The Newcomers (Alien Nation): District 9's aliens are most often compared to the Tenctonese, better known as the Newcomers. Like the D9 aliens, the Newcomers just can't catch a break. After fleeing from slavery on their own planet, a quarter of a million Newcomers land in Los Angeles to find a sometimes less than welcoming human population. Aside from the unfortunate names some INS officials assign the new arrivals (in the original movie, Matt Sykes' partner was named "Sam Francisco"), there are anti-alien Purists who think the Tenctonese should have stayed on Tencton, and plenty of murder, both from humans looking to eradicated the Newcomers and from those who would harvest their life-extending glands.

The Citizens of the Dominion (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine): With all of its explorations of race and morality, the Star Trek universe has had its fair share of oppressed species: the Troglyte miners who served their fellow Ardanans, the Romulans' Reman slaves, the Orion women (who only appear to be slaves), the Tosk who serve as prey for the Hunters' sport, the Bajorans who endure 50 years of Cardassian occupation, and, of course, anyone who encounters the Borg. But the Founders of the Dominion have a special talent for oppression, from engineering the supersoldier Jem'Hadar with an innate addiction to the drug ketracel white to infecting the Trevean with a congenital blight. Even the Vorta, who serve as the Dominion's middle managers, are mere slaves to the Founders, and are compelled to commit suicide if it serves their masters' purposes.

Clone Troopers (Star Wars): Slavery runs rampant in the Galactic Empire, with the Empire itself enslaving species like the Wookiees and the Mon Calamari wholesale, and some races, like the Twi'leks, would sell their own children into slavery in hopes of offering them a better life. And biological species buy and sell sentient droids (and ban them from their bars) without a second thought. But the genetically engineered (though otherwise human) Clone Troopers hold a special place among Star Wars' oppressed beings. Not only are they specifically grown for compulsory military service, they are essentially the property of the Galactic Republic, a government that has supposedly outlawed slavery.

The Ood (Doctor Who): Humans looking to have their own sentient slave without the guilt were told they could pick up an Ood servant with minimal damage to the conscience. After all, the Ood live to serve, right? Nothing in the Doctor's universe is ever so easy, and Donna and the Doctor soon discover that Ood Operations, the company supplying the alien servants, had cut off the Ood's telepathic link to the Ood brain, hampering their free will and leaving them to mix drinks and do laundry for their human masters.

Banik (Farscape): Oppression is a fairly widespread characteristic of the Farscape universe. Pretty much anyone living under Peacekeeper rule has a few humanoid rights trampled on (including the Peacekeepers themselves), and Scarrans have a pair of servant races who provide them with soldiers, intelligence agents, and technicians. But the Baniks hold an especially low place in the Farscape hierarchy. Having been mostly wiped out by Peacekeeper forces, the remaining Baniks have been enslaved, and the Banik Stark is repeatedly subjected to Scorpius' Aurora Chair, a torture and interrogation device. But the casual disregard for the lives of Baniks reaches its most shocking low when Scorpius purchases a lot of slaves that includes 9,999 Baniks and D'Argo's son Jothee. After he purchases the lot, Scorpius hands the slaves over to Natira, who, having no use for them, simply exterminates them all.

Sewer Mutants (Futurama): The 31st Century has little respect for humanoid or alien life, but at least most life forms are afforded the common courtesy of being able to walk the Earth's surface. Sewer mutants have no such privileges, requiring special permission to leave the subterranean ruins of New York. Sewer mutants, in turn, stick it to the sub-mutants, who are relegated to the sub-sewer (probably New York's original sewer system).

House Elves (Harry Potter): House Elves are powerful magical beings, with the ability to repel some of the most powerful wizards to come out of Hogwarts. But most of their magic goes toward serving their often less than noble wizard masters. House Elves are compelled to punish themselves if they disobey their masters or even utter an unkind word against them, and at least one ancient wizarding family held onto a gruesome tradition of decapitating elderly House Elves, then mounting their stuffed heads on the wall.

Dracs (Enemy Mine): Humans and Dracs are in the midst of a bitter war, so it's little surprise that the humans tolerate scavengers who capture Dracs for slave labor. But it also helps a brutal set of outlaws thrive without concern for human laws or Drac life.

Denizens of the Kzinti Empire (Known Space): The Kzinti began their lives in the galactic community as mercenaries, but once their Jotok clients taught them to use their weapons and technology, the Kzinti quickly turned on them, enslaving their former employers. From there, the Kzinti spread out across the galaxy, enslaving or eating any species they encountered. Although some subject worlds were more or less ignored by the Kzinti, some species were pushed off their worlds entirely, and breaking Kzinti law meant execution by hunting (usually followed by a feast featuring the accused as the main course). Even Kzin females, termed Kzinretti, are oppressed by their males, having been rendered subsapient by the hijacked Jotok technology.

