There have been only a few notable Thanksgiving episodes of science-fiction TV shows — after all, not all SF stories even take place inside the United States. But science fiction and fantasy are always happy to remind us that gathering a bunch of characters together at a table is a recipe for stress and disaster.

Cuddly sitcom alien Alf was a huge fan of Thanksgiving, as this bizarre moment from the 1989 Macy's Thanksgiving Parade shows. But Alf went further — his show devoted a whole two-part episode, "Turkey In The Straw," to the holiday.

In that episode, everybody's favorite lovable alien puppet causes a stir when he eats the family turkey, raw. And it all goes downhill from there, when no replacement can be found the Tanners end up at dinner with the crazy neighbors. Then you add in the homeless person that Alf has been leaving clothes and food, and it's a "very special episode" to remember. You can watch it on Youtube

Buffy the Vampire Slayer featured a slayer Thanksgiving in the episode "Pangs." After her mother announces she's leaving town for the holiday, Buffy decides to take over Thanksgiving duties herself. She ends up so obsessed with the idea of the perfect meal that she starts neglecting her slayer duties, as the vengeful spirit of the Chumash tribe starts murdering people. Maybe we don't all have Native American spirits infecting our best friend's penis with horrible diseases, but most people can relate to craziness and stress that our expectations of "the perfect Thanksgiving" can create. Not to mention the final moment when someone lets a secret slip and creates an awkward silence.

Plus, now all geeks everywhere can call the holiday a "ritual sacrifice with pie" and complain about yam shams.

And then of course, there was the Heroes episode the other day, which proves we're still working through our emotions with respect to this particular holiday. Once again, one of our protagonists wants to create the perfect family Thanksgiving, and as always their plans are entirely thwarted by drama.

But even apart from those three examples of Thanksgiving in media SF, there are plenty of other warnings that a table spread with food is a dangerous thing. In Star Wars, our heroes almost become part of the celebratory meal. In Alien, as soon as everybody tucks into their food, somebody's chest bursts open.

But two recent fantasy films prove that the most dangerous combination in film is children and food.

In Pan's Labyrinth, Ofelia has been denied food, when the faun appears to her and tells her to perform another task for him. She's sent into the lair of The Pale Man, who sits motionless in front of a sumptuous and tempting feast. The faun has told Ofelia not to eat anything from the table, and at first she listens and completes her task. But the temptation is too great, and when she samples the food The Pale Man comes to life and pursues her in what is one of the most frightening scenes in recent cinema history.

In another film about a little girl with a huge imagination, Coraline is drawn into a world populated by her Other Mother and Other Father, who have buttons for eyes. In her real world, the food her mother makes is unappetizing and sparse. But in this other world, there is more than enough home-cooked food to go around. The animators worked hard to sculpt food that looks completely delicious, no matter what it may have been made of. The Other Mother's table includes a gravy train, and cakes that with magic icing. All Coraline has to do to stay there and eat her fill is agree to have buttons sewn over her eyes.

But let's not leave things on a downer note — it's not always true that every fantastical feast has to end miserably. In the Lost episode "Everybody Hates Hugo," the survivors have found a cache of food in the hatch. Hurley is given the task of cataloging it and rationing it. This makes him remember the things he went through when he won the lottery, and after briefly considering blowing up the pantry, he instead decides to give all the food away all at once. The survivors enjoy the food together, in a moment of good will and companionship.

So before you sit down to your meal with your family, friends, or fellow superheroes, tell us in the comments what your favorite science-fictional feast scene is. And please pass the plate of mashed potatoes shaped like Devil's Tower.

BEST:

Spot, Data's Orange Tabby Cat from Star Trek: The Next Generation
Who: Data's number 1 friend that didn't wear a Devo-esque visor on his face.
Why he's awesome: He's probably one of the only cats in the universe that has an infinitely advanced AI at his beck and call.
Bonus points: Anything that pisses Riker off is a big plus in my book.

