This week, we've been celebrating the best of science fiction television, but there's a dark underside to the genre that we don't like to talk about... Shows that, quite simply, don't deserve to live again for many reasons - most of which are related to their stunning lack of quality. Come with us as we relive some of television's darkest moments, why don't you?

Benji, Zax and The Alien Prince


The year: 1983. The concept: Joe Camp, creator of the pooch-centric Benji franchise decides to jump on board the Star Wars gravy train by adding a deposed alien prince stranded on Earth and hiding from equally-alien bounty hunters to the mix. The result: A series that only lasted thirteen episodes, but seemed to go on forever when you were an SF-starved child looking for something to follow Return Of The Jedi and forced to accept this nonsense. On the plus side, the failure of this show meant that we were spared The Littlest Hobo In The 30th Century.

Small Wonder


Meredith Woerner believes that this show, about an inventor who creates a robot that looks like a small girl before pretending that it's his daughter, is good. The BBC called it "one of the worst low-budget sitcoms of all time." I think we can all agree which side is right here, don't you? For those who have been so won over by Meredith's True Blood recaps that you're willing to give the show a critical re-appraisal, you'll get your chance; Shout! Factory are planning on releasing DVDs of the series starting next year.

Space Academy


It may have had Lost In Space's Jonathan Harris and its own catchphrase (Personally, I hope ORACO - "Order Received And Carried Out" - comes back into every day usage any day now), but what Filmation's first live-action series lacked was quality to back up its "Professor Xavier's School In Space" concept. Due to its origins as a kids' show in the 1970s, there was a lot of moralizing and "lessons" to be taught, but it was only in spin-off Jason Of Star Command that things got worth watching.

Team Knight Rider


When one Knight Rider isn't enough, it's time for five poor knock-offs in this one-season-only spin-off from the original Knight Rider; following in the footsteps of Michael Knight, the Foundation for Law And Government (FLAG, get it?) recruit former secret agents, soldiers, geeks and thieves to continue in the specific war against crime that only people in talking cars can carry out (Making your core selling point less unique always works, right?). More commercial for sponsors Ford than a real program, the little-remembered series is now just a footnote in the career of My Big Fat Greek Wedding's Nia Vardalos (who voiced "Domino," one of the cars), showing just how unimportant in the grand scheme of things it really is.

Tom Corbett, Space Cadet


Originally aired on four different networks during its troubled six year run (although it took a year off in the middle), you only have to look at the opening of the video above to see why audiences never really grabbed onto the chance to study in Space Academy (Yes, apparently there's something doomed about that name) with good student Tom; apparently, even 1950s audiences had trouble accepting something that looked less impressive that the Flash Gordon movie serials... Or maybe they just didn't really see the point in going through even more schooling, even if it was in space. More to the point, could anyone these days make anything other than a Will Ferrell comedy with a concept that includes the words "Space Cadet" in the title?

Automan


The bizarre result of the question "What if Tron fought crime in the real world?", Automan suffered through twelve episodes on ABC in 1983-84, this show at least offered up Desi Arnaz, Jr., as a vaguely credible nerdy computer programmer who created an artificial intelligence alter-ego with which to fight crime (See also: Street Hawk, although that probably belongs more in the Airwolf and Knight Rider school of 1980s shows I kind of enjoyed but even then knew they weren't that good). Bonus points are given for using "Otto J. Mann" as a secret identity, but then removed because, well, this show wasn't very good.

VR.5


Cashing in on the then-current virtual reality craze and casting both the sister of V's Marc Singer and Sapphire And Steel's David McCallum may have seemed like a winner in 1995, but Fox's reality-challenging series (canceled after ten episodes) was either ahead of its time or an ill-advised attempt to piggyback on the success of The Lawnmower Man three years after its release. Don't even get me started on the idea that there are ten "levels" of virtual reality, at least three of which aren't actually virtual at all.

Spicy City


You'd think that, after Cool World, people would've known better than to give cartoonist Ralph Bakshi money to come up with a "sexy" anything, but in 1997, HBO did just that, asking him to come up with a sexy sci-fi cartoon series. This six-part series - with plots involving virtual strippers sucking the brains from their customers and prostitutes escaping into virtual reality to find happiness as geishas - was the result. When HBO agreed to do a second series but only if they could replace all the writers, you can tell that things weren't going to well, and the series died a quiet death. Maybe they should've stuck with their original title, "Spicy Detective."

Hard Time On Planet Earth


To be fair, there's maybe something in the core idea of this short-lived 1989 series about aliens being imprisoned in human form on planet Earth, but I'm not sure that you could tell from watching the show itself, especially as the show settled into the formula of former alien warrior Jesse learning to be a better person by helping out his now-fellow humans each week. On the plus side, producer/writer Michael Piller went from this to saving the Star Trek franchise, so let's say that he obviously learned what didn't work from this flawed feel-good wasted opportunity.

