I actually kind of love the Jason Of Star Command credits, for the whizzy spaceship and the friendly dragon, among other things. But it is pretty cheesetastic and insane. My favorite part: about 40 seconds in, we get a tight closeup of the evil Dragos, looking like Brian Blessed crossed with a Borg, and then it zooms out jerkily to show he's sitting with a bunch of coke-snorting lizards. And then we zip back to the tight closup on Dragos so we can learn his name. Awesome!

But that's not even the worst TV opening credits of all time. We'll save time and put that one first. The absolute weakest theme tune and opening montage almost certainly belongs to...

K-9 And Company:

The first ever Doctor Who spin-off: he's a sassy robot who likes to sing his own name! She's an alcoholic who sits around drinking! Together they, erm... get sloshed and sing off key! Yeah, that's it! Seriously, was everyone involved with this drunk the whole time?

Space Academy

A group of well scrubbed young people learn to harness their amazing abilities, guided by Dr. Smith from Lost In Space. And Peepo! Don't forget Peepo the friendly robot! This one has the best "explaining the show's premise" voiceover.

Flash Gordon

Running running running... And then smiling! Nice teeth! Warrior woman. More running! Gateway in space, and then cue the drum machines, because planets are flying at your head. Zoooom! I like that the planets get drum machines.

Ark II

The voice of Landru narrates about pollution and waste. We're in a post-apocalyptic Winnebago — check out the long lingering shot across its side, to let you know it's a stretch Winnebago. Evil, scary flower of doom! But the best part is the bumper, where the guy carefully says everyone's name into the log, while their faces and names flash on the screen. Subtle!

Pain Killer Jane

There's only one type of pain she can't kill. Can you guess what it is? Anyway, dark gloomy city, then strippers! Then explosions! Then action! Then showering. Then bra! Then more montage, showing that these people shoot each other a lot, but they also smile and nod, and share a beer in their top secret lab. Ooh, back scars!

Mission Magic

Okay, so it's more like fantasy, or maybe urban fantasy, but wow. This is the show that launched Rick Springfield's career, before he was a soap opera actor or a pop singer. The show is all about a young witch named Miss Tickle, but Springfield gets top billing. More importantly, check out the incredible psychedelic cartoon visuals:

Prey

It starts with the most boring lecture in history, full of vague stuff about "okay, so there was an advanced species, and we wiped them out, and then there's another advanced species, and now we're the prey. Except when we're not." Confused yet? Cue montage of spermatazoa and monkeys, with words like "EVOLUTION" and "SELECTION" wibbling onto the screen. Now it all makes sense!

UFO

If we end up doing a list of the best opening credits as well, this will most certainly be in there. It's easily among both the best and worst TV show openings I've ever seen. The weird typewriter exposition! The men hugging themselves and breathing deeply! The purple wigs and crazy cars! It's all just so great! And yet, terrible.

Project UFO

This one is sort of the opposite. Where UFO was kicky and jazzy, Project UFO is sort of austere, with the Jack Webb-esque voiceover and the slow, dull scrolling across unidentifiable drawings of spacecraft:

Journeyman:

We grew to love this short-lived show, but its credits were part of why we had misgivings about it in the first place. Random years are flying over the Golden Gate Bridge! Now birds are flying backwards! It's Journeyman, the man with the power to confuse birds!

Fantastic Voyage

This one is pure groove, with the Peter Gunn-esque music, and the echo-y voice reading every single thing on the screen. "CMDF! Combined Miniature Defense Force!" If we're invaded by anything miniature, they'll protect us. Authority: TOP SECRET! HIGHEST CLEARANCE! And then there's Guru, master of mysteroius powers. Yeah. This is the sort of thing that fuels a million Adult Swim shows.

Time Trax

This one makes me sad, because Time Trax holds a special place in my heart. But these credits? So bad.

Electra Woman And Dyna Girl

This is another one that's great but awful — they move so stiffly, jumping out of their flying ship. And yet they're so awesome. They fight tigers! And spiders! With lasers! They shoot Sarah Jane Smith's wine glass, so she'll dry out and stop getting drunk when the Zarbi are attacking. They're hip women of today! And they have lyrics!!

Smallville season five

The posters over at Television Without Pity singled this opening out for particular badness, and it's not hard to see why. The weird dissolve-o people, the choppy montages, the cheesy video effects, it's all just a melange of badness.

Alias season four

Here's another one the TWOPers singled out. I used to love the techno music/deep purple mystery vibe that you got from this show's credits in the first couple of seasons, but this version of the opening credits slides over into ridiculousness, with the cheesy dance music getting too overhyped and the medley of Sidney's wigs getting over the top.

Automan

He's so cute and blue and glowy, and his little glowing bug flies around harrassing women! What's not to love?

SeaQuest DSV

There's a dolphin, and it's flying around the show's logo as if it wants to play, but then it gets tangled up in a net of too many clips from the show on screen at once, and the poor thing ends up mangled and destroyed. This is why we need dolphin-safe opening credits.