Willis the Bouncer from Robert Heinlein's Red Planet
Who: A sound mimicking furry ball that every kid should have as a friend.
Why he's awesome: In a 1960's era future, when a dog just won't cut it, the only way to really impress the kids at school is with an alien that doubles as a soccer ball. And here's a clip from the Fox miniseries adaptation.

R2D2, Star Wars
Who: The yin to C3PO's (annoying) yang that brings logic and light to any situation through a series of flickering lights and bleeps.
Why he's awesome: He's a moving trashcan that manages to be more likeable than most of the Star Wars palz extended cast.

Porthos, Captain Archer's Beagle from Enterprise
Who: Easily one of the more tolerable characters on Enterprise. Mostly because he didn't talk.
Why he's awesome: He's a beagle! How can beagles not be cute? Also, I feel like after the unfortunate Scotty related transporter incident, he deserves a nice memorial.

Ampersand, Y the Last man
Who: The world's ending, every man is dead, you're an aspiring escape artist pining away for your lost girlfriend and you're all alone. What do you do? Have crazy monkey antics with your favorite jungle friend with a punctuation mark as a name.
Why he's awesome: Not to spoil too much, but he may or may not be humanity's key to getting the XY's back in action.

Lockjaw
Who: Marvel's own alien bulldog and member of the non-human branch of the Avengers.
Why he's awesome: He's super strong, can eat anything and once latched onto the Thing.

Dog the Robot from Half Life 2
Who: Alyx Vance's No.1 go to robotic buddy who helps when your path is blocked by other dimensional beings or just wants to play fetch with your grav gun.
Why he's awesome: He's a giant robot with the personality of a dog. Do you need more?

Pen Pen, from Neon Genesis Evangelion
Who: A genetically altered super smart penguin that lives with Misato Katsuragi during the Angel apocalypse.
Why he's awesome: While the series has moments of intense despair and darkness, you can always count on jerky, anime humor involving naked people and penguins to brighten your day.

K-9 from Doctor Who
Who: Dr Who's multi-generational robotic canine companion.
Why he's awesome: He's gotten a series of spinoff stories and was even parodied on South Park.

Nibbler from Futurama
Who: Nibbler is part of an ancient race of Nibblonians who protect the universe from giant glowing brains that make everyone stupid. Er, Stupid-er.
Why he's awesome: He can eat about 1,000 times his body mass to, uh, produce dark matter.

Gaspode, from Terry Prachett's Discworld series
Who: A talking dog with human intelligence that attempts to bring "Hollywood" to Discworld.
Why he's awesome: He's an endless source of snarky remarks and regularly uses his speech to manipulate humans when he needs food.

CJ-7
Who: A puff ball with a body that guaranteed to produce family friendly fun times.
Why he's awesome: CJ-7 can help you repair torn relationships with certain parental figures and bring people back from the dead.

Einstein, Doc Brown's dog from Back to the Future
Who: You might be under the impression that a certain Family Ties alum might be the Doc's best time traveling friend in this series, but you'd be wrong. This adorable little terrier follows Doc whenever her goes.
Why he's awesome: As long as you ignore the craptacular animated television series, Einstein is always cute, helpful and never obnoxious.

Ein, Cowboy Bebop
Who: A super brained corgie that gets stranded on the Bebop.
Why he's awesome: Although they never really get into it in the series, Ein is a "data dog" that possesses super intelligence that allows him to answer phones and steer cars.

Bubastis, Ozymandias' lynx from Watchmen
Who: When you're a super genius David Bowie impersonator with the world at your fingertips what do you do next? You create a genetically engineered psychedelic colored lynx as a companion.
Why he's awesome: He takes one for the team for the sake of furthering an evil plan for his master.

Gizmo, Gremlins
Who: The main furry faced protagonist of the Gremlins series.
Why he's awesome: While I'm pretty much a fan of all the gremlins, I can't deny the greatness that is Gizmo channeling his inner Rambo.

