Monday

With Heroes and House both taking a break for the holidays, it falls to Syfy to keep us entertained today, and they're definitely trying their hardest, with Stargate: The Ark of Truth at 9am, followed by Stargate: Continuum at 11.

Meanwhile, if you went down the rabbit hole last night, you'll be happy to know that Alice continues (and concludes) at 9pm.

Tuesday

Even if the day wasn't almost entirely otherwise devoid of SF entertainment, the return of ABC's Better Off Ted (ABC at 9:30pm) would still be at the top of our to-do list. In the first episode of its new run, the employees of Veridian Dynamics find their thoughts turning to reproduction, as Ted and Linda meet their genetically compatible matches, while Veronica tries to convince Lem to donate to a sperm bank. Oh, Ted. How did we get by without you?

If satires on corporate America are a little too close to the bone, then try the first episode of Outer Space Astronauts on Syfy (also 9:30); it's a new sitcom set in outer space - Maybe you missed that in the title - but we're a little worried about it based on the episode description being "Capt. Ripley invites aliens over to the O.S.S. Oklahoma for a pizza dinner, but the aliens want the ship, too." Uh, hilarity may ensue?

Wednesday

Oh, Syfy. With a Jericho marathon from 8am through 3pm, you know how to spoil us. From there until 9pm, it's a bit of a science fiction wasteland in terms of things that aren't re-runs, so consider it the Television God's way of telling you to leave the house and go and do some holiday shopping or something. Then be back in front of the visual entertainment box in time for 9 o'clock, when Discovery has a new episode of Mythbusters, with Jamie and Adam putting more gunslinging myths to the test.

Thursday

Remember 1990s SF vampire series Kindred: The Embraced? I definitely don't, but Syfy is looking to remedy my oversight with a marathon of the entire 1996 series starring former Soul Man C. Thomas Howell, starting at 8am.

Otherwise, with FlashForward, Vampire Diaries and Supernatural already in reruns, it falls to Fringe to keep the science fiction flag flying with its new episode "Grey Matters" at 9pm on Fox. Featuring the return of Leonard Nimoy as William Bell:

Friday

Get your day started off in the right way with Syfy's Outer Limits marathon, starting at 8am. You'll only wish it was Twilight Zone a couple of times, honest.

Depending on who you believe, there's either a rerun or new episode of Batman: The Brave and The Bold on Cartoon Network at 7pm (If it's a new episode, then it'll be the Plastic Man-guesting "Long Arm Of The Law," but some schedules have last season's "Duel of The Double Crossers!" listed. Your guess is as good as mine at this point).

But even if it is a new episode, that might not be enough to steal your attention away from Syfy's Sanctuary mini-marathon, starting at 7pm and ending with a brand new episode, "Penance," guest-starring Amanda Tapping's fellow former Stargate cast member Michael Shanks, at 10pm.

Or you can keep up with the latest double bill of Dollhouse on Fox at 8pm, with the "Meet Jane Doe"/"A Love Supreme" match-up offering Topher discovering the potential effects of science, Echo losing control of her multiple memory downloads, and the return of Alpha.

Once that's done, you might find yourself switching over to Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow on Cartoon Network at 10pm, just to look at how shiny the whole thing is.

Saturday

It's All Disaster Movies All Day on Syfy, starting with Earthstorm (9am) before offering up Meteor (11am), miniseries 10.5: Apocalypse (1pm), Ba'al: The Storm God (5pm), Ice Twisters (7pm), Annihilation Earth (9pm) and finishing with Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York at 11pm. Why so many disaster movies? Why not? Over on BBC America, there's a Doctor Who triple bill of edited versions of "Journey's End", "The Next Doctor" and "Planet of The Dead" starting at 7pm, but you should really wait until tomorrow, for reasons you'll discover in a second.

Sunday

...What's that, you say? A Doctor Who marathon on BBC America starting at 1pm, including 1hr 15 minute (ie, unedited from U.K. broadcast, apart from ad breaks) versions of The Next Doctor and Planet of The Dead? I thought you'd say yes. The full rundown of episodes is:

1pm: Voyage of The Damned
2pm: Turn Left
3pm: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End
5:30pm: The Next Doctor
6:45: Planet of The Dead

All of this is a lead-in to next week's premiere of "The Waters of Mars," and the following week's "The End of Time," of course. But do you care why it's happening, as long as it's happening?

The big single-issue release of the week is possibly Image Comics' Image United, which brings all but one of the original Image founders (Jim Lee is missing, due to DC Comics commitments, where he's a VP as well as an artist) back together for a mini-series that brings their biggest creations face to face with the newest bad guy around, Spawn. Yes, that Spawn.

But if that's not your style, maybe you'll be more interested in the relaunch of Powers, Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming's police-procedural-superhero-turned-epic, over at Marvel, the first issue of Jericho Season Three from Devil's Due, or my personal favorite, the first issue of an all-new series of The Tick. Spooon, indeed.

This week, however, is all about the collections. Let's start with Incognito, Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips' tale of a supervillain who can't quite bring himself to act normal even though he's in witness protection, which is highly recommended for those who like their superstories to be a little off-kilter.

If you enjoy that, then The Winter Men collects the eponymous series about Russia's supersoldier program, and what happened afterwards with a surprising amount of humor and humanity. But if you're more of a traditionalist, then Flash Vs. The Rogues collects some of the best stories of DC Comics' fastest man alive going up against his most popular villains from the Silver Age to today.

Getting away from superheroes, we come to the three books you owe it to yourself to pick up tomorrow: Chew: Taster's Choice collects the first storyline from John Layman's wonderful future detective series about a man whose taste buds can solve crimes (with art by Rob Guillory), which seems like perfect fodder for Thanksgiving reading... As does Shade The Changing Man, Peter Milligan's classic 1990s series about the insanity of America and true love and hair, which gets a re-released first volume and all-new second volume released this week. Truly a forgotten classic, it's probably the best thing you could pick up this week... even if the start of the first collection is a little rocky.

