Sci-Fi Show Favorites – Roundtable

Greetings, my fellow space travelers, and travelers

perhaps through time and space, and other bits

of perhaps, I don't know, unusual ways to travel.

Teleporting, that's a way to do it. Anyway, I

am your host for this show, Lieutenant Commander

Mike the Birdman Dodd, and yes, you are - are

aboard, yet again, the USS Future Imperfect.

But in this show, we are not going to be talking

about Star Trek. I know, blasphemy, heresy, and

other forms of sorcery. No, we're actually going

to be talking about some of our favorite sci

-fi shows over the past, well, I guess, our lives

pretty much entirely. And they may be space shows.

They may be anthology shows. They could be anything.

We really don't know. But of course, I am not

alone as I pretty much drive this spaceship right

through the walls of... Well sanity and whatever

else I'm joined with captain Stephen Phillips

Hello, and of course my co -host on twig my ever

lovable compatriot I'm ever lovable. Okay. Well

You are very entertaining and you keep me most

often from not saying something stupid. However

off air Oh God, oh, yeah, or sometimes. Yeah,

even things earlier today where I'm like stop

And then finally, we welcome back to the show.

We're going to be welcoming back Aaron Pauly,

and he is a freelance writer, has done stuff

for Star Trek Adventures and also written for

Cadillac Game Labs for lines such as Battle Tech.

And Aaron is just a huge sci -fi nerd. So welcome

back to the show, Aaron. Oh, I'm glad to be here.

And yeah, I am a sci -fi nerd. I'll admit it.

It is fun to get this panel back together here

for the show, because as we enjoy week, I don't

even know what this is of quarantine. It's time

for us to welcome together. We're all together

kind of binge watching TV at our own speeds.

But what better time than now to revisit some

old classics? So Steve kind of pitched the idea

back in our little group chat that we kind of

do for the organization of this show. But why

don't we talk about our favorite sci fi properties

and well with COVID -19 causing pretty much everybody

in the world to be using Amazon Prime, Hulu,

Netflix or any other number of streaming services

around the world. Well, maybe you can find some

of these on there or you can find them to buy

through Amazon, although pretty sure your order

will be delayed. But that's just the nature of

the beast. So let's kind of go around the table

once and then everybody will name their first

pick and then we'll come back around the table

again. And that's how we'll. do it so on and

so forth. Everybody's going to pick two of their

shows they want to wax philosophical about for

just a couple of minutes. And then we're going

to talk about one putty or everybody's each going

to get a honorable mention. as well so those

ones won't be covered necessarily as uh in depth

as the ones we're waxing the philosophical about

so I'll start things off to kind of give you

guys an idea on where we're going to start tonight

so um the first show that I really want to talk

about is going all the way back to the 90s back

when neon pants were in um grunge was playing

on the radio and the spice girls were still a

thing so obviously what a time to be alive and

one of the shows that happened to come on in

the mid 90s and I remember catching this on the

premiere night very much by accident and I watched

it almost every night until it went to the sci

-fi channel and then ended in a very crappy very

stupid way The show I'm talking about was Fox's

Slider starring Jerry O 'Connell, the Dwarf from

Lord of the Rings, and some other people who

I'm sure that did other things, but I can't remember.

Oh, Carrie Wither, who came, I think she was

a Season 3 cast member. Yeah, Carrie, we're,

we're, we're, I think it's how it's... Yeah,

we're, we're, yeah. Oh yeah, she's from Anaconda,

right? Yeah. So this show for those of you that

don't necessarily know to kind of give you an

idea is there's this in Inventor named Quinn

Mallory. He's a young brilliant scientist and

he basically goes to school during the day helps

out his mom and He just wants to be a good scientist

be a good kid He wants to help invent something

that'll help the world. So he has this invention

in his basement He doesn't know what it does

yet. He's a brilliant Physicist and all this

thing. So he has an idea for I think it's supposed

to be like clean energy or something like that

But he picks up the device. Well, he's actually

because I I did go back and rewatch He's a student

of Professor Arturo played by John right? That's

right who that's it and he gets into an argument

with the professor The professor saying that

you know that the multiverse is just a theory

And Quinn says, well, what if I can prove that

it exists? So he basically takes a bunch of projects

he was working on and sort of retools it to try

to solve the problem. It's a problem that Arturo

had been working on for his entire life. And

then he's like, well, what if I could solve it?

And Arturo is like, huh, you can solve it. Prove

it. So he goes, fine, I will. And he's working,

working, working, and comes to a, you know, that's.

sort of where it comes from and he comes to a

point where he's like I guess I just can't solve

it so he is going to abandon it and then the

show sort of begins okay yeah I thought it was

a clean uh clean energy project no it was it

was literally it was like a um it was like a

90s movie trope of like the kid who can upstage

the professor sort of deal I think one of the

alternate quins built it for clean energy Yeah,

that's right. All right. So as the show begins,

he, uh, he takes the remote. I can't remember

if it was called anything special. Um, but he

takes it and it activates this floating portal

in the air and he doesn't know what it does,

but he's like, okay, this is not good. Um, and

I think he jumps through it once and he manages

to come back, doesn't he? He shows. Okay. He

shows up. at home and he goes downstairs and

looks at his blackboard, which he had covered

up and he's like, why is it uncovered? And then,

and he's like, wait, the math is completed. He

wasn't smart enough to complete the math. He's

like, how is it completed? And he looks at it,

he goes, oh, that makes sense. And then in his

chair turns around another version of him who

is a slider who's already developed it. And he's

like, he goes, you were almost there, man. He

goes, I just, I, you know, saved you three months

of figuring it out sort of deal. and then he's

like he starts to give him he starts to slide

through he goes gives him warning he's like don't

uh remember don't change the timer once it started

like he starts to give his instructions as he

gets pulled through the wormhole so he doesn't

quite hear everything so this is a situation

where he the math is solved for him he is somebody

who could solve it himself but because he didn't

solve it himself this is part of the dilemma

that they get themselves into in that he doesn't

know how to rebuild it once things don't go right

Oh, that's right, because they have to find other

timers from other versions. Yeah. In some episodes

or the timer gets like he's having to repair

things and figure things out on the fly because

the other version of himself is literally a version

of himself from, from a parallel universe that

happens to be a few months ahead of where we

currently are in the prime universe. Yeah. Cause

that's one of the things sliders is very distinct

in its premise, its parallel universes, it's

not time travel, though they do have a few time

travel episodes. Well, it's not time travel except

once or twice it happens. It's not time travel.

In the very first episode in the pilot, it's

not that he travels through time. Another slider

doesn't even travel through time. It's that universe

is further ahead. If that makes any sense. It's,

you know, for whatever reason. It's a parallel

universe that maybe works at a different speed

than we do sort of deal. Yeah, like the laws

of physics are different, right? Yeah, they had

some very specific rules in the first two seasons,

which is basically the first season is kind of

short and then the second season as well. So

it makes up a total of, I think, like 25 or 26

episodes. It's halfway through season three where

they're like, well, the showrunner is gone and

things go crazy. But for the most part. Uh, yeah,

they had some simple rules, no time travel. Uh,

you're the same, you know, you're the same person,

you're in the same place and they, they start

to deviate later on, but it was easy enough rules

that pretty much any family could get behind

because when the show premiered, was it 94? 94

or 95, something like that. Yeah. So it was a

family event for us to sit down and watch. I

was like eight when this show started, maybe.

i think i was in high school yeah i was in my

late teens yeah so like like for a family we

sat down we had basic cable um and we watched

our deal was if i remember correctly did this

not air right before x -files uh no this aired

on wednesday nights before beverly hills 90210

and then it was on friday nights maybe it was

before the x -files then yeah okay no okay no

because yeah because yeah it was because the

three episodes of shows we used to watch back

-to -back were we would watch Prisco County Junior

in the first year it was on with the X -Files

and then I'm pretty sure after that show got

cancelled that's when they moved Sliders over

and then it became Sliders it would be Sliders,

X -Files and Millennium and that was like we

as a family wouldn't really sit down to watch

much but that Friday night time slot that's what

we watched. A slider is a good choice, though.

Sliders is a really good choice. I mean, it's

clear that most of us have watched it. I own

it on DVD. And yeah, I really enjoyed it. I've

read the book that I feel the show is based on.

That's Coming of the Quantum Cats by Frederick

Pohl. And it's actually one of my favorite sci

-fi novels of all time. So obviously, I enjoyed

the show. I even named my cat Schroedinger because

of that show. But yeah, yeah, good choice. Yeah.

It was one of those shows that I'd never seen

anybody be that inventive and creative because

I grew up in rural Ontario, Canada. So it's not

like I had a whole access to a wide variety of

programming. And at that time, the major Canadian

broadcasters bet on fairly safe television. You

didn't see a lot of sci fi stuff get major play

on our networks here. And this is because Global

at the time was a major Fox carrier. we got a

lot of their programming. So seeing this show

was something special for me as a kid growing

up. Um, it wasn't until a few years later, I

feel like it was because of that. It was that

show, the Highlander TV show, uh, and maybe one

other that would have opened the door. And then

it was like CTV started producing tons of stuff

in the late nineties because of them. Yeah, like

it was just something so different and so radical.

Plus, I thought the cast had just a chemistry

to it that I think was very good up until about

the third season. And there are two episodes

that I remember very, very, very clearly and

one which made me really sad when it happened

where they killed the professor. It's been 20

years, folks, you've had time. And that's where

they go to a planet or, sorry, they go to a world

where their son is going to get destroyed by

like a supernova or something. And they're like,

if we don't evacuate in three days, the timer

says they have exactly that much time. They're

going to get left behind. But they find the other

version of Professor Arturo there. And he's like,

I can help you. they don't, at the end of that

episode, you don't know which Arturo got left

behind because just as the show ends, you see

Arturo go, my God. And it's just, it leaves just

a lingering question in your mind. And that was

where the big bad guy was played by Roger Daltrey

of The Who, the singer of The Who. Uh, I, I,

as a kid, I was mesmerized by it. I was like,

no. And then going back as an adult and watching,

I'm like, this was hokey. It was, that was where

That was the tipping point. You could see where

the quality of everything went downhill. Yeah.

Remember, he gets something injected into his

head and he's like, my brains, I'm stupid now.

You remember that? I thankfully do not. Yeah,

they may remember most. Oh, go ahead, I'm sorry.

He has to pretend that he's had a lobotomy. Just

that mental image is hilarious. He literally

slurs his words and he goes, brain, they did

something to my brain. And he turns his head

and there's puncture marks. And then he like

saves them by being dumb or something. Um, the

other episode I remember, cause I thought this

was a clever way to get around it, but sliders

had a zombie episode. Um, and the, the setup

was there was like a beauty manufacturer or something

along those lines and the people of, of that

world that undergone some treatments, they became

ravenous for fat. So they would. So if they were,

if, if they wanted to see their hunger, they

needed to eat fat. So it was a really clever

way to get around it and I seem to remember a

lot of black lights in this episode too because

if you saw the creatures underneath like black

lighting. I remember there being a lot of neon

effects. Um, but I thought that was a clever

way to do the zombie trope without it being the

George Romero slow type in lumbering zombies.

And this is well before Danny Boyle's 28 days

later running zombies. In fact, I think this

is the first time I remember seeing running zombies

out of return out outside of maybe return of

the living dead. Um, but I thought it was clever.

Absolutely. Can I pick just I'll pick two that

I like. I don't remember the names of the episodes

necessarily, but for one thing, the one thing

that that show gave us was Crying Man. Yes, Rembrandt

was awesome. He's the only one that makes it

through every episode to the very end, because

everybody forgets there was a fifth season on

the Sci -Fi channel that was bad. I remember.