Quantum Leap


Just to finish things out, here's a show that should never be made into a movie not because it was bad - although, let's be honest, watching the reruns is always just a little bit more painful than you remember, right? - but because the entire point of it was the never-ending journey, which you can't really do in a movie format. And, to be honest, I'd be worried that any new take on the concept would end up more like Tru Calling or The Butterfly Effect than the gentle, calming soul food television that this series ended up being (I blame Scott Bakula's infectious charm). But what say you people?

We already know that Syfy is working on reboots for both Alien Nation and Quantum Leap, but why stop there? There are some fine dearly departed shows out there that could easily serve as the network's chance to get back into the space opera genre. Here're some of our picks - and why we think they could work.

UFO


What's that, you say? You don't think UFO is space operatic enough? Well, if you just duplicated the original series - where the secret organization SHADO worked to prevent alien invaders from harvesting human organs without anyone knowing - we'd agree... but what if you took the battle back to the aliens in addition to keeping the intergalactic Cold War going on Earth? We're seeing something not unlike Torchwood: Children of Earth mixed with BSG's silent space battles in our heads, a gritty, political take on the alien invasion idea... and we like it.

Blake's 7


Escaped convicts fighting for freedom against a fascistic government in the distant outer space future? There's nothing about the concept behind Terry Nation's 1970s BBC series that doesn't scream win, and as a plus for Syfy, the British Sky network is already working on a revival so they don't have to do everything from scratch. The potential for political allegory illustrated with impressive special effects rivals Galactica at its best, if done right, and there'd be less outcry from fans of the original - This one was always downbeat and depressing.

Farscape


Yes, we know that people have gotten mad when we suggested remaking Farscape before, and to them - and to those keeping the dream alive with the current Farscape comics - we'll suggest this: How about we don't reboot the series entirely, but relaunch it and find a new focus without undoing everything that's come before? If nothing else, that's got to be better than waiting for the perennially-forthcoming webisode sequels, right?

Lost In Space


It's a classic for a reason, people. Don't let memories of William Hurt and Matt LeBlanc put you off, Lost In Space is ready for a revival. What other show offers the chance for family drama, fantastic aliens and cowardly scientists hamming it up on a weekly basis? Take the Buffy route of using genre staples as metaphors for familiar problems, add a generous helping of humor, and voila: A Space Opera for all the family. Hell, just get Josh Friedman onboard as showrunner and you'll be set.

Star Trek


When you think of Space Opera TV, you can't help but think of Trek... and with the success of the new movie relaunching the franchise, and Bryan Fuller (under contract to Syfy's parent company NBC/Universal to come up with new shows) constantly talking about his desire to create a new Trek TV show, it almost seems like fate. TrekMovie even made the case for Syfy launching a new Trek, leading the network's Craig Engler to respond "A good, new, affordable Trek would be great on Syfy." Take note of "affordable," though; as we've pointed out before, the rights issues involved alone may make this idea financially a bad idea.

What do you think? Would you watch any of the above, or are you aghast at the very idea of yet another remake? Use the poll below to let us know just how wrong we are.

After the game-changing events of last season's finale, fans that campaigned so hard to save their beloved geek idol fear that the show is selling out to Subway, that Chuck's new superpowers will rob him of his everyman appeal, and worst of all that we may have seen the last of the Buy More and the Nerd Herd.

Listen up, Chuck; I may just be able to save you. Just stay in the car.

The zesty tang of corporate whoredom was all over last season. Fans who cried "sellout!" when they heard about the show's dirty dealings with Subway obviously were not paying attention for the past two seasons. Chuck has always been the television-show equivalent of a NASCAR driver's jacket, and we've loved the show all the more for it. iPhones and foot–long subs have always served to bring us into Chuck's reality, not out of it. In a culture as logo-laden as our own, product placement merely gives the impression that these could be our lives, and we too may one day be tapped to be super spies.

When we last left our hero, he had upgraded to Intersect 2.0, the scene itself rife with subliminal and not-so-subliminal advertising. Did anyone else feel like they were watching a giant Hulu ad? After the upgrade, Chuck is new and improved, and now comes with Kung Fu grip. What other goodies does Chuck's new cerebral software come with? The possibilities are endless. But with great power comes great responsibility; not just for Chuck, but for co-creators Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedek not to fall into the Heroes trap of giving human protagonists superpowers and thereby removing all traces of humanity. Hopefully, Chuck's new powers will serve to trip him up in more hilarious and endearing ways, while allowing him to still save the day.

With Chuck and Morgan's departure from the Buy More, it's questionable how much we'll be seeing of the motley crew of Green shirts in the third season. While the antics of Jeffster have lost some of their appeal, I fear for the show if it departs completely from the land of discount electronics and fast computer repair. The show's sweet and simple premise, namely Chuck's perilous tango between his real-world dead-end job and the fantastical world of espionage and intrigue, is what keeps us watching.

