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Not likely. I was much more dismayed when a far more promising series that some may remember, called "Farscape," was cancelled. To this day, I still don't understand why SciFi was stupid enough to can a show that was carrying Number-One ratings. Thankfully, they seem to have (finally!) realized their error (as evidenced by the fact that they're financing the production of the miniseries).

As for 'Andromeda' -- It held my interest for maybe three episodes. Kevin Sorbo and a starship just didn't seem to go together. Now, if they'd tossed in some subtle-yet-silly references to 'Hercules,' that might have made the difference.

And while we're on the topic of Gene Roddenberry series that go stale, what about "Earth: Final Conflict?" It had IMMENSE potential, and pretty decent writing -- until they killed off Boone's character, and Tribune Entertainment got their grubby little mitts into it. The only good episode after that was the series finale (and you knew it really WAS the finale because Sandoval's character was done in!)

I can only hope that "Tripping the Rift," "Scare Tactics," and "Mad Mad House" meet the same fate as "Andromeda" and "Mutant X."

Oh, and naturally Gaiman is terrific a writer as well.

What? What are you looking at me like that for? Hey, sometimes it helps to give the brain a rest, you know... if I watched TV less, I'd just play video games more. If I wanted to do something productive, I'd work on the house. The point is that when I watch TV, I'm actively choosing to *not* be productive. If anyone has a problem with that choice, they need to get a new hobby outside of worrying about what I'm doing with my time.

Now that I have Tivo, I can more efficiently spend my unproductive time being entertained rather than watching commercials and bad shows "because nothing else is on", but I'm still *choosing* to be unproductive... kinda like right now...

It was in a 50km/hr zone, and he was driving (according to the black box) 130km/hr. Can you think of any circumstance where you could be driving from a law-abiding 50km/hr before, and arrive at 130km/hr with the gas pedal pressed down within the recording window?

I'm not concerned about an obvious case like this one. Arguing that this is typical is like justifying the death penalty based on Charles Manson or Ted Bundy.

I'm worried about the "edge" cases, where maybe something *did* happen just before that 5-second window. That's why we have judges and juries -- not for the obvious cases, but for the ones that require human judgement. After all, we know what happens when you take a computer's word without question, right?

I'm not sure about the Retro nominees, but the regular Hugo niminees are almost always made available for free download at some time prior to the convention.

At the moment, I know that Best Novelette nominee "The Empire of Ice Cream" is available on-line; also, Kage Baker's novella The Empress of Mars appears to be available for free from Fictionwise. Don't know about the others, although, like I said, I'm sure they'll turn up eventually.

Okay. In order:

Why are there obvious muppets as main characters? Is this a Sci-Fi show or a puppet show?

If you were Brian Henson (you, uh, may have heard of his dad?), you'd probably have some Muppets in your cast too. Personally, I found it a nice break from the "guy with some shit glued on his forehead" formula most other series take.

Why is one of them farting an on-going joke? Is this Terence and Phillip?
The plot justification: when angry, or scared, Hynerians like Rygel fart helium. Look, we all have our personal problems.

The storytelling justification: 1) To illustrate that different species have some very odd dissimilarities. 2) Because although the show could be Very Serious Indeed, the writers demonstrated repeatedly that they didn't take themselves too seriously. 3) Because fart jokes are funny. You don't want to admit it, but they are. Deal.

Farscape is one of those shows that's very difficult to break into because of its highly seralized nature. That is to say, the plotline is very involved, and trying to break into it is very difficult. ("Who is that guy? Why are they all looking at each other uncomfortably? Why the musical sting?") It got to the point where the "previously, on Farscape" section at the beginning of every episode packed in more story than most of the actual episode.

With that in mind, Farscape rewarded loyal viewers with a story that was incredibly involved and detailed (think: Babylon 5), coupled with character interactions that seemed effortlessly natural (think: completely unlike Babylon 5). I first started watching partway through season two. I'd just sorta left the TV on the Sci Fi channel (a mistake I very rarely make these days), and the conversation between my wife and I just sorta drifted off as we watched an episode called "The Way We Weren't," which remains my favorite episode to this day. It was about shame, and betrayal, and forgiveness: most importantly, it was about these things in a way which seemed to assume the best about its audience, rather than the worst. My wife, who generally dislikes space-opera style sci-fi, became a rabid viewer, as did I.

Anyway, watch a few episodes with an open mind and a sense of humor, and you're likely to be surprised with where it takes you.

