Heroes - Sylar Sex Switcheroo

Sylar is having fake sex with Matt Parkman's wife, meanwhile we dry heave in the corner at sight of Sylar's sexy face.

Kyle XY - Drunk Dance Rapping

In the midst of a terrible montage of Kyle and his boys getting their drank on, one moment of pure WTF-ness stands out, when the gang attempts to half rap. I think even the crew was embarrassed for them.

Smallville - Twitter Torture

Chloe wields her mighty power of the delete key.

Stargate Universe - Boob Lens

The moment that angered the masses - who needs a plot when you can frame the shot against one character's giant rack? Need to change it up? Frame the shot with her underwear.

Battlestar Galactica - Cry-Painting

Possibly the worst scene to come out of BSG is Adama's cry-painting moment. Mixing fear, awkwardness and general horror, we sat and watched our mighty leader have a fit in a bucket of paint like a 5-year-old who's been given a time-out.

Lost - Ben's Smoke Monster Home Movie

After years of wondering what the smoke monster would look like one-on-one it's finally revealed! Sadly it's a lot like watching home movies in your chain smoking Uncle's basement.

Fringe - Peter Knows Everything

We're on board for Walter knowing everything, but when you lump Peter on top, come on - now you're just being a dick.

Eastwick - Vibrator Talky Talk

Women and their vibrators, we just can't stop talking about them in public at a family fair outside with co-workers. We can't help it! Vibrators Vibrators Vibrators, oh and we name them after real people we work with, naturally.

Torchwood - "I'm BAAAAACK"

Nothing like ruining an otherwise well directed, edited and written special Torchwood series with some crappy shtick. You just can't help yourself can you Torchwood?

Vampire Diaries - You Need Death

Ah Damon, you old over-dramatic softie. Now, tell us some more about you vampire man jewelry.

Dollhouse - Diva or DIIIIIIIVA?

First off that singing, my god, plus this meant we had to listen to said "freedom" song over, and over, and over. Second, what is the difference between a Diva and a DIIIIIVA?

V - "I'm a cool Mom"

Juliet is hip with the teen scolding lingo - also if your child is "tagging" things but has no real talent and is a rich suburban know-nothing, do yourself a favor: drop him down a well.

Dr. Who - The Master Is Hungry

All. The. Time.

The Prisoner - The Prisoner In Its Entirety

This clip pretty much sums up what we feel was accomplished or learned in The Prisoner reboot, nothing.

True Blood - Goodbye Godric

Watch as the ancient vampire Godric Quantum Leaps himself to death. So long, fey baby vamp.

These posters of well known scifi shows (and a few purely geeky shows) like The X-Files, True Blood, and MacGyver were envisioned by Austrian designer Exergian, and are sold as archival giclee prints via Blanka for £50.00 or $80.

By Exergian

By Exergian

By Exergian

By Exergian

By Exergian

By Exergian

By Exergian

By Exergian

By Exergian

By Exergian

Chances are, you've come across lots of SF stories where a disabled person regains the ability to walk in some fantastical way. Usually it's a guy, and his ability to stand up on his two legs is portrayed as a reclaiming of his virility and power. Often times, the disabled hero regains full mobility along the way towards becoming super-powered — or as part of a package of superpowers.

Oftentimes, the regained mobility comes from some kind of fancy assistive technology. And yet, these stories always draw a really sharp distinction between the wheelchair (which is also assistive technology) and this other tech, which is better or more natural. Or more rugged and manly, perhaps. (Both Jake Sully and John Locke defiantly say something along the lines of, "Don't tell me what I can't do.")

So here are 20 characters from science fiction who regained the ability to walk:

Star Trek gives us Captain Christopher Pike, who's stuck in a wheelchair and unable to express himself other than by flashing a light "Yes" or "No." (As Evan Dorkin tweeted yesterday, "Nice 23rd cent tech there, btw. Beep. Boop. Stupid Star Trek.") Captain Pike's mind is still alive in there, but nobody's figured out a way for him to use Morse code, or translate his brain activity into speech. So Spock takes matters into his own hands, risking his own career and Captain Kirk's command to help Captain Pike return to Talos IV, the planet of the obscene craniums. There, Captain Pike can live in a kind of dreamworld for the amusement of the sterile Talosians, but at least he'll be perfectly healthy.

Doctor Who has had lots of wheelchair-bound characters, including the evil Davros and the vicious Collector. But the first character to rock a wheelchair in Who was actually one of the good guys — Dortmun, one of the leaders of the anti-Dalek resistance in "Dalek Invasion Of Earth." Dortmun is confined to a wheelchair due to one of his many failed attempts to devise an anti-Dalek explosive. And not coincidentally, he's a terrible leader whose super-explosives never do what they're supposed to. But then Dortmun finally redeems himself, confronting the Daleks and buying time for the others to escape — by climbing out of his wheelchair and standing to face the Daleks at last. His redeeming act of heroism is clearly linked to his abandonment of the chair. (Skip to about 2:30 in the video.)

Batman gets his spine broken in the Knightfall crossover, by the supervillain Bane. Throughout the extremely long Knightquest storyline that follows, Bruce Wayne walks with a cane or travels in a wheelchair. He searches for Tim Drake's parents, despite the warnings of a spinal surgeon that he's only making his spine damage worse and more incurable. Luckily, his new girlfriend, the altruistic Dr. Shondra Kinsolving, turns out to have magical healing powers, and she heals Batman, giving herself irreparable brain damage in the process. There's a lot of lightning involved, okay? We're all so glad to see Bruce smack around the blond imposter, we don't really care how Bats got his back back. I actually bought the novelization of Knightfall for $1.00 because I was curious to see if Denny O'Neil would make Batman's recovery make any sense whatsoever. Here's how O'Neil writes it:

"Shondra, we've got to get away from that window," Bruce said. "I can't move, so you'll have to —"

"Don't worry," Shondra whispered. "You'll be fine."

Her hand slipped over his, and her fingers tightened slightly. He felt as though she were touching every cell of his body at once — soothing, quieting, healing. The world went away, then, ebbed away from him, and he was left alone with Shondra's touch in a place where there was no pain and terror.

And that's it. The next time we see Bruce in the novelization, he's "shirtless, barefoot, moving as easily and gracefully as he ever had in his life," with the sun on his shoulders.

The X-Men's leader, Professor X, is in a wheelchair — except for all the occasions in which he's been able to get out of it. At one point, Professor X gets the Starjammers' physician, Sikorsky, to clone him a new body with no disabilities. At another point, the mysterious Xorn "heals" Professor X using his special powers over metal — until it turns out that Xorn is really Magneto, and he's just been dicking Professor X around.

Gallilee by Clive Barker features a first-person narrator, Maddox, who's been in a wheelchair for 150 years, ever since he was maimed in an accident. An apocalyptic vision causes Maddox to realize time is running out, causing him to write down his family history — and then he has a spiritual epiphany, which in turn causes him to realize he can walk once more.

The Animorphs freak out after their identities are discovered by the evil Yeerks — and they decide to recruit some more kids to join their team, in case the original members all get captured. So they decided to recruit disabled kids to be the new group of Auxillary Animorphs, because they figured the Yeerks wouldn't have bothered to infest a disabled kid. (So the Animorphs could skip the three-day screening period for new recruits.) And they figure the morphing powers would cure any disabilities. The leader of the Auxillary Animorphs, James, is paralyzed, until he becomes and Animorph and regains full mobility.