If you'd like more from your week at your local comic store, check out the official shipping list from Diamond Distributors and see what else is available for yourself. But don't leave the store without Shade and Chew. You can thank me later.

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

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

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

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

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

Slate talks to GBN, a corporate futurist organization, and despite being professional doomsayers, the GBN gang doesn't see the U.S.A. falling apart over 100 years as being that likely. But GBN does see a few crazy out there ideas for how the U.S. could end — including the rise of a new class of genetically modified super-humans, like Khan Noonien Singh, who take over the entire world and crush everybody else beneath their heels. But the four main scenarios GBN sees as being likely are:

• Collapse, due to massive, intractable corruption.
• Friendly breakup, because the U.S. is too big a country to govern properly.
• Global governance, in which U.N.-like institutions become much more powerful to grapple with global crises like climate change.
• Global conquest, in which a Hitler-esque dictator actually conquers the whole world.

It's probably true, though, that a country with oceans on two sides and relatively friendly neighbors, plus a fairly robust democracy, has a good chance of surviving over the next 100 years, as GBN says. On the other hand, predicting anything 100 years out (as the GBN people admit) is basically like throwing darts in the dark, drunk, using your feet. And I suspect that if fuel becomes much more expensive in the coming decades, the huge distances across the United States could become a lot more daunting and regional tensions could get a lot more pronounced. But there's a reason why medium-near-future science fiction is so hard to write.

Image by Something_Clever on Flickr. [Slate]

SciFi Wire cites star Lennie James - Robert Hawkins in the series - as the origin of these latest rumors. Talking at a press event earlier this week, he told reporters,

While we were [at Comic-Con], Karim [Zreik], one of the producers, said that the idea of a movie is still on the cards... They're just trying to come up with the two-hour story that's worth telling. So that's where they are at the moment. But it's still on the cards, and people are still interested.

If the movie gets made, we're wondering just what plots it would resolve. After all, the main cliffhangers are theoretically due to be resolved in Devil's Due Publishing's comic Jericho Season 3: Civil War, which launches in October, written by show writers Dan Shotz and Robert Levine... Unless both are supposed to run concurrently, in which case, could we see more of Jericho now that it's been canceled than we did when it was still a going concern?

Is a Jericho wrap-up TV movie in the works? [SciFi Wire]

During an interview with John Siuntres on the WordBalloon podcast, Heroes and Lost alum Alexander explained the set-up and tone of the new NBC series:

Day One follows a group of people who live in a small apartment building... They're all strangers, they're all living their own lives, and then this earth-shattering event takes place that really changes the way the whole world has to move forward, and we follow this group of people as they become a community, a community of strangers, very much in the same way that the plane crash in Lost brought that group of people together... and they're all quite surprised to learn that they all have key roles to play in the upcoming new world order they are facing...I'm being a little cagey there, kind of hiding the big reveal, but, you know... It's a big event series, and the kind of story you see in a summer blockbuster... I love the idea of bringing a massive high production value entertaining story that people can get for free. I always loved that idea, that "Let's just make something so massive that people can get in their house for free and they're so compelled by it." That's what I'm trying to do with the show... The spirit of Day One really is entertainment, and optimism, and really cool characters working together to push through some challenges. I think the tone of the show is going to be fun and exciting and inspiring in a way that I really like in my genre entertainment. It's going to be interesting to see if that spirit works for people, and if it doesn't, it's my fault... because NBC has been so great and so supportive and encouraging for letting me do what I want to do on this thing.

With NBC's original description of the pilot playing up the post-apocalyptic aspects of the show, a lot of people wrote the series off as a Jericho clone, but Alexander feels that the actual show is something entirely different:

If people are looking to compare this show to other things, they're going to be building a very long list. The influences that are in Day One really come from so many different places [and] all the entertainment that had shaped me over the years, that I'm obsessed with. I'm such a fanboy nerd at the end of the day... There's a lot of Star Wars and Star Trek and all sorts of other elements. There's some Doctor Who elements, some Battlestar elements... You can see where I'm sort of trending with those references, they're different from any Jericho references.

Something else to look forward to when the show debuts in March next year is a format that balances story-arc with individual episodes, apparently:

That balance between episodic and serialized television is something that a lot of people are trying to figure out these days, and I've worked on crazy serials like Alias, and then on Lost, we kind of iterated on that a little bit by bringing in the flashbacks to try and give the folks something they could hang their hats on on a weekly basis potentially, and then on Heroes, we messed around with the format. And again, I'm really trying to figure out a way I can tell compelling stories every week. My taste in story is... I like a lot of story, I like a lot of stuff happening, you know? I like to keep it entertaining and compelling, and that's what I'm going to try and do with Day One... Sci-Fi really is the genre that I love, and I'm obsessed with trying to figure out a way to bring that genre to a mainstream TV audience. We're on NBC, we're on a broadcast network where the rubric for success is pretty high. We need to have a lot of people watching the show for it to stay on the air, and I've really been trying to figure out a way to do that. Hopefully, I've come up with something that will be fun to watch.

Day One premieres March 2010 on NBC.

Jesse Alexander On NBC's Day One & Sgt Fury [WordBalloon]

While Devil's Due haven't said just what format the Jericho comic is going to end up taking, they're definitely talking up the potential. President Josh Blaylock:

"I can't tell you how cool it is for DDP to be able to continue the Jericho story in comic book form... We plan to give fans the story they've been craving. This is going to be epic stuff.

Dan Shotz, the Co-Executive Producer of the TV show, agrees:

Josh Blaylock and the DDP team are great partners and have shown a true love for our show. We are so thrilled about this comic book series and the endless possibilities for the future of Jericho.