Code Name: Eternity

More awesome techno music. My favorite bit is at 0:12, where the hero sort of snaps his forearm up and raises his fist, so it looks like he's dancing, and then a defiant closeup of him smashes into the camera like he's striking a pose. But the whole thing is great — the screen being sliced up into vertical chunks, the sillhouette of a guy standing in front of his own wobbly face, the seasickness-inducing zooms. Rockage!

Dollhouse

I wrestled with including this one, because Dollhouse really is a fantastic show in general, and I hate to criticize any aspect of it. And Jonatha Brooke sang a couple of my favorite songs of all time. But these credits? Not doing the show any favors. Whenever you try to get people to take this show seriously, they watch these credits and start giggling. The "la la la la" sounds unfortunately lobotomized, and Eliza Duskhu's magic power is changing outfits as she walks. Also, "Active Secure" as she does yoga — what? It's like a computer scanner is monitoring her yoga progress. Uh, no.

Logan's Run:

They're torturing the dolphin from the Seaquest DSV credits to make those "Chew! Chew! Chew!" noises.

Star Trek: Enterprise.

Both Deep Space Nine and Voyager had similar opening credits: the treacly instrumental music, the slow montage of spacey scenes, the terrible empty dullness. But at least they felt sort of epic. The Trek behemoth tried to set a change of pace, with this schlocky ballad from Diane Warren, writer of timeless gems by Michael Bolton, Mariah Carey, Chicago, Heart and many others. (Plus "I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing" by Aerosmith.) And they paired it with a totally cheesy video. Result: awesomeness! Here's the revised, boppier version:

The Invisible Man (1970s version)

It's the love boat, except with an invisible David McCallum. The way it zooms out when the effervescent Melinda Fee tosses her dice - like she's throwing the camera - is just special. And then there's just too much excitement, so the screen has to split into four cubes of awesome.

Voyagers!

They're being flung at the camera through space again and again! This may actually be the best example of the "explaining the show's premise in the credits" phenomenon, especially with the lost Osmond brother talking us through the whole "red is for temporal wrongness" thing. Zippee!

Crusade

What is your name? What is your quest? What is the wingspan velocity of an unladen sparrow? If you can answer these questions, you'll love these opening credits:

The Phoenix

He's sort of writhing in ecstasy a lot of the time as he strokes his medallion — either that or staring into the camera with a crazed exuberance, like he wants to stick his tongue through our TV tube and lick our eyeballs. But we're viewing the whole thing through a flaming triangle, so it all holds together surprisingly well.

The Powers Of Mathew Star

He's a space prince! And he plays football. But mostly, we have Louis Gossett Jr. explaining the whole deal, and having Louis Gossett Jr. talking about how special you are is probably actually better than being an alien prince with super powers anyway.

Future Cop

Oh, Ernest Borgnine. He just loves to confuse his African American partner, with the help of his wacky android cop from the future. When Borgnine laughs, it's actually really scary - and that's the signal to launch into the 1970s action disco music. And funny pixelated graphics. Whee!

Time Cop

The greatest movie of all time (well, almost) spawns a really sad set of TV credits, with footage of the time-travel train interspersed with vertical wedges of the same bit of footage three or four times at once - because the time-travel train splits the world into simultaneous chunks of sameness! Don't you get it? People who we don't care about are talking, and all we want to see is someone policing. In time!

Star Cops

Another one that makes me sad - Star Cops is a vastly underrated show, a classic from the pen of Chris Boucher (Doctor Who, Blake's 7) but wow - this theme tune is horrible, sounding like Spandau Ballet had a horrible mishap. And the Earth gets squished and turned into a boot sole... why?

Fantastic Journey

Another one with the screen divided up into squares, this time of different sizes... there's a lady walking, and we zoom in on a cat! The cat looks really bored — I can haz glowy portal? Oh, and Roddy McDowell is an android, or just a flasher.

Dark Angel

"In a broken world, she is haunted by her past..." The worst thing that happened to opening credits in the 1990s was that technique that lets you have five different versions of someone's face blending into a swirly of awful, all at once. This is a particularly bad example of the multi-face overload:

Man From Atlantis

It feels like he's swimming around, half naked, for several minutes before he finally breaks the surface and we go into the traditional montage of people having Personalities.

Earth: The Final Conflict

Aaaaa it's Enya! I stumbled on this one, when I was searching for the season two credits of Andromeda, which have the overly caffeinated voiceover talking about how Dylan Hunt is the guardian of a dead civilization protecting the galaxy from everything. But this is almost as good:

Oh, and there are spoilers in this post, but only fairly old ones. Like, who's in the coffin. And who's the final Cylon.

There are many reasons to love spoilers, all of them totally valid, in my book. (Inflicting spoilers on people who don't want to be spoiled? That's a different matter, and it's something we agonize over a lot at io9. We do inadvertently put spoilers where spoilerphobes can see them, on occasion, but it's always by accident or misjudgment, and we agonize over it a lot more than you might think. Generally, though, we try to include spoiler warnings before going over to the spoiler side.)

But at the same time, there's a pervasive misconception about spoiler-lovers floating around out there that I'd like to clear up: that we're power mad. That the only pleasure in reading spoilers, or sharing spoilers, is to feel powerful. To know something that other people don't know. The spoiler-phile, in the view of some media people, feels powerful because she or he is robbing stories of their power: the power of suspense, their ability to surprise.

