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It's pretty much impossible to discuss fictional archaeologists without talking about Indiana Jones, but until a year ago he arguably wouldn't have belonged on this list. If nothing else - and I'm pretty sure that that film didn't accomplish anything else - Kingdom of the Crystal Skull firmly ensconced Indy in the realm of science fiction. Which is probably a good thing, considering Dr. Jones is generally considered the quintessential fictional archaeologist, the iconic representative of everything alluring about the discipline - solving history's mysteries, going on exotic adventures, stealing priceless cultural artifacts...it's all there! That said, Indy can't really be considered the preeminent archaeologist in science fiction.

That title would probably have to go to Stargate's Daniel Jackson, who in his various incarnations headlined both the original movie and a decade's worth of television, making him arguably the most prominent archaeologist in all of science fiction. As a nice bonus, he even occasionally bordered on being a vaguely realistic depiction of an actual archaeologist, particularly when he used his linguistic know-how in the original movie to decipher the language on the other side of the Stargate. And honestly, who can resist the oddball charm of James Spader?

There are plenty more scifi archaeologists; in fact, far more than any one list can hope to capture. But here's a rundown of some of the most notable.

Doctor Who

Despite his stated policy of pointing and laughing at archaeologists, the Doctor does seem to spend a lot of time with them. If I had to guess, it's probably because nothing beats an archaeologist when you need to accidentally release an ancient evil. There's Professor Parry and his assistant Viner from the Patrick Troughton classic The Tomb of the Cybermen – I think you can guess which bunch of monsters they awaken (hint: it's not the Daleks). But nobody beats Marcus Scarman in Pyramids of Mars when it comes to unleashing evil; he lasts for maybe thirty seconds of episode one before the all-powerful alien Sutekh murders and possesses him.

The new series has only introduced one archaeologist, but Professor River Song is fairly important, what with her being the Doctor's wife and all (or not…I'm still not completely clear on that point). Still, she's not the first such scientist to play a major role in the Doctor's life – that honor goes to Professor Bernice "Benny" Summerfield, a hard-drinking, wise-cracking archaeologist from the 26th century. Originally created by new series scribe Paul Cornell in his novel Love and War, she both accompanied the seventh Doctor and had her own adventures in a horde of novels and audios.

Star Trek

Jean-Luc Picard was a huge archaeology buff, studying under the preeminent archaeologist of the 24th century, Richard Galen. He was even entrusted with completing Galen's final project, which revealed…well, I think I've dealt with that before. Picard also romanced the ethically dubious Vash, who was really more of a looter with a diploma than anything else.

Captain Kirk, on the other hand, showed no particular interest in the field. It probably didn't help that every archaeologist he ever encountered was a crazed degenerate with woman issues, whether it was Robert Crater in "The Man Trap" or Roger Korby in "What are Little Girls Made of?" It's almost as though the Federation's apparent policy of stranding one or two people on an uninhabited planet for years at a time to dig through the remains of a dead civilization was somehow flawed.

DC Comics

Want to become a superhero without all the hassle of locking yourself inside a nuclear reactor? Archaeology might just be the career for you! It's actually unclear whether there are any ancient idols in the DC Universe that won't give you superpowers. There's Carter Hall, who upon touching a stone knife remembered his past life as Prince Khufu and so becomes Hawkman. Rex Mason became Metamorpho when he was exposed to the radioactive Orb of Ra. The Silver Age Blue Beetle*, Dan Garrett, discovered the mystical scarab that gave him his powers during an excavation in Egypt. Adventurer Adam Strange was engaged in some archaeological work when the Zeta Beam transported him to the planet Rann. Sven Nelson died shortly after uncovering the Tomb of Nabu, but his son Kent would be trained by Nabu's spirit to become Doctor Fate. Oh, and the Tim "Robin" Drake's dad Jack was an archaeologist as well, but he somehow managed to never get any superpowers out of the deal.

*OK, technically a Charlton, not DC, character. But you get the idea.

