io9
Television science fiction will leave you pissed and confused, if you follow the wrong shows this spring. Some of the shows airing in the next few months will end abruptly, due to the writers' strike. You'll be left with a cliffhanger that was meant to last one week but hangs on for several months instead. Click through for a handy schedule, along with minor spoilers and details of how many episodes each show has in the can.
Last Friday: Flash Gordon. More stand-alone episodes are on their way. Rankol learns to control where rifts open and steals a whole lake from Earth. And a maniac tries to blow up the citadel on Mongo.
In the can: At least 3 more episodes.
Last Friday: Stargate Atlantis. The battle with the Replicators continues, and we learn more about the Wraiths. A quarantine lockdown traps Atlantis personnel in different parts of the city, and they "have no choice but to bond," says actress Jewel Staite.
In the can: 10 more episodes, the full run.
Jan. 14: Terminator: The Sarah Chronicles. Chances are you've already seen the first episode, which was available on Yahoo recently, and is still posted all over the place online. Summer Glau (Firefly) is the hawt Terminator sent back in time to protect Sarah Connor (Lena Headey from 300) and her son John. They travel forward in time to now-ish and decide to stop Skynet... again. Future episodes will probably have a lot of "trying to blend in" stuff, with John and his Terminator GF going to school together. Oh, and an FBI agent is chasing them too.
In the can: 10 episodes.
Jan. 14: Kyle XY returns with the second half of season two. We find out if the female version of Kyle survived her cliff dive last summer, and we learn more about Adam's past. Kyle finally comes clean with his family about his origins, and his family tries to protect him from Madacorp.
In the can: 10 episodes, which is the complete run of season 2.5.
Jan. 26: Torchwood. The champions of the future (and crazy xenophile sexuality) are back in another batch of this Doctor Who spinoff. Two extra reasons to watch season two: James "Spike" Marsters wearing a cool Adam Ant costume, and the Doctor's companion Martha (Freema Agyeman) in bondage. One cause for concern: this year's episodes will be designed so that special kid-friendly edits will still make a modicum of sense. In other words, the plots won't be all about shagging aliens and time travelers this time around.
In the can: 13 episodes, a full season. And here's a teaser:
Jan. 31: Lost. They finally get off the island! Well, some of them, anyway, and it turns out not to be such a great idea. The boat people who show up to rescue our heroes have some other agenda, and our heroes split up into opposing teams. This mini-season will feature "flash-forwards," showing our heroes in their post-island futures.
In the can: 8 episodes. The producers have gone on record that episode 8 will end with a frustrating cliffhanger that wasn't meant to wait months for a resolution.
Jan. 31: Smallville. Everybody realizes that Clark is really Bizarro. Or maybe that should be "Clark really am not Bizarro." And Brainiac (James Marsters without the Adam Ant duds) has a plan to help Bizarro stay as Clark forever. And Lana actually likes Bizarro better than the real Clark. Meanwhile, another Kryptonian, Dax-Ur, turns out to have a special blue kryptonite ring that lets him stay human.
In the can: 6 episodes, not the full season.
Feb. 12: Jericho, back for a short second season after tons of fan campaigns. The first season started out boring and paternalistic, and then simmered up to a boil by the end. Season two looks like it will be way more intense, with the future of the Allied States at stake. Our idol, Esai Morales, declares the feud between Jericho and New Bern over, and Hawkins finally makes his move against the nuclear conspirators. Sign us up!
In the can: 7 episodes, which was all they had planned anyway. Here's an extended season trailer:
April 1: Battlestar Galactica. Our heroes don't trust the back-from-the-grave Starbuck. And the four newly revealed Cylons don't trust themselves. (There are hints these new Cylons are different from the other human-looking Cylons.) We get to know a new ship, the claustrophobic Demetrius. Starbuck spends a lot of time in the brig, and also has more creepy Cylon encounters.
In the can: 10 episodes, which will end with an annoying cliffhanger. But the SciFi Channel had already considered ending the season there anyway. Here's a trailer:
Comments
Now, if only I had time to watch five minutes of any of them... :(
What ever happened to Eureka? My cable was cut off. I don't even know if it is on Sci-fi anymore.
Is Smallville really still on?