I remember, unfortunately. And it finally came

out on DVD years later, and it was repackaged

with the Mill Creek set that I have, which I've

still never seen all of it. I've seen the ending,

and I was like... Ugh. But as far as episodes

that stand out, anything with the chromags, instead

of having aliens, they went the other route of,

oh, well, they're not aliens. They're another

species that evolved on a different Earth, where

humans evolved in two different ways. And I remember

specifically, it was either the first time they're

introduced or one of the other times when they're

captured, I think, in a two -parter. And they're

being shown, they're basically being tortured

by being shown everything they want to find out

the coordinates to their home, even though they

don't technically know it, right? And so like,

they're, I remember correctly, one of the characters

was it, it was either Quinn or it was Crying

Man, figures it out that these people with them,

I think it's Crying Man, figures out that they're

not, that they're being manipulated and mind

controlled because he's talking to his father

or something. And he's like, all we have to do

is just tell them and they promise they'll take

us home and blah, blah, blah. And then we can

be with your mother and your sister. And then

he's like, okay. And he's like, who the hell

are you? I don't have a sister. And it's because

obviously they were basing it on another version

of of Rembrandt's past or on a parallel world.

So he literally figures it out because they start

feeding him information as if he's supposed to

know it and he has no idea what they're talking

about. And at the very end of that episode, excuse

me, there was a human girl, I remember, that

was trying to help them, but in reality she was

like a sleeper agent working for the Cro -Mags.

And at the end of it, Um, you see the chromatics

talk to her and they're like, you've done very

good for yourself. You know, you did exactly

what we asked. You may have, and then they said,

you may have one hour in the gardens before you

go back to your cage. And that's how the episode

ends. And I was like, ho ho ho as a kid, I was

like, Whoa, I've not seen anything like that

in a show before. Uh, and the other episode,

which is actually from season one, which is,

I think it's episode two or three. That's very

on the nose right now is an episode about a pandemic.

Yeah, that's that's actually the second episode.

And that's what I would say I actually clearly

remember and think it's one of my favorite episodes.

They show up and there's sick people everywhere.

Like people are coughing or like trying to hide

that they have a cough and there's like dead

in the streets. They're walking around and they

see garbage men. They're like, what the hell

is that? They're picking up a dead body and chucking

it in the back of the garbage truck. And they're

like something's not right here and it's all

because yeah it's basically it's because penicillin

was never invented the and that there is no antibiotics

yeah there's no antibiotics because and they're

because they're they're of the belief that every

form of bacteria is bad and because of that they're

basically the equivalent of anti -vaxxers and

it and the mentality it shows the people reacting

in a way that is not unlike what you're seeing

the panic that's happening now. And when I watched

it, when I first watched that, that's the episode

that stuck with me from the first time it aired.

And it aired back in 95, that's when the first

season aired. That stuck with me and it's also

it stuck with me for a bad reason too just because

it's the first time where Slider shows that you

have this giant break point in history that goes

back obviously before the invention of penicillin

let's say even before the invention of like sulfur

powder topical powder but yet the world almost

looks exactly the same whereas a world that honestly

never had antibiotics or anything like that would

clearly be very very different from ours it would

probably be And so at least that episode made

me think about it quite a bit, just because.

Yeah, even as a kid, if it was 95, I would have

been nine. But I remember asking my parents,

I'm like, what would it be like? Every episode

of that show would end and our family would sit

down and talk. Is that realistic? Could that

possibly happen? Or what would it be like? And

I remember my parents telling me, they're like,

well, because I even as a kid was like, how would

we have gotten as far as we did if we didn't

have immunities? And my parents just said, well,

you know, they're not experts on it, but they

said, well, if you look, there's not a whole

lot of people and it's probably not a case of

a whole bunch of people just randomly died. It's

literally that the population would start to

grow and then then you'd have these waves where

people died from sickness and only the strong

people that ended up developing antibodies would

actually survive. Which may or may not be true,

but like it was something that, you know, as

a nine year old kid, it made me think. A lot

of the episodes would make you think, at least

about like what, how could something like this

happen? Even if they went to a world that they

didn't really have a good explanation, at least

it would make you think about it. Even if it

didn't really make a lot of sense in the end,

it still made you think at the very least. Yeah,

especially seasons one and two and the first

bit of season three. Yeah, I'll say season one

and two were great. I really enjoyed them. um

as just good science fiction well the money episode

they just go through an atm like it just gives

us whatever we want you want fifty thousand dollars

it'll give you fifty thousand dollars and they

gave me a lotto ticket you know not realizing

that their entire their population control is

based on a lotto you win the lotto you die for

the greater good but in to to win the lotto like

if you want money and and to live a better life

you can totally do that you can have as much

money as you want But every dollar you take out

puts your number higher in the lotto. I think

they kind of did this with the hunger games too.

If you're willing to get more stuff for your

family, you end up with more entries into, I

think it's called the reaping in the hunger games.

And when, if you get picked in the reaping, then

you compete in hunger games and well, good for

your family, not so good for you. So that's kind

of neat. We all agree that we kind of enjoyed

sliders, right? Yeah, absolutely. So moving on

to, I guess, the next person on our panel, let's

throw things to Steve, because you've been kind

of quiet. So what's your first pick? Well, kind

of just on the sliders thing, I've seen a little

bit of it, but not quite enough to really make

any comments. But I'm definitely intrigued on

going back and watching, though. Yeah, it's surprisingly

good sci -fi for its time. It's not timeless,

but it does present some very interesting ideas

and it's got more personality than it does for

a lot of shows of its era. And I think it's definitely

something more people in 2020 should probably

check out because, hey, some good escapism because,

oh God, I hope there's a parallel world where

2020 is not a dumpster fire. It did a heck of

a lot on a ridiculously low budget. Very little

effects. you know, only once or twice per show,

and they were able to make a sci -fi show with

almost no sci -fi in it. You know, I mean the

traditional tropes, which is interesting. Yeah.

So one of my favorite shows right now that's

not Star Trek is The Orville, but it feels like

Star Trek. specifically like Star Trek The Next

Generation, a lot of the character tropes and

types are there in varying capacities. I mean,

you have your the K -lon, which is basically

he's basically data, like in a sense. And then

you have Bortas, who's basically a Klingon like

wharf, you know, making crazy suggestions. They're

like, no, constantly. I don't know, something

about it, like the first three episodes seem

to be very Seth MacFarlane -y, if I'm going to

coin the word there. They seem very much like

a family guy type of setup for the jokes. And

not to say that they don't come back periodically,

but it got more serious and more... More of the

the dynamic that the next generation had Throughout

its throughout its run so it was it's quite enjoyable

to Tune into that you get to see you know things

as people getting promoted people leaving the

ship people Basically almost dying which are

all of them are very Classic Trek tropes there,

but you do have a lot of old Trek people involved.

You have Brandon Braga, who's the one of the

executive producers of the program. And funny

enough, another show I'm going to mention later

had him kind of involved too. But there's just

a lot of guest stars from varying franchises,

a lot of a lot of Star Trek alumni that show

up. which just goes to show how much people want

to be on this program. I'm honestly looking forward

to season three because it seems to get better

every season. They introduced time travel in

a weird and funky way in season two. And the

funny thing is that I'm not going to blow it

because I don't think Dodd's seen it. Nope. We've

been forcing him, trying to get him to watch

it. And he's like, I will, I will. And then he

doesn't. But yeah, they have some time travel

in season two and it ends in the fashion that

you would think it would In you know, basically

a broken timeline Or, you know the plot holes

that Trek sometimes conveniently Ignores along

the way this kind of didn't forget that but you

also get Like Jonathan Frakes Robert Duncan McNeil

previous Trek actors directing the show So it

it's I don't know. It's really one of my favorites

Sci -fi shows right now not only because it's

humorous but because It kind of hits that note

that the next generation hit which resonates

with me quite a bit one of one of the episodes

that stand out to me in season one is majority

rule and I'm pretty sure Alex knows what I'm

talking about with that one uh and again because

it's sort of a one -off we can talk about it

that for one thing anybody that might have been

put off with it being like oh it's family guy

in space that's the first two to three episodes

uh they really toned down a lot of the you know

one -liners for no reason after that and the

comedy starts to fit and it becomes more of a

this is just a light -hearted uh show with a

heavy message in some parts uh majority rules

is Similar I think Stargate might have done a

similar episode back in the day but it's literally

they they find themselves in a culture in a world

where your entire status as a citizen as basically

your entire life is based on how many people

like you on social media and so it's like if

you purchase the wrong thing and you get down

votes well if you hit like a certain threshold

You can go to court for being unpopular. Yeah,

so you go to rehabilitation. You can be put to

death for being unpopular. You can basically

get a lobotomy to follow what the masses want

for being different. Yeah, and it's crazy just

because it's like social media now. It's just

the perception of it. There's no facts behind

it. It's just because two of the people from

the union, which is basically Federation in this,

um are doing first contact reconnaissance on

the planet and uh they're sitting on a bus and

have no idea that there's a pregnant lady standing

next to them holding on to um the the bar trying

to you know just holding on on the bus and because

they didn't get up and give the seat to her uh

somebody recorded it uploaded it to their the

feed as it's called and then they were sent on

a rehabilitation tour. So but one of the one

of the characters of the Orville, John Lamar,

he starts grinding on one of their statues in

the town. He's like, oh, is it, you know, is

this how you do, you know, the sexy dance or

whatever? And so they they're like, stop doing

that. Somebody recorded it. And then they're

like, what happened with your your You know,

why are you getting so many down votes? What

did you do? And then, uh, so they're just feeding

a bunch of junk into the, the feed from the,

from the Orville, you know, flooding it with,

you know, puppies and he's a military guy. Yeah,

they basically put on a like full fledged, um,

like viral video campaigns slash, um, misinformation

Russia style campaign, uh, to try to. Swayed

public opinion. Yeah So it's it's it's very Reminiscent

of Star Trek and that it touches on a lot of

philosophical issues that are going on during

the time of the show But it puts a neat spin

on them is what I think I enjoy about it But

yeah this show I definitely recommend this just

because it's more light -hearted It's easier

to get into you don't necessarily have to watch

them in order Although some of the characters

interactions obviously evolve as the series goes

along, it's not serialized like Deep Space Nine

towards the end or like Picard or like Discovery.

It's very much standalone like The Next Generation,

but it does have that overarching evolution of

characters where they, you know, they start meshing

and they start kind of getting along or things

of that nature. So the closest thing is like

for somebody like Birdman that hasn't seen it

You've seen the first three seasons of Stargate

SG -1. It's that style Where you you have that

you have an arc there might be two episodes that

connect every season directly But they might

do something like introduce a character in like

the fifth episode that doesn't show up again

till a multi -part episode later on and become

a significant part of the show and Some of the

some of the guests that they have on there that

are recurring like they have Victor Garber who

is in Legends of Tomorrow they have Norm Macdonald

from Saturday Night Live. They'd rob low playing

the the one that he's a he's basically like the

Orion slave girl type of thing but in a different

fashion, which I'm not gonna blow it because

it's stupid, but it's funny They they have Liam

Neeson guest stars they have Charlie's Theron

Tony Todd Tim Ross, Jason Alexander, John Billingsley,

Robert Picardo. So it's, they get a lot of big

name people in it. And the writers room is not

necessarily like the head writers of previous

Trek, but it's a who's who of writers for Voyager,

DS9 and like one or two from the last season

or two of Next Jam. So it's everybody that's

worked collectively on You know, if you added

up all their experience, we're talking 100 years

plus worth of TV programming. Plus they have

sci -fi knowledge. So their stuff makes sense.

And there are people that have worked on shows

with very strict and fleshed out series Bibles.

So that's my thoughts. And the big thing with

it coming to Hulu. Lulu has some great shows,

but they also don't last very long. I'm watching

Future Man season three right now, and I'm so

sad that it's going to be over because they don't

really green light shows to go past, you know,

one or two seasons, usually. That being said,

apparently this was like this move was actually

at the behest of McFarland himself, and he was

told that they would have more creative freedom.

Which I they seem to have gotten away with what

they wanted to get away with But I'm guessing

with there might have been some stuff that they

are topics. He wanted to chat to tackle that

Like Fox prime wouldn't have allowed with the

base audience that they have mmm Because I feel

like they were bordering on some stuff that Fox

wouldn't have wanted like the the episode that

probably sticks out in my mind the most is there

is a an episode where there is a race that everybody's

told is single gendered. And then you come to

find out that's not the case. It's that after

childbirth, anybody that's born a female gets

automatically transitioned to a male. And it

becomes a dilemma of their version of the federation

protects... certain rights, but they also have

to respect the culture of the planet, blah, blah,

blah. And there's situations that arise and they

don't just say one is purely evil or one is wrong,

one is right. They actually explore all sides

of the question and come to the conclusion that,

hey, there's not really going to be a right answer.