Vortigaunt (Half-Life): Vortigaunts are the slaves of slaves, used by the Nihilanth as military forces or as factory workers. Although their enslavement forces the Vortigaunt to oppose Gordon Freeman in the first game, they get a bit of a happy ending when Freeman kills the Nihilanth. Once freed of their extradimensional masters, the Vortigaunts seek to keep humanity from falling to a similar fate, working against the Combine forces.

Neosapiens (Exosquad): Artificially created for life as laborers on Mars, the Neosapiens are stronger and faster than Terran humans, require little food and no sleep, and have a longer natural lifespan than their masters. You would think humans might think twice before creating such a physically advanced race only to enslave them, but they have to deal with the consequences in the ensuing rebellions. But the Neosapiens were not above creating servants of their own, engineering the animalistic Neo Warriors to serve as the Neosapiens' ground forces.

Mutants (X-Men): "Have you tried not being a mutant?" The classic line from X2 pretty much says it all. It's bad enough that the mutants have to cope with powers they don't always fully understand, or that their lives are punctuated by the occasional supervillain attack or alien invasion; they also have to cope with humans who hate and fear them, and religious fanatics who see them as an affront to God.

Cylons (Battlestar Galactica): Artificial beings have been oppressed by humans since Karel Čapek's R.U.R. premiered, and they've been turning on their masters just as long. The Cylons get bonus points, not because the nature of their oppression is unique, but because they're simultaneously portrayed as essentially human and yet dehumanized by their human enemies. Even forgetting racial slurs like "toaster" and "skin job" used to remind humans that their fleshier foes still have robot parts, there are some in the Colonial Fleet, like the rapist members of the Pegasus crew, who are inclined to treat the humanoid Cylons as warm-bodied objects. And the Cylons continue the cycle of oppression, with the humanoid Cylons effectively lobotomizing the Centurions and treating the Raiders as glorified pets.

Humans: Humans are the oppressed species nearly as often as they are the oppressors. Sometimes, we're enslaved by our own creations, as in the Matrix trilogy. Sometimes we've simply lost out as the dominant species of the planet, as in Planet of the Apes. Sometimes an alien invader simply decides we'll make good slaves, as in Stargate or Battlefield Earth. But we're a reliably plucky species, and even if we don't manage to pull ourselves out of the gutter, we don't make life easy for our oppressors.

We already know that Syfy is working on reboots for both Alien Nation and Quantum Leap, but why stop there? There are some fine dearly departed shows out there that could easily serve as the network's chance to get back into the space opera genre. Here're some of our picks - and why we think they could work.

UFO


What's that, you say? You don't think UFO is space operatic enough? Well, if you just duplicated the original series - where the secret organization SHADO worked to prevent alien invaders from harvesting human organs without anyone knowing - we'd agree... but what if you took the battle back to the aliens in addition to keeping the intergalactic Cold War going on Earth? We're seeing something not unlike Torchwood: Children of Earth mixed with BSG's silent space battles in our heads, a gritty, political take on the alien invasion idea... and we like it.

Blake's 7


Escaped convicts fighting for freedom against a fascistic government in the distant outer space future? There's nothing about the concept behind Terry Nation's 1970s BBC series that doesn't scream win, and as a plus for Syfy, the British Sky network is already working on a revival so they don't have to do everything from scratch. The potential for political allegory illustrated with impressive special effects rivals Galactica at its best, if done right, and there'd be less outcry from fans of the original - This one was always downbeat and depressing.

Farscape


Yes, we know that people have gotten mad when we suggested remaking Farscape before, and to them - and to those keeping the dream alive with the current Farscape comics - we'll suggest this: How about we don't reboot the series entirely, but relaunch it and find a new focus without undoing everything that's come before? If nothing else, that's got to be better than waiting for the perennially-forthcoming webisode sequels, right?

Lost In Space


It's a classic for a reason, people. Don't let memories of William Hurt and Matt LeBlanc put you off, Lost In Space is ready for a revival. What other show offers the chance for family drama, fantastic aliens and cowardly scientists hamming it up on a weekly basis? Take the Buffy route of using genre staples as metaphors for familiar problems, add a generous helping of humor, and voila: A Space Opera for all the family. Hell, just get Josh Friedman onboard as showrunner and you'll be set.

