Okay, the majority of tomorrow's big new books may not be the most jolly holiday of reads, but there's a lot of great stuff to pick up.

Diving straight into Marvel Comics' deluge of product, you can catch up with the mondo depresso Dark Reign storyline with the following collections - Dark Reign: The Hood, Dark Reign: The Sinister Spider-Man, Dark Reign: Skrull Kill Krew, Dark Reign: Young Avengers and the very, very recommended Agents of Atlas: Dark Reign (Seriously, people: Gorilla Man? Marvel Boy? Venus? What about that doesn't sound appealing?).

You can also pick up a couple of single issues from the current Marvel status quo, Fall of The Hulks: Gamma and Captain America: Who Will Wield The Shield which, amusingly, is the follow-up to the Captain America Reborn series that finishes... next month. Hurrah for scheduling!

(Marvel also has a new Halo comic book, Halo: Blood Line, a hardcover version of the recent Marvel Zombies Return series, and a collection of stories from writer Brian Michael Bendis' first decade at the publisher: Brian Michael Bendis: 10 Years At Marvel, coming out. Told you it was a deluge.)

Over at DC, it's a much quieter week, albeit with a new Blackest Night tie-in launching (Blackest Night: JSA). There's a collection of the first half of superhero fantasy The Mighty, and also one of the kids' title Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures In The Eighth Grade that would make a pretty good gift for small kids with big imaginations.

Also suitable as stocking stuffers are Dark Horse's two one-shots of the week, Hellboy: Bride of Hell and the Joss Whedon-written Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Willow.

Keeping in a Whedon mood, IDW offers the Angel Annual (telling the story of the movie version of LA's time in Hell, which promises to be amusing), as well as the weather-appropriate fantasy genre Winterworld hardcover. Finishing up, there's a new Wall-E comic from Boom! Studios - which looks really fun, based on previews - and a new collection of the classic Judge Dredd spin-off, Judge Anderson: Psi-Files, from Rebellion.

If you're looking for something very unfestive to get your year finished right, however, there's one book that's definitely what you're looking for: The Last Days Of American Crime, which mixes crime noir, mind control and heist stories all together for something murky, slightly paranoid and altogether wonderful. Book of the week, easily.

Make sure you get to your local comic store tomorrow having seen this list and checked it twice to find out what's naughty and nice, because this is the last shipping week for new comics this year. Next Wednesday, there are (a few) new releases, but this is the last official week. Go with open wallet and heavy heart. Ho ho ho.

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.

According to the site, the series will be a motion comic adaptation of the current "official" sequel to the television series, and the casting sides they have make it look like an adaptation of the Faith-centric second arc, "No Future For You" (written by Brian K. Vaughan), with actors needed for parts including Faith, Lady Genevieve and the dream-sequenced Daniel Craig. The sides name "Maxx Initiative" as the people behind the motion comics, but aside from the mention of Jeff Shuter as casting director, no other creative personnel are named as being involved. Recording dates, according to the casting sides, are still to be decided, so don't hold your breath waiting for the end result, either - Although we are waiting to find out whether or not Whedon is involved in this any more than he was the Marvel motion comic version of his Astonishing X-Men comic.

We've got the scoop on a new Buffy series! [Sci-Fi Wire]

Monday

If you didn't lose most of your Sunday to Syfy's V marathon, don't despair; they're continuing it today, from 8am through 7pm (And then again tomorrow, starting at 8am again). Jane Badler fanatics of the world, unite for one last time before Morena Baccarin takes over. Talking of remakes of beloved shows, AMC have a 15 minute Prisoner Preview at 2:45, teasing the reboot that premieres later this month (It re-runs throughout the week, if you miss it).

Of course, Monday wouldn't be Monday without Heroes; this week is the much-anticipated "Once Upon A Time In Texas" episode that sees Hiro try to save Charlie's life again, even though I thought we'd conclusively proven way back in the first season that he couldn't do that. Oh, Heroes, suddenly that House re-run on Fox at the same time seems that bit more interesting...

Tuesday

Having presumably primed yourself with the end of Syfy's V marathon, you'll be eagerly anticipating the premiere of ABC's brand new, now-with-extra-Scott-Wolf V, for the first of four weeks before a winter break. We reviewed it at Comic-Con and were pleasantly surprised by the "creepy and intriguing" update of the classic show. Here are the first eight minutes or so:

Meanwhile, AMC and FX are showing off their superhero movie chops: AMC has a doublebill of Batman and Batman Returns starting at 8, while FX shows the better-than-the-first-but-that's-not-necessarily-saying-much Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer at the same time.

Wednesday

Get your humpday started properly with AMC showing of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer movie at 9:45 in the morning, and then stick around for Reign of Fire - one of our favorite dragon war movies ever - at 3pm. In fact, when you add in more showings of Batman, Batman Returns and Batman Forever (at 8pm) and Batman Begins (at 10:30), you could pretty much just leave your television tuned to AMC all day.

But if you did that, you'd miss a new episode of Eastwick at 10pm on ABC. Considering I've never seen the show, I'll just quote the summary instead:

After Chad visits her one last time in a dream, a grieving Roxie resolves to fulfill his last wish — if she can figure out what it is. Hounded by Max, her replacement at the Gazette, about her kidnapping ordeal, Joanna grapples with her own lingering questions while dodging his and Kat, startled by a newfound ability, realizes that Bun's old friend Eleanor Rougement may have answers for both of them.

For those looking for documentary-esque thrills, Mythbusters investigate liquid nitrogen myths in a new episode at 9pm on the Discovery Channel, and, after rocking a marathon of Destination Truth from 8am through 3pm (There's also a new episode on at 9), Syfy celebrates the power of brand loyalty by bringing in Warehouse 13's Eddie McClintock to help track down the "Ghost Of Buffalo Bill" on a brand new episode of Ghost Hunters at 8pm.

Thursday

As if the V marathons earlier in the week weren't enough, Syfy has a Threshold marathon starting at 8am and running until 3 in the afternoon. Remember Threshold?

Because it's Thursday, it's time to give your TiVos a workout. At 8pm, you can choose between a new episode of FlashForward on ABC -

Mark, Demetri, Gough and MI6 agent Fiona Banks investigate a Blue Hand club and its possible connection to some recent suicides. Meanwhile, Aaron receives a surprise visit from a former army buddy of his late daughter's, Demetri comes clean with Zoey about his lack of a flashforward, and Nicole helps Bryce uncover the mystery of his flashforward while volunteering at the hospital.

- or a new Vampire Diaries on the CW:

On his birthday, Stefan is surprised by a visit from Lexi, one of his oldest friends. Still upset by the events at the Halloween haunted house, Elena does her best to stay away from Stefan, but Lexi gives her some unsolicited relationship advice. Elena and Jenna are surprised by a change in Jeremy's behavior. At Damon's insistence, Caroline tries to get his medallion back from Bonnie. Finally, Damon's offer to help Sheriff Forbes has sudden and tragic results.