And then that plays a bigger role later on in

season two. And then they have another episode

where there's like hollow sweet addiction in

a different capacity. I'm going to leave that

alone. More like hollow porn hub sweet. Yeah.

Yeah, like Mike. It's like Barkley if he actually

would have got away with what he was trying.

Mike, the ship gets a virus because they used

hollow porn. That's amazing now. I'm a little

bit more interested now It's not just that it's

they go one guy goes in these land Basically,

the fantasy is an orgy and they're like we're

here for your pleasure and he's like I don't

really want the pleasure and but they're like

all crawl all over me it's like make it stop

but because the Because it's malfunctioning.

They can't turn off the program. Oh Well then,

that has piqued my interest. The Orville, you

guys have pitched me at some super show. And

now I did watch the first episode. It didn't

really enthrall me. Yeah, the first three, it's

hard to get past. I will be honest. That's what

I've heard. And I myself have often said, I'll

give every show five episodes. So I need to honor

what I've always said and do just that. To be

honest, don't even watch the first three because

we can summarize privately that to you off air.

And just start a bunch of four onward because

we've talked about it a few times. You saw the

first episode The next two is still finding its

footing. They also fox made the mistake I believe

of airing an episode or two out of order initially

because that's what fox does um, and then it

picks up also, um as far as uh star trek, uh,

I guess alumni the doctor is played by um, oh

i'm gonna blank out her name, but she was she

was in deep space nine the girlfriend that of

uh cisco, yeah Well then. I'll chime in about

Orville. I'll say that I've watched the first

three episodes, and as you can probably tell

from your own comments about the first three

episodes, they kind of turned me off of the show.

But I ended up watching more of it, and I stopped.

And I kind of regret it in some ways, but The

reason why I stopped was I still couldn't get

over the humor and how the first three episodes

kind of soured me on the entire series. But the

other part of it that was just not sitting right

with me was that it was Star Trek, but it wasn't.

The music. It's Star Trek, just not by name.

The cinematography, almost every shot, the way

they move, the lighting, everything. Star Trek.

yeah it's literally like if you had told me if

you took out any bit of comedy and you said this

is star trek discovery we would have been like

yeah yeah of course and that's the that that

kind of hurt me watching it i'm going this should

be star trek but what are we getting instead

well and and that's and that's honestly the man

that should have been given the franchise Well,

he at one point because he understands it at

one point he was vying to be one of the directors

to do one of the movies and then he was trying

to actually get a show produced and You know,

it would have meant he would have had to have

probably ended his contract in years relationship

with Fox So I've seen the episode with the gender

in it. I thought it was fantastic. I thought

it was very good But I just haven't watched,

I don't think I've watched the entire first season.

I haven't watched anything after that for sure.

Okay, it really truly is worth it. Here's the

thing, some of the comedy that's there does grow

on you because it gets into a groove where it's

not ever going to be like, you know, laugh out

loud funny. But you start to get a feel for it

and also they get more comfortable in it and

they tone down a lot of it too. There was too

much family guy ish right in the beginning. Yeah,

they they cut that they might have a running

gag now and then But the the timing gets better.

It becomes more like 95 % serious 5 % comedy

Okay Very similar in tone to Stargate again,

I keep bringing that up because it gets that

you know You might have a joke or two from from

like O 'Neill or something here and there, but

it's in a much more serious context. And that

is how the show continues on, because they get

deeper into the lore of the war that they have,

the cold war they've got going on, as well as

some other aliens that get introduced that become

a main villain in the second season. I mean,

I'm more than happy to give it a shot again.

And attention to detail. Here's something. So

they're at war with, again, drawn a blank, the

ones that look like the Kardashians. The krill.

The krill, yes. So they're at war with the krill

and they're lit like the villains are always

lit in these shows, you know, with the darker

ship and all this. Well, they actually do something

that I wasn't expecting. They actually had so

much detail written into all the races that the

reason the ship is darker is they're sensitive

to light. And I just thought that they were doing

it for the sake of dramatic effect. But each

of the alien races that show up in this get at

least one or two episodes that they delve into

their culture and what makes them different and

how they tick. And they even have to form certain

alliances. There's a subplot in season one and

season two with Isaac, the data android. entering

into a romantic relationship with the doctor

and they actually have to explore whether or

not like is it love you know because it can she

she might feel that she has love for a robot

but he can't actually feel emotions but can his

ai and can his brain basically start to piece

together an attachment because he basically becomes

like a surrogate father to the kids even though

he doesn't know what he is well and he also comes

from a race of of androids that are basically

like the borg yeah and you find that out later

on like but uh they have like and literally there's

an entire episode on him learning what it's like

to go on a date and why it's important and why

you shouldn't just be like all right dates over

by like like he has to he you slowly see him

learn what it's like to be non uh you know not

just to be human but to be something that has

emotions like he has and you can see his character

grow and then at the same time he can still be

cold and she has to deal with that and like you

know seeks counsel to figure out you know how

do i deal with my emotions of am i attached to

him because he's somebody who can't you know

can't be human so he can't necessarily let me

down if he says he's going to do something he's

going to do something because he's programmed

to do it so yeah I'll definitely give it a shot.

I just need to, I guess I'm waiting for the right

time to try it just because I don't want to be

disappointed because you guys have hyped it up

so much. There's only like 12 episodes per season.

So it's not hard to get through. It is worth

it. And the new season starts, it was supposed

to start sometime this summer. I think they've

already filmed it. So I think they have probably

still coming. And if it's on Hulu, they're going

to drop every episode at once. That'll be good.

Instead of that trickle down episodes of crap

that CBS does. And the music is just so good.

Like, if you play the music and you don't tell

somebody, they'll think it's Star Trek, which

is eerie. That is true. All right, so I guess

moving right along to our next suggestion, let's

throw things over to Aaron. Okay, I'll talk about

my guilty pleasure, I guess. It's my favorite

thing outside of Star Trek, and that's Doctor

Who, and I'm not saying the new series that started

in 2005 with Christopher Eccleson. I'm saying

overall, so 1963 through present, with the break

that started in 1989 all the way to 2005. um

if you don't know doctor who is basically a show

about a guy or girl now um an alien that when

they die they change bodies instead of actually

dying um this this person the doctor travels

through time and space and in a what looks like

a police box from 1960s England uh though it

theoretically can look like anything because

the technology that they have from his home planet,

I'm going to say him because most of his incarnations

have been men. It's so advanced that it's basically

indistinguishable from magic. A lot of times

they're referred to as almost god -like the Time

Lords. Well, anyway, the series doesn't really

start with all of that lore and it just kind

of starts as a kid's show that teaches about

history and tries to present historical situations

to children in such a way as to let them kind

of learn through fun. But let's be honest, the

second episode is all sci -fi and introduces

the Daleks, which are the series. one of the

series' biggest antagonists that appears throughout

its history. Like I said, it went from 1963 to

1989 and there were seven actors that played

the Doctor during that time. then it went on

to a hiatus. It was basically canceled by the

BBC and from 1989 to 2005 there were hundreds

of books published, I want to say, by Virgin

Publishing out of the UK and then BBC Books that

continued the series. And that's where a lot

of the series really serious stories come into

play. It's a different tone but much more meaty

so to speak and a lot of the series new writers

from 2005 to present actually got their cut their

teeth on writing for those like Russell T Davis

and people like that they actually wrote for

these series. So many of the stories that end

up appearing in the new series were in the novels

and those that read the novels really could tear

into those episodes. But what I really like about

the show overall isn't, you know, the production

value, let's say, even though the new series

look much, much better. The old stuff is very

clearly done on a very, very low budget. The

acting isn't stellar, let's say, for a lot of

the original old, old stuff. But the ideas that

they present are what makes the show really interesting.

Moral conundrums like, hey, we're gonna go back

in time and visit the Aztecs. And one of the

characters has an opportunity to try to stop

them from committing human sacrifice all the

time. And these horrors, because some of these

Aztecs feel that she's a god. the doctor has

to try to explain to her why that is wrong, and

the doctor is a very moral person. The doctor

is always trying to do good in the universe and

trying to make things better, which, you know,

I can always get right behind. It's kind of a

feel -good show in that way, but when the doctor

has to explain to people why, you know, letting

people die sometimes is the best option, that's

tough, and that's in the first season of Doctor

Who back in 1963 when they have this discussion.

It's actually a pretty heavy discussion to have.

Yeah, I can talk about the show for quite a while

because I, as I said before, I own all the all

the DVDs, VHS sets, every book ever published

for it. It's nuts, but I love the show. I'm passionate

about the show because, just because of the ideas

that it presents. My history with Doctor Who

is not as, obviously, as extensive as yours.

I discovered Doctor Who very much by accident.

Once when I was a kid, we have a television station

up here called TV Ontario and they used to show

Doctor Who episodes really late at night. During

the weekdays and I remember seeing a Dalek in

one scene. I was like, what the hell is this

crap? and then it wasn't until 2005 or six that

a friend of mine told me about the new BBC series

with Christopher Eccleson and I started watching

when I was away at college back from 2006 through

2010. I really got into the series around 2009

when I got a bunch of the seasons on sale and

I was utterly enthralled with it. I actually

started watching it live week to week up until

just before the 12th doctor. came in and now

I'm starting to rewatch from Eccleston forward

because I've missed most 12s I missed. I've seen

a few of his episodes with Peter Capaldi and

I've only seen the previews for the Jodie Whittaker

stuff, but I've read some of the episode synopsis

and some of them seem really cool and this year's

season finale certainly puts a new spin on the

Doctor Who lore. I'll agree like what I also

discovered Doctor Who accidentally as a teenager

believe it or not I actually remember the episode

because I've watched every episode like dozens

of times but it was Megalos but with the fourth

doctor played by Tom Baker and I saw it in the

middle of the night being played on PBS public

broadcasting here in the US and it was the corniest

looking thing it had an actor with like cactus

needles coming out of his face on it. And what

the hell is this? You know, that kind of mind

blowing, this looks incredibly dumb, I have to

watch it. And it was actually a really good episode.

And then I started watching it week to week to

week, late on Friday nights. And yeah, it just

sucked me right in. I mean, one of the other,

uh, early episodes that I caught, I caught this

on a Christmas one year. Cause sometimes, um,

just due to the way my family works, I sometimes

get left alone on Christmas morning and I see

my rest of my family in the afternoon. So I remember

one Christmas morning, I just decided to stream

doctor. I can't even remember where I found this,

but it was a, it was a third doctors. Um, third

doctor story with that was John Pertree. And,

and I think it was called circus of monsters

or something like that. But I remember being

carnival of monsters. Yeah. Yeah. And it had

the monster struck shrunk down into this kind

of viewing machine. Yeah. And I was like, this

is so cool. So I started watching older doctor

who stuff, cause I'd only seen The new stuff

before then, and that's where I sort of picked

up on the joke, like reverse the polarity. Would

you like a jelly baby with the fourth doctor?

And I really started to get into it because some

of the older stuff, if you can look past the

special effects, there's some cool damn stories

in there. They might be very slow for a modern

viewer to watch and the special effects are admittedly

terrible, but man, the stories, the stories are

so good and the actors, they're just giving it

their all and really playing it out. Yeah, oh

God, I love the show. Old school master was awesome

as well. Roger Delgado was the first actor. Yes.

And he just eats up the scenery that he's in,

but he's so good. Yeah. Like Doctor Who, it's

one of those shows that I'm surprised some of

my friends don't like, just because you like

all things sci -fi. This is about as most sci

-fi as you can get. Some people don't like it

because it's not hard sci -fi. It's more in the

fantasy realm. It is. I'll agree. You know, my

experience with it was I was like three or four.

And because remember back in the day, we didn't

get the like, at least in Canada, Doctor Who

always aired about a year, almost two years behind.

So like whatever would have aired in 87 would

have aired in 88 or 89 here and so on and so

forth. So I found out later on the episode that

I remember seeing as a little kid or the arc

was from the seventh doctor called Ghostlight.