Seymour from Futurama
Who: Seymour is a part of one of the most tear jerking episodes of Futurama involving Fry recounting the story of the most loyal dog that ever lived.
Why he's awesome: Did you see the last scene? He's the most loyal dog that ever lived! Also, we can rest easy knowing that alternate timeline Fry gave Seymour a great life.

Bronx from Gargoyles
Who: Bronx is the dog version of the Manhattan gargoyle clan. During the whole series you only see one other gargoyle beast, but unlike Budeka, Bronx gets a whole episode devoted to him befriending an Amish kid.
Why he's awesome: Gargoyles are already pretty high on the cool supercreatures scale, but add a dog personality to the mix, and you've got gold.

Roach from WALL-E
Who: They weren't lying when they said that after the world ended there would be nothing left but cockroaches. Fortunately, the end of the world also gave them charming personalities!
Why he's awesome: Making me want a roach as a pet is an epic win in my book.

Kevin and Dug from Up
Who: Kevin is a rare, brilliantly colored giant bird that Carl and Russell accidentally find in Paradise Falls. Dug is sweet golden retriever with a collar that allows him to talk.
Why they're awesome: It takes a lot to make slapstick giant birds funny, but Pixar does a magnificent job. And Dug? He's exactly what I imagine an actual talking dog to sound like. SQUIRREL!

WORST:

Tribbles from Star Trek
Who: Fuzzy, purring little meat pets that take over the original Enterprise.
Why they suck: Pets rocks were bad enough, why would they think that a massively multiplying furry pet rock would be better?

ALF
Who: Alien puppet that takes over a really lame sitcom in the 80's. If ever you want to torture someone without the use of waterboarding, show them and episode of ALF… or Small Wonder.
Why he sucks: Look me straight in the eye and tell me you didn't scream in horror when you saw that clip.

Snarf, Thundercats
Who: A fat alien cat that ends every sentence with an annoying "snarf!" sound.
Why he sucks: Is he a lizard or a cat? I'm going to go with meth induced demonic lovechild.

Teddy from A.I.
Who: An animatronic intelligent Teddy Rucksbin from the future that accompanies David in a search for the Blue Fairy.
Why he sucks: Ok, now I understand that some people might take issue with Teddy's position on the worst list but he's a toy that's alive. That's pretty much the worst nightmare of most 8-year-old kids. And me.

Slimer from Ghostbusters
Who: A green ghost that terrorizes the Ghostbusters team by covering everything in slime.
Why he sucks: For those of us born in the mid 80's and watched the Ghostbusters cartoon first, we expected to see cool ghost antics when we finally saw the movie. Instead, we were greeted with a grotesque blob that was pretty evil.

Div-x from Penny Arcade
Who: You might remember the Sony Dix-X player, an ahead of its time technical marvel.
Why he sucks: According to Penny Arcade Comics, he's a foul-mouthed drunk that's teetering on the edge of killing us all.

Pets from Children of Men
Who: When the world's gone infertile, people turn to animals to provide comfort in the end of humanity.
Why they suck: I have nothing against the animals in Children of Men, personally, but seeing all the dogs, cats and birds cluttering people's homes can be an ominous image.

Selacious Crumb from Star Wars
Who: He's a little fox-lizard thing that hangs out with Jabba the Hut and laughs at all his lame jokes.
Why he sucks: Everybody hates the skinny jerk in the corner with the stupid laugh.

Gleek from Superfriends
Who: The alien monkey pet of the Wondertwins.
Why he sucks: Usually if he was featured in Superfriends, you could count on him popping out to end the episode on a lame joke.

Independence Day Dog from Independence Day
Who: If you're like me then you probably laughed at the idea of a ball of flame chasing a golden retriever down a tunnel.
Why he sucks: Was it really necessary to have a slow motion explosion behind a dog? And wouldn't all that heat ultimately cook them all in that storage locker?
Then Again:...he's immune to explosions. And that's pretty cool. Dodging fire like that, he's like a canine Neo. Maybe he should have been best?