J.J. Abrams writes in a recent issue of Wired Magazine:

It's telling that the very term itself-spoiler-has become synonymous with "cool info you can get before the other guy." What no one remembers is that it literally means "to damage irreparably; to ruin." Spoilers make no bones about destroying the intended experience-and somehow that has become, for many, the preferred choice.

But to be honest, knowing spoilers doesn't make me feel powerful or one-up on any one else. And i don't feel like they ruin the experience of consuming stories afterwards. It just makes me more excited about the narratives I already love. And, often, more curious about the narratives I don't know anything about — or have already lost interest in. The more I know, the more fascinated I become. Because I'm a geek, duh.

So here are some reasons why we love spoilers.

The lure of the forbidden:

Okay, sure. We just got done saying that we don't love spoilers because of some crazy power trip. But at the same time, the fact that spoilers are regarded as "naughty" or even sleazy certainly has its appeal. It would be hypocritical to pretend otherwise. Here at io9, we don't publish gossip: Edward James Olmos could do nude gymnastics in public every single day, and we'd never mention it on our blog. But we decided early on that spoilers are to us what gossip is to Perez Hilton. It's our naughty indulgence, and the stigma attached to it only makes it more exciting.

The more you tell us it's wrong, and we'll go to Hell or grow hair in places our Brazilian waxer won't go near, the more we crave it. It's just human nature.

The grand conversation:

Paradoxically, the Internet has fueled my love of old media. I would have given up reading comic books years ago, if it weren't for the fact that writers like Gail Simone and Kurt Busiek are so accessible online. Commenting on their work, answering fans' questions, responding to your harshest criticisms. I'm much more excited to pick up issue #5001 of Super-Blasting Mega-Dorks when I know that my $2.99 is, in part, buying me a chance to participate in a huge ongoing conversation online.

And it's not just creator participation — it's reviews, previews, and yes... spoilers. Part of the thrill of taking part in fan communities is piecing together the clues about what's coming next. Movie studios, TV companies and comics companies know this, and they try to use it to their advantage, with viral marketing, clever hints and promos that tease you with upcoming plots. When fans get together and geek out about upcoming TV shows and movies, a big part of that is always going to be speculating/guessing/clue-hunting about what the next thing is.

Like I said, the big media companies know that this is going on, and they would like to control it. In fact, they know that eventually, this conversation will become the entertainment you consume. Television will be moving online slowly but surely, and "webisodes," awful as they usually are, are just the thin end of that wedge. Entertainment is going to become more and more interactive, and harder and harder for big media to control.

But that's a meta-topic for another day. Suffice to say, for now, that obsessing over spoilers, rumors, leaks and sometimes outright lies is a huge part of the way we're all building community around the shows and movies we love. Just like fanfic, it's not authorized, or under the big conglomerates' control, but it fuels our shared love. And often the speculation about what's coming is more entertaining than the reality turns out to be. (See: Almost every movie this summer.)

The unconventional seduction:

I gave up on Star Trek after Deep Space Nine went away. I tried to watch Voyager, but it made me feel like my brain was being squished into a jello mold very, very slowly. And Enterprise just left me totally apathetic.

But then a funny thing happened: long after I stopped watching Trek, I kept reading spoilers for it. I also read reviews of episodes I'd missed, on Cynic's Corner or Jammer's Reviews or Television Without Pity. But reading spoilers for upcoming Trek episodes was more fun, partly because they sounded more crazy and over-the-top when you heard about them in advance. ("Kes gets a barbarian warrior's personality stuck in her brain? Tucker gets pregnant?")

The weird thing is, reading spoilers for Trek — and for other shows I barely watched, like Smallville — made me feel like I was still following them, to some extent. And the spoilers and rumors actually helped recharge my interest in those shows. I actually came back to Voyager in its last season, and also started watching Enterprise again after a couple years away, because I was reading spoilers and they seemed excitingly weird and/or potentially awesome.

Ditto for several comic books, and more than a few movies. Hollywood's official marketing machine gives away plenty of details about the storylines of upcoming stuff, but at the same time, the blandness of a lot of trailers and blurbs tends to turn me off. But sometimes, coming across a really outrageous set photo or gonzo rumor can spark my curiosity in the way a hundred peanut-butter-smooth promos never can.

The dreadful admonition:

And then there's the other side of it: Sometimes we need to be warned. "Trip gets pregnant" actually isn't necessarily a good thing. Neither is "Satan annuls Spider-Man's marriage." Or "we'll be meeting Hiro Nakamura as a young boy." There's almost no way "Kid Hiro" could have turned out to be a good thing.

Sometimes, a television show or movie or comic has so much pain in store for us, we need a giant warning buoy flashing crazily and sounding a banshee siren, letting us know in advance. Of course, you can't really judge a piece of media based on advance plot info — especially stuff you read on the Internet. But at the same time, when a particular franchise has an established track record, you have to be vigiilant for the warning signs. Suppose Voyager was still on the air, and you started seeing reports that an upcoming episode would feature Janeway and Michelangelo going white-water rafting on the Holodeck. You would panic! And you'd be right to do so.