Star Trek


When you think of Space Opera TV, you can't help but think of Trek... and with the success of the new movie relaunching the franchise, and Bryan Fuller (under contract to Syfy's parent company NBC/Universal to come up with new shows) constantly talking about his desire to create a new Trek TV show, it almost seems like fate. TrekMovie even made the case for Syfy launching a new Trek, leading the network's Craig Engler to respond "A good, new, affordable Trek would be great on Syfy." Take note of "affordable," though; as we've pointed out before, the rights issues involved alone may make this idea financially a bad idea.

What do you think? Would you watch any of the above, or are you aghast at the very idea of yet another remake? Use the poll below to let us know just how wrong we are.

Syfy Creative Director of Original Programming Mark Stern sat with us and talked about the new reboot we're all eagerly awaiting, which is the Tim Minear (Angel, Dollhouse, Firefly) reboot of Alien Nation. And as it turns out, they're still trying to get Quantum Leap back on the air as well.

You just announced Syfy's plans to reboot Alien Nation, was it your idea to go after that series?

Alien Nation has been [one of] three or four shows that I want to do. I want to do those shows, at least one of them. And yet again, if you're going to go and do Alien Nation, you'd better do it the right way, same as with Battlestar. We've been talking to a number of writers, since I got here, about Alien Nation. What's the right approach, how do you do it so it feels relevant? And Tim Minear came in with a great approach to it, that really felt like it didn't just tell the same story again, and it was still really true to what Alien Nation was about.

So that worked. I would love to find our time travel show — whether it's literally Quantum Leap — and we've been talking to Don Bellisario [show creator] about [doing] that as a possibility, because what is the next really great time travel series.

Where are you with that what are you pitching at Bellisario a darker take or a Eureka-esque whimsical time travel series, it really could go either way?

I honestly don't know. Every three or four months, we take Don out to lunch and see how he's doing and where his head's at. Whether he's ready to kind of go into that world again. It's a process, and the same is true with Alien Nation. You need to gestate and take time. What you don't want to do is rush into them and just say "okay, it's out version of this," and it's not good. We definitely always have our eye on the great shows from the past. But really our focus is on what the new stuff is.

When it was mentioned that Tim Minear was going to dabble with the Starsky and Hutch feel to Alien Nation, people were a bit surprised. They thought the show would be going darker. Can you give our readers an idea what you and Tim have in mind for Alien Nation?

You know it's very early, but I do think what Tim wants to do, which is very much what Ron Moore and David Eick did with Battlestar, is take what was great about that franchise, which was obviously the relationship between these two different people and these two different cultures, and find a way to make it relevant to the things we care about today. Is it going to be darker? I don't know what the tone is going to be yet, honestly. Tim is not a dark writer, he comes from a very different place. He wants it to be more than just frivolous and silly. It's going to have to attack a lot of the same themes that the original series and the movie did. But it really has to feel like there's something new there, like this isn't the same old. I wish I could give you more specifics, but we really just had that first pitch meeting with him where he said, "This is what we want to do," and we said, "That sounds fantastic. Let's do it." Now it's really about him pulling it together.

And I have to ask, will aliens still have the spotted skulls?

Man, I have no idea. I really don't. I'm sure, you know there's no Battlestar without cylons. They'll definitely be our version of cylons, I don't know what that will be yet. The thing is that's the challenge of all of those. Hold on to what's really great, what's cool about it, what makes you want to watch it, what you remember about it, and update it. It's a very fine line you're treading.

The original 80s feature gave birth to a Fox series that focused on the lives of a bunch of newly landed, spotty headed aliens and their integration into human society. Specifically, it was a buddy cop show between alien detective George Francisco and his human partner Matthew Sikes.

Minear explained to Variety how he's going to bring back this buddy-cop classic:

It's genre mixed with procedural mixed with funny and mixed with big, giant scary. I love serialized stuff, but this is also a cop franchise. That 'Starsky and Hutch'/'Lethal Weapon' buddy cop comedy is absent from TV right now.

The reboot will most likely take place in the Pacific Northwest, 20 years after the UFO crashes onto our planet. So the aliens have had some time to assimilate to Earthling life. The trades claim that the alien population will have grown to about 3.5 million and most of the others will have their own segregated habitat in something similar to the "North African ghettos in France."

So now you can all stop clamoring about District 9 simply being a copy of Alien Nation, because we're actually going to have an updated copy of Alien Nation. Will alien intolerance replace the post 9/11 themes that were created from shows like Battlestar Galactica? But more importantly will audiences care about the plight of an alien?