That is how I read it

Yeah, they're tagging them so they'll be easier to process for Soylent Green

Arguably, this might be just what MMORPGs need... something that enforces sociability and cooperation with a person who they don't get to choose. It's possible that two people creating an ogre character end up with personalities that mesh well, but in any other case the users would be forced to come up with a system of compromises and rules for how things will be done.

One particular book, Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman proposes the idea that humans which are forced into interacting with each other continuously will ultimately gain an empathy with humanity as a whole that will result in peacefulness and civility.

Yes, the book I mentioned is Sci-Fi, though the idea isn't too far off from reality. At a recent meeting of PUMUG, we had a demo of a recently released group-programming tool that was essentially just a text editor for more than 1 person. Most of the folks at the meeting had the program up and running, so we shared a common text file for editing. The chaos of ~10 people was incredible, though a sense of order was eventually established with the understand that each person got a particular line or set of lines to write on (with no outside interference) and that people would refrain from huge text pastes or deletes. There were the occasional annoyances, but most people that stuck it through were civil about it and managed quite an interesting conversation that entirely distracted from the meeting.

So yes, it is April 1st, but this is one story that I would hope might be real. If it were, I might very well play an ogre myself. Feel free to look for me... the name'll probably be something like Grantor\/\/1zzz3|2D, and I'll be going insane. Cheers.

Right on. S:A&B was the friggin BOMB. I loved that show to death, especially the space battles! They just got SO much right, and still managed to keep it exciting!
I know this is against all things geek, but honestly most Star Trek spacefights aren't that great... they tend to show more actors shaking around on stage than two goliath ships duking it out. The only show that even comes close to the greatness that was S:A&B is B5. They've got some pretty badass large scale fights... but IMO, nothing holds a candle to S:A&B. Heck, if you're feeling a little nostalgic (and read this before the server gets /.ed to hell), clicky over here for a short (and really poor quality) clip of S:A&B. At first blush it doesn't really seem special, but if you watch it closely, you start to notice the little things that S:A&B got right. Stuff like the ship having to dodge debris, or how the alien fighter at that flys past them at the end cuts power and spins around to blast them while still traveling forward (momentum). Its stuff like that that made their dogfights so enthralling to watch.
Plus, the Wildcards were just badass! "Expect No Mercy". (And who can forget the forboding "Abandon All Hope" ace? ;))

Where is Six?

Dozois never claimed to have coined it, he just used it before most people had read bethke's obviously titled short.

= 9J =

On the other hand, that particular endorsement may carry some weight with John Edward and Shirley Maclaine followers...

....but it's still not there....it will land some day tho..........

was Michael Shanks post-Stargate SG-1 acting career.

Don't worry, Peter and Mary are checking his work in between doobie breaks.

Wait.

Is this guy related to Commander Chode? Lemme go find my crash helmet...

I guess they should have gotten a nuclear device as in Andromeda Strain which practically covers about any mistake you can make at such a facility.
(Except ofcourse if the organism thrives on that)

I don't know if they have any designs on Lord of Light yet, but last I heard, Sci-Fi was planning on an Amber miniseries, written by Richard Christian Matheson, whose past writing credits include such tours de force as The A-Team, Knight Rider, and The Incredible Hulk.

P.S. You're not a Cassandra if people believe you. ;)

-Carolyn

Well, given that "I, Robot" was first published in 1950 , I'm willing to concede that some of the content might be a bit dated by now...

The guy was still a visionary for his age, yet most of his work was not trying to project the future of technology, but instead project mankind's actions when enabled by advanced technology. That's pretty much the whole point of the Foundation series, given sufficiently advancements, will humans still behave like barbarians towards one another?

It's not tempting for me at all, since I still get my sci-fi channel (Stargate SG1!!!) fix from Dish, but comcast is apparently just starting a $400 dish buyback program to get back customers. The money would be nice (or however they apply the credit), but I still think I'm better off with Dish.

My daughter might miss Nick, but she's been starting to play more Planetside and other online games. I suspect she'll come through this OK.

I'll be damned. Looks like Hollywood is already working on it. Tim Minear, writer for Firefly, Angel, and the X-Files, is developing the script. Let the debates about whom should be cast as whom begin.

I'm glad the monkeys and robots have enough to produce a RoboSapien. I imagine that mating must've been quite painful.

Wow, I hadn't heard about that. It explains a lot. SciFi sucks compared to "the old days". Horror is not science fiction. Fantasy is not science fiction. Vampires are not science fiction. Reality TV is not science fiction. That voodoo sideshow fuckwit John Edwards is not science fiction. For the most part, the SciFi Channel is not science fiction. "Navy SEALs vs. a king-size Komodo dragon" is not science fiction.

(Do you happen to remember when/where she said this?)