Space Buddies
Why they suck: I'll just point you in the direction of this.

Queequeg, X-files
Who: A Pomeranian adopted by Dana Scully and eaten shortly after by the legendary Big Blue.
Why he sucks: He was found snacking on his previous owner.

Krypto
Who: Superman's dog. Enough said.
Why he sucks: I hate pet versions of superheroes. Also, why does he need a cape?

Muffit from the original Battlestar Gallactica
Who: Caprica used to have a variety of tracker dogs but sadly, none of them survived the Cylon attack. Instead a group robotic dogs are created to replace them.
Why he sucks: Is he an ewok? A fuzzy, metallic gremlin on meth? You decide.

MAD Cat from Inspector Gadget
Who: Dr. Claw's chortling fat feline.
Why he sucks: He's the quintessential evil cat meant to taunt the hero. Plus Dr. Claw regularly beat the crap out of him and he seemed to be ok with that.

Frank the Dog from Men in Black
Who: An alien stool pigeon using the guise of a small pug.
Why he sucks: He made me remember "Who Let the Dogs Out" existed.

Gir, Invader Zim
Who: Invader Zim's mentally disturbed robot helper that was given to him as either a joke or sabotage. Probably both.
Why he sucks: Yeah, yeah Gir is really cute, but he's amoral, evil and would gladly watch you die a fiery death while bursting into a fit of giggles.

Astro, The Jetsons
Who: The Scooby Doo knockoff of the 21st century.
Why he sucks: It might have worked with the Scooby Gang, but there's only room for one charismatic dog with a speech impediment ‘round these parts.

Lamar, Half Life 2
Who: The neutered headcrab that resides in Dr. Isaac Kleiner's laboratory.
Why he sucks: Crabs are rarely a good thing. Head crabs are a double whammy of bad.

Joshua from Dark Angel
Who: A transgenic dog-man with an affinity for painting and crappy comedic timing.
Why he sucks: There was only one good thing that came out of season two of Dark Angel and that rhymes with Smensen Shackles.

Honorable Mention: Blarp from the Lost in Space remake.

It was predicted that the multi-camera show would make the once stale setups of situation comedies, but attractive people in high definition never really gets old.

The dramatic form in television has become itself a known commodity, fulfilling an audience's sometimes meager expectations. Most of these longer dramas are framed as an unfolding series of revealed information. Sure, there are distinct takes on that format, whether it be the J.J. Abrams iteration or the familiar CSI layout, but you can no longer expect any more surprises from a well-produced drama than a situation comedy. The field has tilted back.

As long as we can acknowledge that a sitcom has its strengths, why not take advantage of what that successful form can do for science fiction? Fact: the alien comedy Alf rated more viewers than The Wonder Years when it debuted in 1987. I try to view this greatest hits YouTube of Alf once every decade:

NBC's John Lithgow-Jane Curtain vehicle Third Rock from the Sun was similarly hot when it came out. And while the friendly neighborhood alien concept has surely been beaten into the ground, the advantages of the short form remain inviolate:

Sitcoms can replicate some of the magic of live theater, and scale back the high costs of producing science fiction television. From the audience participation in what's happening onstage to the limited number of sets, theater has elements specific to its format that make it both compelling and cheap. Such restrictions might reasonably be expected to dim the excitement when you're dealing with elements of the fantastic, but a few limitations can in fact be fun. It's like a writing prompt: make a certain number of things happen without the pressure of having to fully realize every idea you think of on greenscreen.

Sitcoms help their cause in their formative years by being easier to sell in syndication. This kind of rope could help the right show gather a devoted audience. Plus there's more licensing opportunities when you're 20 minutes long: Two and a Half Men landed everywhere including the web, and Lost is buried on G4. That's a difference of quite a few dubloons.

