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.

Read more

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.

Read more

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.

Read more

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.

Read more

With the Avengers: Age of Ultron scenes and trailer attached, I think we all expected something special in this episode to hook new viewers. And it’s a great episode still, I just can’t help but wonder if last week’s might have been better suited for gaining new viewers.

Read more

It’s been exactly 4 years since Syfy announced that Caprica, a Battlestar Galactica prequel series, was canceled. It was a show that ran alongside Stargate Universe, which suffered a similar fate. The show’s ratings struggled, but one has to wonder just how much of it was caused by the quality of these shows, and how much of it was caused by putting basic cable genre shows up against the broadcast networks’ primetime lineups in the fall. Defiance has managed to hang on, and most other Syfy shows have done well in that same summer premiere, when there’s less competition for viewers. And incidentally, Defiance features the same showrunner, Kevin Murphy, that Caprica had. The shows even have similar themes, featuring lots of gay characters (along with many other sexualities too, and even a rare mostly-positive portrayal of polyamory) and both explore wholly created cultures in a sci-fi setting. But be it because it was too soap opera-esque, or because it had a tough timeslot, or just a general lack of interest in the background of that world, Caprica was canceled only halfway through its first season. Still, there were plans set up for the future already, and Kevin Murphy has been open with fans about what they were. So let’s get ready to explore the world of Caprica season 2.

Read more

So, earlier this week I discussed the dark side of franchises, and how all that corporate ownership isn’t always a good thing. In that post, I mentioned Iron Man 2, a film that was burdened by its shared universe connections because of its place in the franchise as a launch point for The Avengers. It had to include flashback scenes with Howard Stark, Black Widow had to show up and bring all of S.H.I.E.L.D. along with her, and Nick Fury evaluating Tony’s potential. And then the post-credits sequence for Thor… Suffice it to say, it didn’t leave as much room for the main plot as most people would have desired, and Whiplash ends up coming off as a silly second-tier threat, at best. But while Iron Man 2 still has plenty of enjoyable scenes to it, not every film is so lucky. Here are 4 films ruined by studios in their quest for franchise creation.

Read more

This week’s episode kept the streak going, while addressing some of the lingering mysteries, introducing a highly anticipated new character, and confirming a ton of fan theories. Plus, the reunion we’ve all been waiting for, even if it was a bit short. Read more

I’ve talked a lot here about franchises, the advantages that they offer to fans and the reasons they are so appealing to the studios. But the reality of the franchise phenomenon has a lot of downsides, too, and as the size of moviegoing audiences shrinks and the number of live TV viewers dwindles, these downsides have only become more prevalent. Today, let’s delve into the dark side of franchises, and explore why giant franchises aren’t always a good thing.

Read more

One of the most interesting opportunities presented by science fiction shows is that of the alternate universe. It gives us a glimpse at another version of our heroes, in a reality where things turned out slightly differently. Perhaps they lost the climactic battle, or maybe someone died early on and caused the group to splinter. Sometimes the differences in these alternate universes (or realities, or timelines, or any other different world from the primary) can be absolutely huge–entire characters might be missing or new ones exist in their place, or worse, the entire landscape of the setting is changed, like with Star Trek‘s Mirror Universe. But there are also these, alternate universes where one can’t even quite imagine how they got to the state they’re in.

Read more