Revelation Space, by Alastair Reynolds

In his 2000 novel, Reynolds follows Daniel Sylveste as his excavations on the planet Resurgam reveal newfound details about the long-dead Amarantin civilization. From this starting point, Reynolds weaves a tale of cyborgs, assassins, cosmic mysteries, and antimatter implants, all of which sounds pretty awesome. It's almost enough for me to forgive him for not knowing how to spell "Alasdair." Almost.

Isaac Asimov

Archaeology forms a pretty big part of my second favorite Asimov book, the criminally underrated Pebble in the Sky. The Sirius-born Bel Arvadan comes to the primitive backwater known as Earth in the hopes of evaluating the local claims that humanity originated there. Naturally, he gets a bit distracted by a plot to wipe out all of humanity and never does get round to doing any excavating. Which is why Foundation, set millennia later, finds the foppish Lord Dorwin blathering on about some very promising leads regarding humanity's origins recently discovered in the Arcturus system. For obvious reasons, this line of inquiry doesn't pan out, and shortly thereafter galactic civilization pretty much collapses, which I'm guessing led to some serious budget crunches in a galaxy's worth of archaeology departments.

Babylon 5

Ian McShane took some valuable time out from being a total badass to play Dr. Robert Bryson in the B5 television movie The River of Souls. Dr. Bryson brings an orb on board Babylon 5 that apparently contains a billion tortured souls. For some reason, the orb holds the secret to immortality. Either way, this is a serious enough situation that Martin Sheen shows up as a Soul Hunter to demand the orb be returned to him. This eventually happens, but not before Dr. Bryson and the billion souls team up for some serious havoc-wreaking.

"Omnilingual", by H. Beam Piper

This 1957 short story centers on the efforts of an archaeological team to decipher the language of an ancient Martian civilization, a task that at first seems all but impossible. They eventually figure out a road to decipherment with the discovery of some linguistic common ground: the periodic table of elements.

Saga of Seven Suns, by Kevin Anderson

The husband-and-wife xenoarchaeological team of Louis and Margaret Colicos accidentally set off Anderson's seven-book battle royale of elemental forces when they discover ancient technology that can turn gas planets into stars. This is great news for lovers of solar energy, but bad news for the super-intelligent, all-powerful aliens that live on gas planets (it's also bad news for people who don't want to be wiped out by super-intelligent, all-powerful aliens). Not the greatest advertisement for archaeology I've ever heard, really.

Futurama

I'm fairly sure we've yet to see any actual archaeologists on Futurama. If I had to guess, they're probably hiding out of shame at the general terribleness of their work.

Mystery Science Theater 3000

Speaking of shame, the wonderfully, horribly Canadian MST3K entry The Final Sacrifice probably involved archaeology. The film isn't really coherent enough for me to speak with certainty, but I believe the father of hero person with the most lines Troy McGreggor got killed by an evil cult because he was investigating the ancient Ziox civilization. Although, on second thought, I think Crow and Servo clearly established Troy's father was really Miami Dolphins great Larry Csonka, who is not generally considered an archaeologist. Not yet, anyway.

There are plenty more, of course. Who are some of the biggest ones I missed?

Hulu:
Hulu's Hulloween special section has load of movies to tantalize your horror needs including, 28 Days Later, Night Of The Living Dead, Christine, Near Dark (my favorite horror flick of all times), The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror and lots more. Unfortunately many people can't view Hulu, so we're offering up other options. But while it's there please enjoy John Carpenter's The Thing:

The Thing:

Ez Takes:
EZ Takes has a fantastic collection of the really good old horror/scifi films. You can download a high res copy for a price or just stream the whole thing from the site. It's got all the classic like The Ape Man, White Zombie,and Human Monster (with Bella Lugosi)

The Sci Fi Drive In:
The Sci Fi Channel offers up a fair selection of classic horror black and whites such as The Killer Shrews, Menace From Outer Space, The Mad Monsters, The Attack Of Giant Leeches and other large attacking thingies to fear.
 