The Doom Patrol features its own version of Professor X, the disabled scientist Niles Caulder. And just as Grant Morrison got Professor X out of his wheelchair, Morrison did the same for Niles in the early 1990s. In one issue, Robotman rushes to tell Niles that somebody's shot Joshua. Niles Caulder says (from off panel) "Cliff, Cliff, Cliff. Isn't it obvious?" And as you turn the page, you discover that Niles is standing up, and revealing that he's the one who shot Joshua. It turns out that nanotechnology cured Niles, although later he winds up as just a severed head — and finally, he's back in the wheelchair, with a complete body again.

The Talents by Anne McCaffey includes a character named Peter Reidinger, whose spine is damaged after a wall falls on him, paralyzing him for life. Until Peter realizes he's actually a powerful telekinetic, and he teaches himself to walk by moving his own limbs telekinetically.

Star Wars: Commenter db4dbms points out that Darth Vader is basically a torso inside a robotic exoskeleton, since Anakin had his arms and legs chopped off.

Robot Wars Book 5: Final Battle by Sigmund Brouwer features Tyce, a 14-year-old whose damaged spine has been hooked up to a device that lets him control robots. Tyce thinks about having an operation that would restore his ability to walk (at the cost of his ability to control robots). But then his toes start to wiggle all on their own, after he kills the first woman president of the United States (by accident, I think.)

Green Lantern John Stewart left the Lantern Corps after his wife got killed, and winds up joining the Darkstars, who have much less cool uniforms. Unfortunately, John gets badly injured defending the planet Rann, and becomes disabled. Until Hal Jordan, in his identity as Assclown — I mean, Parallax — heals John Stewart on his way to reignite the sun and save everyone.

Dark Angel gives us Logan Cale, a steely eyed cyber-journalist who's secretly known as Eyes Only. After Logan is injured in an accident, he's paralyzed from the waist down, and hires a live-in physical therapist named Bling. (Who, I'm just guessing, teaches Logan the healing power of giant medallions?) And then Logan meets a guy named Phil, who has an exoskeleton and agrees to give Logan one. The exoskeleton allows Logan to walk, and say goodbye to Bling!

Xenocide by Orson Scott Card shows Miro, who's been disabled and unable to speak normally, discarding his old body and creating a new one by teleporting Outside. The new body is intact, and allows Miro to do all the things he could do before his accident. (Thanks, TVTropes!)

The X-Files episode "All Souls" features a wheelchair-bound girl, who's able to walk out of her house miraculously. Then she's found dead, in a "praying position" with her eyes burned out — and the same thing may be coming for two other similar girls, unless Scully can work out the whole faith-vs-science thing pronto.

M.A.N.T.I.S., Sam Raimi's short-lived superhero series, features a scientist who's confined to a wheelchair — until he puts on his exoskeleton and becomes the crime-fighting dynamo M.A.N.T.I.S.!

Alpha Flight features Roger Bochs, a double amputee, who can "phase" into giant robot armor, allowing him to walk around and do superhero stuff. Later on, a healer gives him actual fleshy legs. But then it turns out that the healer harvested the legs from corpses, and the graft fails.

The Cure by F. Alexander Brejcha is unusual, in that it's a story about a disabled person being cured, written by an actual disabled person. Brejcha writes, in an author's note, that he's paraplegic, while his main character is quadraplegic. Not surprisingly, it deals a lot more with the main character's insecurity and adjustment problems after nanotech restores his mobility.

Dr. Strangelove regains the ability to walk, thanks to the awesomeness of setting off a doomsday device that ravages the globe.

Lost's John Locke is confined to a wheelchair for four years after his con-man bio-dad tosses him out a window. Locke will never walk again... until he goes to the Island, where he's suddenly healed, and becomes the awesome, rugged outdoorsman he always dreamed of being. In one episode, "The Man Behind The Curtain," Ben taunts Locke that the "old" Locke was so ineffectual, he got kicked off a Walkabout "because you couldn't walk." Locke's regained ambulatory status is linked to his virility and is proof that the Island has chosen him as a special person. Ben, meanwhile, is stuck in his wheelchair for a long time, because he's evil and the Island doesn't like him as much. (Although Ben, too, gets to walk eventually, thanks to Locke's presence.)

The Rampaging Hulk features Geoffrey Crawford, a former teacher of Bruce Banner's, who's suffering from a degenerative nerve disease that has him confined to a wheelchair. Bruce visits his old mentor, seeking a cure for his Hulk-itis, and Dr. Crawford has a complicated plan, involving mapping Bruce's DNA and using a teleporter to separate him from his Gamma radiation — but it's actually a scheme to steal Bruce's powers, so Crawford can Hulk out and escape from his wheelchair. Crawford becomes the monstrous Ravage, and puts the beatdown on the Hulk. Including the great sound effect, "Snap!". Also, in Incredible Hulk, Bruce Banner suffers from ALS, but then Reed Richards miraculously cures him. Then Banner turns to the reader, breaking the fourth wall, and explains there's no cure for ALS in real life and you should donate to research charities. Also, in an episode of The Incredible Hulk TV show, Banner is paralyzed from the waist down, until he Hulks out, which soon heals him.

Heroes' Arthur Petrelli is a rare example of an evil person who overcomes disability, thanks to the power of evil. I've blotted out the events of season three from my mind, but as near as I can tell, Mama Petrelli poisons Papa Petrelli, but he survives — except that he's totally paralyzed and unable to move. Until he absorbs the healing power from Adam/Kensei and becomes an unstoppable evil-eyebrow machine. Also on Heroes, Daphne has cerebral palsy and is unable to walk... until her mutant ability kicks in and makes her the fastest runner in the world, because irony.

Additional reporting by Josh C. Snyder. Thanks also to Danny Sichel.

Dawn Olivieri, who plays Samuel's carnie right hand Lydia in the show, told Digital Spy that she's unconvinced by talk of the show finishing this year:

Everybody talks about it losing momentum and not being so great in the ratings, but honestly, this show makes so much money for NBC that I don't see it gong anywhere. It's had No.1 DVD sales every year it's been on - internationally - and I don't think it's going anywhere. I think it'll keep going.

She also has some ideas about how the fourth season of the embattled series might end:

I think [the writers are] trying to change the show a bit - everyone gets hurt or semi-dies - and they wanted to shock fans as we get near the end of the season... There's definitely gonna be a few surprises that we've been filming recently and it's gonna stir up some trouble. There'll be a lot of buzz, for sure.

A lot of buzz is just what Heroes needs at this point, but we're not sure about this "everyone gets hurt or semi-dies" idea. If Nathan's death didn't get people sitting up and paying attention, what's left to bring back those of us who've abandoned the show by this point?

'Heroes' exclusive: Lydia speaks! [Digital Spy]

In "The Five Stages," he can't. Which is just one of its many, many problems as an episode. Unfortunately it was also an episode where we finally get to take a good, long look at the carnival and it's so painfully pasteurized that you'll want to inject your eyes with heroin just to feel normal. So what's brewing among the carnies, anyway? Well, now that Hot Tattoo has told swordy Edgar that Samuel killed his brother, and Edgar escaped with help from Hiro, Samuel needs a new right-hand man. He picks a guy who has about a zillion right hands because he's a "multiplier," which means he can make a ton of copies of himself. In addition, this adds further evidence to the idea that every single power on Heroes was ripped off from X-Men. Honestly, they can't pay somebody to come up with a few cool, interesting powers that we haven't seen before?