Similarly, 9pm brings a choice between Fringe on Fox -

The Fringe Division takes on a puzzling investigation where victims are inexplicably disintegrating into ash. The shadowy case casts light on Special Agent Phillip Broyles' past and leads the team to the possibility of foreign Fringe Science. Emotions run high as the alarming events stack up and revealing personal details emerge about the leader of the Fringe Division.

- and what looks like a very fun episode of Supernatural on the CW:

The Trickster throws Sam and Dean into an alternate universe where they are characters in different television series, including a sexy medical show, a Japanese game show, a forensics show and a sitcom. The brothers realize the only way to get out of this world is to play along and become the characters in the shows. However, Castiel appears and warns them this universe is dangerous and they must get out before they become trapped.

(My suggestion: Watch FlashForward and Fringe live, TiVo Supernatural and try to pretend Vampire Diaries doesn't exist. Sorry, Kevin Williamson.)

Friday

Today's Syfy marathon? The third season of Doctor Who. Again, it starts at 8am: Set your TiVo to relive the awesomeness that is Martha Jones. Otherwise, you'll be left with nothing to watch until Smallville on the CW at 8 (Jor-El meets Chloe, Clark realizes that a younger version of his dad is on Earth and Zod keeps disappointing in the villain stakes).

That's followed by the Syfy double bill of Stargate Universe at 9 (Wherein Richard Dean Anderson guests with a crazy plan about how to bring the accidental crew of the Destiny home. Spoiler: It's only the sixth episode: It's not going to work), and Sanctuary at 10 (Magnus wakes up with no idea where she is, or why everything around her has been destroyed. I know how she feels).

If you're feeling like you're missing old friends, though, you could always tune in to White Collar on USA at 9, which counts Fringe's dear departed Charlie and The Middleman's Natalie Morales amongst its cast this week. Plus, of course, Matt Bomer, whom everyone keeps telling me is the new David Tennant in dreaminess quotant.

Saturday

Syfy seems to have forgotten that Halloween was the week before, with three horror movies: Open Graves (starring a pre-Dollhouse Eliza Dushku), in which American students abroad find a deadly boardgame, the remake of The Amityville Horror, and From Within, which apparently has something to do with a Christian questioning her faith when people around her get gruesomely slaughtered.

Thankfully, the movie that follows those three, Snakehead Terror features both snake-headed mutant pirhanas and Bruce Boxeleitner, so things seem to getting back to normal in the end. (Open Graves starts at 4, and each following movie comes two hours later).

Sunday

Worried about the truth behind Roland Emmerich's new destructo movie? Then don't watch 2012: Startling New Secrets on Syfy, which sounds as if it treads the fine line between Destination Truth-esque knowing parody and tacky sensationalism. Which, come to think of it, sounds pretty like the 2012 movie itself, actually... Instead, finish off your weekend with "Return To Malice," the latest, and no doubt entirely awesome, episode of The Venture Bros. on Cartoon Network at midnight. Let's face it: Brock would be disappointed if you didn't.

Note: This is not intended to be an exhaustive list, just a rundown of the eras in horror comedy. Feel free to suggest titles, or whole epochs, that we may have missed out.

The 1920s stage plays

In the 1920s, playwrights decided to spice up their stage plays by adding more horror elements, creating silly haunted-house and monster stories like The Bat, The Cat & The Canary and The Gorilla. Some of these, like Canary, got adapted to silent movies. The 1925 Lon Chaney film The Monster also features a comic-relief character, but isn't really a full-fledged comedy.

Abbott And Costello And Laurel And Hardy And So On

In many ways, the 1930s and 1940s were the heyday of the "clean" horror comedy, which featured monsters without any real gore or violence. Laurel And Hardy did A Live Ghost in 1934, the haunted-house movie The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case in 1930 and A-Haunting We Will Go in 1942. The Three Stooges also dabbled in horror-comedy with short films like 1943's Spooks!. And then going into the 1940s, Abbott and Costello, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, and Bob Hope, among others, brought the genre to new prominence. There's also the hilariously titled Zombies On Broadway. Let's put on a show!

1960s Anarchy

The 1960s saw a slew of trippy novels, movies and TV shows in which horror elements often jostled with comedic ones — several of Peter Sellers' 1960s comedies often veer into horror at odd moments. At the same time, monster sitcoms like The Munsters and The Addams Family ruled television with their zany portrayals of monsters who were just like us — almost. This was also the era that gave the start of the long-running Scooby Doo cartoons, and a slew of cute/funny images of monsters, from the Frankenberry cereal to the Count on Sesame Street.

Self-Aware Campiness

Susan Sontag published her famous essay on "camp" in 1964, but the 1970s really backed up the camp truck to our door, and dumped a load of glitter on our front steps. Horror comedy was no exception, with Vincent Price starring in two mega-campy Dr. Phibes movies, and other over-the-top horror films like Please Don't Eat My Mother and Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes taking over cinemas. Most of all, Rocky Horror Picture Show became a defining movie for a whole ripped-fishnets-sporting generation.

The self-aware horror spoof genre took off way more in the early 1980s, with movies like Creepshow mocking the genre's cliches. And in general, the horror-comedy movie genre really came into its own in the 1980s, diversifying into a bunch of thriving sub-genres.

Ghostbusters, Gremlins and more

1984 saw the release of both Ghostbusters and Gremlins, sparking a new onslaught of cute/scary monsters and ghosts, including four (!) Critters movies. I'd also put 1986's Little Shop Of Horrors and Haunted Honeymoon into this category: wide-eyed protagonists coming face-to-tentacle with weird, slimy or fluffy-but-nasty creatures. According to Box Office Mojo, both Ghostbusters films and the first Gremlins occupy three out of the top four best-selling horror comedy slots of all time.

Troma comedies in the 1980s and beyond

Troma deserves its own category, for its sheer volume of output if for no other reason. Although it's best known for the Toxic Avenger films and Surf Nazis Must Die, there are just so many weird, over-the-top and just plain wrong Troma films out there, you could fill a bookshelf with the DVDs. And really, Troma is just the tip of the iceberg of a slew of direct-to-VHS and direct-to-DVD movies that we've seen in the past 20 years ago, with a ton of cult auteurs pushing the boundary between scary and funny.

1980s Werewolf/Vampire Humor

Teen Wolf (1985), An American Werewolf In London (1981), Fright Night (1985), Mr. Vampire (1985), Once Bitten (1985), Vamp (1986) and Love At First Bite (1979) were just some of the cocaine-fueled laughs at Universal monsters. Here's a photo of Grace Jones at a vampire strip club, from Vamp.

