keep that rolling by taking a look at how the Netflix binge-watching trend has affected the development of TV versus the way things used to be in the past.

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Seeing how popular the Stargate Atlantis article was last month, I thought we’d continue on this trend by taking a look at the lost future of its younger brother, Stargate Universe. Much like Atlantis, it was canceled prematurely, but unfortunately it wasn’t really given a satisfying ending. The producers tried to pull out the wrap up movie technique for this also, so we once again have two different possibilities that the show could have taken to continue on. There’s a lot less solid info for this one, given that it’s more recent, and part of it is still being withheld from the public on the vague hopes that the story may still be finished in some form, be it television or otherwise. Let’s push forward into inevitably depressing territory with vanished potential of Stargate Universe Season 3.

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When you have a shared universe, one of the biggest benefits is the crossover–bringing characters from one show within the property over to another show. Agents of SHIELD is starting off its second season tomorrow with a crossover of sorts, featuring flashbacks with Agent Peggy Carter before her own spinoff starts early next year. While this situation is a little different, as both Agents of SHIELD and Agent Carter are spinning off from the same parent property, they still have enough in common to enjoy the benefits of a crossover. And with that in mind, I thought it would be a good time to examine the crossover and how it helps with the cohesiveness and plausibility of a shared universe. Read more

So, we’ve discussed the history of the webisode, and looked at some of the earlier examples. But as I said at the end of that piece, those early webisodes are quite different from how this medium is utilized today. If webisodes aren’t usually spinoffs, then what are they? And why should anyone care to look them up?

As we’ve already established, webisodes have been linked with sci-fi for a long time. You occasionally see them for sitcoms (Scrubs: Interns comes to mind), but more often than not, the invented world of a sci-fi show provides the kind of room for exploration needed to create interesting web content. One of the biggest shows to utilize the webisode format has been Doctor Who. As an early adopter to the idea, Doctor Who has experimented a lot trying to figure out what makes for a successful webisode. Naturally, then, I’m going to be using it as an example frequently throughout for the different varieties out there. Without further ado, let’s explore the concept and what value it has in a storytelling capacity. Read more

New forms of media are always going to be hard to deal with. Back in the 90’s, and all the time before, a TV viewer got what came on the screen, at a specific time, and nothing more. Did they have to cut a scene for time? You’ll never know, cause you’ll never see it. That started to change when DVDs with bonus features emerged, but it took a while for studios to figure out that adding extra material to the discs could be a real selling point. Deleted scenes, blooper reels, commentary tracks, behind-the-scenes featurettes, even concept art–all these things and more are what helped DVDs become the new default home media experience over VHS. Well, that and ridiculously improved picture quality.

But just as it took time to work out what benefits a DVD offered, so, too, is the usefulness of the Internet being worked out. It’s been known for a long time that the internet offered a very unique point of leverage with a show’s fanbase. Look around Memory Alpha and you’ll see that AOL web chats with the producers (Often Ronald D. Moore, specifically) were common among Star Trek fan circles in the late 90’s. It gave fans some insight into the production of the show, how certain plot points were decided upon (“Whatever happened to Thomas Riker?” being a popular one), and allowed the writers to have some back and forth with the fans, to get a feel for where the show was succeeding and where it was failing to resonate with them. Of course, you always have to be careful when taking advice from the fandom; we often don’t know what we really want, and there have been no small number of shows that have died from catering too much to a picky fanbase. Read more

With Defiance having finished its second season, it’s time for me to shift gears and get ready for my next series to review: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I know, I keep starting out with things that are on their second season, but there’s not a lot of new stuff coming in the near future (Syfy’s Ascension excluded) so I’ll run with what I’ve been into. To the topic at hand, then: SHIELD (as I will refer to it for the sake of my keyboard) was a highly anticipated show last year, and when it premiered it didn’t exactly meet everyone’s expectations. Even the highly anticipated tie-in with Thor 2 was a bit of a disappointment for those who (unrealistically) expected a cameo or something. It was frustrating because, much like season 1 Defiance, there was a lot of potential going unused as the show dealt with small and seemingly irrelevant details. Things changed big time, however, after the winter break.

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The demise of Stargate Atlantis has long been a point of contention in the Stargate fandom. While the story of how it ended has changed over the years, the commonly believed version is that Atlantis was canceled to make room for Stargate Universe, which aimed to take the franchise in new (not necessarily fan-approved) directions. The truth is a bit more complex, but even at the end of its run, Atlantis was popular, with solid ratings, an active fanbase, and growing good will for accepting and addressing some of the more common criticisms of the show. Whether its cancellation was deserved or not, we have to face the fact that with the reboot in the works, there’s no going back to Atlantis. With that in mind, the show’s writers have been uncommonly open about their plans, particularly Joe Mallozzi, who posted in great detail what he felt he could share about Stargate Atlantis season 6. There’s a lot to dig through, however, so I’m going to try to condense it all in one place.

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The second season of Syfy’s Defiance has ended, with a pretty good two episode finale. While I tend to focus on small moments in my reviews of each episode, I’d like to stop and look back now at the season as a whole. I feel this is the best way to gauge the quality of it, as things that didn’t really seem to contribute much before may have more to offer in hindsight. So, let’s take a look at some of the running storylines of the season and the new things that were added to try to see what worked and what didn’t.

Needless to say, this is 100% spoilers. Proceed only if you’ve finished the season!

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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was heralded upon its arrival as something revolutionary. A television series, set in the same universe as films, affected by the fallout of each one as they were released while allowing viewers to keep an eye on this world in the interim. It’s something not too different from how Defiance‘s MMORPG connection was described. And, much like with Defiance, it’s something that actually has been seen before, although few people tend to think of it in the same way. This time, however, it’s a much better known property: Star Trek. You see, when The Next Generation started in the 1980s, the feature films with the TOS crew were still being produced. Let’s take a look at some of the significant differences between the approaches of these two series and how the concept of a shared universe has evolved.

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