Anyway Samuel is playing around with MultiBoy now, and asks him to deliver a message to HRG and the other Primatech emeriti. He also starts lecturing everybody within earshot about how awful the world is, and speculating about whether "we are the last generation on Earth." This lecture eventually merges spongily with a mishmash of Magneto-isms about how the mutants should live proudly out in the open (or at least in the scrubby fields of Southern Ohio) and have a homeland (in Southern Ohio). I think we all know what this mega-quake-causing dude is leading up to. MAKE US YOUR CARNIE RULERS OR WE'LL SHOVE THESE TECTONIC PLATES UP YOUR ASS.

Meanwhile, inexplicably, Hot Tattoo is still sucking up to Samuel even though she's said she knows what he did. I guess that's because her Sprint-sponsored daughter wants to stay in the carnival.

Then, in the only interesting subsubsubplot of the episode, Lauren comes over to HRG's place and he thinks he's on a date. When he confesses that he got married "before the sexual revolution," so he has no idea how to act, Lauren suddenly gets all weird and says, "Who said anything about sex?" Excuse me, missy, but I have a lot to say about you having sex with HRG because you guys are the only interesting couple on the show and you've been totally flirting with him. But OK, fine, I guess it's non-sexual flirting. I can accept that. But NO! I can't accept it because then when HRG gets a call and has to go to work, Lauren gets all up in his face and whiny about how he's canceling their date. WTF??? Are we on a date or not? And if we ARE on a date, then don't get all mean about how HRG used the word "sexual revolution." Is her mutant power killing anybody who has sex with her? Because if it's not, then she needs to be a little bit nicer when her DATE uses a phrase that contains the word sex. What is my point here? Don't fuck with my ship.

But in the meantime, on the date that might not be a date, Lauren isn't afraid to use all her CIA powers to help HRG use a phone to locate Claire and the carnival on Google maps. Did you know that SPRINT CAN USE TEH GOOG? Thankfully, Heroes has told you. Also, again with the bad product placement - why would you want to buy a phone that allows off-duty CIA agents to track you recreationally on Google? Isn't that bad somehow? My point ultimately is that Lauren and HRG are sublimating all that ambiguous sexual stuff into engaging in an extremely illegal game of stalk-the-Claire.

But that's just nothing compared to how Sylar and Peter are sublimating THEIR sexual tension. Oh my goodness. We join our buxom boys right after Mama Petrelli tells Peter that he hasn't entered the fifth stage of grief - you know, the one where you realize that your dead brother has been reconstituted as a mindfrak inside the head of a serial-killing mutant. So Peter, always the overachiever, decides to leapfrog right to the seventh stage of grief, where you take the powers of Rene the Haitian so that you can turn off Sylar's powers, beat the crap out of him, breathe heavily into his face while you lie on top of him dripping sweat and other bodily fluids, and tell him to give himself "body and soul" to your brother Nathan. Oh yeah, that stage of grief. We've all been there.

The fight scene between the newly-enhottened Peter and the always-smokin Sylar is probably the greatest moment in homoeroticism since I watched that Billy Herrington video. The fact is that Sylar has gone from being an extraneous character who should have died at the end of season 1, to being a cocktease for every person who wishes he would just have a giant gay mutant moment with Peter and then go around using his powers to turn every other hot guy on the show gay. Maybe they could bring back Invisible Man Christopher Eccleston for a Very Special Sylar Mutant Gay Episode. Seriously, how are we supposed to watch this "we are using wrestling as an excuse to give you some softcore homotastic moments" and not feel frustrated?

I'll tell you how: First of all, the lameness; Second of all, the drooly, dorky look on Peter's face when the homogasm is over (see video). Let's begin by investigating the aforementioned lameness. Why would Peter be so stupid as to believe that Nathan is really inside Sylar, or that even if he WERE, that Sylar isn't faking letting him out so that Peter will get all shmoopy with him? More to the point: WHY DOES PETER BELIEVE THAT SYLAR HAS BECOME NATHAN AGAIN? We don't know. The double lameness is that Peter doesn't kill Sylar when he has a chance, especially given that he should know Sylar is in there AND given that he never really liked Nathan anyway. Seriously, what is this, the millionth time that somebody had a chance to kill Sylar and didn't?

And as for the tragic edge-of-the-roof goodbye suicide moment, whoa. Peter does NOT look good from that angle. And of course as soon as Sylar falls out of range of Rene's powers, he reSylarizes and looks mega-hot while Peter is still in crumple-face mode. I am going to have to take back everything I said about Peter rehottening, because that scene just drained all the sex out of every relationship on this show, and I think we can probably blame it for making Lauren not want to jump HRG's bones right away.

As if all this wasn't awful enough, Claire decides to stay at the carnival for a while after watching some meathead non-mutant beat up on Samuel - which is all part of Samuel's plan to make himself appear sensitive even though he's a dirt-loving protofascist. Turns out the meathead even has a good reason for punching Sammy, since the carnival's business model is using mutant powers to rip people off. I love the idea that Claire thinks the carnival is where "we can all be ourselves" - which means cheating and lying to regular folk for cash. During the carnival scenes, which Gretchen correctly identifies as a "bad Fellini movie," I kept wishing the Jim Rose Sideshow would come in and beat the shit out of everybody. Especially when Hot Tattoo gives Claire a "reading," and a tattoo of Claire shows up on her back over the words "indestructible girl."

Claire laughs and says, "So I'm going to have a circus act?" And Hot Tattoo is all, "no, that isn't your future - it's your desire." WTF kind of power is "I show you your desire represented as a circus freak act"? And also, that doesn't explain what she showed Samuel at the beginning of the season - people who were clearly in his future, not his "desire." Unless he "desires" Hiro and Sylar (which could be kind of awesome, once I wash that image of Peter's face out of my neocortex).

There is even a fuckwitty scene of Claire integrating into the carnie life by telling a bunch of carnie kids a story about a very special frog who wanted to be special. But then the thing that really clinches her wish to join up is running into the puppetmaster guy who mind-raped her and her mother and tried to murder them. But now he's better because he's a carnie who cheats people out of small amounts of cash? Why would she want to join a group where people use their powers to mess with unwitting tourists and her former mind-rapist is hanging out having a blast?

Could it be that she's persuaded by Samuel's dumb speech about how families are about love, which is why the carnies need to recruit as many mutants as possible to come live in their "a homeland." Are the mutants supposed to be Jews now? Wandering in Southern Ohio until they find their homeland? Seriously? Wow, I have just discovered that my mutant power is an ability to slap my palm into my face 40 thousand times per second.

Tune in next year when nobody has sex and Sylar remains completely irrelevant unless he has some gay and/or "questioning" mutant experiences. Seriously - Zach Quinto needs hot mutant boy action that doesn't end in scrunchyface tears.

Monday

It's the usual Monday evening decision between Fox's House, wherein the West Wing's Joshua Malina guests as a former patient of Wilson's who's now a little bit too close to dying for everyone's comfort, and NBC's Heroes, which promises an "unexpected destination" for Claire and Peter, who are struggling to come to terms with the truth. Both of them air at 8pm, so feel free to choose House and read our Heroes recap, instead. You know it'll be easier on everyone.