Joining Shotz on the creation of the comic are show producers Jon Turteltaub, Karim Zreik and Jon Steinberg, as well as writer/producer Carol Barbee. As yet, no release date has been announced. And it's not clear how this intersects with the still-mooted theatrical movie continuation.

[Devil's Due Publishing]

Jamie Bamber
The adorable Lee Adama from Battlestar Galactica is actually British. The first time I heard him speak in his native tongue in the Razor special DVD I was completely floored. His American accent is spot on. Bamber, who grew up in London, wins first place for most convincing American accent in scifi. Check out his interview at BSG Con below.

Lennie James
Also another surprise, James grew up in London but talks American lingo in Jericho.

Kevin McKidd
Proof that the Scottish can master American grammar better than most Americans. McKidd grew up in Scotland and starred in Journeyman.

Hugo Weaving
Agent Smith's hard 'Ah's in "Mr. Anderson" were like nails on a chalk board. The Matrix wouldn't have been the same without him and his weird stretched-out speech. Bravo, Hugo — you've mastered the annoying nasal "A" sound that I get teased incessantly about.

Ewan McGregor
McGregor gets a gold star in the accent book for his work as Lincoln Six Echo and Tom Lincoln in The Island. Plus he does a pretty mean Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan.

Lena Headey
British actress Headey nails it, nails it, nails it playing Sarah Connor in The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Her accent is flawless, take a listen.

Mel Gibson
Nailed the farmer speak in Signs, but how much of his accent even still exists I wonder? So he's a questionable member of this list.

Christian Bale
Grew up in Wales and the UK, and talks American in Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Equilibrium, and the forthcoming Terminator Salvation. Does great — except when he's overdoing the Bat-growl.

Heath Ledger
Ledger's accent in The Dark Knight as the Joker was just like his character, pretty committed to crazy. But it's pretty easy to lose your accent when the range of your character goes high to low in pitch alone. So for this scifi performance alone he's in the middle of the pack, but not bad by any means.

Emily Watson
Ms. Watson does a so-so job with her American accent in Equilibrium, but she's much more charming with her original dulcet British tones.

Nicole Kidman
Now the accents start to get a little lazy. Kidman slipped in and out of sing-song Australian to nasal New Yorker, and they clash in The Stepford Wives and Invasion.

Hugh Jackman
Our Wolverine likes to slip back into his Australian accent now and again in his X-Men get up. But the times are few and far between. Plus no one really knows where Logan has been all of the time, so maybe he spent some time down under?

Patrick Stewart
While I love the Commander of the Enterprise's elegant sentence structure and poise, with every lofty word, he's showing his hand, especially as Professor Charles Xavier in X-Men.

Clive Owen
I didn't even realize Owen was doing an American accent in Sin City until someone told me. Even when he was doing the voice-over, he slipped in and out. Awful, terrible blach words. I much prefer your natural UK sound, Clive... like in Children of Men.

James McAvoy
He may be dead sexy without a shirt on in Wanted, but his character Wesley constantly slipped back into his Scottish brogue.

Michelle Claire Ryan
Worst American accent ever. Sorry Ryan, your London roots kept creeping up in your dialog as Jaime Sommers the Bionic Woman, and the bland American accent led to bland acting. Many times it looked like she was actually thinking about her vowels instead of acting.

Next week: terrible British accents coming from Americans. James Marsters, your time has come.

Additional reporting by Andrew Hudson

Fans hoping to re-create the momentum that made CBS reconsider the series' original cancellation haven't just stopped with creating the admittedly-depressing-sounding "Save Jericho Again" website (Seriously, it's the "again," isn't it? There's just something so... plaintive about it); they took the fight to the airwaves, buying ad time in the LA area on the Sci Fi Channel, Discovery Channel and, weirdly enough, History Channel - Maybe there was a package deal? - to bring their plight to the attentions that matter:

How better to show Carol, Karim, Dan, and Jon that we’re still behind them 100% in finding a new home for Jericho? How eloquently can we show Jericho’s cast and crew that we want them back? How loudly can we show other interested parties considering giving Jericho and our fan base a new home that we’re loyal, committed, and never-wavering — that we dig in and fight for something that’s so important and meaningful to us?

Well, working together, we think we’ve done that!! Jericho Rangers have already given so much in time, dollars and effort….but we aren’t ready to concede to a hinky ratings system and a lack of appreciation for a show that’s touched our hearts unlike any other.

A "hinky ratings system and a lack of appreciation"? Really? I love the idea that Jericho is the one show that doesn't have to be watched by enough people to stay on the air; instead, the fans are apparently hoping that someone will put the show back on the air - or into movie theaters, because that worked so well for Firefly - just to shut them up.

No news seems to be forthcoming, so the jury is apparently still out on this new nuisance vote. If it does work, however, I'm going to be counting on all of you to join my "I Don't Care If You Stick Your Fingers In Your Ears, I Really Want The Return Of Jezebel James Back And You Will Make It Happen" series of web shorts.

[Save Jericho Again]

The alien visitor from a doomed world:

The most famous refugee in science fiction is probably Superman, who gets sent to safety when his home planet Krypton is destroyed. It's no coincidence that Superman is also the posterboy for assimilation — his "real" family is the Kents of Kansas, and he thinks of himself as an American. He gets to live the refugee's dream, being totally accepted into a prosperous new world — plus he's physically and mentally superior to everyone else around him, which is a plus. He's the embodiment of the melting pot, even as he has the power to melt you. (And of course, his creators Siegel & Schuster were the sons of poor Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, mainly Lithuania and Ukraine.)