Body Horror/Comedy

The Reanimator films and Brian Yuzna's Society, among others, take the David Cronenberg trope of the human body being transformed into something gooey, icky or disturbingly awful, and they find the silliness and subversive humor that lurks just behind that, with gore, decapitated limbs still moving and lots of oozing goop all providing opportunities for slapstick and discomfort. The 1980s were also the heydey of Frank Hennenlotter's over-the-top violence and bodily destruction, in films like Basket Case. I'd also stick Peter Jackson's Dead/Alive into this category. In many ways, this genre has been the gift that keeps on giving, as evidenced by the awesomeness of 2006's Slither.

The Rise Of Sam Raimi

Classic Sam Raimi films deserve their own category, especially the Evil Dead films and Army Of Darkness. Bruce Campbell in his prime, rocking the chainsaw hand, against the legions of dead. Good times.

Christopher Moore

No discussion of horror-comedy would be complete without mentioning the 1990s and 2000s novels of Christopher Moore, especially his vampire classics Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story, You Suck: A Love Story, and Bite Me: A Love Story, plus his zombie Christmas tale The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale Of Christmas Horror.

Creature Features

Tremors (1990), Arachnophobia (1990), Lake Placid (1999) and Eight-Legged Freaks (2002) were just some of the slew of tongue-in-cheek monster-rampage films that came out in the 1990s and early 2000s. My fave is probably Lake Placid, just for the amazingly deadpan performances by Bill Paxton and Betty White, among others.

Buffy Etc.

Joss Whedon's Buffy empire, including a movie and two television series, pretty much deserves its own category, and it came along with a slew of other TV shows and books featuring (frequently female) heroines facing tongue-in-cheek magical/horrific threats, including Charmed and Xena: Warrior Princess.

The Chucky and Leprechaun Films

I have no idea where those fit in, so I'm putting them here. These are like the silly counterparts to the already quite silly Jason Voorhees and Freddie Krueger films. Chucky is a weird doll that comes to life and attacks people (I guess — I've only read a comic-book adaptation) and there have been a million films about a silly leprechaun going around disemboweling people and controlling their minds. And rapping. And dancing.

Horror Spoofs

The Scream films in the late 1990s jumpstarted the slasher-movie genre with their knowing humor and sly horror-movie references. And then with the release of Scary Movie in 2000, the floodgates opened. There have been a ton of horror spoofs, many of them with the word "Movie" at the end of their titles. Plus the upcoming Transylmania, which exactly one person is excited about. (And we know where you live.)

Zombie Rom-Coms

Shaun Of The Dead, Planet Terror, Jennifer's Body and Zombieland all, to some extent, use the reanimated dead as a backdrop for character-focused comedies. (Okay, so the rom-com thing in the subhed is stretching it slightly — they don't all feature love stories, exactly. But some of them do.) Zombie comedies that are less character-focused include the Nazi epic Dead Snow, the zombie slave masterpiece Fido, the zombie sheep masterpiece Black Sheep and the incredibly nasty Zombie Strippers. Plus Bruce La Bruce's Otto, Or Up With The Dead People. Oh, and there's also last year's Poultrygeist: Night Of The Chicken Dead. No, really. There's also Jon Heder's webseries Woke Up Dead.

Meanwhile, in the world of books, many people see Max Brooks' Zombie Survival Guide as humorous, rather than as the indispensible handbook it is. There have also been a decent number of funny zombie books, including Breathers: A Zombie Lament by S.G. Browne, the mash-up Pride And Prejudice And Zombies, and several others.

Not entirely sure how it fits in, but horror spoof John Dies At The End, by Cracked.com editor Jason Pargin (under a pseudonym) is selling like hotcakes on Amazon.

Sources include Wikipedia, BoxOfficeMojo, IMDB, Scared Silly and the book Laughing Screaming: Modern Hollywood Horror & Comedy by William Paul.

Additional reporting by Mary Ratliff.

After compiling 43 clips of science-fiction dream sequences, we started to wonder exactly why we invade people's dreams so often in SF stories. What purpose does this unreality serve?

We all want to venture past our own limited little reality fields and pop our limiting bubbles of experience — and sometimes aliens, spaceships, time-machines and weird mutations just aren't enough to make that possible. Sometimes we have to get all the way liminal. Stand in the doorway for a bit.

But more specifically, here are some reasons why science fiction gets so dream-happy:

1) The cheap foreshadowing

So we haven't thought about the Borg in months, and they haven't flashed so much as a single implant around these parts. But they're never far from our thoughts — or our dreams, for that matter. And it's just a nifty coincidence — and by "nifty," we mean "ominous and horrifying" — that our hero has a terrible dream about the Borg right before they pop up again. Such a dream does double duty: it reminds us of exactly what the Borg are about and why they're so fearsome. And it sets the mood for another round of Borgian devilry.

2) The prophetic dream

This is similar to the use of dreams as foreshadowing, but usually the foreshadowing dream also includes some actual useful information that our heroes can decipher and use against the monster/villain later. The prophetic dream is a plot device as well as (or sometimes instead of) a grace note. It's not just thrown in for effect, it's actually providing useful info, or at least clues to future developments. The frequent dream sequences in Buffy The Vampire Slayer often set up developments years down the road, like the coming of Dawn. A cruder version is the Doctor's dream at the start of the Doctor Who story "The Time Monster," which gives him tons 'o' clues.

3) Escaping the straitjacket of realism

Science fiction often works really hard to establish a mood of complete realism, paradoxically because it features so many elements that don't, and maybe couldn't, exist in our world. And sometimes, the only excuse for letting go of that need for realism is to stick in a dream sequence, where everything goes loopy.

4) Heightened realism

On the other hand, if people really did meet aliens or their own grandparents, or whatever, people would probably have severe, bizarre mental reactions as a result. Reactions that, honestly, would seem over the top or crazy if you tried to depict them normally. So sometimes the only way to convey a realistic sense of humans coming face-to-face with the unreal is by representing their terror and confusion in the form of an alarming dream. It's actually a form of added realism.

5) Thematic gracenotes

This is something that seemed to leap out from many of the dream sequences we looked over. Like Fahrenheit 451, for example — the hero is facing a conflict, or a mind-blowing decision, and we see that mental anguish amplified in a dream sequence. Preferably full of whirling shapes, and faces going around in a circle. Whoosh.

6) The easy scare that doesn't break any toys

Oh no, Ripley has an alien in her stomach, and it just burst out! Oh, except she doesn't, and it didn't. False alarm, folks.

7) Padding the running length.

What do you mean, we still have another ten minutes left? Do we have any explosives we haven't set off? No? Can we afford another monster costume or some extra CG? No? Okay, how about a long, trippy dream sequence where people stand around and recite e.e. cummings. It's puddlewonderful — in space! The fans will be debating what it means for decades...