 
 

Teen Angst And Treats on The WB:
Yay it's the "Halloween Special" episodes of Buffy, One Tree Hill and Friends. Sure not scifi but still everyone looks forward to the Halloween special ten times more than the Thanksgiving clip show.

ABC Family:
In true Family style ABC Family is hosting the entire first season of The Adams Family. Plus The Joan Collins in Empire Of The Ants where Ms. Collins plays a scam artist real estate agent in Florida selling people crap land that they all later find out is home to giant ants!

Fearnet:
Besides their adorable 66.6 second film recaps of all the horror classics (from Jason to Candyman) they're also hosting The Midnight Meat Train in its entirety.

Here's Night of The Living Dead in 66.6 Seconds:

Thriller:
And of course would it be Halloween with out a little Thriller? We couldn't embed the whole thing but you can check out the entire Michael Jackson Zombie dance over at yyoutube.e. And until we can find it as a whole to embed, please enjoy Indian Thriller:

Indian Thriller:

Google Video:
Google Video is stocked with so many horror classics which we decided to just give you the best straight up.

Phantasm [Some NSFW]:

Plan 9 From Outer Space:
 
 
 
 
 
And Just For Fun Here's A Little MST3K And Some Rocky Horror:

MST3K Pod People:

Hobgoblins (Because It's My Top 5 MST3K)
 
 
Rocky Horror Picture Show:

Free TV : Ustream

Basically iRiff is just a way of letting you submit your own work into Rifftrax. There is a step-by-step guide on the site explaining how to create your on commentary, and you submit it to iRiff. If your commentary is selected by RiffTrax, it'll be sold online, on a revenue sharing basis. We should start seeing the new commentary in October.

Alien

Star Wars Episode II With Chad Vader!

[iRiffs via Wired]

It's really hard to tell. It sounds as though Dave just got swept under the carpet. All the Eddie buzz this week is about whether he's quitting movies for good. (Answer: No, he isn't.) And whether Beverly Hills Cop 4 will be R-rated. I have to admit, the trailer for Dave left me a tad underwhelmed, and the few early reviews are not encouraging. Says Westside Today:

Meet Dave is, sadly, not [worth watching]. The Naked Cowboy's cameo is funnier than the rest of the movie, and that's downright tragic.

Still, Murphy's last collaboration with Dave director Brian Robbins, Norbit, made $96 million domestically. And Murphy has already re-teamed with Robbins for a third film, called A Thousand Words. Due in 2009, it's the story of a blase guy (Murphy) who learns that he'll die as soon as he finishes saying a thousand words. So, I guess, he has to be very, very laconic.

A bunch of scientists at New York University made their test subjects watch several movies while recording their brain patterns with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI - basically like stop-motion MRI). We checked, and none of the scientists was named Dr. Clayton Forrester or TV's Frank. In any case, the subjects watched a Hitchcock movie, a portion of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm." They also watched unedited footage of a concert in a park as a control.

The results showed that the brain patterns of subjects watching a "good" movie (Hitchcock) were remarkably similar - 65 percent similar, in fact. The number diminished slightly with The Good, the Bad and the Ugly , and further for the sitcom, with similarity bottoming out with the raw footage (around 5 percent). The researchers did not test the subjects with Monster A Go-Go or Star Force: Fugitive Alien II, but then they probably wouldn't have been able to get informed consent. Image by: 20th Century Fox.

Film Content, Editing, And Directing Style Affect Brain Activity, Neuroscientists Show. [Science Daily]

Killers From Space is pretty much the zaniest classic scifi movie not to be subject to MST3K treatment. Directed by W. Lee Wilder, brother of Billy Wilder, it features aliens who kidnap a U.S. scientist and brainwash him into helping with their invasion plans. But then he regains control over his faculties after this whole truth serum incident, and manages to destroy the aliens by disrupting their power supply. You can watch the whole thing online for free at the Prelinger Archive. [Archive.org]

First, some basics.