Doctor Who, meanwhile, has the same alien-world story as Superman, but without the assimilation. The Doctor, in the early episodes from 1963, drops hints about being on the run and in hiding, but doesn't explain further. The show's creators had a vague sense, originally, that he was fleeing a space war. But by the time it's explained in 1969, the explanation is much more benign: the Doctor's species are dicks. (No, not Terrance Dicks. Just dicks.) It's not until the show's 42nd birthday that we get back to the idea that he's fleeing a space war (upgraded to a time war.) And his planet has been destroyed, just like Superman's. But like I mentioned, he doesn't assimilate with Earth/British culture — even though he constantly takes on weird British affectations like jelly babies or cricket, they only make him seem like more of an outsider. He's like those Indian immigrants in the TV show Goodness Gracious Me, who anglicize their names and try to be more British than everyone else, only to look more out of place than ever. In many ways, the Doctor is the anti-Superman.

The protagonist who's fleeing war or genocide:

There are also tons of characters who flee a doomed or destroyed Earth, including Arthur Dent in the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series. And John Varley's novels frequently take place in a universe where humans have been forced to flee an Earth invaded by aliens, and have colonized the rest of the solar system as a result.

And then there's Hope Hubris, the hero of Piers Anthony's Bio Of A Space Tyrant series. As the first book's title, Refugee, suggests, Hubris starts out as a humble refugee from the moon Callisto, fleeing to Jupiter, where his family gets killed horribly. This starts him on his path towards becoming the "Tyrant of Jupiter."

The rag-tag fleet of humans:

And then there are plenty of stories in which a straggling mob of people flees from a disaster or massacre in space. Maybe the most critically acclaimed SF show right now — if not the most popular — is Battlestar Galactica, where the Cylons drive the humans out of their homeworld not once, but twice: on Caprica, and then on New Caprica. At the end of season three, Lee Adama makes a huge speech in which he says this has changed humanity from a civilization to a "gang," on the run and doing whatever it takes to survive.

Less organized rabbles also turn up, fleeing wars or political unrest, in books like C.J. Cherryh's Downbelow Station, where swarms of refugees pack into Pell Station in the wake of conflict between the Earth Company and outer stations. And a mob of refugees from a disaster that befalls the H9 colony swarms aboard a cruise ship, only to be exploited by the media, in Eric Idle's The Road To Mars. The TV show Babylon 5 is also full of refugee crises, like the people fleeing the Vorlon attack on Ventari III in "Falling Towards Apotheosis." (We also see a ship full of refugees under attack in the first regular episode, "Midnght On The Firing Line.")

Eco-refugees or disaster survivors on Earth:

Every eco-disaster narrative or post-apocalyptic story includes some kind of refugee motif, with people fleeing the destroyed cities or trying to find a safe haven. Like The Day After Tomorrow, The Postman, Waterworld, or Mad Max. Or Steven Gould's novel Blind Waves. The Martian attacks in War Of The Worlds spawn a huge fleet of refugee ships running away from the carnage. Islanders flee rising sea levels, only to drown or wind up in horrible refugee boat camps, in the 2002 young adult novel Exodus. And of course, there are tons of refugees from the collapsing nations of the world, seeking sanctuary in the U.K., in Children Of Men. Not to mention the Raft of refugees organized by telecommunications magnate L. Bob Rife in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash.

One of the most arresting moments in the TV show Jericho is when our heroes find the remains of a refugee train a mile wide, made by people fleeing the frozen north. The refugees have left their icy dead where they lay. (Not to mention the whole gaggle of refugees who settle in Jericho, only to face expulsion again.)

Survivalists:

And the survivalist narrative is a huge part of science fiction. Robert Heinlein not only wrote the novel Farnham's Freehold, about people surviving a nuclear war, but according to the source of all lies, he also wrote "How To Be A Survivor" and other essays on surviving nuclear war. Frederik Pohl deals with similar themes in his story "Fermi And Frost." Also, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle write about a group of survivors barricading themselves into a mountain retreat after a deadly comet strike, in Lucifer's Hammer. Plus there's The Survivors, the TV show Terry Nation made between his work on Doctor Who and Blake's 7 (which is also a refugee show, sort of.)

And then there are the narratives about people going on the run from repressive regimes. Like Logan's Run, where Logan flees the non-stop beautiful-people orgy where they kill you when you reach 30, in search of the mythical Sanctuary. (And in the Logan's Run TV series, he's just on the run, every week, with a rogue android. In Roger McBride Allen's The Ring Of Charon, Marcia MacDougal can only escape from the repressive Naked Purple movement, which has taken over a lunar penal colony, by being declared a refugee when her house burns down.

Fleeing from the future:

And finally there are refugees in time — sort of like the Doctor, except they're fleeing a particular oppressive future through time travel. Just type "refugee from the future" into Google (with the quotation marks) and you get a bunch of weird stories — including various X-Men who have journeyed back to our time to escape one of those Mutants-in-concentration-camps dystopian futures.

I feel as though I've just scratched the surface of science fiction's nearly endless store of refugees here — this post could be twice as long. But these seem to be the main types of refugees in science fiction, and I was somewhat surprised by how many of them I turned up when I started looking.

History is full of mass evacuations and displacements, and we've gotten pretty used to the sight of streams of humans struggling across an unforgiving landscape with whatever they can carry, trying to escape from something or other. But it seems pretty likely the 21st century will see more refugee crises than ever before, as the number of humans on the planet continues to skyrocket and there are more ecological disasters and wars over scarce resources. There will be more and more refugees — possibly including you.

And science fiction is uniquely suited to tell the stories of these fleeing people, because the stark reality of the refugee condition is so awful, we need metaphors to cover it. It's easier to think about people running away from an exploding planet than it is to think about grabbing what you can and running from your home before you get ethnically cleansed. A dollop of escapism — or, in the case of Superman, a truckload — helps us swallow the unthinkable.

Note: The illustration up top comes from Wagner James Au's New World Notes blog, from a report about a virtual "Camp Darfur" in Second Life, which was being vandalized by asswipes spouting racist slogans. So a team of Green Lanterns, most of them extraterrestrial, took it upon themselves to guard the site.

