In the days of episodic television, there were always villains of the week, showing up just in time for the next episode and being dispatched within the hour. Usually, they had little explanation and even less characterization, and that was okay because no one really cared about the background of this one episode bad guy. Once in a while, though, a villain would appear on the scene who warranted more. He was skilled, not just another in an endless line of mooks. He had a code of honor. He had things he believed in and fought for, and just as often, died for. And for once, we in the audience were forced to stop and rethink the position of our heroes. These 4 bad guys below were doing their jobs, exactly as the heroes do, and from another perspective, they might even be a hero.

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Merchandising, as we’ve touched on before, is one of those things that makes a huge amount of money for these massive franchises. Most of the time, that’s fine, because it gives fans and kids alike figures of their favorite characters. Once in a while, they’ll take famous or popular scenes and base whole playsets and other such things off of them. And sometimes, the people making the merchandise get a little desperate for ideas. Then they turn to scenes that never, ever should’ve been made into toys. That’s how we end up with headscratching toys like these, based on 4 scenes completely inappropriate for toys.

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With Valentine’s Day tomorrow, and carrying on our theme from last week, I thought it’d be nice to honor those couples who are really shown to have a great relationship. Whether that relationship blossomed before our eyes on screen, went through dozens of horrible obstacles, or just came together through a shared need, these couples show that sci-fi romance doesn’t have to happen only at the end of the story, nor does it have to be a shallow “Hero’s Reward” sort of thing. So here are four couples that both earned and proved their love.

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In between the cries of “it’s 2015, I was promised a hoverboard,” it might be easy to forget that certain technologies actually did sprout from sci-fi like that. Science fiction is unique among literature in this regard, in that its fans can go on to shape the world to be more like the fictional ones that they love. Ideas that were once conceived of as cool plot devices are now everyday items. But what makes sci-fi so great at moving people? And why are only certain sci-fi tech pieces appearing on the scene, while others (like the aforementioned hoverboard) languishing on the sidelines? Let’s dive into the topic of defictionalization to find out.

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This week in TV sci-fi news, February starts us off with a movie release, although you’d be better off thinking twice before running to the theater. Plus, things finally start to open up in regards to Star Wars. And of course, our usual metric shitload of Marvel news.

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It’s February, and that means it’s the season of love. Apparently. And while romantic relationships between characters are ubiquitous in Hollywood movies and TV series, some of them are better at establishing these relationships than others. Because after all, it’s not enough to just have your characters jump each others’ bones. There’s gotta be some development, hints and feelings and dashed hopes, all leading up to the big hook-up. Sometimes they just say screw it, and that’s how we end up with these, 4 of the least developed relationships in sci-fi’s small screen history.

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Time for another new experiment here at RetroPhaseShift. I’m going to take a whack at disassembling some of the overly common tropes in sci-fi (or dare I say it–cliches). For our first entry, we’re going to go with the crazy robot/AI trope, looking at where it came from, how it has effected the genre in the time since, and possibly even its effects on the real world. Let’s get into the teardown, shall we?

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“What’s coming?”
“The news roundup. Duh.”

Lots of news this week, which we can mostly thank the Super Bowl for. Tons of summer movies will release their first trailers and begin their marketing pushes during one of the few remaining events to draw massive audiences on mainstream TV. Is that a good reason to finally care about this sporting event? We’re also starting to hear about upcoming sci-fi projects and networks are beginning to send out feelers for fall shows. What more can you really ask for in your sci-fi news?

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News all across the spectrum this week, with developments in Star Trek, Marvel, Star Wars and many others. Too bad there’s not a lot that’s pic worthy. Read more

One of the things that I, for whatever reason, rarely get around to talking about here is animation. When I recently highlighted the fact that some of those alien costumes and makeup application processes used in live action series can be brutal, I made sure to point out that one of the few exceptions to the “TV aliens must be human-like” is if CGI is used to create the alien from scratch. Which does, of course, bring up the question: why don’t we see more science fiction told exclusively through animation? Read more