I spoke with the director about the way some webcomics and other online media outlets were giving away content to make $$$. For instance, I bought the Small Stories book, even though I'd already read Same Difference for free online. I thought giving away one of the vignettes from the website would be a do-able notion (especially with advance promtion somewhere like /., followed with a Bit Torrent to ease his bandwidth bills), which could then fuel direct DVD sales of some kind.

Bottom line, if this comes by you, see it! I can't believe a movie like this has been making the festival rounds for so long and has not been picked up by a cable outlet or some type of distributor. Heck, if SciFi has money to waste on some of its crap-tacular originals, I'm sure it has the money to buy up something this small-scale. Maybe a grass-roots geek agitation could help this deserving flick out!

I spoke with the director about the way some webcomics and other online media outlets were giving away content to make $$$. For instance, I bought the Small Stories book, even though I'd already read Same Difference for free online. I thought giving away one of the vignettes from the website would be a do-able notion (especially with advance promtion somewhere like /., followed with a Bit Torrent to ease his bandwidth bills), which could then fuel direct DVD sales of some kind.

Bottom line, if this comes by you, see it! I can't believe a movie like this has been making the festival rounds for so long and has not been picked up by a cable outlet or some type of distributor. Heck, if SciFi has money to waste on some of its crap-tacular originals, I'm sure it has the money to buy up something this small-scale. Maybe a grass-roots geek agitation could help this deserving flick out!

Here's what I could come up with...

The trap was mentioned in the Alienshop episode of the Outer Limits.

The X-15 had such favorable PR that most people forget that one pilot lost his life when his X-15 spun out of control and disintegrated.

That is patently false.

He was rebuilt

A remake has already been made but I just wanted to mention te game :)

It's because they're selling to british and the british are meant to suffer.

We surely are. As an example, I recently sought to nab the 3rd and 4th MST3K box sets. So to start with, not available in the UK. I shop around, find a good deal on Amazon for the pair, and send off. Now, importing into the UK is an absolutely random gamble - your package may or may not be checked and subjected to extra duty. Mine was - an extra 13 on top, split between Customs and the Royal Mail. But it's not all bad - the total price was still less than the other vendors, and way less than I would have been expected to pay if there was a UK release. Our prices are generally ridiculous for DVDs and CDs - there has been some improvement of late, but price cuts are generally led by major chains who can afford the risk, leaving smaller independent stores in an unfortunate position. If I think an independent store is worth supporting, I'll happily do so - but I won''t fork cash out to high-street chains when I can get the same product much cheaper online (though the online store is probably a subsidiary of the bricks-and-mortar one) and I won't buy British when I can buy American (or even better, Chinese) for far less. It's not like I'm helping kill off master British craftsmen - just a few corpulent CEOs. And while I might contribute to a salesperson begin surplus to requirements, I'll also be contributing to the demand for postal workers...

If Stephen Baxter could use the Saturn V for a one way trip to Titan, I see no reason why we can't use it for Mars instead! Baxter has even done the research :-)

And just for the record, yes the book does drag, but it also has a great story of a dilapidated American space program doing something heroic which I found a tale worth reading.

there aren't any fossil fuels on a planet devoid of fossils

Perhaps he's working on the Russian theory that asteroid and comet impacts buried hydrocarbons under the earth's crust? If that theory pans out, then Mars may have even more oil than the Earth, since it hasn't had its near-surface deposits eroded away by liquid water (at least not for a billion years or so).

If that theory is extended, you've got the possibility of huge oil deposits on all the rocky planets and moons -- with the possible exception of our own moon, due to its unique method of formation. That makes Mars especially attractive, since Venus and Mercury have the disadvantage of being hot enough to melt your drilling equipment.

Giant space-based refinery ships bringing petrochemicals to an oil-starved Earth... sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Are companies still paying for that shit? I can't imagine them getting anything approaching a good return on investment for popup ads these days.

It's all about the marketing. Earthlink and AOL (or several other unnamed ISPs) advertise their mad pop up blocking features in their newest products on TV. Typical computer user sees the commericals and thinks "damn, I hate pop ups, I can never stop them. They are annoying. I'll get Earthlink/AOL and beat those nasty pop up advertisers once and for all! Where's my credit card?"

The fact that you can download a free browser like Mozilla or Opera that will install and run on your Windows system doesn't matter to typical computer user. If it's free, who supports it? If I'm paying for it, it's probably good software. They wouldn't make those clever ads with the "Six Million Dollar Man" music if it wasn't good software, would they?

You don't actually have to make a better product, you just have to convince enough people that your product is better. Then call it "Optimized" or something like that. Sounds good, but what does it do for you?