First of all, the scene between Eric Green and Phil Constantino left me wondering if the two of them really were going to join forces. And whether that would make a good premise for a Jericho season three. When it comes down to it, Constantino is sort of right: when you're fighting a war against an enemy with superior numbers, you can't afford to be squeamish about taking lives. Jake and Hawkins definitely don't have any qualms about killing some Cheyenne soldiers in the course of seizing the bomb. And if "the next American Civil War" starts between the Cheyenne and Columbus governments, it will definitely involve killing American soldiers.

The fact that Eric decides not to go for the all-out guerilla warfare against Beck's soldiers makes it much easier for Beck to change sides a little while later, and bring his men with him. For whatever reason, I didn't quite believe Beck's change of heart, even though it had been built up for weeks. It just didn't quite ring true for me. And I couldn't help wondering: if it were that easy to convince him, why didn't Hawkins show him those papers before? The whole thing seemed a bit too convenient an ending, but then again miraculous changes of heart are a staple of television.

The other thing I couldn't quite make myself believe was the ease with which Hawkins, Jake and Convenient Cannon-Fodder Guy captured the nuke, and then got it out of the Allied States' capital and into Texas. The mid-air rescue by Texan fighter jets just felt a bit too well-timed.

A lot of my qualms about the finale probably stem from the rushed nature of the season. It was exciting and fun while it was going on, but it just didn't quite have time to lay the groundwork for everything that happened last night. A lot of the stuff that felt as if it came out of nowhere would have seemed a lot more logical with a bit more setup.

On the plus side: It was great to see Gray Anderson again. I still love Major Beck and would give a kidney to see him join the revolution against Cheyenne. The scenes with Stanley and Mimi were way, way more moving than I'd expected. And I was glad Eric got to step up and be a leader. All in all, a pretty good episode despite feeling a bit forced in places.

Tonight is pretty empty, now that Sarah Connor, Kyle XY, Heroes and Chuck are all gone until fall. However, CBS has a new episode of nerd-com The Big Bang Theory at 8 PM. And Fox has a new New Amsterdam at 9 PM. Our immortal-ish detective investigates the death of a homeless man, and remembers joining a 12-step program in 1964.

Tuesday has the final episode of Jericho on CBS at 10, with things building to a (slightly contrived) climax. Jake and Hawkins make their way to Cheyenne to try and avert another nuclear holocaust. This show has grown from a slightly clunky soap opera to an irresistible thriller with a very science-fictional critique of a future corporate-dominated dystopia. Even if you haven't watched every episode lately, you should still catch the action-movie conclusion, which should be pretty easy to follow. Here's the first few minutes, to get you started. (Sorry about the streakiness and jerkiness, they were in the source video.)

Also on Tuesday, the History Channel has two repeats of The Universe at 8 and 9, dealing with unexplained mysteries and the rings of Saturn. And USA has K-PAX at 2 PM. Is Kevin Spacey an alien or a mental patient? Can't he be both? And Encore has Alien 3 at 3:05.

Wednesday sees a new Futureweapons on the Discovery Channel at 8 PM. This is actually the second episode to deal with Israel, and this time around we get to know the embattled country's missile shield, known as "Iron Fist." (But there's no weapon system called "Power Man," for some reason.)

And then at 10 PM, there's a new UFO Hunters on the History Channel, dealing with "UFO Vortexes." Similar to last week's focus on UFO Gateways, this is all about areas of the planet that seem to lend themselves to mysterious activity... like the Bermuda Triangle. And an astrophysicist suggests interdimensional travel using these vortexes (vortices?) may be "entirely possible" under Einstein's Theory of Relativity. It's pure science!

And the Sci Fi Channel has Sean Connery's classic Meteor at 3:00 AM Thursday morning.

Thursday's Smallville sees Clark finally learning how to fly, in preparation for his battle with Brainiac. And there's some kind of key thingy that leads to all sorts of Kryptonian secrets, and the wrong people have it. Here's the trailer:

Also, if you missed the acclaimed TV movie Rock Monster on the Sci Fi Channel this past weekend, you have another chance to catch it this Thursday at 9 PM. It's about a student, visiting Eastern Europe, who pulls a sword out of a stone — and then the stone goes on a murderous rampage. And yes, you're not alone in making a silly B-52s song out of the title. But if you'd rather stick with something you already know is good, FX is showing X2: X-Men United starting at 8 PM.

FX has the 2002 remake of Solaris, with George Clooney, at 10 AM. Ditch work and join the select club of people who appreciate the Soderbergh revamp.

Friday, two new half-hour specials about Battlestar Galactica are airing on the Sci FI Channel at 10 PM. Battlestar Galactica: Revealed is a clip show that retells the first few seasons of the show. And Battlestar Galactica: The Phenomenon is a fluffy look at how much celebrities like Seth Green and Joss Whedon adore the show. If you can't wait until Friday, both shows appear to be on Youtube and various other video sites in their entirety already. Here's a chunk of celebrity BSG love:

Also, Encore has the wetter of Kevin Costner's two post-apocalyptic loner movies, Waterworld, at 2:30.

Saturday morning, the CW has the penultimate episode of Legion of Super Heroes at 9:30 AM, followed by Spectacular Spider-Man at 10. LSH's episode is part 1 of "Dark Victory," featuring Imperiex (who I think was a Superman villain in the comics.) Part 2 airs next week. Meanwhile, Spider-Man meets Flint Marko, who becomes the Sandman, probably with worse special effects and better pacing than Spider-Man 3. And then at 10:30, there's a new Transformers: Animated. The Decepticons begin their invasion of Earth, and Optimus Prime worries that he's not a great leader. Aww.