8) Up the surrealism ante.

Imagine you're David Lynch. Okay, that may be asking too much. But pretend for a moment that you're impersonating a guy (or Laura Dern) and who has weird hair. And the person you're impersonating has done a lot of drugs, and it's making him or her have loopy visions of worm babies. What can you possibly do to make this guy (or Laura) have more weirdness on top of that? How about a totally batfreak dreamsequence, preferably featuring David Bowie? Or maybe a tiny radiator lady with facial hair?

9) Meeting the alien

Sometimes alien creatures (and gods, and demons) are so alien that no real-life encounter will work. The only way we can talk to them, or have any kind of meaningful communication, is in a dream, or a dreamlike world, where everything is semi-nonsensical and there's a bit of vaseline on the lens... because we're meeting a consciousness that's totally unlike our own.

10) Extra sexiness without consequences

And most importantly, we want to see Mulder shirtless and handcuffed. We want to see Sookie and Eric doing the wild thing. We crave random titillation, and we don't care if it makes sense in the context of the story. In fact, the less sense it makes, or the more it hints at undercurrents of sexitude under the surface, the more exciting it is. So it's almost mandatory for dream sequences to include "I can't believe they went there" friskiness.

The truth is, we want to be smacked in the face with strangeness. Our desire for the bizarre and ridiculous is so much greater than our pitiful suspension of disbelief that you need to short-circuit the whole "is this really happening" question.

Frankenstein Conquers The World

Because, sometimes, a monster has to save the world from a Godzilla-esque other monster, who's threatening (where else?) Japan.

Dracula The Superhero
We'd love to say that we can't blame Dell Comics for trying to cash in on the Batmania of the 1960s by turning Dracula into a superhero, but... Well, it's Dracula as a superhero. Even worse, it's a modern-day Count Dracula as a scientist who accidentally swallows some formula that allows him to transform into a bat and then decides to fight crime in a purple jumpsuit. Seriously, in what world is that a good idea?

Supporting Team Spirit Is Some Kind Of Good-Doing, Right?
Maybe werewolves were meant to be working for a common good. Exhibit A:

Frankenstein's Monster... Hunter
Ignore the shortlived attempt to turn the character into a superhero from the same people behind the Dracula superhero (Although we're slightly charmed by the secret identity "Frank N. Stone"); the best comic version of Mary Shelley's creation is undoubtedly Grant Morrison's sullen hero from the Seven Soldiers series, packing heat and a grim demeanor as he dispatches demons, alien invasions and deals with his former Bride, who just so happens to be a reanimated agent of a secret government agency investigating weirdness. Freaks have never had such a strong defender as this son of Victor Frankenstein.

Zombies Can Do More Than Shuffle
It's hard to make a case for zombies being good guys; they're mostly unthinking forces of brain-eating chaos, as opposed to particularly malicious. And yet, who could argue that this didn't improve their life just a little bit?

Werewolf By Night
His name is Jack Russell, people. Whoever said that the 1970s wasn't the age of Mighty Marvel Bad Ideas?

Buffy The Vampire Slayer In General
Vampires with souls, sarcastic werewolves in bands and demons with perfectly justifiable fears of bunnies. Joss Whedon's calling card may have specialized in making heroes out of monsters - even Dracula helped out the Slayers in the Season Eight comic series - but he made sure to keep them interesting even after they'd seen the light (Metaphorically so, in Angel's and Spike's cases, of course).

Dracula Saves Hallowe'en

Any movie that has a plot where Dracula has to save Hallowe'en because the classic horror monsters are seen as funny rather than scary already has our love, but where The Hallowe'en That Almost Wasn't goes horribly wrong isn't even the Munsters-esque treatment of the characters, but the casting of Judd Hirsch as Dracula. There's just no way to find that man scary, sadly.

We Ain't Afraid Of No Ghosts (1)

'Nuff said? No, wait...

We Ain't Afraid Of No Ghosts (2)

Definitely 'nuff said. Paranormal Activity would've been so much better if it'd been Casper visiting instead...

[Via Sci Fi Wire]

During Dark Horse Comics' Buffy The Vampire Slayer panel, editor Scott Allie said that Dollhouse creator Joss Whedon had reversed his previous "No Dollhouse comic" stance:

Dollhouse? There's a chance... When Joss first told me he was going to do the 'Dollhouse' show, I said 'Well, I know you don't want to do comic right away, but whenever you want to do then, we want to do them.' He said, 'Yeah, I just don't really see how it's a comic, but if we're gonna do it, I'll do it with you guys.' And then at San Diego this year, he said 'I know how we can do it as a comic.' And that's where we left it.

If Dark Horse does end up with a Dollhouse series, they'll have the experience to do it right; in addition to their Buffy Season Eight series (With a Season Nine series to follow, possibly starting in 2011, according to Allie), the Oregon-based publisher also publishes comics based on Serenity, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and Whedon's comic-only creation, Sugarshock.

BCC: "Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Season 8" Panel [Comic Book Resources]

Complicated is probably underselling it, though. In every one of Joss Whedon's projects, the central romantic relationship is really deeply messed up. His romantic leads use each other, delude themselves, and often end up in tragedy. But through all of the complexity, these twisted relationships end up feeling more real than any simple rom-com example ever would.

Of course, that extends to sexuality in the context of these relationships. Whedon likes to put his characters into weird sexual situations as well. Sex tends to have unexpected consequences in reality as well as fiction, but in Joss Whedon's world, those unintended consequences are often unimaginable or even disturbing.

Here are a few of the best examples of Joss Whedon's propensity for weird, convoluted romances. (Spoilers for Dollhouse, Buffy, Dr. Horrible, and Firefly!)

Buffy and Angel

In a lot of ways, the Buffy-Angel relationship is Joss Whedon's prototype for messed up relationships. For starters, their story is essentially a supernatural Romeo and Juliet. In a dangerous and deadly way, Buffy and Angel are very much star-crossed lovers. Buffy's sole task is to kill vampires, and Angel is... well, a vampire.

Of course, things are more complex than that; Angel is not just a vampire, but a vampire with a soul. This is what draws Buffy to him. He's got a troubled past and a dark edge, but deep inside, he's essentially as human as her.

And then we get our first very Whedonesque sexual experience with a twist. When Angel and Buffy finally go at it, it is precisely this act of love that causes Angel to lose his soul and revert to the demon he once was. Buffy's feelings for him go from complex to downright wrong (and very dangerous) in a matter of moments.

It's a sophisticated metaphor for the terrible versions of themselves people sometimes become after sex. But it's also a quintessentially Joss Whedon touch: when the couple is at their happiest, things take a turn for the darkest.