Oh, Ghostlight. Oh, I can talk about Ghostlight.

Yeah. That's from my favorite season of the,

well, of Doctor Who period. Yeah. So like, here's

the thing, as a kid, I remember bits and pieces

of it. And then, you know, as an adult, I went

back and I was like, which episodes are those?

And I had to literally skim it through. I'm like,

that's what I saw. Because I would have been

about three, maybe four years old. It would have

been like, it would have aired here, even though

it's from like 89. It would have been like 90,

91 when it aired here. And it was the same deal

as, as Mike was saying. it would have been on

TVO because that was one of the channels we could

get with bunny ears, which TVO for the longest

time was partnered with the PBS, I think, Buffalo

affiliate. So they would share programming. And

then I didn't see anything for years because

I was a little kid. And then when I was like

nine or 10, I remember seeing the Fox movie.

Oh, yeah. And because I noticed that you mentioned,

yeah, the show ended in 89 and then didn't come

back to 2005. Yeah, I kind of remember my introduction

being a movie that existed in the 90s that was

supposed to launch a Fox show. Yeah, I'll put

that is a part of Doctor Who because the Eighth

Doctor is a thing. They even mention that incarnation

of the Doctor in the revived series and the BBC

novels themselves are that Doctor. I just don't

really consider it it being back with the movie,

if you know what I mean. It's still canceled.

You know what it was? It's weird. It's not even

like it's an in -between, even though it's supposed

to be between the previous stuff and the new

stuff. But they tried to put the American spin

on it. Now, as a kid, I loved it. Because other

than that one story arc, that's the only Doctor

Who I'd ever seen. And I was like, OK. And then

years later, come to find out that, oh, hey,

in England, they don't even call it as part of

Doctor Who. It's Doctor Who USA. That's how it

was marketed for the longest time. It was marketed

as a completely different show. And it's only

in the era of Blu -rays now where they're actually

considering it canon. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of

the information that's in there, they just kind

of ignore, they talk about how the doctor was

just lying to people at that point, but the way

the doctor acts, that eighth incarnation, is

very doctorish. How exuberant the doctor is once

he figures out what's going on, or just enjoying

life in the moment. Don't know I I love that

incarnation of the doctor and they expand upon

that character in the novels and there's a good

60 novels with that character I would say 60

at least and as far as the movie goes if I remember

correctly because it's been probably 20 years

since I've seen it nearly Wasn't Eric Roberts

as the master? Eric Roberts as the master yeah

which you know this is Eric Roberts this okay

this isn't Eric Roberts doing three different

talking horse and talking cat movies where he

phones in his he phoned he skyped in his entire

dub uh this is where it's not that era it's also

not Oscar nominated runaway train era Eric Roberts

this is squarely in the 90s he's an action tv

movie movie star Eric Crawford is eating the

scenery in that in that movie and it's worth

watching over -the -top performance But yeah,

so and then Sorry my reintroduction to it as

far as when I became a bigger fan. This is before

I met Mike I was working at Future Shop, which

is Became Best Buy here once the merger happened

and I was working in computer repairs, but occasionally

they would bring in product to the back room

and they'd be like This is not in our system.

Like we tried scanning it. We tried putting it

in its inventory that doesn't exist. We were

shipped the wrong thing and they won't accept

it back. And I'm like, well, what do I do? They're

like, well, you can take whatever's in this box

home. So I got the first three series on DVD

back when BBC DVDs were like expensive as hell.

This was before the blu -rays. So they were like

80 bucks a piece per series here, which is equivalent

to like at the time 50 or 60 American. So I got

the first three, watched the Eccleston stuff,

because I'd heard about him. I wasn't a big fan

of just the look of the show. I did like the

actual stories. And then I watched series two

and I was hooked. And then from then on, I was

collecting all the way up. I watched everything

until Matt Smith did not like him one bit at

all. It was painful for me to sit through his

stuff. I stopped watching I haven't seen I've

seen maybe one episode past um was it city of

angels or something um where basically where

everybody dies out and then I've seen bits and

pieces but my dad got hooked on it and he's caught

up completely to the newest episode I've obviously

I've I've seen it all and it does I mean it depending

on the actor it changes so I mean if you don't

like Matt Smith you know Alright, step away from

the show for a little bit. Come back, check out

the new actor. My dad has told me, he goes, you

gotta jump in on Capaldi. Because that's apparently

his favorite doctor. I love Capaldi. One of my

friends who absolutely loved the new... series

of the new the new seasons of Doctor Who from

2005 onwards, really did not like Capaldi and

stepped away from the show. So yeah, and now

she's coming back to it. But if I had to give

a favorite Doctor, it would be The Seventh Doctor,

played by Sylvester McCoy. And that's that's

in the old run 19. He was the Doctor from 87

to 89. So yeah, that's with Ghost Light, the

episode that you kind of first saw. But yeah.

I love Sylvester McCoy's The Seventh Doctor.

He's mysterious. He's kind of this cosmic chess

player of a character that has set up playing

pieces across time and space to make sure that

his plans to save people or to defeat evil powers

actually come to fruition at these engagements

that he ends up in. He's the doctor that fights

against the old gods, the gods of Ragnarok. in

an episode called The Greatest Show in the Galaxy,

which is actually a giant satire of science fiction.

A great, great episode. That's in series 25,

I think, from 1988. I don't know. I can... go

on and on about Doctor Who and the lore and how

expansive the universe is and how yeah it's a

show about time travel so things do change and

even the rules of time travel end up changing

and normally that would really tick me off in

a science fiction show but it seems to work fairly

well with how Doctor Who is. You know if a rule

is broken well there's either consequences or

there's reasons why and then the universe kind

of changes around that. Yeah, that's one thing

I've always liked about Doctor Who is it's not

so beholden to its lore that it's, you know,

so difficult to get into because you can literally

jump as you just suggest it. If you don't like

an actor, try someone else. And you may find

the game has changed. I find it's a little harder

to get into some of the newer stuff because sometimes

they refer to stuff that happened a couple of

seasons ago. But overall, it hasn't been too

bad. I mean, most of my new doctor who experiences

is I've been focusing on the, uh, cubicle seven,

uh, role playing game, which is fantastically

supported by them. Um, they have rule books for

every single doctor, which even if you don't

play the game, it's a very, really very good

episode guide. Um, and it's like, there's like

lots of pictures and everything. And it's just,

it's a gate. It's a fantastic game, too. And

it's still being made today. So if you want to

help support your local RPG publisher, check

out Cubicle 7, either through DriveThru RPG or

their website directly. So, yeah, I guess let's

move on to you, Alex. What is your first pick?

I'm going to assume that Steve doesn't know Doctor

Who. Like Doctor Who? Or like it. Like nothing

of Doctor Who. OK, there we go. So there he chimed

in. We're good. as far as my first pick. Now,

I've got, you know, we each pick sort of two

shows. I do have a couple honorable mentions

later on, only because they were really short

and got canceled early, but I'll go with the

first sci -fi show that I loved watching in like

middle school, which was Seven Days. It is a

show that aired on UPN, I believe back to back

with Voyager. And it ran from, let me see here,

is it 97? No, 98 to 2001. And the basic premise

is there's a character named Frank Parker who's

a chrononaut. Basically, he's assigned by the

US government to a program called Operation Backstep,

which is about a sphere that they created that

will allow the person inside of it to go back

in time seven days is the maximum. to sort of

correct a wrong or stop a disaster from happening.

And it's basically used from salvage tech from

the Roswell cover -up. They've been working for

years and years, and they finally come through

this breakthrough. The problem is some people

have gone through it or tried to use it, and

it just kills them. Their body just can't handle

it. They just happen to find one guy who can.

So the idea is it's sort of a joint project between

a few world governments, and it's a secret idea.

In the pilot episode, for instance, the president

is assassinated. And they're like, OK, well,

here's a bunch of keywords that you can have.

And especially since it's the first episode,

he shows up. And within two days, he's put into

this program and worked through it. They go,

here's a keyword you need to say to us. to verify

who you are when you go back in time, because

we won't know who you are, because we didn't

meet you till this week. So he goes in, goes

back in time, and then, of course, shows up at

a secret military base, and they try to arrest

him. And they're like, you're pulling your BS.

We don't know what you're talking about. They're

trying to deny the program exists. And he's trying

to get the keywords to the right people, but

nobody will let him. Eventually they do, and

they realize, wait, the device works. So then

he has to, you know, here's the information we

have here. Can we stop the assassination of the

president? And then so on and so forth. And it

would be different things like there's a bank

robberies or, you know, there's a volcano that

it's going to go off and affect a EMP pulse on

something. You know, there'll be a bunch of weird

wacky stuff that happens all the while. It's

the show is very grounded in that it has these

rules that sets up. Seven days in the max you

can go back There's I think two episodes in the

three seasons that aired where there there's

more about the Roswell aliens that pop up and

there's like shadowy government forces It gets

a little X files II. It's like a mixture of X

files sliders and Like early edition the the

TV show where the guy gets the tomorrow's newspaper

today and consolidate it was part of that that

wave in the 90s where it was like it's the uh

the mcgyver wave that happened where like every

show is about a guy helping somebody okay yeah

i was gonna say it's hard to it's hard to describe

what if you haven't seen it um but it uh i believe

it did win a few saturn awards back in the day

I remember watching it. I do remember watching

it because yeah it was near Voyager so I would

often see it at the same time when I was watching

it. It's very 90s. Yeah it's very 90s and I remember

it not really clicking with me. I love time travel,

I love sci -fi but it just didn't hit my buttons

really so to speak. That's not to say it was

that I didn't like it, it just wasn't there for

me, if that makes sense. Yeah. Oh, totally. And

it's one of those things where I only saw the

first two seasons when it was airing because

the third season didn't come here, I don't believe

ever. Because UPN was not available in Canada.

Because I believe Voyager aired on space up here.

And I think this did as well, but they didn't

renew their programming agreement, I guess, for

the third season. So it was one of those things

where back in the day I had to track down VHS

copies to watch it. And then recently, as in

last year, a DVD company out of Toronto called

Visual Entertainment Incorporated got the rights

to it, put out a cleaned up remastered edition

of all three seasons and they have exclusive

U .S. Canada rights to it. I think in the States

they're only sold through Amazon. But it's funny,

they're one of those saviors of a lot of shows.

They've put out a bunch of random stuff that

would probably never ever come out any other

way. They put out Deadly Games, which is a virtual

reality show that ran for one season with Doc

Brown from Back to the Future. Yeah, they've

put out, what was the other one, Jake 2 .0, a

lot of stuff that only ran like one season. Seven

Days is one that I had waited for for quite some

time. I think it hit me at the right age. I'm

like 12, 13, 14. I was jonesing for some more

time travel based shows because at that point,

there wasn't a whole lot going on. Quantum Leap

was over. A lot of the mid 90s shows had only

lasted one or two seasons at the max. So this

was a show that I could sink my teeth into. I'm

a sucker for time travel and for space sci -fi.

Well, I guess moving on to something kind of

Related actually as you mentioned space Sci -fi

my first or my second pick for this particular

Roundup of shows is gonna be the new Battlestar

Galactica I guess it's really not new anymore.

But this was a reboot that hit back in 2004.

I did not hop on the train till about 2008 When

one of my co -hosts for twig kind of got me on

about it and they wouldn't shut the hell up about

it for the better part of a year And believe

me, so say we all was set around the broadcast

booth more often than once or do your job. So

I love me some Edward James almost, but he would

always grumble that line. And I always found

it really funny. And then we got Katie Sack off

of Starbucks and a bunch of other Canadian actors

in it. Ultimately, it was a really good idea

to reboot Battlestar Galactica because the original

was kind of cheesy. It looked really cool. They're

Cylon Centurions. I don't know. I love classic

Cylons myself. I forget what they say, what their

big line is. Aaron, I have a feeling you probably

know. In the original? Yeah. What was their line?