Tuesday

Prophets of Science Fiction on the Science Channel at 9pm is about it, now that V has slunk its way off-screen for a few months (And am I the only person who spent the last episode waiting for a big lizard reveal, only to be thwarted? They even talked about skinning an alien just to tease us, the bastards). But in many ways, this documentary about science fiction creators whose work predicted the future is likely to be less frustrating than ABC's alien drama, even if it may not be more entertaining.

Wednesday

While Mythbusters carries on Kari-less on Discovery at 9pm (Adam and Jamie look into whether you can escape from jail using antacids, while I continue to unfairly criticize newgirl Jessi Combs purely because of my love for the missing Ms. Byron), ABC's Eastwick begins to draw to a conclusion with new episode "Tasers and Mind Erasers."

Thursday

With the CW shows on reruns, your evening viewing is wide open for a helping of Flashforward at 8 pm on ABC and Fringe at 9 on Fox. This week's FF promises to reveal more about Demetri's future death, Zoey's flashforward and, most excitingly, what actually caused the flashforward itself. Meanwhile, Fringe gets out the Lovecraftian influence as "Snakehead" reveals a spooky squidlike creature burrowing into host bodies. Calamari will never be the same again.

Friday

If new episodes of Ghost Whisperer and Medium on CBS (at 8pm and 9, respectively) or Stargate Universe and Sanctuary on Syfy (at 9pm and 10, respectively) don't float your boat — Although, SGU sees Young handing over command of the Destiny to Camille when he's accused of murder aboard the ship, so maybe you should tune into that just in case — then there's only one thing that could take your attention (Well, beside Star Wars: The Clone Wars on Cartoon Network at 9).

And that's the return of Dollhouse, with two new episodes starting on Fox at 8pm. "The Public Eye/The Left Hand" sees Senator Wesley From Angel finally stop talking and start doing something in his so-far-useless campaign against the Dollhouse, while Topher and Adelle meet a programmer with a connection to Echo and - Oh, never mind. All you want to know is this: It's the episode with Summer Glau. See? Now you'll tune in.

Saturday

NBC is showing the best Fantastic Four movie ever made, The Incredibles at 8:30pm. I'm sure most of you already own it on DVD though, right?

Sunday

Sure, Sunday night still belongs to The Venture Bros (a new episode is on Cartoon Network at midnight), but we're still kind of tempted by Syfy's Alice revival, from the people who brought you Tin Man. Bringing the story up to date and adding in various contemporary re-readings of famous scenes, there's always the possibility of things going totally wrong and it turning out to be another Prisoner, but we have hope nonetheless...

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.

For some reason, everything related to Claire is great this season. Her lesbotic leanings brought in a cool new character, Gretchen, along with the chance that we might actually see some homo action on this rather straightlaced series. Her father, HRG, has left the mutant oppression business and is trying to find himself, along with his long-lost special agent partner/proto-lover Lauren (another great character). Meanwhile, Claire's mom has found a boyfriend who loves dogs as much as she does. And lucky for us, all these plot developments make for a beautifully awkward Thanksgiving dinner at HRG's apartment.

What I thought was genuinely fun about this scene, excerpted for you above, is the way it seamlessly combined an ordinary moment of family meltdown with HRG's evil agent past and Claire's mutant powers. This is Heroes at its best, speculating about how extraordinary people continue to lead rather ordinary lives. Even better is when Gretchen finally shows up, flirting ensues, and the two girls secretly decide to roadtrip out to Samuel's carnival with a compass that Claire stole from HRG. Lesbotic road trip with carnie action, here we come!

And then there was the Petrelli family dinner, which began with scary Mama P having her servants bring a bunch of prepared food to Peter's apartment where Nylar (AKA Body Sylar, Head Sylar, and Head Nathan) are brooding broodingly about being all screwed up by Mama. All the emo ends quickly when Sylar returns in an insanely cheesy burst of lightning and eats an entire pumpkin pie (but leaves the crust! WTF?). So now Sylar is back, but Nathan is still somehow able to fight him. In fact, by the end of the episode Nathan has emerged again to take over Body Sylar. The whole thing was a perfect scenario for a family controlled by scary Mama, whose sons are just pawns in a game so complicated we've completely lost track of it.

The episode was capped off by a lovely moment with the carnie family, where scary Samuel toasts everybody menacingly and Sprint sponsored a subplot where Hot Tattoo's hot daughter is in danger of becoming Samuel's little plaything. While everybody prepares turkey with their mutant stove powers, Hiro and Hot Tattoo sneak off into the past and witness (bum bum bum!) Samuel murdering his brother! It turns out his brother had given HRG that compass so he could find Samuel and reel him in.

Before Samuel shoots a rock into his brother's neck, he also reveals that Samuel's power could move mountains and cities and "kill millions," which gets our boy pretty excited. "I knew I was missing out on something!" he cries. Yeah, putting on eyeliner and black nailpolish all day is nothing compared to making whole cities do the pogo. So now Hot Tattoo and Hiro know the truth about Samuel's brother, and Hot Tattoo told Edgar too. But Edgar isn't really that smart, especially when he's not wearing his Sith gear. So he jumps up at the T-day table and accuses Samuel of doing the dirty deed, and then Samuel counter-accuses him of doing it.

You've gotta love a carnie Thanksgiving where the guys argue over who killed their brother. Meanwhile everybody else is all "this is aaaaawkward" and tries to pretend the mutant stuffing is super tasty. When Samuel tries to hurl rocks into Edgar, Hiro stops time and rescues the speedy knife-thrower. Then he puts the smackdown on Samuel and is like, "You need me. I'm not going to do anything for you until you tell me where Charlie is." I like Hiro with a backbone. But then one of the carnies does a brain-mangle on Hiro that is supposed to make him easier to control but instead causes him to disappear. Samuel's plans are just not going well! That's just what happens when you get the carnies together for family dinner - fratricide, time-hopping, dirt-hurling, and mind-scrambling. It's a fine American tradition.

So here are the most insane SF soaps we could think of — but I bet we missed some good ones. What are your favorites? Pipe up in comments with the lurid details!

Top image by Dennys Ilic. Additional reporting by Josh C. Snyder.

Heroes

You can pick any character from this show and get a headache trying to figure out all the story twists he or she has gone through. Take Matt Parkman: He's trying to keep his marriage together — No, wait! Now he's living with Mohinder and co-parenting Molly the mutant-detecting girl! — No, wait! Molly is out of the picture! And now Matt is becoming an African-esque shaman! — No, wait! Now Matt is in love with Daphne the speedster, who's the Love Of His Life! — No, wait! Now Matt is back with his wife, and will never think about Daphne again! — No, wait! Etc. etc. etc. My favorite, though, is probably Peter's girlfriend trapped in an alternate dystopian future — whom we will never mention again! Ha ha ha ha urk. (Matt Loves Daphne wallpaper from Fanpop.)

Alias

This show started off pretty coherent — but around the third brainwashing or the tenth revelation that Sidney's mother's cousin was really the spy behind brainwashing Sidney to think her half-sister was a chicken. I defy anybody to explain to me the tangled backstory of the Bristow family.