Buffy and Spike

And let's not forget Buffy's even more mixed up relationship with Spike. She is repulsed by him for a very long time, seeing him as a symbol of the destructive nature and blood lust inside of herself.

But in Joss Whedon's mind, this man as symbol of self-loathing may as well be a symbol of self-loving; Buffy embarks on a twisted, self-destructive romantic fascination with Spike. The sex scenes between these two always feel a little dirty and more than a little self-destructive on both ends.

And that's not even counting the feather in the demented cap that is Spike and Buffy's relationship: Spike tries to rape Buffy in an attempt to prove to her that she really does love him. It's a strange, dark, twisted scene, but what makes it even more twisted is that this attempted rape really is the first step on the road that eventually leads to Spike's transformation into someone Buffy does love.

This arc is also steeped in metaphor. The two of them, at their darkest moments, turn to each other, and they even help each other become the people they want to be, but not before they help tear each other down to the saddest, most broken people they can be.

Captain Malcolm and Inara

Interestingly, the relationship between Malcolm Reynolds and Inara Serra is probably the most normal of Whedon's leading romantic stories, despite the fact that the two never get beyond meaningful glances and playful flirtation.

From the get-go, Malcolm disapproves of Inara's profession. She's a "companion," which, in the world of Firefly, is a specially trained, deeply spiritual individual who creates meaningful sexual and emotional bonds with their clients. Captain Mal disdainfully refers to this as "whoring."

In fact, the Captain makes it clear over and over that he doesn't respect her profession. But he makes clear, after famously punching out another man who calls her a whore, that he does respect her. In fact, his disapproval of Inara probably stems mostly from jealousy.

I imagine that if "Firefly" had continued, Joss Whedon would have leveraged this hot-and-cold romance into a much more destructive story-line. Whedon and crew have indicated that Inara was on the path to dying if the show had continued, which shouldn't surprise anyone... anything remotely romantically stable isn't destined to last in the Whedonverse.

Dr. Horrible and Penny

While Dr. Horrible remains pretty light throughout its three parts, it does offer us a pretty twisted little romantic storyline.

Billy is a meek man, but his alter ego, Dr. Horrible, seems to count impressing the cute laundry buddy Penny as one of his main goals as a world-dominator. Billy seems to think that he, as Billy, will never impress her, but Dr. Horrible certainly will.

In the end, though, when Dr. Horrible makes his big debut, he accidentally contributes pretty directly to Penny's death. With her last breaths, Penny reaches out to Billy, not Dr. Horrible, and calls instead for the Doctor's nemesis.

It is at this moment that Dr. Horrible realizes that he never had a chance with Penny, that the only way he could connect with her was as Billy. But Billy is gone now, replaced by the villain he thought he needed to become.

In Joss Whedon's hands, a sci-fi musical blog with rom-com elements still ends up a pretty dark romantic tragedy.

Pretty Much Everyone On Dollhouse

Finally, in Whedon's most recent creation, pretty much every romantic relationship has it's twisted, destructive side. For starters, the first real romantic relationship we get is the one between FBI agent Paul Ballard and his neighbor Mellie.

Just when we see Ballard getting comfortable with this woman, Whedon hits us with the revelation that she was only there to spy on him, that the personality that loves him was concocted to do just that and nothing more. The woman he loved is just a shadow in an empty room.

Needless to say, this distorts Ballard's relationship with her. Soon after the revelation, Ballard, frustrated by the fabricated nature of Mellie's love, has some angry sex with her, then runs out on her. She's devastated, yet Ballard knows it's only because she's programmed to be devastated. His relationship with her is a symbol of the depravity he's fighting in trying to shut down the Dollhouse.

But Dollhouse doesn't stop its experimental romantic stories there. The show asks what would happen when the shadows start to linger in the empty room. Could the unimprinted dolls start to develop romantic interests, despite their supposed lack of personality or libido?

The poster-children for this concept are Victor and Sierra. These two gravitate towards each other in their unimprinted state, and they also seem to feel a residual pull towards each other in some of their imprinted states.

By far the most dark and twisted relationship on Dollhouse, though, is that between Sierra and her original handler. Her handler, on multiple occasions, took advantage of the preternatural trust programmed into the otherwise blank Sierra to take advantage of her innocence and rape her.

It's one of the most twisted sexual events Whedon has yet crafted, and it further proves his fascination with strange, unconventional, or even downright disturbingly messed up romantic relationships.

What Does It All Mean?

It's clear that Joss Whedon loves complicated romantic and sexual relationships. Both love and lust are unabashedly large motivating factors for his characters, and this provides a springboard for the most interesting story-lines on his shows.

But it also makes what can sometimes be fanciful and unbelievable circumstances seem much more real. When we see a "happily ever after" story, we sometimes think, ok, but for how long can someone be so uncomplicatedly happy? Joss Whedon's stories provide us with some answers to that question.

More to the point, Whedon uses supernatural and science fictional elements to take complex, realistic romantic and sexual tension and inflate them to near mythic proportion. At the risk of going too far with the Whedon love, it's the kind of thing that Shakespeare so excelled at. In his works, gods and ghosts often became the engines for deeply affecting tragedy, helping his stories bridge the gap between intimate realism and giant mythology.

Whedon's stories do the same thing for his fans. We know life isn't simple, that there's something disingenuous about a television show that portrays all romantic stories as cut from the same simple cloth. Whedon offers us all the intricacies of our own romantic and sexual development writ large. It's the kind of thing that appeals very strongly to a select audience and will hopefully someday get the wider appreciation it deserves.

Shazam! (1974)
With one word, Billy Batson becomes the World's Mightiest Mortal... but that's about the most believable thing in this series, which creepily featured the underage Billy traveling around the country in an RV accompanied by his "mentor" and occasionally talking to the gods who gave him his powers, who all happened to be badly-animated cartoons. Add in Billy or Captain Marvel helpfully telling you the moral of the episode at the end each week, and you've got a recipe for a dull show enlivened only by the size of Billy's hair.

Electra-Woman and Dyna-Girl (1976)
I'm not really sure this one needs any explanation as to why it's on the list, once you've watched the video.

The Amazing Spider-Man (1977)
In which television revealed the truth about Marvel's favorite superhero: He looked kind of ridiculous. This short-lived series also missed the point of the comic book altogether by not using any of the character's famous supervillains, instead giving him ninjas and terrorists to fight. What was the point of that?

Legends Of The Superheroes (1978)
No expense was spared on bringing DC's biggest name superheroes to the small screen in this live action version of Super Friends - well, unless you count the money that would've been spent on a good script. Again, proving that bad writing and poor special effects can overcome even the best intentions, this two-part series (The second episode of which was a celebrity roast of the heroes led by Ed McMahon. No, really) also featured a villain more diabolical than Lex Luthor: A laugh track.