Effects work can actually get attention. We were blown away by the amount of CGI on Sanctuary — the show looks fabulous. How great would be to use those elements to that seemed something completely familiar as a sitcom, and yet have a world of the fantastic underneath?

Think Frank Oz's Little Shop of Horrors - I mean, Rick Moranis is obviously the next logical former 80s star to be reinvented on the small screen. Is he really having more fun releasing country albums? Let's find a way to make this happen. As the early returns on No Heroics prove, a single room can hold as much magic as an entire universe of delights.

Alien Presidents:

Superman ran for president in the alternate future of Armageddon 2001... and won. I mean, who's going to vote against Super-POTUS? Okay, there's a legal challenge to Superman's right to run for president, because of the whole "being an alien" thing, but then the Supreme Court rules (amazingly quickly) that Superman was born in America. You see, that rocket that brought him to Kansas from Krypton was like an artificial womb, and it didn't "give birth" to him until it landed. Really. As president, Clark is kind of a big-government liberal, solving the Earth's environmental problems with orbital solar power stations, achieving world peace and balancing the federal budget. (Aquaman finds a ton of gold in a submerged freighter, which pays off the U.S. trade balance.) And Superman ends terrorism. All in his first day in office. We don't get to see if Batman becomes Attorney General and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, but I'm betting he does. What i love about that "what if" issue (Action Comics Annual #3) is that Clark's presidency never goes horribly wrong to show why Superman shouldn't be president. It's all pretty much great and wonderful, and then it ends.

President Kang, from the Simpsons, gets a bum rap just because he turned the entire population of the U.S. into slave labor to build a humongous ray gun to aim at another planet. He solved the unemployment problem! Plus do you really think his opponent, Kodos, would have done a better job? I think not. (In "Treehouse Of Horror VII," Kang and Kodos take the place of Bill Clinton and Robert Dole, and even after Homer exposes their deception, they still convince the American public that a vote for the human Ross Perot is throwing their vote away.) After everyone's enslaved, Homer says "Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos."


Alien President Kennedy, from Teen Titans Lost Annual #1. I promise I am not making this up. In a "lost annual" that came out last March (but was designed to look like it was published in the 1960s) the Teen Titans discover that President Kennedy has been replaced with an alien shape-shifter. They travel to the aliens' homeworld to discover what's up. It turns out two alien races are trapped in a never-ending war, and one set of aliens has kidnapped JFK to serve as their general. To remind the brainwashed JFK of his true identity, the Titans have to reenact JFK's most traumatic memories from World War II. Finally, they jog his memory, and JFK starts negotiating a peace treaty between the warring alien races. Then the Titans take JFK back to Earth to resume his presidency — only to discover the alien imposter has been assassinated in Dallas while they were away. Because it would be too confusing to restore the real JFK to power, they end up taking him back to the alien planet so he can finish brokering a peace deal there. Yes, Titans scribe Bob Haney did a lot of drugs during the actual sixties.

Cryptosporidium, the evil alien in the Destroy All Humans video game, assassinated the U.S. president back in the late 1950s, and various Cryptosporidium clones impersonated the president and served with distinction for many years.

Bill Clinton was also replaced with an alien clone in the humor-esque film 2001: A Space Travesty, starring (of course) Leslie Nielsen. The real president is hidden on the moon, and it's up to Leslie to save him. This film is best known for including the Stifficus Constellation, a constellation shaped like an erect penis. Also, there's a "rising moon" sequence involving a bare butt.

Also, Michael Dukakis becomes president in the Robert Sheckley short story — but is eventually revealed to be an evil alien, in the anthology Alternate Presidents.

The Fantastic Four's frenemy Impossible Man, from the 10th Galaxy, also impersonated the U.S. president at one point, when the cyborg Deathlok was trying to assassinate the pres. But that only sort of counts.

ALF actually ran for president — and won — in the episode "Hail To The Chief." But it turned out to be only a dream sequence. I still think it sorta counts — was anything in ALF actually supposed to be real?