And then at 9 PM, BBC America has a new (to Americans) Torchwood. It's the absolutely horrible one about the evil circus performers who get trapped inside an old movie from the 1920s. I don't know how to convince you to stay away from this one. This isn't just random Torchwood bashing — this episode is like three weird old Roger Corman movies mashed up, with the Torchwood stars heads randomly stuck on some of the characters. Actually, when I describe it that way, it sounds kind of great. But sadly, it tries a bit too hard to be serious, and ends up being awful and boring. I feel like I have a holy duty to keep you from watching this episode.

Luckily, there are many other options around that time. IFC is showing Austin Powers twice in one evening, at 5:30 and 10:45. Sci Fi is showing the first two Resident Evil movies back-to-back. TBS has Jackie Chan's vastly underrated Tuxedo at 8, followed by Spider-Man at 10. (Okay, The Tuxedo isn't that great. But it's got a few great bits, including the weird James Brown sequence.)

Sunday, Comedy Central is re-running the Futurama movie "Bender's Big Score," if you were too cheap to buy the DVD. That's at 7 PM. And Disney Toon has a random episode of Superman: The Animated Series at 10:30. That's all I can come up with, unless you think there's some kind of brain-eating virus involved in all those women desiring Brett on Rock of Love.

The other thing that was really nice about that scene was the fact that it showcased something Jericho had been missing for a while: the focus on the Greens as a troubled, but caring, family. Not only did we see Jake's mom for the first time this season (and she got to kick major butt, slipping a message to Jake and then giving directions to his prison despite having been blindfolded) but we also saw Jake's grandfather, in some hallucinatory sequences. And then Major Beck ties it all together nicely with his "what would Gerald McRaney do" speech, in our clip. I often stop and wonder what Gerald McRaney would do, when faced with a dilemma.

Anyway, once again, we got a sense that Jake's family is at the center of the story, and he has a legacy to live up to. If only Eric had gotten more than two lines last night, it might have felt like old times.

All of the scenes of Jake talking about revolution were stirring, especially the weird "East India Tea Company" moment with grandpa Green. Jericho has been trying a tough balancing act this season: the micro-story of Jericho dealing with the new government and the thugs from Ravenwood, and the macro-story of Hawkins trying to expose the coverup. It's always a tough balance, because Hawkins' story is so much more important, in the grand scheme of things, and yet the Jericho story is the one we really care about. Ideally, the Jericho story should help us understand why Hawkins' mission is so important, because he can't let the corporate bastards who bombed American cities win.

But that's where we get to the plot twist that didn't quite ring true for me. I'd been assuming the mysterious voice on Hawkins' phone was not really an ally, so I was happy to be proved right. But the idea that the mad bomber behind the "September attacks" was actually trying to destroy Jennings & Rall made no sense to me. Especially since he could have predicted it would do the opposite, putting J&R completely in charge. The revelation came out of nowhere and seemed a bit forced.

And then the bomber's threat, to destroy the Cheyenne government, seemed even more contrived. I just couldn't quite buy it. It felt as though the writers were grasping for something that would amp the crisis level to maximum in the final episode, but it was a bit of a stretch. We know this bomber is someone associated with J&R, so why is he so desperate to destroy them anyway? (I heard the explanation, I just didn't quite believe it.) And if 23 bombs didn't work last time, what makes him think one more will? This was the first time that Jericho's rushed pace made me feel as though the show was just taking wild leaps to get to its conclusion.

Also, I'm having a hard time seeing how the show will balance its micro and macro stories in the final episode of the season (or ever.) With Jake going off with Hawkins to stop the bomb, we're losing our main viewpoint character on the town's struggles. Will the town of Jericho be left out of the show that bears its name? Or are we finally going to see Major Beck coming around and rebelling against his paymasters? Either way, I'm still cautiously optimistic for next week.

One other note: I couldn't help noticing that the episode was sponsored by Sprint. And Hawkins' secret secure spy phone had the Sprint logo very very prominently displayed. Good to see product placement will continue long after our country is ashes.

Tonight is the season finale of Kyle XY on ABC Family at 8. It's all about the senior prom, which looks chock full of heartwarming, judging from the trailers I've seen. At the same time, this show about a superpowered teen mutant has done a really great job of keeping a sinister undercurrent lately, and Kyle's female counterpart Jessi just gets more and more entertainingly psycho. So if you haven't checked it out yet, you may want to grab your last chance tonight. After all, the episode will also teach us that looking forward to your prom too much will turn you gay:

Also, the History Channel has a new Modern Marvels, about whiskey, at 8 PM. (Not really very science fictional, but maybe the whiskey is sentient?) And then a new Cities of the Underworld at 9 PM.

And Encore is showing Mission To Mars at 9:45, just in case you want to relive Gary Sinise's life-changing encounter with a cheesy CGI alien.

Tuesday night has the next-to-last episode of Jericho season two, on ABC at 10 PM. Sadly, this is looking more and more like the next-to-last episode of Jericho, period, unless the Sci Fi Channel decides Jericho is a better investment than another season of Ghost Hunters. As you'd expect, Major Beck is not terribly happy about the drastic actions that Stanley took at the end of the previous episode, and he's not willing to blame everything on New Bern. Here are the first five minutes of the episode. (I apologize for the streaky video, this is the best source I could find.)

Also, the History Channel has a rerun of The Universe, all about the possibility of life on Mars.

And Encore has back-to-back Aliens and Waterworld, starting at 11:40 AM.

And at 2:10 AM Wednesday morning, Encore has Ultraviolet, the second-best movie featuring Gun-Kata. (The first being director Kurt Wimmer's Equilibrium, of course.)

Wednesday, the Discovery Channel has a new Futureweapons, "Hard Target." Subjects include new inflatable armor, shoulder-fired grenades, and the A-10 Thunderbolt II attack plane. Good times! And at 10, the History Channel has a new UFO Hunters, "UFO Gateways." The Hudson Valley in New York has hosted more than its fair share of UFO sightings — could this area be an interstellar gateway, used to travel across time and space, or even between dimensions? Another possible gateway area is Sedona, Arizona.