Those Terrible Captain America TV Movies (1979)
We can just imagine the pitch meeting for these two TV movies: "So, we have the rights to Captain America - You know, the guy who embodies the American Dream and fought in World War II against Hitler? I've got a great take on him: We turn him into Evel Kinivel. And let's get rid of that mask, too. Make it into a motorcycle helmet - That's much more hep." It could've been worse, we guess... We're just not sure how.

The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988)
The original Hulk series was, if you ask us, one of the few superhero shows that worked - and that's because they didn't really treat it as a superhero show at all. When they revived the series a decade later and started pairing him with guest stars from the Marvel Universe, though...? Not a good idea:

(The Daredevil appearance in the next special, Trial of The Incredible Hulk, may be even worse; especially because they seem to have gotten the character mixed up with a generic ninja who happened to be blind.)

Superboy (1988)
An attempt to spin the Superman movies into a weekly format, the Superboy series had sincerity going for it - Sincerity and the seeming inability to not try and drastically rework the series between seasons every year (Including recasting the lead role after the original Superboy asked for a raise around the same time as getting arrested for drunk driving), leading to a schizophrenic, uneven show let down by shoddy special effects.

The Flash (1990)
The Flash comic book may be populated with colorful villains, but the television show didn't have the same luck (Mark Hamill's Trickster, in the clip below, aside), presumably for budgetary reasons. Add in a leading man as stiff as his ridiculously over-sculpted costume, and it's no surprise that this show only lasted one season.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (1993)
Secret identities, colorful outfits, super powers, fighting crime... These guys count as superheroes, right? Maybe it's our age, maybe our dedication to things like plot, dialogue and nuance, or perhaps it's just our aversion to cheap monsters in anything that doesn't actually involve Godzilla, but the long-running (and multiple-show-spanning: It's on its fifteenth different title right now) series always seemed... well, almost unwatchably bad to us.

Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993)
It's a judgment call as to whether this show really deserves to be here. On the one hand, the Moonlighting-esque relationship between its leads was cute, and John Shea's Lex Luthor was a lot of fun... But on the other, it was a show that struggled to come up with good ideas each week and often failed, leading to an episode where Clark married a clone of Lois, who needed to eat frogs in order to survive. Or something. And what was with essentially writing Lex out after one season, anyway?

Generation X (1996)
A pilot adapting Marvel's X-Men spin-off, Generation X made it to air but never to full-series, meaning that the world was spared the low-budget high-concept struggle of teens having to live with their mutant abilities in a world that hated and feared them... because they couldn't act.

Justice League of America (1997)
Possibly the ultimate proof that TV and superheroes don't mix, this is another unsuccessful pilot that aired nonetheless, and features bad writing, bad acting, bad special effects, and some of the most literal - and most embarrassing - superhero costumes ever seen on screen. It's like a landmark of fail.

Mutant X (2001)
Marvel's short-lived television series about mutants that isn't related to the X-Men at all oh no please don't sue us Fox (They did, nonetheless) tried to swerve away from comparisons to the publisher's successful mutant franchise by underplaying everything to the point of boredom. Even Generation X would've been better than this.

Birds of Prey (2002)
It had so much potential - Batman and Catwoman's daughter teaming up with the former Batgirl to fight crime? Hello, high concept - but the execution let it down badly with shoddy writing, lack of direction and the mistaken idea that camp was better than character development. When something makes Smallville look subtle and nuanced, you know you're in trouble.

The Ones That Didn't Suck
Batman (1966)
Almost everything about it is wrong - The cheap jokes! The ill-fitting costumes! Replacing Julie Newmar with Eartha Kitt! - but it all works nonetheless; Batman's 1960s incarnation may not be the best translation from page to screen, but as a weird totem of the era, it remains a classic.

Wonder Woman (1975)
We love Wonder Woman as a character, and this show may be a lot to do with that. While the comic version was having identity issues at the time this series was being made, the TV show took her back to her heyday, added the "let me twirl into my costume" and fittingly made Lynda Carter the star she should've been all along.

The Incredible Hulk (1978)
As we said above, the Hulk show worked despite its title character - Riffing on The Fugitive with an occasional need for a giant silent strongman, the show offered a completely different take on the character from the comics, and one that was arguably better.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1996)
When it comes to television series about people with magical powers, we don't think we're alone in thinking that Joss Whedon did everything right. Mixing just the right amounts of humor and tragedy into the supernatural and superpowered stories, Buffy is everything that superhero shows like Smallville and Heroes should be trying to emulate... if only they could drag themselves away from the superficial special effects and overcooked dialogue.

The Obvious Exceptions
Anything animated
Yes, all of the above shows were live-action, and yes, we know that superhero cartoons have a long and proud history on television as well; we're partial to some Justice League Unlimited, especially if Darkseid is the bad guy. But as much as adding animated series in here may have ruined the grade curve, let's not forget things like this:

or this:

I think you know what I'm saying.

Whedon told Complex magazine's Tim Leong:

We're not [producing web-only content this year]. Just because they're not really looking to spend extra money on the show. The network has dropped their licensing dramatically, it's the studio who has really picked up the slack to make this happen. Ironically, we actually have what would be fabulous web content, which is the whole 2019 storyline from "Epitaph One." Whereas last year, it was like "I don't think we have anything for the Web." When they added 10 minutes to every episode, they gave it up. This year I'm like, "We have some great ideas for the Internet!" and they're like, "Yeah…no"... but what we are doing is pursuing the 2019 storyline in the show sporadically. Not so much that it takes over, but enough that it informs where we're going. I have some delightful surprises in store, and I got to shoot some of it myself for the first episode, which was delightful, because why should [producer/director David] Solomon have all the fun?

In the same interview, Whedon also confirmed a "Season Nine" Buffy comic to follow the current "Season Eight" series, promising something shorter and "very different" from the current run.

Exclusive: Joss Whedon Talks Exclusive: Joss Whedon Talks "Dollhouse" & Eliza Dushku [Complex]

When Vampire Bill and Angel came out together I nearly bit my hand off I was so surprised. But what's with the knowing look David Boreanaz? You are Angel, and you will always be Angel. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I'd love to see what you guys come up with as a caption for this photograph. What would these two have to say to one another?

Another great little moment from the Emmy's was Michael Emerson winning for Lost, and then going up on stage and creeping us all the hell out. He really is Ben, isn't he? I knew it.

Kristin Chenoweth won for the cruelly canceled series Pushing Daisies, but we already talked about that still her acceptance speech was terrific.

And finally fellow nerd and "I'm A PC" John Hodgman's narrations throughout the evening almost made up for the fact that Battlestar Galactica was completely forgotten in every drama category besides directing, for Daybreak 2, which they didn't win. Still Hodgman's introductory riffs was the icing on the cake....