I went to grad school with a girl that was always talking about her best friend Allison, from back home. "Oh, one time Allison and I did this," you know how it is when people talk about their best friends from back home.
After a couple months, we were watching TV and a Smallville commercial came on, and she was all, "Oh, there's my friend Allison!"
Right. Allison Mack.
It's a crazy mixed-up world we live in. I live in.
I love Sci-Fi, but I haven't encountered a TV show capable of doing anything for me since DS9. Maybe HBO will spring for a show I can bear to watch one day. Until then I'm sticking to the books.
I've got this idea for a new sci-fi show - in it an alien race comes to Earth and wipes out all the writers and TV executives. They then proceed to create and deliver several top notch shows that run forever without year long breaks in the middle...
@Jim: No one would watch it. It's not realistic enough.
The aliens part, maybe, but everyone knows it's impossible to make television shows that aren't crap.
@Jim: Jim, if only it could be true.
@Ghede: Eureka's a summer series. It was renewed for a new season (the 3rd), but it's stalled due to the writer's strike.
@NefariousNewt: I figure as long as the writer strike is on I can manage to catch up on some of the stuff I have missed...hell I am only on episode 4 of season 2 of Lost.
@Jim: Lots of great pilots are written every year, and some of the great ones are picked up, but the writers are only responsible for the script. The casting of the show is just as important as the script, and when you throw in studio re-writes and directorial decisions...well, it's silly to blame a writer for the finished product.
Likeways, studio executives lose their jobs if they don't produce material that a lot of people will watch, so unless you have 15 million people in your back pocket who have actual good taste when it comes to television, be ready for more CSI/Law & Order/fat guy with hot wife comedy shows.
TV is bad because the majority of Americans have dumb taste.
Jewel Staite's on Atlantis? Why does an exceedingly crap franchise continue to gather decent to good actors? Oh. Ratings.
Uh have you forgotten that Doctor Who starts up in March... and dorks everywhere rejoice. Sure it starts up on the BBC in the Uk but oceans no longer stop us. If SciFi were smart they'd show it at the same time the BBC does so I don't have to bittorrent the damn thing (though considering the way they butcher it I'm better off with the Torrent).
Deathwatch is on for Battlestar...
@Ghede:
Eureka kinda tanked in it's second season. I still liked it, but it needed help. IMO you didn't miss too much.
If skiffy cancells BSG, it's torches and pitchforks time.
I still like Eureka. I'm fond of the characters.
I've got to start torrenting Doctor Who. Enough of this year-behind crap.
Still no word on if Torchwood v.2 will be on HDNet. That was wonderful, 1080i and none of the naughty words or shagging or scenes cut out. If not, I've got to torrent that as well.
Agreed: Smallville is still on?
@seth l: BSG isn't cancelled, they already announced their intention to end it with this season.
@Lampbane:
I know, but with the writers strike, Sci-Fi is threatening to end the show at the halfway point of the season. No more episodes, no resolution.
I'm ok with this being the last year, but I will get angry if we don't at least get to finish it.
@Seth L: There is no way that Sci-Fi will cancel the series with just a few episodes left. There would be a fan uprising if they did and geeks everywhere would stop watching the Sci-Fi Channel. The only way I could see this happening is if the strike continues for more than a year after the last episode. Then they might think that enough time has passed.
What I'm wondering is how Smallville managed to make so many episodes. I wonder if they got scabs working over there.
@Jim: even if it happened, someone at FOX would figure out a way to mix up the episode order and then cancel it before the first season ended, even if it wasn't on their network to begin with.
I wish I didn't have to spend EVERY season anxiously wondering/expecting the best shows to be cancelled suddenly and without warning in the middle of the story. Firefly has scarred me for life.
The only one I was able to get into was Kyle XY. Its avalible on ABC Families website, and goes fast enough to not get bored...
I hate what the producers of Smallville have done to my beloved Superman. I don't know what's worse, the show or Superman Returns.
I am fairly pleased that Moonlight seemed to make it unscathed. "Yeah,I know it is an American version of Forever Knight of Canada." But I like it. and it is the only major network show that I even find remotely worth DVR-ing.
They still make Flash Gordon? I assumed it tanked after that horrible pilot.
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