The Cat Who Walked Through Walls by Robert A. Heinlein:

I made a dreadful mistake: This was the first Heinlein book I ever read — and it may have ruined me for Heinlein forever. In the late Heinlein novels, every character ever shows up, and they mostly have sex together, interspersed with a lot of drama and philosophizing. It's a sequel to The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress as well as Number Of The Beast, and features characters from several other books — including Jubal Harshaw, Lazarus Long and Hazel Stone, and it turns out that all of Heinlein's characters have previously unsuspected connections to each other. As reviewer James W. Harris puts it:

Having all of his "good" guys sound like a convention of smarmy talking wife-swappers is just gross. I hate to sound like a teenage girl, but damn, Heinlein's kissy-kissy talk and innuendo just made me want to puke. And making his classic characters act out in this limp-dick porn flick is just tragic. Having them go on and on about how they were going to kill people for bad manners is just a little psycho to me. Evidently a lot of people and situations annoyed the hell out of Heinlein and he used this book to vent. Some people want to call this satire but I think that's whitewash.

Maybe Heinlein lost his mojo and these multiverse stories were the best he could do. Personally, I thought The Rolling Stones was a perfect novel, and bringing back Hazel Stone was a fictionally fuck-up of an idea, ditto for the cast of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Maybe I am a prude because I just don't want the Hazel Stone, grandmother of Castor and Pollux, joking about being stretched out of shape by giant 25 centimeter cock.

All of Heinlein's personally favorite characters get put into a fictional juicer and blended into weird rabble of sex obsessed mob that chirp a weird innuendo patter and are almost impossible to tell apart. When I read these multiverse stories I can't help but believe that horniness was driving Heinlein crazy. These later stories are preoccupied with sex, killing people, responding to annoying people, the reliability of witnesses, rude people deserving capital punishment, and so on.

Venture Bros.:

At least this show is ridiculous on purpose — the ultra-demented story of the Venture clan has gotten more and more involved, with Sergeant Hatred's struggle against his pedophilic past taking center stage, and deformed clones and weird villain love affairs aplenty. Most of all, there are the labyrinthine family elements crossing over into everything, like the revelation that Dean was also the head of the Guild. The same characters and their families end up being connected in ever more improbable and weird ways, making our heads spin.

Battlestar Galactica:

I have four (or possibly five) words for you: "Hotdog is the father." Whaaa? There's also the great way Baltar went from being a slimy scientist to being a slimy politician to being a slimy cult leader — and what happened to the baby that Baltar and Six were going to have together? Oh and while we're on the subject, what about Saul Tigh being crazy-chicken in love with Caprica Six — until she has a miscarriage, and then he never thinks about her again? It all makes you want to grip your television and scream (in a Krazy Starbuck voice) "You're going the wrong way!"

Sonic The Hedgehog (comics):

According to the always great TVTropes website, this comic-book tie-in to the popular video game went whirling off on crazier tangents than a flying hedgehog on crack. To quote TVTropes:

The Archie Comics Sonic The Hedgehog series twisted Sonic's love life into a Gordian Knot: Originally hooked up with Sally Acorn, she got stuck ruling the country and shoved the relationship to the side to focus on her new duties, prompting Sonic to fall in with Mina Mongoose, starting a rivalry between the two women for Sonic's affection. He then started seeing Fiona Fox on the side, which not only pissed off Mina and Sally, but Tails, as well, who had a crush on her due to falling in love with a robotic duplicate created by Robotnik several years earlier (don't ask). Eventually, Mina got her own boyfriend, Sally got Sonic once again, and Tails got tossed into a brick wall by Fiona, who gave them all the finger to have a relationship with Sonic's evil clone from another universe. And that's not even counting the mini-tangle between Antoine, Sally, Bunnie Rabbot, and Antoine's evil clone from the same universe Fiona's new beau comes from.

Got it? Great.

Gundam Wing:

Okay, let's get this straight... Relena Darlian discovers she's really adopted, and her real name is Relena Peacecraft, one of the last survivors of the pacifistic (duh) Peacecraft tribe. And then it turns out that Zechs Marquise is her long lost older brother. Meanwhile, she gets obsessed with Heero, a young whackjob who keeps announcing he's going to kill her, not unlike the "I'm going to rape you" guy in Welcome To The Dollhouse. And that's just scratching the surface of the most confusing, tangly saga of all time, involving endless backstory and weird family crap.

Angel:

I was going to do Charmed, Angel's fellow WB series which had the whole "my ex-husband is a half-demon" thing, but Angel is so much more ridiculous — mostly because of Cordy, who is in love with Groosalugg, until she's in love with Angel instead, but meanwhile she's turned into a half-demon and then she becomes a Higher Power, until she comes back and has sex with Angel's son — who, as someone points out, is practically her stepson since she helped care for him as a baby — and then becomes pregnant and evil — until she gives birth to an evil god. Nothing on parent show Buffy was as incestuous and ridiculous as Cordy's arc on Angel. Oh, actually, wait — Cordelia was pregnant twice on Angel.

Robotech:

Sure, it was supposedly about the giant mechas, but it was really all about the tragic loves and the tormented Rick-Minmei-Lisa love triangle. To quote Wikipedia,

In early 2013, while sitting at an outdoor cafe, [Lisa] contemplates the love triangle between the three of them when she overhears two men talking about how women were "dealt all the aces" when it comes to relationships, to which Lisa says to herself "that's all you know...here's one woman who would trade every ace in the deck for one Rick Hunter.

Sigh. Twoo Love. Here's a great fanvid featuring the music of White Town. Yay!

X-Men (comics):

This, of course, is the most insane soap opera imaginable. At this point, the X-men have had illegitmate babies from the future, secret love affairs, doomed passions and multiple bad transcriptions of all sorts of accents, from Cajun to Scottish. My favorite ridiculous soap-opera twist might be Madrox's night of passion with two female members of X-Factor: Siryn and Monet, resulting in a pregnancy that isn't quite a normal pregnancy. But then there's also the whole insane Rogue/Gambit thing, the Scott/Jean/Wolverine/Emma love doodaddle, and of course Professor X turning out to be secretly in love with Jean Grey. That's just scratching the surface, really. If you want more info, check out the X-Men relationship map — which is probably already out of date!

Monday

If you'd rather not think about Turkey Day, you may want to skip both House (Fox, 8pm) and Heroes (NBC, 8pm) this week; both shows are having holiday-themed episodes.

House and his team treat "an exceptionally brilliant physicist" more successfully than they handle their own relationships, and the Petrellis have a "surprise guest" for their special turkey dinner. Maybe we'll see Sylar eat some turkey brains or something.

Tuesday

V wraps up its four-episode mini-run on ABC at 8pm with the lying title of "It's Only The Beginning" Here's the official network blurb:

Erica works with newly-formed allies to uncover a biological threat they suspect the Visitors have been plotting. Aboard the Mothership, Anna meets with a special guest while managing the investigation into the murder of a V. Chad does a segment on the V Healing Centers, demonstrating their amazing medical abilities, but then finds himself conflicted by some of his findings.

Findings like them eating mice, Chad? We can but hope.

Meanwhile, BBC America provides a non-fiction alternative with Apollo Wives (8pm), a documentary where the wives of the Apollo mission astronauts talk about what it was like for them to watch their husbands risk their lives flying to the moon and then return as some of the most famous people on the planet.

Wednesday

If you're not interested in Mythbusters taking on dumpster myths on the Discovery Channel at 9pm (Kari fans, it's her last episode before maternity leave), and the idea of another episode of ABC's Eastwick at 10pm leaves you cold (Roxie gets seduced by Darryl's art world connections, Joanna learns about the magical version of Einstein's theories and Kat stays away from the dating world, if you care), then all is not lost.

Cartoon Network's latest live action Ben 10 movie, Ben 10: Alien Swarm debuts at 7pm and, to be honest, you could watch worse this week.