And then there's the case of Terminator Salvation, which originally ended with John Connor's face being transplanted onto Marcus Wright's cyborg body — after which a red-eyed Wright killed Kate Connor, Kyle Reese, and the rest of the supporting cast. The filmmakers were serious enough about this ending that they apparently filmed it. But after Ain't It Cool News leaked the ending, McG and company scrambled to replace it with the slightly-less-ridiculous heart transplant thing. So there's a case where spoilers not only warned us of a horrendous storyline, but actually averted it.

Getting back to what Abrams wrote in Wired, I don't actually think knowing who's in the coffin on Lost actually ruins your enjoyment of the storyline. The fun of a show like Lost, for most viewers, is seeing the characters grow and their relationships shifting. And finding out how Locke got into that coffin. (Which, for me at least, was a bit of a let-down.) A good plot twist is one that, even if you know it's coming, you still enjoy the ride getting there.

As I said before, I think entertainment is going to become much more interactive and much more audience-driven in the next decade or two, and the battle over spoilers is just one small piece of that. Traditionally, being a storyteller has meant having control over the narrative and deciding what the audience gets to know, and when. Maybe eventually, we'll have a new balance of power, one in which there's more of a give and take. We don't yet know what this'll look like, but here's hoping it leads to richer stories, in which strong characters — not closely guarded plot twists — are the real source of creators' power.

BEST:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WORST:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Honorable Mention: Blarp from the Lost in Space remake.

It was surprisingly hard to pick the worst Trek holodeck stories, with so many stinkers (and so few good ones) to choose from. It was especially hard not to make the entire list consist of Voyager. As commenter Evlsushi says, "Mentioning a bad Voyager holodeck episode is like shooting really fat, slow fish in a barrel." But here's what we came up with, in rough chronological order:

TNG: 11001001. You could argue this isn't really a holodeck adventure, because Riker doesn't really get "trapped" on the holodeck. But my. God. We, the viewers, are trapped inside Riker's holodeck romance with Minuet, his ideal woman, who's a simpering idiot. She's been created by the Bynars, a race of autistic savants who speak in binary code to each other, and they're about ten million times sexier than she is.
Worst moment: Riker offers to show Minuet his "bone." In a similar vein, I almost included "Outrageous Okona," the "holographic Joe Piscopo" episode, but decided it didn't have enough holodeck awfulness mixed in with the Okona outrageousness.

TNG: Hollow Pursuits. Oh man. Some people really love this episode, in which Lt. Barclay gets addicted to the holodeck, and our heroes have to wean him off it. But I never liked Reg Barclay as a character, and whatever goodness there might have been in the concept of holodeck addiction gets lost in his whining and posturing. Plus TNG can never resist a chance to have its stars dress up in silly outfits and act campy and out of character, so Troi, Worf, Data and the others all wear old-timey garb and act ridiculous.
Worst moment: Troi: "I am the goddess of love and compassion."

TNG: Ship In A Bottle. I'm willing to give the "Dixon Hill" episode a pass, since it won an award in spite of extreme silliness. I'm even willing to let the first Moriarty episode slide, despite its Wishbone-esque quality. But the sequel, where Moriarty takes over the ship, is just a bit too over the top. Especially once he decides he'll be too lonesome as a holographic character wandering the universe alone, and gets his Countess. Also, Moriarty is too easily fooled by the same trick he pulls on Picard and company: making them think they've left the Holodeck when they're still really in there.
Worst moment: Moriarty explains to Picard how much he loves his Countess.

TNG: A Fistful Of Datas. I've already hated on this episode, but it can always stand more hate. Data's mustaches, alone deserve an epic poem in their honor, with heroic couplets and at least 100 stanzas. Plus any father-son bonding between Worf and Alexander is reason enough to hate an episode, and Trek should have learned its lesson about cowboy episodes with "Spectre Of The Gun."
Worst moment: Data in a dress, macking on Worf.

DS9: Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang. Some people really loved Vic Fontaine, the holographic singer who guest starred in several episodes of DS9's final couple of seasons. I don't understand those people, and try to avoid them as much as possible. Vic was like a less cool Guinan, except that he sang. A lot. But to be fair, he was mostly used for some good purposes: like finally getting Odo and Kira, those crazy kids, to hook up. And helping Nog deal with his trauma of losing a leg in battle. (I actually really liked the Nog's leg episode.) But inevitably, some bright spark thought: "Why not have Vic star in his own episode? About mobsters and stuff?" And... no. Bad, bad idea. The awesome Cynic's Corner site explains all the ways this episode fails, including lack of actual humor, Sisco singing, and an implausible plot.
Worst moment: We find out that if Vic dies in the program, his program is deleted permanently from the Matrix. Wha?

Voyager: The Thaw. Yes, I'm skipping over the episodes about the Doctor's holographic family and Ensign Kim's Beowulf simulation. They're pretty hideous, but not in the same league as the worst Voyager holodeck eps. "The Thaw," on the other hand... ugh. There's a clown, okay? And his name is "Fear." And Fear has a bunch of random people, plus the always-feckless Harry Kim, trapped in his virtual world because their bodies are plugged in. Fear the Clown amuses himself by playing silly games and turning Kim into a baby and an old guy. Finally, Janeway instills fear into Fear.
Worst moment: God, where do we start? I guess the Harry Kim baby thing. I dunno.