By your command. I remember that and I always

thought that was really neat I remember back

in the day for review. They sent me a Cylon DVD

set I think for the complete series of the original

paddles are galactica including the one that

was on earth Yeah, the original I was it's okay

I always liked Buck Rogers better But that's

just me as far as the new show goes. I didn't

see the mini -series or season one or season

two, until a friend of mine from high school

had said, hey, you've got to check out season

three. This show's getting a lot of traction.

Because that's when they started splitting the

shows up, which was ultimately the doom of everything

on sci -fi. It's like, you're going to get the

first 10 episodes this year, and you've got to

wait a year for the second half. But season three

started. And he got me hooked by making me watch

the mini -series. And then he showed me a singular

clip of season threes episode two or three which

was I think called Exodus and that's where they've

been put in for lack of a better term I guess

Nazi death camps and they're they're basically

storming New Caprica to help them escape and

I had never seen a TV show look like that look

at that good you know at that point and you know

went back when the whole over the shoulder cam

shaky cam gritty thing was starting to become

really big and there's a part where the Galactica

they're like you know the ship's gonna you know

be uh damaged pretty badly it's not meant for

to ever enter the atmosphere but we're gonna

jump into the atmosphere bring the ship down

as low as we can launch all of our fighters and

and basically jump out immediately i had not

seen an effect like that before and it's still

one of my favorite scenes yeah and then and then

them getting pummeled they're like they're like

okay well we're going to take on you know uh

we're going to take on a base star because the

whole premise of this is short of um the the

actual galactica or basically the battle stars

themselves are much better armored, much better

equipped with weaponry, and just overall better

ships, stronger ships, and under ideal circumstances

they would have no trouble taking care of the

Cylons. The Cylons, the only thing they have

going for them is overwhelming numbers. So they

have weak, weak ships with tons of firepower,

whereas the Battlestars are these big, lumbering,

basically like... carrier ships that could take

a lot of damage, but they were tricked by...

They networked all their ships together because

they thought the Cylons were gone. The Cylons

hack into it, basically turn off all their defenses,

destroy all their new fancy ships, and the only

ship available that isn't affected is the one

ship that wasn't networked and had 90 % of its

heavy armor. stripped off of it because it was

being decommissioned so they're basically running

on a ship with half the armor that it should

have with barely any weapons barely any fuel

old other ships but they have to make do by doing

everything analog well in that episode they're

like okay well you know we're gonna have a hard

time maybe we can take on that base star and

hope well then two other base stars jump in and

you basically think they're gonna die because

you just start seeing missile after missile being

fired at them and zooms out and than the one

other ship that had survived the Pegasus shows

up. And that space battle to this day is still

maybe my favorite ever committed to television.

Yeah, I can't disagree with her there. I thought

that was pretty friggin awesome. I mean, one

of the things I really liked about Battlestar

Galactica that I'd never seen a series do, I

guess, probably more so now with like the expanse

and everything, it treated space Seriously, what

do I mean by that? There is no sound in space.

You would feel the vibrations through your viper

when you're firing your machine guns, but those

aren't lasers. Those are machine guns with bullets

and casing. So they're flying through the void.

And when you, and there's a phrase they utter

called feeling the rain or something along those

lines. When you fly through an explosion, those

are debris hitting your canopy. They talk about

reloading stuff like that. They also talked about

air. Food was a major concern in the show. Same

with water. There at one point there was like

a saboteur who was blowing the Battlestar Galactica's

water tanks. I remember them, there was one episode

where they had to go to a planet to farm an edible

algae. So Imagine eating a big old bowl of snot.

Oh, yeah. And they deal with like religions popping

up, just the fall of societies, how everything

blends together, the cyclical nature of the world

that they're in. There are elements of this that

when I saw it initially, I went, oh, I know where

Ron Moore got some of these ideas from. And it

reminded me a lot of a 90s TV show called Space

Above and Beyond, about space marines going to

fight in space. And it had a similar, you know,

realism to how they portrayed space travel and

the military and the ships. It was, you know,

less lasers, more Starship troopers -y, you know

what I mean? So this show was great. And it's

the first time I had ever seen with Battle Circle

Actica, I didn't realize that TV shows would

get directors cuts of episodes. So like when

you watch the finale, the very finale of season

four, when it aired on TV, it aired as a, I think

it was a triple parter and which was 48, it was

like 120 minutes or something like that. It was

like just two hours long. The director's cut

of it is like almost three hours. For a single

episode and like there's many episodes each season

where they're like, yeah when they put it on

DVD It's like well, there was a lot of stuff

we wanted to put in but we couldn't so this 42

minute episodes now 58 minutes And then they

had TV movies and they even had spin -off or

they tried to do the prequel movie Some of the

CG was inconsistent I wasn't a big fan of when

they would do a close -up on like a cannon shooting

because it looked very video gamey But the wider

shots of the ships look fantastic with that grain

and blur effects they would put on. I really

enjoyed that show. I was hooked right away from

the first episode, which was the miniseries.

And then the second episode, it was like 47 minutes

or something like that. And it dealt with these

countdowns that they had to jump out of time.

I thought that was one of the best episodes of

an action television show. It doesn't have to

be sci -fi but action that I've seen in a long

long time still to this day. Absolutely. It was

basically 24 but in space. Yeah and I thought

that if the entire series was like the tension

that was in that first actual episode this would

have been by far the best science fiction action

show ever made. bar none now it might have been

a hard watch though like you would having the

feeling that you're gonna have a heart attack

every time you watch would have been difficult

yeah and i agree and it was not like that and

it was still a very good show and i'll say that

my favorite episodes of the show generally weren't

things that dealt with battles believe it or

not even though I thought the battle stuff was

great it was the dealing with the social issues

that were developing in the fleet like the separation

between the military and civilians like when

did the military go in and actually deal with

civilian problems as a police and how adama the

the guy in charge of the military effectively

has these problems with using the military as

a police force I thought that was a really good

episode Yeah, these the weird social issues,

you know, with religions or with certain ships

having certain resources and not really wanting

to share them because, hey, look, you know, we

we have water, we have this special, you know,

we have food, but it's we're here. Why do we

have to share it with everybody? Well, that the

episodes that come to mind for me are the boxing

episode when they realize they have to let off

some steam and and like. realize that Adama's

like, he doesn't realize at first that people

have been talking behind his back. So he basically

he gets in the ring and he knocks them down.

He's like, all right, you know, we're just getting

started. Get up. And it's this old man beating

the shit out of the young people as well as the

probably the hardest thing is when they do deal

with the when they're on New Caprica and everybody's

living in basically Nazi internment camps. When

Ty has to, he comes to the realization that his

wife is selling information to their captors

and he decides to kill her. You know, he kills

her, then not realizing, you know, eventually,

oops, you know, spoiler, she's actually a Cylon

and comes back to life with the memories of everything

that happened. And then he has to face her again.

He had to deal with, he was like, what do I do?

His convictions were, I love my wife, but she's

betrayed all of us. And he's like, he cries as

he kills her. That was a wonderful moment. I

forgot about that. Then she shows up again, and

the look on his face. I have never seen an actor

go so white. He's like he's emotional every emotion

that could possibly run through him is running

through him. He's terrified. She knows what I

did Also, I love your I love her. So, you know,

but oh my god, she's one of them and You know

all of this before his realization that he's

one too and the realization when you find out

who the final ones are Just how they all start

hearing all along the watchtower individually

meet up in the room together And he looks, they

look at each other and they start to realize

what's going on, what drove them all there. And

he just, you know, dead, you know, for lack of

a better term, he deadbolt that fucking door.

And we're going to talk about this and then we're

never going to talk about it again. And at least

as I am who I am. And that's exactly who I'll

be and walks out. Michael, Michael Hogan is one

of. one of the best character actors on TV and

in movies as well. I remember him from Cold Squad,

the Canadian show that was ripped off and became

Cold Case in the States. I knew him from Battlestar,

but then I came to appreciate him more when I

started playing through the Mass Effect series.

He's the CSEC police officer that like helps

you out in parts two and three, but seeing the

all along the watch tower moment was like, holy

shit. And Michael Hogan, when, when he finds

a role he likes, he really goes all in. Like

Colonel Tide's one of my favorite guys of all

time. He's probably, in my opinion, the best

character on the show with the most difficult

part from disgraced alcoholic to, uh, to everything

he goes through in it. Uh, and then Add into

the mix you have other, you know, great old school

Canadian character actors, Donnelly Rhodes, as

the doctor who you would know, Mike, from Danger

Bay. Oh, yeah, that guy was great, too. He passed

away in the last couple of years, too. I think

it was last year. Yeah. And recently he was on.

Oh, was it was he on the Marvel show? I think

which one? The one you like that I hate. He does

a shield? Yeah. I don't think so, but I'm not

sure. But yeah, he was great. Every character

actor they threw into this was great. I'll say

the only part that it fell a little down for

me on is when it started getting a little bit

mysticky, if you know what I mean. When it got

a little too mystical, prophet, religion, we're

being talked to. And then the explanation is

we're being talked to by the original Cylons.

It just it didn't feel like it was the same show

in yeah The only part that the two parts I didn't

care for and you know spoiler alert for anybody

listening when they find Earth They find out

like they find earth and they're like, oh earth

was another colony that was wiped out, you know,

like the I would have liked it better. They said

always a colony of silence. It's where the original

silence with no I would have liked it better

if they went, we found earth and they're all

dead. And it wasn't that it was silence and it

wasn't one of the old colonies that it just showed

that we as an us had wiped ourselves out. It

would have been interesting if they went there

and what they found were because they happen

far in the future. And if they found earth and

they're like, because it's the home where they

came from and they found like New York City and

crumbled to the ground, like they saw landmarks

that are. gone and then and then it would have

really pinpointed we could have pinpointed oh

this is when it all went to crap uh but instead

they're like oh no it's just it's an empty gray

world and you know it was the silent home planet

it's gone and i also hated the end hated the

ending when they when they're just like they're

like all this is they go to earth they go to

the new earth which is our real earth and they're

just like hey um everybody just go fuck the natives

and make a whole bunch of children and then that's

how that's how neanderthals died out and we got

homeless apians there were a lot of powerful

scenes in that finale but yeah i was a little

taken aback by some of the decisions in it like

why would all of the people just say ah screw

it let's just send all of our ships into the

sun not to mention how about they don't know

if their dna is compatible they don't know if

mating will actually make anything how do you

know that there's not Deadly diseases on the

planet. That's just gonna instantly kill you

after You know, you have no antibodies built

up for this alien world not and then I wasn't

like I Wasn't a big fan of the end all along

the watchtower playing. Well, you know that shows

all the robotics that we've created It's kind

of a neat idea, but it would have been more interesting

if you know They had done something else, but

it felt like they were pushed into a corner And

that's the the ending they chose because it's

the ending they had the budget for And I mean,

they had to basically, they wanted to write it

like, hey, look, these are the reason why we

have our old Roman gods or Greek gods is because

they're the ancient legends of these people,

you know, Apollo and Zeus and all that. But so

it has to be our earth. And if it's not, if it

is our earth, there can't be all these spaceships

around. So let's just have everybody. screw off

and throw them into the sun in the end. But they

came down with their technology for batteries,

which is why there's these stories of Pompeii

in places that had batteries in the ancient times.

All these people that have been living with technology

all their lives and the conveniences of technology

just basically gave it all up. Yeah, the last

episode, there's things in it that I really question.

there were powerful moments in it as well, like

when the when the president dies with Adama there.

And, oh, man, I actually had tears. Oh, there

are definitely there's elements. I just found

that there were a couple wonky things that, again,

on a lesser show would have still been cool.

But when you set the bar so high, like they did,

it was like, I'm still not sure what the hell

happened with Starbuck. Was Starbuck like a ghost

the entire time? the idea was that her wasn't

her dad one of the original Cylon whatever I

mean she was there for everything she like piloted

the Galactica she was supposed to be I think

the idea was she was a halfling right like she

was the first born of one of a Cylon and one

of a human I think that's the idea but then at

some point at some point when she was was she

was blasted and left alone in space i think the

idea was that she had died and been become part

of some alien entity and i don't get it because

it was it was implied that she had become like

a guardian angel sort of like the ones that um

both uh gaius hears in his head but like what

number six yeah what they are in the end yeah

and at the at the end they're just walking down

like Is it New York? It's in New York and you

see Ronald DeMore in the crowd too, I know that.