Thursday

It's Thanksgiving, which means all of the usual Thursday night confusion takes a break to go eat with its family, and we're left with the choice of two marathons. The Discovery Channel lets rip with a Mythbusters marathon from 9am through to 3am, while Syfy, surreally, goes with a James Bond movie marathon, starting at 8am. Because... someone had to?

Even stranger is the order of the movies they're showing: Dr. No at 8am, License To Kill at 10:30am, Live And Let Die at 1:30pm, The Spy Who Loved Me at 4pm, Tomorrow Never Dies at 6:30pm, Casino Royale at 9pm, For Your Eyes Only at midnight, and The Man With The Golden Gun at 2:30am. Um... Okay?

Friday

Thanksgiving takes out all of today's regular programming as well, leaving us with the second day of Syfy's Bond In No Obvious Order Whatsoever Marathon, again starting at 8am. Today's movies are Thunderball at 8am, From Russia With Love at 10:30am, You Only Live Twice at 1pm, Diamonds Are Forever at 3:30pm, Casino Royale again at 6pm, GoldenEye at 9pm, Goldfinger at midnight and, finally, Never Say Never Again at 2:30am.

Seriously, are these being shown in order of someone's particular preference or something?

Saturday

Things begin to get back to normal with the appearance of a crazy gimmicked Syfy Original Movie: Beyond Sherwood Forest takes Robin Hood and his Merry Men and then puts them head to head with magic and monsters. It's kind of genius in its simplicity, really. Plus, look! Lois Lane!

Sunday

Of course, as usual, the week ends with a new episode of The Venture Bros on Cartoon Network at midnight. You're all watching this by now, right? It's probably the best season to date, even if we haven't approached anything as compelling as The Nozzle yet...

What I like about Heroes is that the writers are never afraid to give us some gratuitous semi-nudity. And where Claire is concerned, this nudity has to have lesbotic overtones. In the case of "Brother's Keeper," overtones were helpfully supplied by Tracy. Our favorite political slut freezy girl starts having ice power panic attacks and she races over to HRG's place to get help. But she finds only Claire, doing her laundry. Of course Claire decides to best cure is to stick Tracy in a warm bath and make her some tea. Which sort of backfires, as you can see in the clip we've shared with you here.

Even though Tracy snaps off Claire's frozen foot, the two ladies wind up in a sodden pile of girl-bonding, drinking tea together and talking about how "it's hard out there for girls like us." Could it be . . . LESBOTIC DOUBLE-MEANING? I choose to believe that it is. I don't care what you Heroes-hating naysayers think. Heroes has a lot of deep meanings, and that's why it's such an important show for people who believe in social progress and girls taking baths together.

Anyway, after all the wetness and ice and stuff, Claire tells Tracy that maybe "her body is telling her" to go become a carnie. And we all know how smart it is to listen to your body. That's why the episode ends with Tracy meeting up with Samuel so she can join his carnies.

I never thought I'd be grateful to see Suresh back in the picture, but I was. Even though he seems to have inexplicably lost his Jeff Goldblum powers. Samuel the megacarnie with dirt powers apparently killed Suresh nine weeks ago, but now he's kidnapped waitress Charlie so he can force Hiro to go back in time and grab a movie from Suresh before the whole murder thing. Turns out Suresh found an old movie of his father's from when he was working in that mutant concentration camp run by the US government. And the movie reveals - ta dum! - that Samuel was actually born in the concentration camp, and that his powers go beyond dirt. Apparently there is a measurable amount of energy generated by "powers," and Samuel can harness that energy to give himself mega-dirt powers. Maybe that means he can do things like move the Earth out of orbit or something? I have no idea. But if this show suddenly turns into Space 1999 with Earth instead of the Moon, let's just say I told you so.

So anyway nine weeks ago stupid Suresh leaves his hot girlfriend back in Chennai to go hunting for Samuel - WHY? - and discovers that Samuel's older brother has been hiding these mega-dirt powers from little bro all his life. Probably because all Samuel does is wear glittery black denim vests and eyeliner. Obviously, he's just too glam for mega-dirt. Unfortunately, Samuel overhears his brother telling Suresh all this, and promptly goes after Suresh to get the old movie showing how he caused a giant earthquake when he was born among all the mutants whose powers he harnessed.

Suresh has burned the film, so Samuel does the old Magneto-with-rocks thing and kills Suresh - except luckily Hiro has traveled back in time and put a bullet-proof vest on Suresh! Which he technically shouldn't need because he has spider superpowers, right? Wait, did he lose his powers? I can't even remember anymore, but I'm sure you'll tell me smugly in the comments and then add something about how I always get details about the show wrong.

Here's one thing I don't have wrong: Samuel stopped wearing the sparkly vest after his brother "died accidentally" (probably from a dirt-related injury!). Why did they have to take that vest away from him?

Probably for the same reason that I have to tell you now about what happened to Head Sylar, Head Parkman, Body Parkman, and Body Sylar. And that reason is that I did something bad back when I used to eat people in the Middle Ages and I'm still atoning for it by becoming a detective in Toronto. And writing Heroes recaps.

So let me try to sum up the Sylar/Parkman, Head/Body thing in a sentence, just for fun. Peter and Body Sylar heal dying Body Parkman/Head Parkman/Head Sylar, then Head Sylar touches Body Sylar and lands back in his own head. I am glossing over a long scene which is supposed to be full of tension but is really not. The upshot is that everybody is back in their own damn body, though Body Sylar has a Head Sylar because he's still got Nathan occupying most of his body or something.

Throughout this whole ordeal I kept wishing that Head Parkman would wear a sexy red dress like Head Six did in Battlestar. It would make everything so much easier to deal with.

Also, THERE WAS ACTUALLY A GOOD LINE IN THIS EPISODE. At one point when Fake Nathan is whining about how weird it is to be in Body Sylar with a Head Sylar rattling around too, he says to Peter, "Nathan is just some random thoughts in a mass murderer's head." Yes, that is a great sentence.

Plus we really have no idea what is up with the whole Nathan thing, but since Adrian Pasdar got fired from Heroes I'm assuming that Nathan isn't long for this plotline.

My favorite moment after the whole Head/Body resolution for Parkman was when he called his ex-wife and baby mommy, and was like, "Hey remember how I had this guy in my head who was making me act insane? Well now he's gone so I can come home honey!"

Basically there are still a bunch of things that remain unresolved. When will Body Sylar give in to Head Sylar? Is Head Sylar actually inside Peter, because a Sparkly Thing passed between Body Sylar and Peter? What will Tracy be doing for Samuel? When will Hiro ever see Charlie again, and why did Hiro stick Suresh into a mental hospital for safekeeping? When will Sprint realize that advertising their phones in a series of webisodes about how Samuel abuses teenage girls might not be a good way to get people to buy their crappy product?

Tune in next week when Sprint phones bring all the mutants together to become a giant, homicidal megaentity with geotagging powers.

Monday

The week starts off softly, with nothing worth watching until 8 p.m., when you have too many shows even for TiVo to choose from. Shall it be the second night of the so-disappointing-I-may-cry The Prisoner on AMC? New episodes of House on Fox (in which House treats a porn star and decides to bring together his dream team of minions) or Heroes on NBC (in which Tracey loses control of her ability, Matt fights inside his mind with Sylar and OH MY GOD PLEASE MAKE IT STOP ALREADY)? Or a marathon of nature doc redux Planet Earth on the Discovery Channel, which offers six hours of stunning footage and soothing Sigourney Weaver voiceover?