A few signs of a bad movie

• Sunglasses in the poster. If human adults are wearing them, it's bad. If babies or animals are wearing them, it's worse. If adults are looking over the top of the sunglasses, it's horrendous. If a baby or animal is looking over the top, it's a sign of the apocalypse.
  
• If someone falls into a swimming pool.
  
• If there's a hot-air ballon. (Quoth Roger Ebert: "Good movies rarely contain a hot-air balloon.")
  
• If Hayden Christensen is involved.
  
• If it's too awful before the opening credits end.
  
• If it takes place in Venice Beach. Very few good movies were shot there.
  
• If the product placement's written in the script: for example, when the Transformers talk about Nokia phones.
  
• It has the following credits: "Directed by Richard Benjamin,"or "Jamie Kennedy is..." or "Based on the screenplay by Gore Vidal"

If your movie is beginning to look bad, there is only one thing you can do to stop the madness. You must loudly and insistently comment on it, sharing your feelings with your fellow oppressed audience members. Improvising is encouraged, but here are a few basic guidelines.

How to Make Fun of a Bad Movie

• A human or any other animal skull shown with its jaw open should always be singing opera.
  
• Bizarre camera angles should be mentioned and explained. For instance, a camera shot from the ground looking up may be the "Amy Winehouse cam."
  
• If a movie is playing on a teevee screen (it's often something like "Casablanca," or "It's a Wonderful Life" for xmas movies), remember to state the cardinal rule: "Never reference a good movie inside your bad one."
  
• Identify all actors who even remotely or insultingly look like the popular celebrities the film could never afford. Bonus points if it's a relative like Don Swayze or Joe Estevez.
  
• When a character spouts exposition, be sure to think them.
  
• The more recent a death, the funnier the joke. Heath Ledger jokes are currently hilarious. If someone makes a joke about, say, the Kennedy or Lincoln assassinations, chide them: "Too soon!" 9/11 jokes, however, will never go out of style.
  
• Always answer rhetorical questions. The characters wouldn't have asked if they didn't want you, the audience, to respond.
  
• When a scene is really insistently horrible, make a lucid comment about the color of the room or the billboard in the background.
  
• When the movie makes the entire audience squirm simultaneously in silence, it never hurts to announce, "This film hates me."
  
• Any shot of sand or a desert is worth at least one "The worm is the spice! The spice is the worm!" Except during Dune.
  
• Don't be afraid to make the obvious joke; most often it is the joke everyone wanted to make but were to drunk to form the words.
  
• Boobs instantly make any movie the "BEST MOVIE EVER!" Temporarily.
  
• The brother is always the Nth to die. The brother is always the Nth to do ANYTHING. ("Why is the brother always the third to get on the plane during pre-boarding? This movie is so racist!")
  
• When the picture lacks detail for whatever reason—and especially if it's intentional—holler at the tech to "Focus!"
  
• Inside jokes are encouraged. If you make a joke that only one other person gets, it's even better if that one other person isn't in the room.
  
• Also, explaining a joke at length makes it funner, especially if the audience didn't laugh in the first place.
  
• If preshow entertainment is required, your best bet is The ABC of Sex Education for Trainables. This is especially helpful for so called "erotic" movies like Cyberella.
  
• If a woman is running: "Boing Boing Boing Boing Boing Boing Boing Boing Boing Boing Boing Boing Boing Boing Boing." Why? Sheena!
  
• Tears are not tears. They are face pee.
  
• If you refer to someone as the lost Baldwin brother, name him Gummo Baldwin.
  
• Whenever Shatner speaks Esperanto, everyone has to take a drink.

* Mike Spiegelman, Phil Darnowsky, Geekboy, Mikl-Em, Maura Spilia, Jim Fourniadis, Alexia Staniotes and Rhiannon Charisse

SPECIAL NOTE: io9 does not advise that you try this in a theater full of people who have not consented to hear you yell things. If you choose to try this technique with a non-consenting audience, we do not take responsibility for you getting punched or having pop dumped on your head.