Yeah, they're just walking by and like you see

their silhouettes in the mirrors and then it

just shows a television showing all the robots

and it's like, what? So like the idea is that,

is the idea they're trying to say that Christian

angels, like the theory of like angels are just

pylons that have somehow become part of the energy

of the universe. They didn't explain a lot, and

I've seen Ron Warby ask about it, and he's just

like, uh, we didn't really look into it that

far. Yeah. All right. So we could wax philosophical

about BSG pretty much all night long. So as I

might say, exiting out of that, so say we all

moving right along to our next guest on the panel.

Let's go to Steve. What is your second pick for

one of your favorite shows that is in track?

Well this one I actually I remember watching

when it first started airing and It was more

of one of those late -night things to watch and

that's Andromeda Another Hercules in space. Yes

Which basically it was But I enjoyed it despite

the fact that it was a sci -fi channel program

which it does look like a sci -fi channel program

but that aside it's not too bad what i've watched

of it so far like i'm still in the first season

but it's it's honestly not as bad as i i remembered

it it actually gets better as it goes on uh i

I imported the UK Blu -ray set because the, the

ADV one, uh, was it the star burst edition or

something is like $400 for the DVDs on the aftermarket.

Oh, wow. Yeah. Um, there was a DVD set released

by Alliance Atlantis up here before that was

absorbed by entertainment one and they released

them for like 12 bucks a season. I bought them

back in the day, but found out that not only

are they just in the stereo, but they're the

TV cropped four by three versions. That show

was filmed in widescreen. Whereas the old ADV

stuff was widescreen. So the UK Blu -rays are,

they're an upconvert. So they're not, they're

visually maybe slightly better because they're

not interlaced. And the fact that it takes up

like only five DVD cases worth on my shelf. It

was worth the hundred bucks to import the five

seasons. That show along with Earth Final Conflict

aired back to back on broadcast TV here. So they

were much more popular in Canada than they were

in the States. I think it might have aired in

the WB as well. I think that may have been where

I saw it. Yeah, because Earth Final Conflict

I think was the sci -fi channel in the States

and I think the WB had. Andromeda at least for

a couple of seasons, but up here it was on CTV.

Like you would come home from school and like

Power Rangers would come on for like one or two

episodes and then that would come on. I seem

to recall these Andromeda being a staple of global

Saturday afternoon programming for many years.

For the reruns, yeah. I think, oh no, sorry,

you're right. It was CTV had Earth Funnel Conflict

and this was the other Gene Roddenberry show.

Because this was a show that was initially, he

tried to get a pilot made I think three or four

times starring, I believe, what's his name from?

Who plays the dad on Nightmare on Elm Street,

Mike? John Saxon? Yes. He played the character

of Dylan Hunt, who's the main character that

Kevin Sorbrough plays, in I think three or four

TV movies in the 70s and 80s, where they tried

to make pilots of it, and he could never get

it made. And then he gave up, and then went ahead.

He gave up on that, gave up on Star Trek phase

two, and then made Next Jam. And then after he

died, Major Barry shopped the shows around and

it was the Canadian networks that paid for them.

So that's why Earth Final Conflict, I think was

purely Canadian made. So that's why it has an

even lower budget. And that's another show for

another time that goes into the territory of

absolutely terrible as it went on. Whereas I

believe Andromeda, because it was a more space

based show, I think it ended up getting funding

from the WB. Yeah, but either way it was it I

found it very entertaining for what for what

little bit I've seen of it so far Yeah, it gets

better as it goes. I've actually only seen the

first four seasons. I'm getting ready to watch

season five It is you know cut up from the Star

Trek cloth as much as it can be It's better than

a lot of the contemporaries that were coming

out around the same time trying to mimic Trek

because at least this had Some form of Trek approval

on it But yeah that and and the fact that it

was It kind of plays like obviously like the

Commonwealth is like the Federation and then

you have the it almost It almost makes me wonder

if they if if CBS stole the idea for Discovery

season 3 from this Because they sent the hero

ahead in time and then the the Federation is

in shambles and they're trying to rebuild It

starts out like a couple hundred years farther

than what next gen would have been. And then

he gets frozen in time for basically, was it

like a thousand years or something or several

hundred? No, it's 303 years. Okay. Yeah. So it's

long enough. And he comes out and like the Roman

empire is fractured basically. And to the point

where like, it's only a distant memory. Most

people don't even remember it existing. And he's

like, he's talking about he's like so i just

got to get in contact with the rest of the military

they're like there is no military it ended like

within the year that you were stuck here um because

they were at war uh the character actors like

the people that play the rest of the crew uh

michael got a kick out of this one of them is

a pj from ytv oh god uh i think his name was

michael wolvlet uh He was one of the zone PJs

And then the one girl that had the purple girl

is from ready or not, which is a Painful show

that was always on that was a teen girl drama

that was on every day after school And then the

rest of it like they'll get occasionally decent

character actors to show up in it It had some

pretty good sets if I remember correctly The

CG is good for the time. It's poorly dated by

today's standards though. It is. Now, the one

thing that does stand out is that they were forward

thinking and that they filmed it in widescreen

because they knew that it was Japan and parts

of Europe already had, they were already airing,

I think it was, it wasn't 1080 or even 720. I

think it was 540i, like weird in between. aspects,

but they were filming in widescreen. So that

aspect at least holds up and it wasn't surround

sound and everything. It is, it is rough if you,

if you're somebody who isn't used to late nineties,

early 2000s CG though. Yeah. I mean, it, it,

by all standards, it makes tracks from the nineties

look more advanced to some degree. Well, it had

a shoestring budget. And it was filmed entirely

up here. And that's at a time before we had really

developed the studio. It was out at the exact

same time that you had, I think, DS9, Voyager,

Stargate SG -1, and probably five other shows,

like Star Hunter. You had all these shows being

filmed around the same time of differing quality.

But it is one of the few that got five seasons.

That is true. So I guess moving right along,

unless anybody else has anything else to add.

Kevin Sorbo is Hercules in space. Hercules in

space. It's pretty much that. So I guess next

would be Aaron. Okay, I'll start by saying I've

actually never seen a single episode of Andromeda.

I'll admit it. I never have it. We can change

that. We should put together a package of the

pilot episodes for each of these and make everybody

watch them. I'd be willing to watch it. I would

do that. Yeah. I guess my second time. Yeah.

My second pick is a show that's on right now

and it's The Expanse. I got into this series

actually through the books. I'm a voracious reader,

so I try to find new sci -fi series all the time

that I can get into, and Expans really hit it

for me. It's hard sci -fi, there's very little

actual sci -fi elements, like there's no... warp

speed, there's nothing like that, everyone travels

around in the solar system. It's basically the

23rd century, or is it the 24th? They're always

kind of vague about it, but I always think it's

kind of like the late 23rd century. global warming

had never been solved. Everyone just kind of

kept doing what they wanted to do on Earth. So

in the end, Earth is kind of a polluted nightmare

mess where the sea levels are super high and

they've had to wall off most of New York and

much of the eastern seaboard of the United States

is underwater. But the vast majority of the series

takes place in space because while everyone was

wrecking the Earth, one guy on Mars decided to

do some research and develop a type of drive

system that was named after him called the Epstein

drive, and it's basically a fusion drive that's

incredibly efficient with how it produces thrust.

So it overnight turned a very, very slow process

of moving across the solar system into one where

ships could sustain 1G acceleration or much,

much more in some cases for extended periods

of time. uh the solar system basically broke

apart into three different kinds of factions

uh you have earth which is overpopulated and

has a huge military but in general it's kind

of backwards you have mars which is much lower

population but very very high tech all their

stuff is very high tech they're focused on terraforming

mars making it into a new garden of eden and

then there's the belters, the people that basically

live either in the main asteroid belt, further

out Jupiter, Saturn, or on any of the asteroids

that are kind of just zooming around the solar

system. And these people are kind of the downtrodden

lower class of the solar system. They have access

to the vast majority of the resources at humanity's

fingertips, but are exploited no end. the series

centers around a group of ice miners that end

up discovering the first real sci -fi -y part

of the show, which is a, they call it the proto

-molecule. And I don't want to ruin much of it

if you haven't seen it, because it's still being

aired. But let's just say the show gets very

scary, very quick and deals with some pretty

high -minded concepts in some cases. The acting

is superb. If you want to have things that look

like they really are in space, it's in space.

So if a ship is not accelerating, there is no

artificial gravity. People float around. When

there is combat and there is combat in the show,

people put on spacesuits and helmets because

physics is a bitch. And when you have something

that's flying at you at that's you know tens

of thousands of kilometers an hour it's going

to hold your ship no matter how well armored

it is and all of your air is just going to evacuate

from the inside of the ship anyway so there's

a scene in the first episode where is it the

first episode it's either the first episode or

the second episode where a character gets nailed

by a bullet effectively and Gets ripped apart

and no one really even noticed that it happened

because it happened so quickly and the remains

are still glowing hot When they yeah, I think

that's part of the first two because they aired

them back -to -back I've seen the first season.

Yeah, and you're right. It didn't pull me in

initially But what pulled me in like I saw the

trailer for it and they were advertising it as

uh sci -fi in space with Thomas Jane and he was

barely in the first season from what I remember.

Okay um but how I mean how I would describe it

is that it's a real real people in real space

hitting problems that are beyond them and just

trying to do their best and all of the characters

can be described as you can you can actually

Each of the characters is very distinct, but

they all also all have very distinct problems.

Are they good people? Most of the time, most

of the main characters you can say, yeah, they're

good people, but they have flaws. And sometimes

they're very serious flaws. One of the main characters

is clearly a very broken human being that is,

you could say, is a sociopath, but is a good

person. They just need direction in their lives.

And that's actually one of my favorite characters

in the show, bar none, his name is Amos. He's

almost childlike in some ways, but it's because

he suffered some pretty extreme childhood trauma.

And I don't want to go into it on the podcast,

but they go into it in the show a little bit,

but that's over four seasons where you slowly

figure out what happened to Amos. But the characters

are kind of a mix of people from Earth, Mars,

and the belt. in the, as the main group of people

that you follow around. There's stuff that happens

on Earth that centers around a lady named Avasarala,

who is the most powerful woman in the solar system,

quote unquote, and she's a foul -mouthed woman

that actually does really good things for everyone,

like the greater good. She might sometimes seem

like she's screwing over the main characters

or screwing over Earth. But in the end, she's

trying to look out for everyone. And she's an

interesting character as well, even though she

might do some pretty awful things. Is she the

one with the really raspy voice? Yes. Because

again, I saw season one. I have the rest of the

seasons to watch now that I'm a prime member.

But I have heard that everybody that said season

one, if you didn't care for it, season two pulls

you in. Yeah, it keeps ramping up. I don't really

want to ruin it. I can say that the scale of

the show quickly expands even into the first

season. and it continues to do so through following

seasons where you're like oh my god what what's

going on what's going to happen next and when

you think the stakes are a certain at a certain

level you realize that man it's not that they're

at that level they've never been at that level

it's just that your perception of the situation

has led you to believe that it's at that level

where things are going on that you had no idea

about but now oh my god i i see it now and it

just keeps doing that in a very I don't know

a pleasing way where you feel like you become

invested in the characters and the situation

that you want to actually follow the politics

on earth even as weird as that sounds you're

like yeah I want to hear this speech or I hope

that they're working this out or I hope this

character is able to actually convince this other

character that's halfway across the solar system

and they're having to talk via light lag because

there's no faster than light communication. So

a transmission might take 10 hours to get from

A to B and you have to wait for the reply. All

the while, wars might be starting. You know,

it's a fascinating show. Absolutely fascinating.

Well, kind of hearing more about it now makes

me really want to check into it. Jessica's friends

of the show, Green Ronian Publishing, they published

the RPG for The Expanse. And one of my friends,

another Twig contributor, Ryan The Uneven Flow,

has always talked to me about The Expanse, but

he never told me what it was about. Hearing this

pitch, and considering Alex can attest to this,

and probably Steve too, I'm a bit of a space

nerd. Like I tend to stay on top of what's happening

in space. Yeah, your stuff is space and guns

Which is weird, isn't it? You're so obsessed

with guns for being a Canadian But yeah, I mean

I this is something I'm pretty interested in

checking out So I may have to check out the expanse.