Voyager: The Killing Game. Aliens trap the Voyager crew in a holographic simulation where they think they're really their holo-characters, and then somehow the aliens are Nazis. It's Springtime for Hitler on the Holodeck. Ugh Ugh Ugh. Although Klingons versus Nazis is kind of great.
Worst moment: One of the Hirogen decides to embrace Nazism as a life philosophy, for real.

Voyager: Fair Haven. Janeway falls in love with a holo-stud in the cheesy "Irish village" holodeck program, and heartstring-tugging romance ensues. Along with ethical dilemmas, as Janeway starts "editing" her beau to make him more suitable (and to delete his inconvenient spouse.) And then she has sex with him — while other Voyager crew members are visiting the holodeck, which, after all, is only one tiny room.
Worst moment: So many. No, wait. how about when Harry Kim questions an order that could save Voyager from imminent destruction, because it might damage the Irish village simulation??

Voyager: Spirit Folk. As bad as "Fair Haven" is, I actually think the sequel episode is worse. The simple Irish folk develop a new and exciting malfunction, so they become aware of the Voyager crew editing reality around them. They decide to burn Harry, Tom and the Doctor as witches, or something.
Worst moment: The villagers hypnotize the Doctor.

Enterprise: These Are The Voyages... You could write a whole essay about how terrible this episode was — and I'm sure tons of people already have. It's as if Berman and Braga wanted to end their version of the Trek franchise with an episode that's not only horrendous, it also makes a strong argument that Trek deserves to die, by giving us some of the series' worst tropes, in one tiny capsule. An unaccountably worse-for-wear Riker and Troi decide, during TNG season 6, to visit a holodeck simulation of one of Captain Archer's missions.
Worst moment: Probably Trip's ridiculous death, although that's not technically a holodeck issue.

I'm all for people disagreeing with what we post, especially if it's done in a way that (a) is funnier than we are (Very common, considering you people. Damn you) or (b) somehow proves us wrong and yet still manages to make us feel good about ourselves (Admittedly, somewhat less common), but there's a line that friends don't let friends cross, and the relative value of Enterprise is one of them. I admit it, I've been tuning into the occasional episode on HDNet recently, needing a Trek fix before the movie comes out, and here's the thing: The series is, at best, okay. It's not the satanic thing of hell that I remembered it as - Okay, the third season kind of is, but we were all different people back then - but it's never really, really good, either. Or, for that matter, even Voyager good. That's why this discussion caused me such pain on Thursday:

Justin MacIver: "Come on Enterprise wasnt bad at all until later on when it got hard to understand.."

MrTim: "Wait, what? Hard to understand? Better earlier on? Were you watching the same show as me?"

NotArthurPDragon: "It started at the horrific theme song (a song! since when have we needed a song!?!) and went downhill from there, climaxing the needless death of the most liked character in the final episode."

alphanumeric1971: "I too had hope, even once I heard the theme song. But then I saw the "decon Gel" scene and for me all hope was lost...

Mercurial Chimaera: "On the subject of that song... every time I heard it I was thinking alternate lyrics: "It's been a bong load, to get from there to here..." Because that's about what it took to properly numb your brain against the onslaught of time-traveling Nazi aliens, etc."

LittleDragon: "I for one love that song (the other shows had songs as well, just no words). I liked the show but T'pol was a bit to emotional and looked too human."

Azogue: " The theme song was the deal killer on this one... it...simply...sucked... wind... very...hard. Moronic lyrics. They should've used the music from the alternate "evil" universe episode for the entire series. Much better. And without Star Trek and Star Wars, kids may never hear an orchestra!"

dOk: "I keep telling you guys that I know the origin of that stupid song. When I worked at Interplay back in its heyday, there were a string of game producers backed by paramount producers that wanted a stupid rock song for Star Trek. The idea got shot down back then but some jerk-wad just couldn't let it go and pushed for it again on Enterprise and got it. The rest is ear suffering history and proved once and for all why it was a bad idea that got shot down in flames years ago."

L3G10N: "If they went with Stan Bush's "You've got the touch" I would have watched every episode....well at least the opening credits!"

ShefaliMagooin: "Yes, the song was annoying, but that is why you just skip over it on the DVD. The reality is that the last season killed it. It was too cheezy with excessive two and three part episodes. The last episode was the final nail in the coffin. I don't blame them for cancelling it after that. It was like they wanted to ensure that there wasn't any point in carrying on."

neolex: "Season 4 was what season 1 SHOULD have been... Human's exploring their neighbourhood, getting into unfortunate scraps, laying down all the building blocks for the awesomeness of TOS, TNG, DS9 and ... the other one... I will come out and say I LOVED season 4 ENT. Great World-building tie-ins to what the audience knows is coming."

Harrison_Bergeron: "The show had a couple moments where you could actually see something worthwhile under the stock characters and recycled plots, but they really were few and far between. On the whole though the show really was crap."

twDarkflame: "The pilot was great, and the last season was pretty good (çept the last ep), but overall. No. It was such a waste opertunity too....rather then exploring near our technology (+warp) they introduced tracker beams, holodecks, transporters etc practicaly every episode."