Hey Gang, I saw this short quite some time ago on the Sci-Fi show Exposure. If you're interested in shorts, I really recommend checking their site out. Even though they don't have More available for on-line play, they do have shorts like Prelude to Eden, and Protest.

http://exposure.scifi.com

~D

Unaired episodes? Awwww... poor Americans, haven't you seen the entire series yet? For what it's worth, the UK SciFi channel has shown it two or three times already. In fact, the SciFi is having a "Firefly" weekend (next weekend, I think... their site is appalling, but I saw it advertised) in which they show all the episodes... again... muahahaha.

There's some crazy person singing the theme song, which, I can't stress enough, people should just avoid that particular extra. It was never meant to be heard by anybody. ... Yeah, that'd be me. I threw it down. I was like, OK, I'll just throw it down so they know the chords and then we'll get some great old blues singer to sing it and it will be cool. And they were like, "Let's put it on the DVD." And I was like, "OK." And then I listened to it. I was like, "I must die now [laughs]." I can't stress this enough--not a singer. ... But the embarrassment is outweighed by the fact that I love this show as hard as anything I've loved, and to have it exist on the DVD shelf and in perpetuity is such a great thing for me.

Listen to an adaption on Seeing Ear Theatre.

Since Britain and US are good friends now... It is time to start the Trans-Atlantic Tunnel. Early ideas are available. Even a promo tapes avaiable in english and german

parts: the clonus horror

George & company must have seen this in the theatre and believe it would come true. So give them some credit - even if they are rich, white men they don't seem to want a clone farm for parts after all.

Unless that's what the want us to think. Maybe they've remodeled Area 51 and it's now a secret clone farm! The horror!

In a discussion debating the lack of originality of a given work, a black letter red herring could be introducing how hollywood lawyers adversely affect the quality of the work. Look it up.

Since you consider it to be "one of the most famous works of literature in the history of civilization," and obviously a work of value when measuring "creativity, social commentary, meaningful culture or literary achievement," Hamlet and the non-Shakespearean origins of the story are certainly germane to your objections to the origins of the latest Battlestar Galactica.

Let me put it to you another way:

There should be little difference in evaluating a retelling of Norse legend and criticizing a retelling of a retelling of Mormon mythology, whether it's in television, film, or theater, especially in when one of the litmus tests is making "something original."

A remake, by definition, is not original.

Nor is a retelling.

Hollywood complains at exhausting length about how expensive and risky it is to make these stumbling multi-million dollar white elephant productions, yet they absolutely refuse to hire even one writer to make even one original script that isn't designed by a marketing formula.

Putting aside your hyperbole for a moment, honestly, I have to ask--Did you even watch the mini-series?

People are sick and tired of remade, reconstituted crap. The low television ratings are proof.

Well, obviously...

You can read Light of Other Days by Bob Shaw for an answer :^)

You can read Light of Other Days by Bob Shaw for an answer :^)

are forgetting that they already *had* humanoid cylons - they were introduced in BSG 1980.

Not only did the movie blow chunks, it used "borrowed" footage to boot!

According to the producers, Olmos's warning was kinda taken out of context. Apparently he loves the new BSG, but felt that die-hard fans would not appreciate the changes made to the show. The quote printed on the site linked in the parent makes me agree with the producer. (Namely, "The intent and the way we've built the reality is very different from the reality of the original.")

The producer's rebuttal can be found here.

For what it's worth, I've been watching my box set of the original series while stuck on a business trip. I'm hoping the new series will be good, but even if isn't, well... they're different series, and I'll judge them on their own merits, not how they relate to each other.

Just my $.02...

I nominate Six from the new animated series "Tripping the Rift". Premeires January, 2004 on the Sci-Fi channel.

The only good thing about Realplayer is that you could use it to play Sci-Fi.coms Seeing Ear Theater, and that it supported esd as an output format.

Because of the joy of Esound, you could then use esdmon to snag the stream as waveform data and then encode it to a more cromulent media format. Of course, then along came stuff like Vsound, now sadly discontinued.

What you want is slow glass . You leave it in a nice spot, and ten years later you put it in your window frame. The light takes ten years to pass through the glass, and you have ten years of views.

You are absolutely right... I had the same first thought cross my mind. I'm waiting on getting one because many of the channels I watch have those annoying little logos that burn the crap out of plasma...

If some of you don't buy this, just google "plasma burn-in"

Funny... season 8 for next year was confirmed back on July 23, 2003. That probably has something to do with SG-1 being Sci-Fi's highest rated original series. Not to mention the spinoff series (Atlantis) that will be coming soon...