And at 10:10, Encore has Alien 3, while FX shows Batman Begins at 5, followed by The Core at 8 and 11.

Thursday there's a new Smallville on The CW at 8. Lionel Luthor has Clark abducted, and there's some crazy prophecy about how The Traveler will change the Earth for ever. But the main reason to watch this episode is to see just how crazy Chief Tyrol has gone since a certain revelation at the end of Battlestar Galactica season three. Here's a clip:

And then there's a new Lost, on ABC at 9, where we find out what Michael's been up to all this time. And Ben tries to convince Alex to flee the Others' camp before a coming assault. We posted a couple of preview clips the other day, and here's the episode's promo:

As for movies, at 12:15 Friday morning, AMC has The Thing

Friday is pretty slow, except for a bunch of Stargate reruns on Sci Fi. Also, at 1 PM, USA has Timecop, the greatest time-traveling Jean Claude Van Damme movie ever.

And at midnight, A&E has The Matrix, while Encore has 12 Monkeys. Try flipping back and forth between the two movies to create a single, crazy-paranoid narrative where nothing is real. And at 1:30 Saturday morning, TBS has Mars Attacks!, followed by Eight-Legged Freaks at 3:45.

Saturday morning, The CW has Legion of Superheroes followed by Spectacular Spider-man (featuring the debut of the Lizard), starting at 9:30.

And then at 9 PM, there's a new Torchwood on BBC America. It's Gwen's wedding day, but unfortunately, she's got a little surprise on the way. Zany wedding-pregnancy action, plus creepy monsters. You can read our recap of the episode here.

Sunday has the first hour of the broadcast premiere of Futurama: Bender's Big Score, in case you didn't already get the DVD. That's on Comedy Central at 8.

The dark secret of Quintet is that it's sort of a crappy game. Here Newman is, having lost his entire family to the postapocalyptic Rottweilers and stab-happy Quintet players, and he's finally killed his last opponent in the game. And it only now occurs to him to find out what the prize is. Which is, basically, bragging rights. You get to hang around the crappy parlor with the guy in the zany felt hat and talk about all the people you scragged. I would at least want a sticker, or maybe a slice of blueberry pie. With whipped cream.

So I guess it makes sense to get Goetz out of the way before the show's final two episodes, sort of like a movie polishing off the small baddie before we get to the big monster in the end. And once again, the cute girl is the one who turns out to have the stomach to do what's necessary. I wonder if the Ravenwood soldiers knew they were leaving Goetz and his buddies to die by stranding them like that. And then the whole sequence where the New Bern and Jericho guys argue over custody of Goetz until Stanley just walks up and pops him, is pretty classic. The wish-fulfillment overload comes somewhere around that time, and peaks when you see his desecrated corpse hanging over the front gate of New Bern.

He really did deserve it, though.

Hawkins' awfully convenient informant turns out to be even more convenient than usual in this episode, and then reconstructing the evidence of Goetz's misdeeds and getting it to the right person also seems to be a surprising snap. Most of all, though, the episode required Goetz to be kind of stupid — which I can accept, since his character was always portrayed as a bit of a moron. Why would he even want to embezzle newfangled paper money when he could take whatever goods and services he wanted?

Once again, the episode raised some fun questions about the legitimacy of government. Goetz is just a rampaging psycho with some military hardware when we first meet him in season one. And then in season two, he's suddenly the law, with the full force of the new government behind him. Until he screws up, when he goes back to being just a random psycho, except without quite so much hardware this time. It only takes a little pilfering, or a $10,000 sex worker, and your legitimacy goes poof.

So next week it seems like things will crank into top gear on the main conspiracy plot, and Beck will finally stop being such a softie. But I'll be sorely disappointed if there isn't some kind of surprise regarding Hawkins' miracle helper.

Monday night now has a Sarah Connor-shaped hole. (And a Heroes-shaped hole, and (sigh) a Journeyman-shaped hole too.) But there's still Kyle XY on ABC Family at 8, for another couple of weeks, and I'm going to explain to why this show is way better than you give it credit for. For one thing, it does the teen-with-superpowers thing better than any show since Buffy. And you can tell the characters care about each other. Plus, even though it's supposedly family friendly, it actually gets pretty raunchy, as in one recent episode where Kyle's stepsister Lori had to deal with her ex-boyfriend wanting to still have the occasional booty call. And this season features a female version of Kyle named Jessi XX, who is crazy and sadistic. Last week, she made Kyle's stepbrother do pushups with an evil leer on her face. But mostly, you should watch for Ally Sheedy, who just started playing Jessi's mom. We featured an awesome clip of Ally in action the other day. Ally Sheedy! I would watch her in anything.

Also today, the Sci Fi Channel is showing a marathon of the underrated show Odyssey 5 all afternoon. Probably right now, as you read this. Ditch work and go home to check it out. It features a car in space. And it did mental time-travel long before Lost.

And FX is showing The Day After Tomorrow at 5:30 PM, in case you saw 10,000 B.C. and want another hit of Emmercrack right away. And there's a new episode of Modern Marvels called "Strange Weapons" on the History Channel at 8 PM. Strange weapons are definitely the best kind.

Tuesday, there's a new episode of post-apocalyptic drama Jericho on CBS at 10 PM. As you can see from the five-minute preview clip below, it picks up right where last week's shocking episode left off. The military contractors that were put in charge of running the plucky town that survived a nuclear attack are openly treating Kansas like Iraq now, and acting as though they're above the law. It's hard to believe there are only two more episodes left after this one — and they may be the last, unless you can convince a few million people to tune in. Check out the first five minutes of the episode, and then start bugging your friends:

Right before Jericho, there's a new episode of The Universe on the History Channel at 9 PM. It's called "Colonizing Space," and it sounds pretty fucking trippy. It explains how we will grow food on Mars, and how we will recycle wastewater (read: drink our own pee) and introduce greenhouse gases to "revive" the red planet. It sounds totally demented, and I bet there will be CGI animations showing how greenhouse gases will make Mars semi-terraformed.