[Variety]

Superman.
He's the last survivor (or one of the half-dozen last survivors) of the exploding planet Krypton. And he's invulnerable to just about everything in the universe, including nuclear bombs and the vacuum of interstellar space — but he can't come anywhere near a radioactive fragment of his own planet without dying. Or, if it's a red fragment, it'll turn him into a dwarf or a dragon. Of course. Also, Superman's pal, the Martian Manhunter, has a terrible vulnerability to fire — but it turns out to be mostly psychological.
Why it's poetic: Come on, he's lost his home planet... and now whenever he encounters part of it, it nearly kills him. The loneliness, the desolation.

Sontarans.
On Doctor Who, the Sontarans are cloned super-soldiers from the distant planet Sontar. They're almost unstoppable (although in their latest appearance they turned out to be pretty darn stoppable once you used non-copper bullets.) And their only weak spot is a small vent in the backs of their necks, which they use to recharge.
Why it's poetic: They're super-warriors, so they must always face their enemies. I mean, they could put a cap or a shield onto their neck-holes, but they choose not to. Because they need their fatal flaw to remind them who they are.

The Klowns.
In Killer Klowns From Outer Space. It turns out you can kill a killer klown by popping their red nose — it makes perfect sense!
Why it's poetic: They wear their most vulnerable part right in front of them, so they can see any attacks coming. Plus, it's like slapstick and murder rolled into one. Dude!

The Martians.
In War Of The Worlds, the invaders can clobber everything that humans can throw at them, and they scoff at our huge weapons systems. But then they're felled by the smallest enemy of all, the common cold.
Why it's poetic: Mostly because H.G. Wells gets so fancy and flowery talking about the "smallest and humblest of all God's creatures" and how it stomped the monsters' asses. (How does he know germs are humble?)

The Fithp
The Fithp are sort of weird super-intelligent elephants who use superior, if borrowed, technology to invade Earth in the 1986 novel Footfall, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. The humans are hopelessly outclassed, but they have one advantage. In the Fithp culture, when two herds fight, one eventually surrenders and gets absorbed into the other herd — so they're not prepared for humans to surrender and then mount a resistance or plan sabotage.
Why it's poetic: Because these super-elephant guys fail to understand the most human of behaviors... sneakiness.

The Colonists
In The X-Files, the aliens seeking to invade the Earth create super-soldiers who have only one weakness: their bodies are torn apart by the magnetic fields of large deposites of magnetite.
Why it's poetic: The alien soldiers are super-human because of their metallic bodies — but those same bodies make them vulnerable to magnetite. Woah.

The Crawling Eye.
Aliens who are basically just huge eyeballs with tentacles invade the Earth and nothing can stop them — until one human figures out the aliens have no defense against the awesome power of fire!
Why it's poetic: Because the eyes are burning! It's a tremendous metaphor for the blindness of power. Or maybe it's just a metaphor for how much you'll be rubbing your eyes with sleepiness as you try to pay attention to this movie.

The Signs invaders.
We've already talked about this a fair bit, but the aliens who decide to attack/invade/kidnap kids in M. Night Shyamalan's Signs have a terrible vulnerability to plain old water.
Why it's poetic: The humblest of beverages! Or maybe, the fact that the aliens can't protect themselves against water without giving up their shape-shifting abilities. So they rely on the chameleon thing, to the exclusion of protecting themselves.

The Alien Teachers
Aliens replace the teachers at Henderson High School in Robert Rodriguez's The Faculty. And it turns out the aliens' only weakness is Zeke the drug dealer's "homebake."
Why it's poetic: It's the humblest of drugs! Oh, wait. I mean, come on. They're impersonating teachers, and they're vulnerable to the students' drugs. That's awesome. Plus, it's proof that drugs really are good for you. And the school drug dealer is your friend. Etc.

Leto Atreides II
In Frank Herbert's God Emperor Of Dune, Leto lives for 3,000 years and becomes nearly unkillable because he's part sandworm. But then it turns out that he's gained the sandworms' vulnerability to water.
Why it's poetic: He inherits the weaknesses as well as the strengths of the worms. Dude, come on!

Stitch:
Stitch, from Lilo and Stitch, is a super-awesome alien koala creature. Except that he can't swim.
Why it's poetic: Stitch's super-dense body makes him indestructible, but also means he sinks like a rock. Oh noes!