I'm saying TiVo Planet Earth for when you need to be reminded how amazing life can be, and watch House, because you know they'll get some good jokes out've the porn star patient.

Tuesday

While The Prisoner finishes up its run over on AMC at 8pm, ABC's V decides that it's time to copy - Sorry, I mean, "homage" - another sci-fi classic as Erica is forced to team up with a Visitor officer to protect Visitors from death threats in this week's episode, "Wow, do you remember Alien Nation with its buddy comedy pairing of human and alien cops? We sure do." Oh, wait. It's actually called "A Bright New Day."

(If you're in the mood for something a little more classic, Syfy is running an Outer Limits marathon from 8am through 3pm.)

Wednesday

With no new episodes of Mythbusters, you might as well spend the day either (a) not watching television, or the much-more-likely (b) flipping between Syfy's The Twilight Zone marathon (8am through 3pm) and AMC's classic run of Young Frankenstein (1pm), Ghostbusters (3:30pm) and, um, Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines (8pm). Someone's told them that T3 isn't a comedy, right...?

Thursday

As if the traditional Thursday evening crush isn't enough, Syfy are willing to suck your life away with a First Wave marathon from 9am through 3pm, and AMC are willing to contribute with the original Stargate movie at 2:30. Before you know it, you'll be choosing between Flashforward on ABC (Everyone keeps trying to solve their FFs just like they've been for the last few weeks, except Bryce is finally getting off his ass and wondering about his future girlfriend a bit more) and Vampire Diaries on the CW (Jeremy takes up drawing and Elena discovers something terrible, which may just be a future script for the show), both at 8pm.

And then you have to choose again between Fringe on Fox (The truth behind the Observer! And Walter wants a milkshake, with guest-star Kelis. Okay, sadly that part about a guest-star isn't true) and Supernatural on the CW at 9 (The Winchester Bros. team up with Bobby, Ellen and Jo to send Lucifer back to Hell. Don't be surprised if things don't go to plan, considering it's still relatively early in the season). We might just watch Community and 30 Rock instead, though, and catch up with everything else online later, if that's okay with you guys.

Friday

Relive the first wave of post-Lost network television with Syfy's Invasion marathon (8am through 3pm), before switching over to watch Dustin Hoffman worry about his paycheck in Outbreak on AMC.

Let's be honest, Fridays are really all about the evening shows, though; Smallville finally tries to get to the bottom of Lois' future abduction/visions on the CW at 8pm (Kneeling before Zod is optional, I believe), while CBS' Ghost Whisperer is worried about someone dying at the same time, which makes no sense. Wouldn't that just mean she'd have someone else to whisper to? Why do they never think these things through?

At 9pm, you can choose between Medium on CBS, wherein Allison develops a strange sensitivity to light, or Syfy's Stargate Universe, wherein everyone catches their breath and uses those weird psychic projection stone things to talk to those they've left behind. Alternatively, you could switch over to Cartoon Network for a new episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, before ending the night with the latest episode of Sanctuary at 10pm on Syfy.

Saturday

Syfy tries to get your attention with a triple bill of cut-rate dragon movies (In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale at 9pm, Fire And Ice at 11:30 and Dragon Sword on Sunday at 1:30 in the morning), but there's no way that can compete with AMC's quadruple bill of the Alien movies: Alien starts at 5:30, followed by Aliens at 8pm, Alien 3 at 11 and Alien: Resurrection at 1:30 on Sunday morning. The first two, at least, are worth it.

Sunday

Oh, people. You all know by now that Sunday is Venture Bros day, right? I don't know what else to tell you aside from that, apart from the episode being entitled "Self-Medication". Oh, and that it's on Cartoon Network at midnight, and is really the most essential piece of television in the entire week. Don't leave home without it.

Episode 9: Brother's Keeper

Episode 10: Thanksgiving

Last night we caught up with two lame subsubplots (Head Parkman and Rainbow Brite) as well as the greatest subsubplot that never was (Claire's Lesbian Quest).

So let's dispense with the whole Head Parkman/Head Sylar/Nobody Actually Gets Any Head deal. Reach back into your memories, and you'll recall that this whole narrative ordeal began when Parkman erased Sylar's identity from Sylar's body. He made Sylar Body think it was Nathan, but unfortunately the unintended consequence was that Parkman grew a Head Sylar who made him see things and tormented him with endless quips when Parkman was trying to have sex with his wife and stuff like that.

There was a whole long thing where Parkman thought he could banish Head Sylar by getting totally drunk, but then when he passed out Sylar took over completely. So now Parkman is actually Sylar with a Head Parkman. Which gets really confusing, especially when we keep seeing Sylar in the same suit that Parkman is wearing. In the scene above, you can see that Head Parkman is trying to put the bitchslap on Body Sylar, which I think might be the only moment in the entire show when Parkman has gotten even a tiny bit toppy. But then Body Sylar kills the dude who is trying to help them fix their car, and threatens to kill more if Parkman won't tell him how he got to be Head Sylar in the first place.

At some point during this whole mess, Body Sylar informs Head Parkman, "The world is my hostage." This is the kind of brilliant line that keeps all of us coming back week after week to laugh in this show's face.

Finally Head Parkman caves and tells Body Sylar everything while they're in the diner where Charlie used to work. But then Head Parkman manages to distract Body Sylar into writing "I have a gun and am going to kill everybody in here" on his napkin, then throwing it at the waitress before they leave the diner. Instantly, the cops arrive and shoot them after Parkman is all "Yeah I'm willing to die." OK let's think about this realistically, people. A guy is at your diner, and you see that he's written "I have a gun and will kill" AFTER HE LEAVES. So the guy is GONE. Do you call the cops, or just say "Wow what a weirdo." Also, if you do call the cops, do they really come out based on a napkin threat that some dude THREW AWAY?

Anyway, my point is that Body Parkman, Body Sylar, Head Parkman, AND Head Sylar have all been shot a whole bunch of times. Will they live????

I will leave it to you to puzzle out the answer to that one, because we need to think hard about Emma AKA Rainbow Brite and Peter. So our pal Emma's special wall-smashing rainbow music power has gone back to being just rainbowy. We learn snoringly that the reason why she left medical school is that her nephew drowned because she couldn't hear him while she was babysitting.

Meanwhile, Peter's glances across the room have inspired her to start doing emergency medical procedures on people and playing the piano all the time at work. Doesn't she have a job doing paperwork? Isn't the hospital sort of weirded out that their med school dropout administrator is sewing people up and opening up holes in their lungs or whatever? Apparently not - I guess the hospital is so short-staffed that they just figure it's better for admins to do medical procedures.

It's all OK, though, because Emma has now decided to go back to medical school. And you know, all she has to do is decide that and she's magically back in medical school! That's how med school works.

While Emma finesses her readmission to med school, Peter is using his healing power to save lives right and left. But healing powers drain his energy and give him headaches! So there's a PRICE TO PAY. If this show is going to keep reheating its old cliches, I'm just going to order the Tahitian pancakes. WTF are Tahitian pancakes anyway?

Which brings me to the one point of light in my otherwise dreary TV existence. Claire's lesbian subsubplot. Which ended in the lamest possible way this week. OK, I take that back. It could have been worse: Gretchen could have died, or Claire could have said, "I really love you but can't have sex so even though I want to be your lovemuncher I am going to pull a Twilight on your ass." Instead, we're supposed to believe that the formerly brave and intrepid Gretchen has decided to drop out of college and go home just because of one teeny attack from the invisible girl. Seriously? She's been total Scary Google Chick with Brave Lesbo Feelings up to now, but when the going gets weird she's weirded out? I call shenanigans.