SinisterBill: "Not to mention they set it in the time period leading up to the war with the Romulans, only to show them in 2 freaking episodes! Fuck, they had 7 season worth of established canon that would have practically written itself and instead they scraped it all and gave us the fucking Xindi. BURN IN HELL BRAGA & BERMAN!!!"

Well, I wouldn't go that far, but let's face it: Enterprise really was terrible, and for more reasons than just that song. No-one sane would disagree with that, right?

fyngyrz: "Enterprise was awesome. Especially in HD. Great characters (ok, the captain was a little wooden), t'pol, decent continuity instead of the rabid randomness of TOS and TNG and the various spin offs, quite a bit of decent CGI, good sets, more than one or two believable aliens, t'pol, some nice — and well integrated — re-visits of TOS concepts, and t'pol. Oh, and t'pol. And you 9-year olds complain about the theme song(s). Wait'll you reach puberty and take a look at t'pol again. Did I mention Enterprise had a character named t'pol? Yeah. Totally. Amazingly. Hot. And a great character as well. The counter-universe episodes were WAY better than TOS or TNG attempts at same. But hey, you guys get back to buffy, the vampire craver, or (cough) Dr. Who-the-heck-would-call-this-worth-watch.... You're the same people that lost us Firefly. Your taste is all in your twitter feeds."

Yeah, like I said. No-one sane disagrees.

(Seriously though, "Your taste is all in your twitter feeds" is my new favorite insult.)

Judging from the trailers and stuff, it sounds as though Anakin and his pals have to teach the peace-loving Lurmens (aka lemur people) that killing is justified sometimes. And that it's totally awesome. As commenter ThisDudeRufus points out, it's great timing, coming just a few days after Martin Luther King day.

Here are some of the stories that have paved the way for Clone Wars to teach us such an important lesson:

Doctor Who: The all-time classic "gandhi iz lame" storyline has to be Doctor Who's first Dalek story, variously known as "The Daleks," "The Mutants," or "The Dead Planet." It's also the most cynical. On the planet Skaro, there are two races: the warlike Daleks, who are like evil tentacley blobs inside armored tanks; and the Thals, who are blond and peace-loving people who just want to dance and frolic in their petrified nuclear wasteland. The Doctor thinks the Thals are total wusses, but doesn't really care — until he realizes his time machine is stuck on Skaro, because he left a crucial component behind in the Daleks' city. Then, because the Doctor's neck is on the line, it's suddenly crucial to convince the Thals that human dignity requires them to fight and die for them. At first, the Doctor's companion Ian just tries reasoning with them, but that doesn't work. So he threatens to steal their hippie history drum. Still no good. Finally, he threatens to steal their womenz. And that totally works.

But another important entrant in the genre is the classic film Demolition Man. Sylvester Stallone wakes up from suspended animation in a future that's removed violence and naughtiness entirely. It's a namby-pamby PC future, in which the cops don't even know how to apply a little police brutality when the situation requires it. Does Sylvester Stallone teach these future wimps a lesson about blowing shit up when the situation requires? What do you think?

Battle Beyond The Stars features a planet of peace-loving people who are ill-equipped to deal with the attacks of the evil Sador. This Seven Samurai rip-off features a young hero, Shad, who has to gather a bunch of mercenaries to help his hapless people fight back. (Supposedly a forthcoming Fox movie, Doomsday Protocol, will be a "Seven Samurai in space" type deal.)

The anime Cyborg 009 features a whole storyline about "Alien Children," who have godlike powers but refuse to fight because they think they'll be destroyed if they kill someone else. In the episode "The Awakening," the cyborg heroes use the power of love to help the alien children to realize how to activate their deadly powers without dying themselves. Killing is so liberating! But in the end, the aliens go too far and start enjoying killing too much — they even destroy an alien invaders' ship when it's already running away. At the end of the episode, one of the aliens, Pal, steps on a flower callously as he walks away. Aww.

Enterprise plays with this idea too, in the episode "Marauders." A poor colony with a valuable Deuterium mine, is being attacked by naughty Klingons. The townspeople won't fight back, and beg Captain Archer and his crew to hide and avoid upsetting the Klingons' delicate sensibilities. But Archer and T'Pol finally convince the colonists to fight back, teaching them ass-whuppin' martial arts skills and stuff. (And then once the Enterprise is gone, the Klingons come back and vaporize the colony from orbit, probably.)

The Animorphs book series includes a whole story where the Hork-Bajirs, peaceful genetically engineered tree-herders, have to learn to fight back against the parasitic Yeerks that have enslaved their people.

Red Dwarf, of course, features poor Rimmer teaching a straggling band of intellectuals and pacifists to fight back — mostly by running across a minefield and getting blowed up, in the episode "Meltdown." Lister is so disgusted by the pointless slaughter that he punishes Rimmer by swallowing his hologram-projecting light-bee.

Okay, what did we leave out?

Additional reporting by Alasdair Wilkins.

Explaining just why the movie is worth the wait, Abrams said,

It’s blessed with a wonderful optimism and an incredibly alive and invested cast. While the visual effects are gonna be unbelievable, the movie is working right now with only 50 of our 1,000-plus visual effects finished. It’s funny, it’s scary, it’s dramatic, emotional and entertaining–all without having the stuff you’d think a movie called "Star Trek" would require.