So maybe we'll do an expanse show in like a few

months Um, so I guess who's our next? person.

I guess that'd be you, wouldn't it? I think it's

the last one, right? Yeah, and then we'll each

do one honorable mention very quickly. So I picked

The Odyssey. I believe when it aired in the States,

it was known as the Jelly Bean Odyssey. But it

is a Canadian children's slash family sci -fi

fantasy show created by the CBC, which is our

national broadcaster. And it, okay, the best

way I can tell you is I'll sum up, you know,

the beginning of the show. There's a boy who

has a couple of friends at school, but he's picked

on by bullies. And his father went missing years

ago. He was lost to sea sort of thing. And he

was given his father's, I guess, what is it?

Is it binoculars or is it? a telescope, I think

it's like a telescope. And he's sort of at a

park playing and what ends up happening is bullies

come, yada, yada, yada. They steal his dad's

thing, which is like the one thing he had that

his father gave him before he disappeared or

died. And he falls, hits his head and is put

into a coma. And while he's in the coma, he awakens

into a world, like a fantasy sci -fi world, where

nobody over the age of 18 lives there. They all

either die or disappear or go away. And it's

sort of a little bit like Lord of the Flies.

But people from the real world appear in the

dream world. And events that are happening to

him in the real world, like if he overhears what's

happening on the television about something,

it can seep its way into the stories that are

happening in the coma world. And as the show

went on for three seasons, and they took a bit

of a gap, I think, from season two to season

three for about a year or two. And what you start

to realize is he wakes up out of the dream world

after the end of season two. So spoiler, the

show's 25 years old. But he he wakes up and when

he wakes up, you're like, oh, that's the end

of the show. Well, then it cuts in to the dream

world and their world starts to fall apart like

they're getting earthquakes and stuff like they

shouldn't exist because if it's supposed to be

a dream world and you start to realize that Perhaps

it's not a matter of his brain manifesting this

world. It's that when he was in the coma, he

was connected to a parallel world that is inexplicably

tied into his consciousness. Very persona like

actually. Yeah. Um, it's 13 episodes per season.

Uh, they're half hour episodes, uh, done on a

fairly low budget. Very honestly, very Dr. Who

British. Like has anybody here seen Neil Gaiman's,

is it Neverwear? Oh, I love Neverwear. Neverwear

is amazing. It's Canadian Neverwear. Oh, okay.

Well, that sells me on it. Yeah. So here's the

interesting story of how I obtained the DVD.

These are not bootleg. These are officially pressed

DVDs that were never sold in stores, has no UPC

code. You had to go to Omni Film Productions,

which is the production company's website. and

where you would go to try to obtain a screener

for, I guess, a channel that wanted to broadcast

it internationally sort of thing. They had a

section. If you would like a home video copy

licensed to you, we have DVDs available. They

are pressed on real discs. These aren't DVD -Rs.

And all you have to do is contact our sales department,

which is basically the business sales department,

which I did. I said, so how much? And they said,

well, originally we were asking 100 bucks. for

all three because for whatever reason they said,

well, we'll give it to you. We still got one

in the warehouse for like 60. Okay. And they

shipped it to my work when I was working there,

picked it up, looked at it. It's a three disc

set. They crammed every episode in, but it's

still at good quality. Interestingly enough,

I ended up finding out they only ever produced

10 sets. They were sample sets when they had

them done before they were talking to the CBC

about seeing if CBC would want to distribute

them. So they never did. So these are the samples

they would have received when you were getting

a test run done. So it's like me and like nine

other people own the show officially in the world.

And to get it, you would have to have gone to

their website, dug through about five or six

clicks down, contacted their sales department,

made an arrangement to send a private PayPal

email. There was no store. I had to email somebody

in their sales department, and they basically

figured out how to ship it to me and shipped

it to my work. And I said, so what does this

come with? Interestingly enough, I have public

broadcast rights on it. I can't charge money

for it, but I could technically go to a library

and show it. That's kind of neat. Because that's

part of the rights behind it. So anyway, for

you guys to watch it, there is a YouTube channel

called Encore Plus, and I will send a link, and

maybe I'll send a link to Steve, and he can maybe

put a link in the description for the show. It's

run by the Canadian government, where they put

a lot of these shows that don't have official

DVD releases. In this case... There is or there

was, but only 10 of us have. But the entire show

is now available to watch for free on that, you

know, in the highest quality possible. So it's

13 episodes per season. It's a very interesting

show. The Neverware feel, it has a very. It's

very interesting, like the way it looks and feels,

you're constantly weaving in and out and there's

then there tends to be like weird things happening

in the real world where. At one point, it looks

to be that his father is still alive and actually

comes back, but he may be part of some government

organization, like stuff that might tie into

what's going on with his cognition and his coma.

So it's very interesting. And in fact, the bully

that, you know, was mean to him and he feels

bad that uh that he hurt himself and sort of

becomes a friend where he comes over to help

his mom take care of him and because of that

in the dream world he meets this big hulking

you know boy he's supposed to be strong and it's

that kid who ends up becoming his friend in the

dream world because of the stimulus he's getting

in the real world I always like it when shows

take a more cerebral approach to it rather than

just bad guy of the week, spaceship shows up,

whatever. This is interesting. It's children's

never wear mixed with lost. And for me, because

I've never seen Never where, but I, but I've

seen a couple episodes of the Odyssey. This is

very relevant to me and Alex. We just finished

playing a game on the PlayStation four known

as persona five Royal, which deals about the

subconscious cognition, how you perceive self,

what that means, external influences, especially

Alex. You'll get what I'm saying here. Like if

someone's cognition changes and their palace

door opens. And like how you mentioned, the kid

in the Odyssey can be influenced by outside things.

Yeah. For instance, like there's all the bad,

like they're always on the run from this gang

of like this biker gang of older kids. And the

older kids are like 16. So, but then the whole

time he's there, he's like, I want to find a

way to get home. How did I get here? And it's

a little bit like Sinbad or Hercules, like sort

of those journey shows where he's walking across

the land. trying to find a way home. And everybody

keeps telling him, well, you just have to go

talk to Brad. And they're like, who's Brad? Well,

Brad's 17. He's older than everybody. He knows

everything. You just have to find Brad. He'll

be able to get you home. And there's a point

I believe in the first season where they find

Brad, but they're too late. He just turned 18

and he walks off into the mist and disappears.

So very cool show. I'll send the links for you

guys to watch. Uh, very cool. It is just, I like

that I have a story behind it where I'm like

literally one of a handful of people that actually

own it officially. Well, that is kind of neat

actually just to say, Hey, you've got something

very few people have. So hold on to it. I've

had it for five years and it has that weird plastic

smell in the case. Like when you get those cheap

cases of DVD cases from China. So I'm like, they

literally put it together however they want it,

but the discs are officially pressed. They're

not like, you know, blank DVDs that they burnt.

Hmm. So as we begin to finish out the show, we're

going to give you our two or three minute pitch

on one of what might be a honorable mention.

And I've got two small ones here. One, you can

only find on YouTube because there never has

been an official release of this series. Um,

and my, my two picks are Terminator, the Sarah

Connor Chronicles, because I never in a million

years would have imagined they did a Terminator

TV show. Um, it took the lore fairly seriously.

Um, a couple liberties here and there, but it

played with the idea of, of alternate timelines,

changing things. Cause they do take some things

from terminator three rise in the machines where

they mentioned that Sarah Connor has cancer.

She passes away from leukemia just after, or

just before a judgment day or something along

those lines. I know Cameron played by, um, help

me out here. What's her name? Summerglau. No.

Yeah, Summer Glau tells Lena Headley's character,

oh, by the way, you're going to die in a few

months. And she's like, no, I'm not. So I like

some of the themes that they challenge in the

show, plus introducing new Terminators. Their

big bad in the series was a character named Cromarty.

And then there was a T -1000. I can't remember

her first name, but the character's last name

was Weaver. And then there was John Henry, which

was a learning computer built from a chess computer

known as the Turk. So that was the foundation.

for Skynet and the series ended on a cliffhanger

where they come back to the future and we'll

never know how the series ends and the writer

and showrunner for the show says well I can't

tell you should it ever decide to come back and

then the other one show and I hopefully Aaron

will appreciate this one because he's worked

on the line. I love the battle tech cartoon even

though it is not canon. It is ridiculously off

canon but it is still funny. Is it not canon?

No, because they mess with the timelines and

it doesn't work with certain events. They tried

to canonize it in one of the books, but it didn't

work out so well. There are aspects of it that

are canon. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Certain things

work, certain things don't. But basically, for

those of you that don't know, Battletech is the,

it is a series of RPGs and tactical board gaming,

basically based around these walking tanks called

Battle Mechs. And it takes place largely in the

31st century, though you can set it in a variety

of different timelines. And it features an organization

or a collection of city states known as the Inner

Sphere. And for better or for worse, there's

always wars going on. There are two popular settings,

at least as far as I know from my personal experience.

There is the Third Succession War, where basically

all the houses are at war for one reason or another

or there's the clan invasion. The clan invasion

is where I came into the line in the 90s and

that's where the TV show kind of picks up and

it features these invaders that broke off from

Earth and all them so many years ago. They hid

away in another part of the galaxy, developed

their technology, developed cloning and all this

other advanced tech and then decide to come back

and conquer the inner sphere because you guys

frankly fucked it up and we're gonna do it better.

And it's interesting for children's cartoon,

it's one of the first that had computer animation

in it when they go into laser time or whatever

they called it. It's targeting or something like

that. Yeah, it was interesting to see a role

playing game take that because the only other

example I can think of is the Dungeons and Dragons

cartoon from CBS in the 80s. So when Fossa took

this leap, I was so happy to see this because

the card game was out in the 90s. There was the

Mechwarrior, the Mechwarrior games for PC. So

you can look up episodes on YouTube. It was very

short. The quality is not great on them, but

it is still watchable. And I just want to throw

a cartoon in here because we haven't talked about

those. So maybe that'll be a future topic for

next time. Cartoons that are sci -fi. So I guess

we will throw to Steve next. So this one is kind

of sci -fi kind of and I don't remember a whole

lot about it, but it was a Uncancelled series.

I remember watching it on Netflix It was called

flash forward another Brandon Braga show And

I don't know if anybody's familiar with it, but

it's Yeah, so it only lasted one season 22 episodes

and then it kind of lep on a cliffhanger, but

some of the executive producers for it were Brandon

Braga, David S. Goyer, Mark Guggenheim. So people

that are renowned for other bigger projects than

this. And this was on from like 2009 to 2010.

So basically, it's about a narrative where a

mysterious event happens and it causes everyone

on the planet to simultaneously blackout for

137 seconds, during which people see what appears

to be a vision of their own life approximately

six months in the future. So then it follows

like a LA FBI agent who's kind of... Going crazy

going after this this whole process of trying

to determine what happened why and whether it

will happen again and They're investigating another

a number of events that kind of trying to figure

out who suspect zero was and who did not lose

consciousness during the event because of the

This is their McGuffin the quantum entanglement

device Uh, so it, it basically, uh, they're,

they're saying in the show that it happened in

like 1991 and then happens during this time.

And, uh, of course they figure out pretty much

everything by the end of the season. And then,

uh, more or less they, they have another flash

forward and then it kind of cuts out. Um, but

it was kind of interesting just because of you

get to see kind of the world and in turmoil.

because it jumps six months into the future to

see what's happened who's alive who's dead and

then you're kind of wondering how it's going

to happen for a lot of it so um yeah i remember

like they start to realize that if they didn't

see a future it means they're probably dead yep

because it was black but then um how the one

main character like they kill off a main character

by uh having him commit suicide Uh, and his,

his belief is he's like, I saw my future. It's

this fate can't be set in stone. I'll prove it.