Then we get even more character motivation shoehorned into this munged subsubplot when Samuel pays Claire a visit and reveals that HRG shot Becky the invisible girl's dad and that Becky is damaged as a result. She wants revenge on HRG, which is why she's killing Claire's friends, which sort of kind of makes sense if you do a brain squint. But of course he's playing a DEEP GAME, and in fact even though he pretends to be all concerned about Becky and eventually shoots her with a taser to stop her, he's actually manipulating Claire.

Also, he gives that same speech he's been giving every episode about how family accepts you for who you are and his family is the carnies and they need to stay hidden. Oh and also, just to fill in more plotholes (perhaps one of his dirt powers is the ability to fill plot holes?) it turns out that Danko killed Samuel's brother and one of the main reasons why the carnies need to move all over the place is that they are fleeing HRG. So, instant history between all our characters! Just add some disappearing lesbians, and you've got the lamest ending to the best subsubplot on Heroes this season.

Monday

What better way to start off the week than with a Syfy marathon of Stargate SG-1 running right now, from 8am all the way through to 3pm? Sure, there's that whole "work" thing, but come on. It's Stargate!

Otherwise, your television thrills are limited to an 8pm conflict between new episodes of House on Fox (A teenage girl can't distinguish between fact and fiction "after a wild night out." Am I the only one who feels like this could be either awesome or hideously embarrassing for all involved?) and Heroes on NBC, where Sylar is still trying to take control of Matt's body and Claire has to face off with her father's Sorority Girl Army. And, yes, I did accidentally make that sound more interesting than the actual show. Sorry, everyone.

Tuesday

For those calling in sick, I'd recommend skipping Syfy's Tru Calling marathon (8am through 3pm for those whose love of Dushku overpowers their bad-show gag reflex) and tuning into AMC, which goes dragon crazy with a 12:45 airing of Dragonheart (Dennis Quaid and a dragon voiced by Sean Connery!) followed by a 3pm re-run of Reign of Fire (You could stay tuned for a 5pm Batman Begins and 8pm Terminator 2: Judgment Day as well, if you were feeling particularly lazy).

If you'd rather get a delayed British take on the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, then James May On The Moon (BBC America at 8pm) takes Top Gear's Captain Slow and puts him in the driver's seat for an hour long look back at those heady days where men were men and the Moon seemed an obtainable destination.

Otherwise, click over to ABC for the second episode of V and see whether it still feels like FlashForward meets... Well, the old V, really (The official PR for the episode says "A seeker among the Visitors tracks Erica and Father Jack. Chad seeks redemption by investigating the aliens ahead of his next newscast while law enforcers press Erica for information concerning Dale M…").

Wednesday

Thank God for Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel at 9pm. Without their investigation into whether cars will automatically burst into flames after crashing (Surely we have empirical proof that the answer is no already?), I'd have to find some way to pretend that Glee (Fox at 9) was a scifi show just to have something to write about for today. I figured I could always claim that it was set in an alternate reality where people aren't creeped out by Will Schuester trying to rap.

Thursday
If it's Thursday, then it's time for all the shows to run up against each other again. Sure, you could pretend that the networks aren't showing anything and watch a double bill of Demolition Man and End of Days on AMC (Sly and Arnold! In two of their most underrated - for a reason - movies! It starts at 8pm, if you're tempted), after spending the day watching Syfy's Star Trek: Enterprise marathon (8am through 3pm, as ever), but come on. I know that you can't resist the big shows people are talking about.

On FlashForward (ABC, 8pm), Aaron discovers the truth about his daughter's death, Janis returns to work and Mark and Olivia's martial troubles bring everyone down yet again, man. Things are much more fun over in Mystic Falls where Vampire Diaries (the CW at 8pm) brings a mysterious new teacher, arguments over medallions and, according to the CW, "Damon finally reveals to Stefan the stunning reason he has returned to Mystic Falls." If I watched the show and/or cared, I couldn't wait!

9pm brings the real reason to wrestle over the remote; Fringe on Fox gives Olivia, Broyles and Peter a new reason to be suspicious of Massive Dynamic when the impossibly shady corporation turn out to be involved in a kidnapping case, but Supernatural (The CW) looks much more fun than even Walter Bishop could provide:

Super fan Becky uses Chuck's phone to trick Sam and Dean into attending a Supernatural fan convention, complete with fans dressed up as Sam and Dean. One of the activities is a live action role-playing game, but things quickly turn sour after a real ghost appears on the scene.

Seriously. How could anyone resist that?

Friday

Jericho fans! You have the Syfy marathon of the day (8am through 3pm, which I'm sure you already know by now) to keep you happy during the daylight hours; the rest of us will be watching the original The War Of The Worlds movie on AMC at 10:15am (And avoiding the following Star Trek: Nemesis at 12:15pm, a movie which can best be described by blogger Kevin Church here), instead.

Still, Friday evening starts the weekend off right with the double bill of Batman: The Brave and The Bold ("The Fate of Equinox!" Yes, the exclamation point is part of the title) and Star Wars: The Clone Wars (following last week's surprisingly brutal, "Are Jedi really advocating using flame throwers against living beings what the hell?" episode) on Cartoon Network, starting at 7:30pm (Clone Wars is at 8pm, if you have an aversion of Batman. And if you do, then I'm very, very sorry.)

If you're in the mood for MOR dramas teasing the supernatural, then CBS is the place to be tonight, with new episodes of both Ghost Whisperer (8pm, with Jennifer Love Hewitt "pulled into a murder mystery by a real estate power couple" - Yes, this is what people want to watch, apparently) and Medium (9pm, which at least includes a potentially amusing-for-the-wrong-reasons subplot about posting videos of someone on the internet and "getting into trouble") on offer.

The rest of us, we'll be considering Smallville on the CW at 8pm (It features the Wonder Twins! You know you want to), Stargate Universe on Syfy at 9pm (The crew of the Destiny get a message from their future selves from the past. Or something) and Sanctuary on the same channel at 10pm.

Saturday

If you're not looking forward to Syfy's Ice Twisters at 9pm ("A sci-fi novelist is summoned to help scientists after an experiment in weather manipulation goes awry and produces deadly tornadoes made of ice," apparently), then we'd suggest that AMC's double bill of trilogies is the best way to spend your day. Start with the Mad Max trilogy (Movies starting 1:30, 3:30 and 5:30pm) before a night of The Matrix trilogy (The three movies begin at 8pm, 11pm and 1am on Sunday, respectively). Otherwise, the only thing left is Discovery's Surviving 2012... which is about all the prophecies, and not, sadly, advice on making it through Roland Emmerich's latest.

Sunday

It's the best night of television this week! Who knew, right? Start things off right with Syfy's latest screening of Serenity at 6:30 before switching over midway through - Hopefully missing Alan Tudyk's least favorite scene ever in the process - to catch the premiere of AMC's brand new take on The Prisoner at 8pm. If Ian McKellan and Jim Caviezel can't bring Patrick McGoohan's classic paranoiafest back to life, I'm going to be very depressed.

Of course, the best way to finish the evening off is coming at midnight, with the latest episode of The Venture Bros on Cartoon Network. Can we all just admit that it's the smartest and funniest show on television already?