Robot Presidents:

In Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters #2, the charismatic Senator Frank Knight is murdered by a shapeshifting robot known as Gonzo The Mechanical Bastard, which takes his place. Since Senator Knight is already ahead in the polls in the presidential election, it's a simple matter for the android to become president of the U.S. How evil is this robo-pres? As Senator Knight is bleeding to death, his cyber-doppelganger promises to seduce the Senator's daughter, who's the Phantom Lady, and have incestuous robot sex with her. In the Oval Office. (Is this robot still president in the DC Universe?) When I was at Comic-Con, I asked co-writer Jimmy Palmiotti about this comic book, and he basically said nobody was reading USAFF, so he and Justin Gray just figured they should go as crazy as they could.

Robots also tried to replace the president in Ben 10, but I don't think they actually succeeded. And there's a robot president at the World's Fair in the Firesign Theater album I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus, but I'm not clear on whether it's meant to be the real president.

At least nobody would question the experience, leadership or courage of our benevolent President Executron:

Also, John Quincy Adding Machine became the first robot president, winning by exactly one vote according to Futurama. Voters were won over by his campaign pledge not to go on a killing spree, but like most politicians, he couldn't keep all his promises.

And then there's this guy:

Mutant Presidents:

Captain America didn't just punch out Richard Nixon, he also battled a hideously mutated Ronald Reagan. Viper and the evil Serpent Society put a chemical into the Washington D.C. water supply that would mutate anyone who drank it into a snake monster. Captain America finally put a stop to this scheme, but first he had to battle the mutant snake version of President Reagan. Just another example of business as usual in Washington.

There's also Leo Barnett, the two-term president in George R.R. Martin's Wildcards universe. There are odd hints that Barnett may actually be a mutant.

You could argue that Sylar, who became president in an evil alternate future in Heroes, is a mutant rather than a plain old human.

So which of these upstanding leaders would you prefer to lead America through the challenges of the early 21st century?

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SeaQuest DSV: The original came with a Spielberg pedigree but, let's face it, it was pretty crappy (The quickest indicator? Darwin, the talking dolphin). While any revamp would be missing Roy Scheider and dreamy Jonathan Brandis, you wouldn't have to change much in order to bring the show back: Keep the whole concept about humanity having to move to the oceans after exhausting the rest of the world of its natural resources, and just play it straight. As long as you have at least one guest-shot from Stephanie Beacham.

The Man from UNCLE: Bionic Woman may not have worked out, but why not go whole hog into the spy game instead of hinting at some nefarious background that lacks Oscar Goldman? Play up the distrust between the various nations' spies and bring in some of the paranoia that makes Galactica so compelling, and all you need is a modern Robert Vaughan for success.

The Man from Atlantis: Both Galactica and Bionic Woman like to go for the "what does it mean to be an outsider" theme, and what's more outsider than coming from an undersea kingdom? As a plus for the straight female and gay male viewers, you get to see the main character in swim trunks for the majority of each episode. Downside, of course, is that people will think you're just ripping off that Aquaman episode of Smallville

ALF: A longshot, admittedly, but it's got the sci-fi background Eick likes and what better to indulge Eick production traditions like occasionally sloppy writing and the urge to analyse humanity than a sitcom about an alien living in suburbia? Replace the muppet with state of the art CGI and get Bill Murray or someone to do the voice and I'm seeing cynical lead in to The Office every Thursday night.

The Golden Girls: Okay, I know, this sounds unexpected, but think what Eick's touch could do with this set-up - Four old women facing up to their mortality, shot with steadicam, talking about how horrible it is to get old and remembering happier days. One of them can have an incurable disease or something, and every third episode, we can have one of them thrown out an airlock when things get slow. The result, a Golden Girls for the 21st Century: Dark, unrealistic and almost endlessly depressing. Mr. Eick, I think we've found your project. I'll be waiting for my 10% finder's fee.