• My Favorite Martian: This series premiered in 1963 and starred Bill Bixby in his pre-Hulk days as a hapless human who takes in a Martian who crash-lands his spaceship near Los Angeles. He passes him off as his Uncle Martin, who proceeds to do wacky things with his Martian powers, much like Jeannie or Samantha would do with their magic. It's vintage 1960s-era television sitcom material and worth seeking out on DVD or watching on YouTube. Just ignore the horrible feature film version they made in 1999 with Christopher Lloyd, Jeff Daniels, and Elizabeth Hurley.

• 
  
• Spaceballs: Mel Brooks lampooned Star Wars and a slew of other science fiction films in this 1987 movie that gave us quotes like "I see your schwartz is just as big as mine" and "Prepare ship for ludicrous speed!" Once you've seen this, it's hard to picture John Candy wearing anything except a giant furry dog suit. 20 years later, it's starting to show its age just a bit, but it's still a classic.

• 
  
• Red Dwarf: This British series about the last human being in the universe and his annoying holographic shipmate was one of the best things the BBC gave us, after Doctor Who. After an accident kills everyone onboard the Red Dwarf except for technician Dave Lister, the computer keeps him in suspended animation until the radiation dies down some three million years later. The computer also brings his former bunkmate and boss Arnold Rimmer to life as a hologram to keep him company.

• 
  
• Weird Science: in 1985 Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith used science, computers, and wore bras on their heads in an effort to create the perfect woman. They end up with Kelly LeBrock, who helps them change from nerds to studs with her pseudo-magic "science powers." It's vintage John Hughes moviemaking that tried to build on the success of the previous year's Revenge of the Nerds, and succeeded. Except it gave birth to a terrible television series.

• Mork & Mindy: This Happy Days spinoff appeared in 1978 and helped propel Robin Williams to stardom by letting him improv most of his scenes as a wacky alien from Ork. Mork reported back to his boss Orson at the end of every episode, telling him what he'd learned that day on Earth, which usually involved something happening with Mindy. They eventually got married and had Jonathan Winters as a baby. No kidding. I still have my Mork from Ork action figure, complete with egg-shaped space capsule.

• 
  
• The Ice Pirates: This 1984 movie starred Robert Urich as the heroic Jason in search of the universe's most precious commodity: water. They spoof other science fiction films while hamming it up in b-movie style. You can also catch Anjelica Huston and Ron Perlman in this thing if you don't blink.

• 
  
• Galaxy Quest: Hands down the best send-up of the Star Trek franchise and its fans. In the flick, Galaxy Quest is a canceled television show that lives on through fan conventions and autographs signings. Tim Allen parodies William Shatner excellently, but it's Tony Shalhoub steals most of the scenes he's in as the fumbling head of engineering.

• 
  
• Mystery Science Theater 3000: This show made comedy out of making fun of movies and television shows that tried to be serious. Broadcast for the Satellite of Love, lone human being Joel and his two robot friends Tom Servo and Crow offered up alternative commentary on the shows that mad scientist Dr. Forrester would beam up to them. It spawned a feature film and two new alternative movie commentary programs, Cinematic Titanic and RiffTrax, both from MST3K former cast members Joel and Mike.

• 
  
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: This series has been a radio series, a book, a television series, a computer game, a comic book, and a feature film. In it, lone Earthman Arthur Dent finds himself hitchhiking through the galaxy with a writer for The Hitchhiker's Guide after the Earth gets blown up. Although the effects aren't that stellar (thanks BBC), I actually prefer the television version to the movie. If that means I have to turn in my offical geek card, so be it.

Apparently he's been fairly busy, having served as a writer and performer on Sabrina, The Teeange Witch and the brilliant but canceled Invader Zim on Nickelodeon. But fear not, because he'll be rejoining MST3K cast members Joel Hogsdon, Trace "Crow " Beaulieu, J. Elvis "Tom Servo" Weinstein, and Mary Jo Pehl for "Cinematic Titanic," which sounds like a lot like MST3K Version 2.0, minus the robots and the mads.