And literally goes walks off the top of the building

guys. And literally pays the ultimate sacrifice

to prove that the future is not set. Yeah. It's

kind of morbid, but it was kind of cool for,

um, a lot of, I think it was at ABC that aired

it or NBC, something like that. um there a lot

of broadcast tv isn't known for taking risks

like that but they did so but yeah that's my

honorable mention all right so moving right along

i guess aaron what is your honor honorable mention

well uh i'll start by saying that my honorable

mention is something that most people have heard

about. At one point, one of the kids that I had

in the house that I fostered was seriously asked

me, you know, dad, what is your spirit animal?

And, you know, I looked at her and it took me

just a moment to kind of think of a witty response.

And I said, my spirit animal is Fox Mulder. So

my honorable mention is X -Files. X -Files, I...

dearly love. Filmed much in Canada so there we

go there's some some tie -in. I absolutely adore

X -Files because of how eerie many of the episodes

feel or how just kind of off -kilter it feels

at times. It's only my honorable mention rather

than in my like top two just because the last

couple seasons really kind of start falling apart

because of huge story arcs, and during the other

seasons, the seasons one through seven, the episodes

that are dealing with many of the bigger arcs,

you know, like the government conspiracy, aren't

as good as some of the standalone episodes in

those seasons. The standalone episodes are always

amazing, but it basically centers around two

FBI agents. One of them is Fox Mulder, who pretty

much believes in any weird paranormal or UFO

type experience that's happening in the X -Files

refers to these unsolved cases that the FBI kind

of has. And then the other character who is arguably

the actual main character of the show, well,

Chris Carter who. who came up with the show,

who created the show, says that Dana Scully,

who is the other character, is actually the main

character of the show. She's a skeptic. She doesn't

believe any of this. She's a firm scientist,

she's a doctor, but she slowly comes to understand

that many of the things that Mulder believes

in is actually true. And by, well, in the more

recent seasons that have been kind of standalone

seasons that they've released more recently,

Scully has become a true believer, which is an

interesting turn for the character. Anyway, I

love the show. It deals with crazy conspiracy

theories. It had a spinoff show that was called

Blown Gunman, which dealt with a group of conspiracy

theorists that published. you know, a newsletter

that basically talked about the craze. I love

that show. Wasn't it a zine that they had? It

was a zine. And they had their own spinoff show

for one season and the first episode was the

best. Well, it was the first episode aired a

couple months before September 11th and dealt

with a terrorist false flag type operation, flying

an aircraft into the World Trade Center. which

was a very eerie episode to watch. It's very

upsetting to watch even now just because of that.

It was only a couple months before September

11th happened. So yeah, anyway, a very, very

good show X -Files. Highly recommend it. Absolutely.

X -Files was my jam for so many years. In fact,

hell me and Aaron, I'm pretty sure we could talk

about this for like two hours. Um, the X -Files

in my house was Friday night. My parents always

watched TV. I'm like, no to hell with you. I'm

taking over from nine o 'clock to 10 o 'clock.

It is my television. Um, and I watched Mulder

and Scully for the first five seasons. hardcore

then the show got moved to Sunday nights and

then fight the future came out I was obsessed

with that actually had an original theatrical

poster I went through hell to get I went to Vancouver

when I was a kid I saw the forest where they

film the episode fire which I thought was really

cool oh no it wasn't called fire it was the one

with the bugs that glowed in the dark that came

out of the logs yeah trees yeah oh god do you

remember the cockroach episode where they put

it like a fake cockroach that ran across the

screen yep to freak out oh see so many really

good episodes i had nightmares remember i'm the

baby here this group i had nightmares that the

fluke man was going to eat me from my toilet

Fluke Man was awesome because we we had we used

to go to my grandparents cottage and they had

an outhouse and I wouldn't go in for like a year

because I was like the fluke man's going to eat

me it really pushed the limits on the show too

uh there's an episode I think it's in the first

season where there's the guy that is the uh like

a mortician and he's like washing wanting to

wash women's hair, and he's kind of stalking

Scully and there's all these like flowers. He

worked at a funeral home. In the script, he was

clearly a necrophile. Oh god, yeah. And they

had to take that word out. But it's really clear

this guy likes to sleep with dead bodies. Oh,

that was a weird episode. There's those, the

carny folk one, or the one, I don't remember

the name. What's the name of the one where uh

the mom lives underneath the sink it's underneath

the bed i think that's written by isn't there

is that written by steven king that episode uh

the the carnival freaks one was always a favorite

of ours uh what else was there that was uh the

brady bunch one that's i think the last season

uh i was always also partial to the vr one where

yeah yeah where skill is like who would actually

like to play this and he's like he raises and

he's like me Wasn't that written by William Gibson

as well? It was actually. I remember Stephen

King wrote an episode, he wrote two episodes,

I think. I know he wrote one called Chinga, which

was about a haunted doll, which would always

say, let's have fun. And then something terrible

would like happen to you. Another memorable episode

that has been banned from broadcast is one called

Home, which they deal with like dead babies.

And it's pretty It's pretty gross. Yeah. Would

not fly today. I would say, uh, and of course

we have like the classic ones with like the black

oil saga. My favorite bad guy of all time. Love

the black oil. Uh, Thompson playing, uh, Oh,

Brian Thompson as the alien bounty hunter. Yeah.

Uh, but my favorite episode and it ties into

my whole love of, of manipulation of time. I

don't remember the name. It's the one where the

guy is on death row and he's living his life

in reverse. Lazarus? No, that's a different episode.

And he has to spend the whole time figuring out

how he got there. He basically wakes up in death

row one day and he starts reliving time backwards

and he's got to try to figure out how he got

there and then convince Mulder and Scully that

he's already met them and explained to him how

he was put there. He's basically put in a time

loop. I was gonna say, I may not be explaining

it 100%, but that was my favorite episode. And

every time it's on, I have to watch it. The X

-Files did make me cry once. Season nine, where

they killed the lone gunman, because I thought

they deserved a much better end, but they did

die going out doing what they wanted to do. And

that was save. the world. So they tied up, uh,

loose ends from the other series where they brought

back, I love this guy's name, Jimmy Bond and

Yves Harlow, uh, which is a anagram for Lee Harvey

Oswald. And basically it involves bioterrorism

and shark cartilage at one point. And you see

them all come to a door. So it's Agent Doggett

and Gish. I think it is. And then Bond and Yves

come to the door. They lock this guy in a hotel

hallway where his shark appendix is full of this

virus and it's going to burst. And they're like,

we know how to save everybody, but we can't save

ourselves. So Byers Langley and Frohickey say,

fight the good fight, keep doing what we would

do. And they get buried in Arlington cemetery

because, um, Skinner pulls in a couple of favors

and, uh, Mulder doesn't know they're dead until

I think like later on. I know in the newer seasons,

they appear in a dream sequence. Uh, well, one

of them appears, uh, his copy of his consciousness

was put into a computer system. That sounds like

Langley. Um, and I believe, uh, it ends like

he helps them or something and, um, he wants

to die. So they want to turn them on. Like he

asked to be turned off basically. So yeah, The

X -Files. Fantastic show. Can't recommend it

enough. So I guess final recommendation or who

is it next? Is it Steve or is it you Alex? Two

little quick ones. Or is it, yeah, wait, yeah,

it's me. Yeah, yeah, it's you. I have two very

quick ones because I am the king of trying to

find the rare and the canceled and the shows

that had interesting potential but were always,

didn't make it past a few episodes. One actually

has a DVD release, it might be out of print now

from Mill Creek, called Space Rangers. And it

is as hokey and ridiculous as you can imagine.

It came out on CBS in 1993, starring, let's see

here, a Who's Who. Jeff Cock, or Cocky, Cocky

Cake, whatever you want to say his name. He was

in a lot of action movies. Jack McGee, who is

a character actor you might recognize. Shang

Tsung himself, Kari Hyuki Tagawa. plays an alien

in it uh linda hunt if you remember the the tiny

principal from kindergarten cop and she's in

ncis los angeles or something it's basically

uh firefly before firefly if that makes any sense

uh silly 90s uh action show trying to capitalize

on next gen ran six episodes uh was spliced together

to make a couple of TV movies later on, which

are also included on the DVD. I love popping

in random shows like this that didn't get the

love that it deserved back in the day because

there were just too many shows like it. But that's

just one off. And the other one I have is one

that I have been trying to track down for years.

I found somebody at one point that had a VHS

taped copy that they put on DVD and it was being

sold. a few nefarious sites to get a hold of

because for whatever reason it's been buried

and it's a show that I think as a concept would

work well today. And that's Mercy Point. Mercy

Point was also on UPN. It ran for seven episodes

from 1998 to 1999. And it is, think ER or a doctor

show, but on a space station. and it starred

Joe Morton, who played Dyson in the Terminator

2 movie, as well as was a regular featured character

on the sci -fi show Eureka for years. It was

basically a pure mixture of a hospital show and

a space show, and they treated it almost more

so like a hospital show. And as a kid, I was

fascinated because they'd be treating all these

different aliens. It was like a bit of Babylon

5, a bit of Deep Space Nine and mixed in with

like, I guess, seen elsewhere. So I thought it

was really cool. I'm surprised it didn't do well

because it's another one that they tried to air

back to back with, I believe Voyager at the time.

And it just didn't pick up. But as a kid, I watched

all seven episodes when it aired. whatever channel

they're up here, it disappeared, has never been

rerun as far as I can remember since like 1999

or 2000. Copies that exist online are literally

somebody's second or third grade VHS tapes. And

for whatever reason, nobody's picked it up. And

I think there's clips available on YouTube to

see little bits and pieces here and there, but

it was a fascinating concept and that's what

I love finding. show that I can watch in one

afternoon that had maybe one to seven episodes

and then I try to sort of critique why was it

cancelled and you know would it be a show that

could be rebooted today well and yes that's it

and that's it Well, that has been certainly a

look, certainly a lot longer than we expected

at some of the shows that we enjoy that aren't

Star Trek. However, there are still many more

shows as we discuss in here. I'm pretty sure

Aaron and I can talk about the X -Files endlessly.

I would love to do a deep dive on Battlestar

Galactica 2004. And I'd like to check out The

Expanse as it does definitely seem right up my

alley. But what are some of the suggestions we

can hear from you? So if you want to give us

an email, you can reach us at Steve. Give them

the info. Feedback. at geek cast radio or feedback

at thisweekengeek .net. Fantastic. So we always

do look forward to interacting with you. You

can reach us on Twitter at thisweekengeek, although

that account is being managed by Alex right now.

However, if you do have individual feedback for

me, Alex, Aaron, or Steve, um, it will get there.

Uh, if you want to reach, um, Steve on Twitter,

it's at SCP 21 Alex, uh, You can just find us

through the app This Week in Geek Twitter account.

And Aaron, you don't have Twitter, do you? Oh,

I'm behind the times, it seems. I'm a Luddite.

No, I'm just on Facebook. OK, so if people really

want to stalk you, they can find you. If you

have feedback or questions for him specifically,

send it to feedback at This Week in Geek. We'll

make sure he gets it. Absolutely. Actually, speaking

of Aaron, he will be a interview guest for us

on This Week in Geek coming up really soon, so

we'll be looking for that during Twig's month

of interviews here on the show. We will be talking

about his career in the role -playing game industry,

from working as a writer to doing some work on

Battletech and Star Trek, and just some of what

his early game jams were, basically what drew

into this industry and whatnot. So it should

be an enlightening conversation. one I'm definitely

going to nerd out over and you should be looking

for that rather soon here on the site. So for

future imperfect we have been. Steve Megatron

Phillips. At your cue Alex. See, I thought we

were going in the order that we were talking

before. Oh, fuck if I know. Mike, you need to

establish that from now on. You need to introduce

us. I'm sorry. I'm tired of you doing this every

time. Every single time you don't tell us who's

supposed to go. So Alex. Well, it's not so bad.

It's not so bad with just you and I, but yes,

we have more people. We got four people, buddy.

That's true. That's true. I'm sorry. I'm tired.

Anyway. And our guest. And we will be seeing

you next time here on future imperfect. We're

hopefully I do not get scrambled and mess things

up. So until next time folks, I've been Mike

the bird man dots in live. I was going to say

live free and prosper. Fuck. I really am tired.

Live long and prosper.