So, unless he's been misquoted, is he actually saying that the movie is good even though it doesn't have any of the traditional Star Trek trappings, or that it's good even before you get to those trappings? Because, if it's not the latter, then all of a sudden I'm very curious to see what he's come up with. But more importantly, what are "the stuff you'd think a movie called 'Star Trek' would require?" We know that the movie features the classic Enterprise crew, and also aliens who may or may not be Romulans. Spoilers promise scenes on Vulcan and in Starfleet Academy (involving the Kobyashi Maru test, apparently), and I'd bet my bottom dilithium crystal that there's going to be a space battle or two in there at some point. What classic Star Trek checkboxes haven't been ticked yet? Here're our suggestions:

A Technical Disaster Aboard The Enterprise: You have to give Scotty something to do, after all. Our suggestion would either involve a faulty photon torpedo tube or else shields failing at a critical moment. For any other chief engineering officer, it would take days to fix... but our heroes don't have days.

A Sultry Alien Woman Who Wants To Learn About This Thing Humans Call Love: Kirk wouldn't be Kirk if he wasn't romancing the alien ladies, after all. Bonus points if said romancing will (a) involve a moment where Kirk grabs the alien by the arms before planting one on her extra-terrestrial lips, and (b) solve some diplomatic problem without the need for violence. Also, if said sultry alien happens to be bright green? All the better.

(Extra bonus points if Kirk is also seen propositioning Starfleet Academy students and/or Enterprise crew members at some point. Keeping sexual harrassment lawyers busy even in the 24th century; good work, James Tiberius.)

Klingons: Look, Romulans and Vulcans are all well and good, but if there's one alien race that's really been a must for Star Trek, it's the Klingons. I don't care if they're just in the background of a lot of scenes, or if they just pop up in the middle of an important scene and demand Kirk's head on a platter for crimes against the Empire, but it's Star Trek; there really has to be some ribbed-head action at some point.

Doctor McCoy Dispenses Some Non-Medical Advice: Perhaps more a movie-staple than original TV Trek, we're still going to feel ripped off if Bones doesn't get to offer some calm advice about the human cost of some particular dilemma somewhere during the movie. Along similar lines, Spock Experiences A Human Emotion That Probably Involves Him Smiling, To Show That Even Stuffy Aliens Are Just Like Us, Really: If that one doesn't appear at the end of the movie, we're going to be asking for our money back.

Abrams: Star Trek Is Worth The Wait [TrekMovie]

The sculptors at Art Asylum have decided to share their back-and-forth emails with their production factory, letting you see just how anal everyone involved in toy production can be, with notes like:

1- Windows and some details in general seem sloppy please make sure in final product windows and details are straight and uniform.

2- Scribe lines on prototype in general are too wide, thick and sometimes very sloppy make finer and thinner. I can even see where the drill bit for the CNC machine slipped. This is not acceptable.

Also included in the post are schematics for the new model (with measurements, so that you too can build your own galaxy-spanning starship), as well as an explanation as to why they're being so anal about everything:

These ships have GOT to be 100% accurate since Star Trek fans are amongst the most detail-oriented in existence... It’s a labor of love, but we won’t give up until this ship’s perfect - which will definitely be soon!

Enterprise D Under Construction, Part 1 [Art Asylum]

It all started last Sunday, talking to friends at Comic-Con when one of them told me that every woman in the world knew that Spock was the sexiest member of the Star Trek crew. Disbelieving, I turned to the other friend in the conversation who agreed that, yes, this was a well-known fact and the only reason that I was unaware of it was my lack of female genitalia. Although those weren't her exact words, to be fair. I've since checked with a lot of women, and it has to be said... there's a lot of support for this theory.

Quite clearly, this means that everything I know is a lie.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not surprised that some hardcore fans long for the Vulcan lovegrip. As the linked site tries to explain,

He's got a very distinctive, *sexy* voice. Doesn't he!? Doesn't he!? You know what I say is true. Nobody else sounds like Spock. You could pick him out even in pitch black darkness, Right? And some of you would like to try, right? He ain't bad lookin'! Some people really go for that exotic (and somewhat demonic) kind of a thing that he has going on. His strength and gentle grace are sexy. He's tall and fashionably slim, with devilish eyes and kissable lips. His hands are beautiful. And his hair is so soft and shiny that your palms just itch to pet him, don't they? Don't they? Well, anyway, mine do. You wanna pet his yummy dark, silky chest hair too... doncha? ohhhh YEAH! Admit it.

I'm also not surprised that message boards are alight with conversations over Spock's hotness:

OH MY GOD i love him i practically drewl everytime heshows upon my TV. Everyone i know thinks i am wierd for LOVING him so i am so relieved that i found evidence that i am not the only one who feels this way ..... Thank You!!!!!

But when NPR do stories about Spock embodying "the mystery of masculinity"? That's got to be the point where a sharp-eyebrowed fetish goes mainstream:

"It's a struggle we all face," says Henry Jenkins, humanities professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Are we driven by our emotion or by our intellect? And how do we reconcile those two things?"