"If Michael Emerson weren't on television right now, he would be in New York City, having a fancy cocktail with me. That is, until S. Epatha Merkerson walked into the room, then he'd blow me off. That's a true story." -On Michael Emerson's victory in the Best Supporting Actor, Drama category

Read more Hodgemanisms over at NY Magazine.

Thanks to S.J. Edwards, Elizabeth Bear, DJ Chaotica, Larry-Bob Roberts, Zack Stentz, Daphne Gottlieb, Paul McEnery, James McGirk, Jessy Randall, Kevin Schmidt, Morgan Johnson, Susie Kay, Kat Page and David Fraser for the suggestions!

The Mayor In City Of Ember
He's the textbook example of a corrupt mayor who's only interested in saving his own skin. He knows the underground city of Ember is on its way out, and soon it'll be uninhabitable due to power failures and dwindling supplies. But instead of trying to cope with the problem, the mayor tries to hoard as much stuff for himself as possible, in a secret room — and puts together meaningless commissions to study the problem. Here he is in this video, eating sardines in the grossest possible manner.

Lando Calrissian in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
Okay, so Lando is the kind of scoundrel we love to watch. And he's a perfect counterpart for Han Solo. But would you really want him in charge of your city? His Cloud City of Bespin seems like a pretty corrupt, messed-up place. And then he goes inviting Darth Vader and his crew there, which is not good city planning at all. And then after Vader has demolished half the city in his battle with Luke Skywalker, Lando takes off and leaves his city behind. Call that leadership?

Aunty Entity in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome
She does keep the city of Bartertown humming along — except when she gets stuck into an idiotic power struggle with Master/Blaster, and everything grinds to a halt. Plus she rules with an iron fist, and forces people to fight to the death in a deadly arena. That's not the kind of leadership our post-apocalyptic cities need!

Mayor in RoboCop 2
He makes deals with drug dealers and criminals. And then he mismanages the city's finances and winds up handing the entire city over to the evil OCP. This clip pretty much says it all. And when he's in a tight corner, he just loses his shit.

Mayor Wilkins, in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, season 3
Your average terrible mayor may let the city fall apart, or make deals with drug lords, or bulldoze your house for no reason. But a really awful mayor, like Wilkins, makes cozy arrangements with vampires and tries to kill off the town's only protector. And then tries to turn into a demon so he can eat the high-school graduating class. Now that's bad leadership.

Vilos Cohaagen, in Total Recall.
He's an evil administrator of the Mars settlement, keeping the mutants down and ruling with an iron grip. He uses mind-control and brainwashing to keep his minions in line. And worst of all, he won't give the people air. WTF, Cohaagen?

Mayor Bentham Rudgutter, in Perdido Street Station by China Miéville.
He's always described as sitting "regally on his throne," or sitting "behind his desk with an air of utter command." He rules over New Crobuson, with its corruption and oppression — and he's not averse to making deals with the city's crime syndicates as well as its demons. He systematically rounds up dissidents and has them tortured, and he's not above imposing martial law if the situation gets out of hand.

Father in Equilibrium
Father rules over the city-state of Libria and outlaws all human emotion, even the love of a small puppy. To this end, he keeps the people doped up on a drug called Prozium, and keeps everyone under constant surveillance. (Similar to other figureheads like Big Brother in 1984, or Mustapha Mond in Brave New World — except that Father just rules over one city.) The only good thing "Father" has going for him is his kick-ass gun-centric martial art, gun-kata. Woo hoo!

Judge Cal, In Judge Dredd
This character, closely based on the Roman emperor Caligula, seized power after he had the Chief Judge of Mega-City One assassinated. In Mega-City One, the Chief Judge has absolute authority — an arrangement that's caused some problems on several occasions. So Judge Cal goes completely nuts, making it a crime to criticize him and appointing a goldfish as his deputy. He even shoots Judge Dredd! Dude!

Mayor Prentiss in The Knife Of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness.
Prentisstown is not a nice place to begin with — there are no women, and the males can all hear each other's thoughts all the time, whether they want to or not. But Mayor Prentiss makes matters worse, by figuring out a way to control men's minds. He declares himself President and invades the neighboring settlement of Haven, where there are some women. And that's just the beginning of his reign of terror. Runner up: The mayors in Truancy by Isamu Fukui.

The other day, I was watching Star Trek: The Next Generation reruns — and it turned out to be an episode all about Reg Barclay, the hypochondriac creep who likes to use Beverly Crusher as his holographic blow-up doll. He stars in like twenty episodes of the final season. And then I picked up the latest Buffy comic, and it was all about Andrew, the wet wiccan who inexplicably became one of the show's main characters in its last season. So, seriously: Why do annoying dweebs take over dying shows?

Usually, the arrival of the Andrew/Barclay character is a sign that the writers have run out of stories to tell about the existing cast. Hence the Reg Barclay effect, science fiction's version of the "Cousin Oliver" effect. (Actually, I realized that Reg first starred in an episode back in season three. But he definitely became more prominent in the last two seasons.) And often, this character has a few other notable qualities:

1) He/she is clearly a stand-in for the writers, being nerdy and full of exaggerated insecurity and self-mockery.
2) He/she contains qualities that existing characters already had, but they're pushed up to 11. Like, say, Andrew is like Xander on reverse-steroids, making him even weaker.
3) He/she is often put on some kind of accelerated character arc from clueless to loveable, or from good to evil, because all the other characters have already taken that journey and we need to see someone new take it.

Update: Thanks to all who commented. I had noticed that Barclay's first episode of TNG was in season three, but had been certain that he'd cropped up a lot more in seasons six and seven. But it turns out the Barclay pain was pretty evenly spread throughout seasons three, four, five, six and seven, with a slight spike in season six. He's referenced, but does not appear, in the Worf cowboy episode. So it's more accurate to say he took over Voyager, where he appears in a lot of the later episodes.

Here's our Hall Of Pain, showcasing the Reggiest Reg Barclays of SF television. Feel free to suggest your own additions, or argue with these choices:

The really annoying thing about both Andrew and Reg Barclay, of course, is that they went on to represent their respective shows on the inevitable spin-offs. While the actual cast members of TNG and Buffy were too busy trying to escape from being typecast, we got to revisit both Andrew and Reg on many, many occasions. Whenever Angel needed someone to pop up and be a mouthpiece of Buffy's new Slayer Army, Andrew fit the bill. And the final seasons of Star Trek: Voyager were almost as covered with Barclay's sweaty handprints as the final season of TNG was.