The Tenctonese.
The aliens from Alien Nation could be burned, and even killed, if they came into contact with salt water. What is it with aliens and water of various types? (Thanks Roraz!) Science fiction author Robert J. Sawyer has an incredibly complicated explanation of how the Tenctonese's weakness actually makes sense.
Why it's poetic: You can't cry on their shoulders... or if you do, they'll definitely feel your pain.
Note: In the course of putting this blog post together, I found this post at Everything2, which was pretty helpful in coming up with some examples.

1. RoboCop: The Series (1994).
Original cast? No.
Out on DVD? In England, but not in the U.S.
How many episodes? 22
What went wrong: In an effort to make a kid-friendly RoboCop show, the producers toned down the violence and had RoboCop explore "non-violent" alternatives to killing criminals. Recurring bad guys included Boppo the Clown, Dr. Cray Z. Mallardo and "Pud Face." No, really. Here's the opening credits.

2. Alien Nation (1989-91).
Original cast? No.
Out on DVD? Yes.
How many episodes? 22, plus a few TV movies
What went wrong: The TV version lost the noir tone of the movie about aliens living among us. In its place came good-natured humor with lots of banter. The cynical human cop teams up with an alien policeman and they tackle social issues. Watch them save an alien hooker from her pimp:

3. Honey, I Shrunk The Kids (1997-2000)
Original cast? No.
How many episodes? 66.
Out on DVD? No.
What went wrong: Every week, another experiment gone bendy. Plus obligatory subplots about the kids having crushes on other kids, and learning lessons, yadda yadda. Every episode title starts with "Honey." Including: "Honey, We've Been Swallowed by Grandpa." "Honey, I'm Streakin'." "Honey, The Garbage Is Taking Us Out." And my favorite: "Honey, I'm Wrestling With A Problem... And The Chief." Huh? Here's the first five minutes of the pilot. Note the goofy dog covering its face when disaster strikes:

4. Beyond Westworld (CBS: 1980)
Original cast? No.
# of episodes? five, but only three aired.
Out on DVD? Nope.
What went wrong: Westworld hit big with a robot theme-park turned homicidal. A sequel, Futureworld, bombed, so writer/director Michael Crichton decided to try again on television. Every week, Simon Quaid tries to take over the world using android nuclear-sub crewmen and android rock stars. The good guy: John Moore, who spends most of his time watching cheerleaders with his binoculars. Just like in this clip, where Quaid sends a robot duplicate of Connie Sellecca to kill Moore:

5. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures (1992)
Original cast? No, and in fact Alex Winter denounced the show on Arsenio Hall.
# of episodes? Eight, including unaired pilot.
Out on DVD? Hell no.
What went wrong: The producers "took liberties" with the movie's time-travel format, having Bill and Ted travel inside cable TV and into alternate dimensions. In one episode, Rufus (the George Carlin character) has a bad dream about Ted being sent to military school, and travels back to prevent it coming true. But instead, he causes that disaster, by engraving "Chicken Kiev" instead of Ted's father's name on an award. (Huh?) This enrages Ted's dad, who hates chicken kiev. Ted, off to military school, blames Bill for the mix-up and they become enemies. In another episode, Bill and Ted's boss becomes King Arthur:

6. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979-81)
Original cast: Yes
# of episodes: 31
On DVD: Yes
What went wrong: The movie was a glorified TV pilot, but it did run in theaters. And like other movies-turned-shows, the series lost most of the themes of the pilot, such as the post-apocalyptic devastation outside of the dome of New Chicago. Instead, it was all about Buck strutting around settings like "Vegas in Space," wearing a skin-tight white jumpsuit with a rainbow armband. And then in the second season, with Hawkman and Dr. Goodfellow, it got really campy:

7. Starman (ABC: 1986-87)
Original cast: No.
# of episodes: 22
On DVD: No.
What went wrong: Instead of husband-wife bonding like in the movie, this time our visiting alien (Robert Hays) bonds with the son who never knew him. They travel around together righting wrongs and learning important lessons. It's a Hulk/Fugitive riff except with a kid in tow. Here's the opening credits, plus Hays dealing with some pushy cops:

8. Logan's Run
Original cast: No.
# of episodes: 14
On DVD: No, but you can download episodes on Amazon Unboxed.
What went wrong: Yet another road-trip show. Logan escapes the city where they kill you when you reach 30. And then he travels around the post-apocalyptic world with his friend Jessica and an android named Rem. They encounter various other societies, including some robots and aliens. William Nolan, author of the original Logan's Run novel, actually worked on this show, and so did Star Trek alums Harlan Ellison, David Gerrold and D.C. Fontana. Here are the opening credits. Check out the furry alien costumes: