We’re trying a new column this week, with the goal of introducing some of the lesser known sci-fi TV series to a wider audience who might be looking for new shows after binging on more popular works like Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica. As such, my intent is to do these with as few spoilers as possible, while still addressing the main points of interest. We’ll be starting off by looking at Charlie Jade, a 2005 television series that was filmed and set in South Africa, lasting only one season. For this, I’m going to use a rating system, where a 5 represents must-see, 4 is good, solid television, 3 is “cult classic” stage, where the show’s appeal is likely limited to a specific group, 2 is flawed, but fun, or even “so bad it’s good,” and a 1 is avoid at all costs.

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Putting on a TV show is a lot of work. They have to get together as many as 26 episodes, and have them written, filmed, and edited by the time that they’re scheduled to air. There’s no flexibility here. Movie dates get moved back sometimes, but this almost never happens with television (upcoming Syfy miniseries Ascension is a rare example, having been moved back from November to December). What all this really means is that, well, they just don’t have time to make sure every script is perfect before sending it out. Sometimes, the writers just have to accept the fact that this episode is going to be crap and there’s nothing to be done about that. Other times, no one realized how bad this would be on screen until it was already too late, and they can’t just throw the footage away. Everyone just has to make it as best they can and deal with it.

That’s how we ended up with these, four episodes so bad that the creators are more than willing to admit that they screwed up. So let’s honor their honesty by taking a look at what made these episodes worth rejecting.

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Agents of SHIELD has, thus far, not delved into the bad guy’s backgrounds too much. We know Whitehall was a Nazi, and that Skye’s Dad is, well… Skye’s dad, but that’s basically it. Now, at last, we’ve taken the time to flesh out not only their backgrounds, but to a certain extent Bakshi’s as well, and the whole show benefits from it. We also have to deal with this tease that “someone’s going to die” which has been running all week. Thanks, Sweeps.

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two weeks ago, when exploring the idea of the “anti-Trek,” I mentioned that I feel the lack of space-based TV shows in recent years can be attributed to the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. But the truth is, of course, not so simple, and the path to BSG has its roots in reality. We can point it down almost to the day: September 11, 2001.

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On here, one of my most popular topics is “What Could Have Been,” where I go over the now-public plans for seasons and shows that never developed. But what about those times when these major losses were narrowly averted? Once in a while, things align just right, and looking back, it’s hard to imagine how the show could have continued without this one aspect. And yet, there were many moments of serendipity that ended up playing a huge part in these shows’ success. So today, we honor just a few of those close calls by looking at “What Almost Wasn’t,” with 4 near misses from the annals of Sci-fi history, focusing today on casting and characters.

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With Ward having escaped in the last episode, the team has their hands full. Also, Coulson’s reaching Garrett levels of alien-crazy and we really gotta do something about that. But he’s not the only one having visions of alien writing, and the others are somehow handling it even worse.

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It’s been an interesting run of Doctor Who this year, to put it delicately. This was the first time we’ve not had a ridiculously long break right in the middle of the season, for example. We’ve also tacked away from the overly convoluted arc-based storytelling of series 6 and the stand-alone blockbuster style of series 7, settling for a more moderate approach with some serialization and some stand-alone, with two-parters and longer episodes where needed. That’s on top of a new Doctor, a retooled companion and a radical shift in tone. So how did all this add up?

Spoilers throughout the season ahead.

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Sometimes writers make missteps in their shows. They make a move, be it killing off a character, or retooling the show, or what have you, that enrages the fans. A lot of the time, this will kill the show, but not always. If not, the writers will backpedal, returning things to the way they were in the hopes of maintaining the show a little longer. But once in a while that misstep just happens to be right at the end, when the show was scheduled to finish anyway, and there’s no chance to correct it. And when that happens, the lackluster finale can be enough to, in retrospect, ruin the entire experience of watching the show. That’s what happened with these four, finales and final seasons that so radically changed what we knew about the work that it’s no longer enjoyable. This is a highly subjective thing, so I’m sure that plenty of people will disagree with my list, but all I can do is describe it from my perspective.

With that said, here we go. Naturally, it’s nothing but spoilers past this point.

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There’s no denying that Star Trek is a massive cultural force in America and throughout the world. It’s become almost synonymous with sci-fi, and the pop culture image of the nerd or geek stereotype is inevitably a young man with some kind of Trek paraphernalia on him. So it’s no shock that, as time went on, people would try to draw attention to their own works by comparing them to Star Trek. And thus emerges this idea of “the Anti-Trek,” a nebulous descriptor if ever there was one. It’s a term that’s been applied from shows as varied as Blake’s 7 in the 70’s to Farscape to the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. To figure out just what this means, and establish what traits an “Anti-Trek” must possess, we’ll have to examine the show itself and what each series is comparing to.

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In their quest for creating profitable franchises, sometimes companies can get a little shortsighted. They push movies through before they’re ready, make dumb changes, and approve all kinds of things that never should have been approved. When enough of these mistakes come together, they can add up and start dragging down the resulting movie. Sometimes that means the film gets canceled, and sometimes it’s too late to cancel. They have to put out what they’ve got. And what they’ve got… is shit. The franchise the film was supposed to continue is shot dead in its tracks. While they might not stay down forever, these 4 films certainly did a number on their parent franchises.

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