This is a plea to showrunners and TV producers everywhere — please don't Scrappy-Doo your final season. It's not worth it! If you think you're about to be canceled, don't project your anguish and insecurity onto the screen by giving us a character who has ever reason to be insecure. Don't pass your pain onto us, the viewers. And if you've run out of ideas for storylines about your actual main cast, turn them all into cyber-ninja-marmosets. We won't mind. Just please — don't inflict the Reg Barclay syndrome on us.

Note: As with everything in life, this post was greatly enriched by surfing TVTropes.org.

My theory that Bewitched was the Buffy the Vampire Slayer of its day started, I admit, as a half-assed joke, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. It's not just that Elizabeth Montgomery was the Sarah Michelle Gellar of her day - albeit with a nose wrinkle instead of a stake, and much less annoying - or that Bewitched made fantasy mainstream in the mid-60s much as Buffy did the same in the late-90s (albeit in a more underhanded, more comedic way), either. Let us compare and contrast:

Samantha Stephens, Meet Buffy Summers
So, both Sam and Buffy are both modern women who just happen to be the latest in a long line of supernatural beings who have to hide their true selves in order to fit in with everyone else. They're both the strongest, most capable people in the room at most times - although both look for guidance to authority figures in times of trouble (Giles is the modern Dr. Bombay!) - and have issues with occasionally over-bearing mothers and comedic foil main men in their lives, although Buffy had the common sense not to fall for, or marry, Xander.

Maybe more importantly, both Buffy and Samantha were torn between two worlds; the mundane reality of most people and the supernatural "truth" of their natures. But, in both cases, they don't really belong to either world, and just want to be themselves, and that's the main thrust of their respective series, no matter how disguised they may be with recycled I Love Lucy plots or prosthetic make-up monster of the weeks.

Magic As Metaphor
Of course, by the late '90s, television was much more able to address "social topics" without worrying about pissing off sponsors, viewers or censors, so Buffy's track record with using magic as metaphor for real life is potentially stronger and certainly more obvious than Bewitched, but that's not to say that the latter show didn't try it, nonetheless; the first season episode "The Witches Are Out" substituted bigotry against witches for racism, and the entire show has long been the subject of a rumor that the witch/human marriage was really about the perceived difficulties of interracial marriage at the time. If true, it's certainly up there with Joss Whedon's "horror as high school" metaphor...

Girl (Magical) Power
Lots has been written, talked and, yes, even blogged, about Buffy's (post-)feminist qualities, but Sam was there first; critic Susan Douglas argued in her book Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female With the Mass Media that Samantha's "irrational" magic rendered the "rational" male-dominated society impotent, which was why she was constantly being told by Darren not to use them... although, despite her promises to try and behave, she couldn't quite help herself. As much as Buffy showed a more straight forward example of women taking control of their surroundings, Bewitched showed societal rules as ridiculous, and easily detourned and subverted by a more subtle form of female empowerment.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not arguing that Buffy in any way rips off, or was even directly influenced by, Bewitched. But, at the same time, it shares enough characteristics that, any time someone dismisses Bewitched as a lightweight comedy show that meant nothing in the grand scheme of things, I get overly defensive. Watch out there, buddy, I want to say - Well, maybe without the "buddy" part - Show some respect. After all, that's the first Vampire Slayer you're talking about.

It's not just the comic continuations of canceled shows (which also include The X-Files, Angel and, soon, Pushing Daisies), though; old ideas are never allowed to die anymore anywhere; that's why we're reading news about Battlestar Galactica being relaunched as a movie by Bryan Singer, X-Files possibly undergoing a movie reboot, eagerly anticipating the 28-years-later sequel to Tron and worrying whether or not there's going to be a fifth Terminator movie.

Arguments could - and will - be made about how this shows the void of new ideas in the entertainment world, but I'm not sure that those really hold water; this year alone, we've seen District 9 and Moon find success, gotten curious about Chris Nolan's Inception and watched as James Cameron's Avatar has become the most anticipated movie of the year. New stories are out there, and from big studios normally condemned for only sticking with familiar franchises, as well (In television, the same arguments can be made; for all the familiarity of Fringe or Warehouse 13, they're new shows, as are/were Dollhouse, Day One and even Flash Forward. As far as comics go, you only have to leaf through the 400+ page Previews to see all manner of new ideas sharing space with familiar faces). So, if it's not that no-one's coming up with new stories, why do we keep going back to the old?

It can't just be nostalgia; you can't really tell me that Jericho's return as a comic book and potential TV movie comes down to people longing for those halcyon days of 2008, for one thing, and it's not just the sense of unfinished stories or unfulfilled potential (Unless I missed the legions of people crying out for someone to come along and give us the story of bearded Lorne Greene Adama in Galactica 1980 that they knew we deserved for all these years). So, what is it?
I'm worried that, ultimately, it's laziness. Not only laziness on the side of creators, but also on the side of fans; for the creators, resurrecting an old franchise seems like a no-brainer because it:
* offers a way around that whole pesky "coming up with an idea" thing,
* brings a ready-made amount of fans, no matter how small, who are not only already interested in your product but can take up some slack on marketing and publicity (Yes, this involves "I can't believe they're letting Bryan Singer do BSG only months after Ron Moore's show ended" style outrage),
* creates an easy PR hook for whatever publicity you want to do ("[Character X] is back!")
* allows you to learn from the mistakes and successes of your predecessors instead of making yourself look like idiots in public (Until, of course, you learn new ways to do that, which is inevitable), and
* gives you a chance to work out some of your "I could do that idea a million times better!" feelings about original version.

On the fan side of things, though, it gets more complicated. We cling onto these resuscitations because, in a weird way, we feel entitled to them: We've invested all this time and energy in them, and - for want of a better way to put it - that gives us the right to demand more of it until we decide we're done (See: Star Trek and Star Wars and the fact that they'll never go away), and also because... well, we've invested all this time and energy and we want to know that it's not for nothing, and that we won't have to go through it all again with something else that might just break our heart.

In the end, it's as much a success for the market as it is anything else: Everything is available to us if we want it badly enough (Well, as long as what we want already exists; those new things, they still have to be dreamt up), even if it's not what we really need, or what is good for us. Don't get me wrong; for the people who couldn't consider life without knowing what happened to Angel and Illyria after the end of the TV show, I'm happy that they get their chance to find out (And I selfishly look forward to the further adventures of Ned and Chuck, when they appear). I just wish that, sometimes, we were not only allowed to move on from our old favorites and find something else to surprise and amaze us.

The pop cultural meeting of minds comes courtesy of Jane Espenson and artist Karl Moline in the latest issue of the webcomic anthology MySpace Dark Horse Presents; not only does it advance the current storyline running in the monthly Buffy Season 8 comic, but it also gives us a chance to discover just what Harmony's "Colbert Bumps" actually are. Sadly, it's not as dirty as it sounds.

Harmony Comes To The Nation [MySpace]