Also on Tuesday/Wednesday at midnight, there's Cherry 2000 on Encore. Robot sex, plus Melanie Griffith doing Mad Max. Come on, you know that's better than sleeping.

Wednesday, ABC Family is showing Pleasantville, which is sort of slipstream, except it's not all that great. But it does feature Joan Allen masturbating and causing a nearby tree to spontaneously combust. Plus Reese Witherspoon is the school slut! (Somehow I doubt ABC Family will show this film uncut.) There's also a rerun of UFO Hunters on History at 10 PM.

Thursday at 8, there's a new Smallville on The CW. The show's back after a brief hiatus, and Pete Ross returns for a guest appearance. Remember him? Clark's best friend? And now he's got superpowers from — I wish I was kidding about this — meteor-laced chewing gum. It's that extra flavor stripe that gives you the power to stretch and sort of teleport your hands, apparently. Actually, I'm not clear on what Pete's superpower is, but it seems to involve a weird noise. Here's an unfinished preview clip from the episode:

And then at 9, there's a new Lost on ABC. If you average out the quality of "The Constant" and "The Other Woman," you get a pretty good couple of episodes. In general, the consensus seems to be that the show's improved a lot this season. And this week, you get to find out who the last two members of the Oceanic Six are (which should surprise nobody.) We also deal more with that "pregnant women die on the island" thing, which always weirds me out. Here's the trailer for the episode, and check out the two preview clips we posted on Friday:

Or if you're over Smallville and Lost, you can watch 12 Monkeys on Encore at 8, and daydream about the days when Terry Gilliam was still great.

Thursday/Friday at 3:00 AM, there's a TV movie called Alien Abduction on Sci Fi. A woman gets abducted by aliens and then winds up in a mental institution. Where the quality of the anal probes is much lower.

Friday night, there's a rerun of a House episode about a boy who claims that he's been abducted by aliens, and he has a tracking device in his neck. Is he right? Are alien abductions going to become part of the ongoing storylines in the hospital? I won't give away the twist ending, but someone on IMDB calls this the "worst House episode ever." Based on the full synopsis, the episode is definitely science fiction in any case.

Also, the Disney Channel has Sky High at 8 PM. Sci Fi has a couple of Stargate: Atlantis reruns at 9 and 10, and Encore has the original Alien at 9:50.

Saturday, there's a new Torchwood at 6 and 9 on BBC America. I'm not sure which episode we're up to in America, but it scarcely matters. The major character who died a while back is still dead, and angsting about it. That goes on for about three episodes in a row, and you may not actually be able to tell them apart even while watching them. Here are our recaps of the most recent episodes. Actually, Torchwood was doing a lot better for a while there, and the main reason to keep watching is to hope it pulls back up again.

Also, on Saturday morning, there's back-to-back Legion of Superheroes and Spectacular Spider-Man, starting at 9:30 AM on The CW. And then at 1 PM, The CW is showing Solaris, the Soderbergh/Clooney remake. At 3:10 on TMC, there's Free Enterprise, the weird movie about Star Trek fans that helped turn William Shatner into the self-mocking figure he is today. And Disney has The Incredibles at 9 PM.

Sunday evening, G4 is showing a bunch of reruns of Wired For Sex, which is worth checking out if you haven't seen it. Find out about that whole cybersex thing the kids are into.

• The new 3-D Tron movie, due in 2011, will definitely be a sequel, not a reboot or revamp, sources tell io9.
• Next week's Lost, featuring Jin and Sun, will redefine the flash-forward/flash-back device once again, and you won't be able to figure it out until the end. And here are two advance clips from the episode. [SpoilersLost]
• Another huge batch of Doctor Who spoilers, this time from Doctor Who Magazine, confirm a lot of our spoilers from yesterday. As you may have gathered, that old newspaper seller from the Christmas special will be back as Donna's friend (uncle?), and we also meet Donna's mom. In the second episode, set in ancient Pompeii, there are rock monsters. In the Sontaran episode, their leader is General Staal. [Angel Fire East]
• The March 27 episode of Smallville will borrow from Lost and feature flashbacks, this time to the era when Lionel Luthor, the Teagues, the Queens and Swann were all working together, in the 1980s. We'll see Robert Queen, Young Oliver Queen and Young Patricia Swann. Genevieve Teague will appear, but Jane Seymour won't play her. The headline we saw back in Smallville's first episode, about the CEO of Queen Industries going missing, will factor into this. Chloe will confront Lionel about his true motivations, and so will Lex and Lois. Also, Brainiac is back, and he's got Kara. The episode, which was designed as a possible season finale (thanks to the writers' strike) but actually isn't one, will explore the Smallville mythos in detail. After this episode, nothing will be the same again! Except for all the things that will be the same. Here are some promo pics from the episode. [Operation Save Clark Kent]
• The ninth episode of Stargate: Atlantis season five is called "The Queen." [Spoiler TV]
• Next week's Jericho follows straight on from this week's shock ending. Mimi is in the hospital, and Aasif Mandvi from The Daily Show is frantically operating to save her life. But Jake and his men have to protect her from Goetz, who wants to silence her any way he can. So Jake and his Rangers wind up barricaded in the hospital. And then the following week, Major Beck finally decides to prove he's not a total push-over, taking extreme measures to regain control over Jericho. And Chavez contacts Hawkins to let him know it's finally time to move the bomb. And here are some promo pics. [Remote Access]