One of the things Jenkins studies is Star Trek fan culture. He says Spock's struggle makes him an unlikely sex symbol.

"Spock is sexy for a large number of people, male and female," Jenkins says. "Many of the female fans I studied really are attracted to the emotional depths of this character." Like many men, Spock "represses outward signs of emotion," Jenkins says. He's a character "who tries to hold it all in, but who seems to be sensitive, sensuous at certain times."

So, my question to all of you is this: WTF? Okay, that's not entirely fair, but where does this idea of the uber-sexy Spock come from? Is it the character himself? Is it the portrayal and good looks of Leonard Nimoy (and, soon, Zachary Quinto)? Just the very idea of makin' it with an alien in the first place? All of the above?

And more importantly, when the hell will Bones get his day in the sun? It's all about the bags under his eyes, I'm telling you.

The Theremin Era (1950s-1960s). The emphasis is on weird noises and screechy howls. Sometimes, it's an actual electronic scream, as in the Doctor Who theme, or to some extent the Outer Limits theme. Sometimes, it's an actual human trying to sound like a theremin, like the Star Trek theme's crazy opera singer. Either way, the message is clear: This is some freaky shit right here.

The Disco Era (late 1970s-early 1980s). You can totally boogie down to the theme tunes of Amazing Spider-Man, Bionic Woman or Logan's Run the series. Some themes, like Buck Rogers, try to sound sort of "adventure-y" and bring up associations with John Williams' heroic theme tunes for Star Wars and Superman: The Movie. But mostly the message is: groovy times ahead!!! Put on some tight pants and boogie!

The Orchestra Era (1990s). The themes from the two Star Trek TNG spin-offs, Babylon 5, Andromeda, Seaquest and even Time Trax all feature heroic-sounding strings and soaring horns. There's a strong melodic hook, but it's not as toe-tapping as the themes from the 70s and early 80s. Message: Epic saga (with heartstring-yanking) ahead.

The Alt-Country Era (early 2000s). Okay, so this was just two shows: Firefly and Enterprise. But it still felt like a mini-trend, especially since these were half the SF shows on TV at the time. You had the twangy voice, the deep soul-searching lyrics and the guitar anti-heroing. "Take my love, take my land, but you can't take my faith of the heart." Message: It's tough out here on the frontier.

The Weird Wailing Era (mid-2000s). All of a sudden, shows like the new Battlestar Galactica and Heroes featured a Middle Eastern-sounding person in distress, or just voices going "oooh" in the background. The new Doctor Who had a boppier version of the original theme, but whenever the Doctor acted mysterious, you'd hear a distinct "ooooh" sound in the background. In many ways, it's like a throwback to the theremin era. The message it sends: This is some freaky shit right here.

Found via a flashing red dot next to the "Under Construction" on the official movie teaser site, the cams are frustratingly difficult to adjust. One out of four cameras is always "offline," but you can hit refresh to view it. And here are the secret settings:

• Camera #1: 564
• Camera #2: 125
• Camera #3: 955
• Camera #4: 289

Ohhh, all dark and shiny! Actually, this does look genuinely cool. Maybe JJ can save the franchise after all?

Famous names: Scott Bakula, Jolene Blalock, Connor Trineer, John Billingsley, Dominic Keating, Linda Park, Jeffrey Combs, Brannon Braga, Rick Berman

Crunchy goodness: 2

Stunt casting: Quantum Leap's Bakula as the intrepid captain, who never quite loses his dazed look, as if wondering where he's ended up this time.

Life lesson: Humans may be new to interstellar travel, but our ballsy shoot-first-ask-questions-never attitude is worth way more than the Vulcans' hundreds of years of experience.

Deadliest spoiler: Trineer sacrifices his life so Captain Archer can survive to give a speech to the new Galactic Elk's Club.

StarTrek.nl - News, Episode Guides & More.

Famous names: Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden, Wil Wheaton, Rick Berman, Brannon Braga, Ronald Moore, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Marina Sirtis, Michael Dorn

Crunchy goodness: 4

Design breakthrough: The boxy furniture and swivel chairs of the original series give way to sleek curvy consoles and luxury car seats. Plus, the Borg borrowed zombie imagery to make cyborgs creepier than ever before.

Stunt casting: Patrick Stewart brings a whole fancy Shakespearean veneer to the role of Jean-Luc Picard, elevating lines like "Engage," or "Let's see what's out there," to an almost mythic timbre.

Sights you'll never unsee: Klingon cowboy vs. android cowboy.

Tim Lynch reviews a number of Next Generation episodes.

Famous names: Gene Roddenberry, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Deforest Kelley, James Doohan, Harlan Ellison, Theodore Sturgeon.

Crunchy goodness: 3

Spinoffs/Sequels/Copycats: Eleven films, plus Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager and Enterprise.

Sights you'll never unsee: The half-black, half-white space racists running through fake yule log flames. A big blob ordering Abraham Lincoln to wrestle Vulcans. Captain Kirk flying a starship into a space dildo. Spock flamenco-dancing. It goes on and on.

Life lesson: "You'll have to get your entertainment somewhere else." — Captain Kirk.

Most painfully dated moment: The planet where the Vietnam war never ended.

TrekToday