It'll take more than following these guidelines to save Bartowski. He'll need help. We saw last season that the ratings of the show took a quantum leap with the arrival of several guest stars, from Dominic Monaghan to Scott Bakula and Chevy Chase. I propose that the best way to make the most of Chuck's second chance is to give us even more star power to fuel the third season. Here are a few suggestions:

Kristen Bell
Bell's comic timing is perfect for this show. We're all a little tired of the Sarah & Chuck sub-plot, and no cliché is more satisfying than a third party coming between our ambivalent lovers. As a clumsy and perky Buy More employee, Kristen Bell would not only look great in a green polo shirt, but would also steal the show and hopefully Chuck's heart. Half-way through the season Bell would be revealed to be a CIA agent working undercover, and could flex her Veronica Mars spy-girl muscles while stealing secrets and doing improbable stunts.

Alec Baldwin
Both Bell and Baldwin have most recently been working for NBC, so they wouldn't have to go very far for to spend some quality time with the network's pet project. Alec Baldwin would be brilliant as Agent Casey's West Point / CIA mentor, who returns to head up a delicate case and makes Casey jealous when his mentor takes a shine to Chuck.

Neil Patrick Harris
We all love NPH. He could appear to ward off the dreaded mid-season slump, save the ratings and re-invigorate the show. NPH would play a computer-genius / entrepreneur who has designed the world's newest AI search engine. The CIA hires NPH to design a special Intersect search feature, so that Chuck can access all those Government secrets on command.

Jonathan Pryce
We saw last season with Chevy Chase's character that putting a face to FULCRUM and having an identifiable super villain made the show that much more enjoyable. This time around, we need a new big bad, and I propose Jonathan Pryce. Pryce proved himself a worthy adversary as the Bond villain in Tomorrow Never Dies, has endless desk-jockey geek-cred thanks to Brazil, and no one wears a condescending smirk quite the same way.

It's also time for new blood at the Buy More. I volunteer Napoleon Dynamite's Tina Majorino, Freaks&Geeks' Samm Levine, and Nick & Norah's Aaron Yoo to be some new scruffy Nerd Herders.

Syfy Creative Director of Original Programming Mark Stern sat with us and talked about the new reboot we're all eagerly awaiting, which is the Tim Minear (Angel, Dollhouse, Firefly) reboot of Alien Nation. And as it turns out, they're still trying to get Quantum Leap back on the air as well.

You just announced Syfy's plans to reboot Alien Nation, was it your idea to go after that series?

Alien Nation has been [one of] three or four shows that I want to do. I want to do those shows, at least one of them. And yet again, if you're going to go and do Alien Nation, you'd better do it the right way, same as with Battlestar. We've been talking to a number of writers, since I got here, about Alien Nation. What's the right approach, how do you do it so it feels relevant? And Tim Minear came in with a great approach to it, that really felt like it didn't just tell the same story again, and it was still really true to what Alien Nation was about.

So that worked. I would love to find our time travel show — whether it's literally Quantum Leap — and we've been talking to Don Bellisario [show creator] about [doing] that as a possibility, because what is the next really great time travel series.

Where are you with that what are you pitching at Bellisario a darker take or a Eureka-esque whimsical time travel series, it really could go either way?

I honestly don't know. Every three or four months, we take Don out to lunch and see how he's doing and where his head's at. Whether he's ready to kind of go into that world again. It's a process, and the same is true with Alien Nation. You need to gestate and take time. What you don't want to do is rush into them and just say "okay, it's out version of this," and it's not good. We definitely always have our eye on the great shows from the past. But really our focus is on what the new stuff is.

When it was mentioned that Tim Minear was going to dabble with the Starsky and Hutch feel to Alien Nation, people were a bit surprised. They thought the show would be going darker. Can you give our readers an idea what you and Tim have in mind for Alien Nation?

You know it's very early, but I do think what Tim wants to do, which is very much what Ron Moore and David Eick did with Battlestar, is take what was great about that franchise, which was obviously the relationship between these two different people and these two different cultures, and find a way to make it relevant to the things we care about today. Is it going to be darker? I don't know what the tone is going to be yet, honestly. Tim is not a dark writer, he comes from a very different place. He wants it to be more than just frivolous and silly. It's going to have to attack a lot of the same themes that the original series and the movie did. But it really has to feel like there's something new there, like this isn't the same old. I wish I could give you more specifics, but we really just had that first pitch meeting with him where he said, "This is what we want to do," and we said, "That sounds fantastic. Let's do it." Now it's really about him pulling it together.

And I have to ask, will aliens still have the spotted skulls?

Man, I have no idea. I really don't. I'm sure, you know there's no Battlestar without cylons. They'll definitely be our version of cylons, I don't know what that will be yet. The thing is that's the challenge of all of those. Hold on to what's really great, what's cool about it, what makes you want to watch it, what you remember about it, and update it. It's a very fine line you're treading.

The Coogan series is titled Brave Young Men, and is a "light hearted" version of Quantum Leap, which means probably no more moral lessons or getting a brand new perspective through someone else's eyes.

Tom Basden, British comedy writer and member of the two-man show Cowards, will play the main character, school teacher Owen Malloy. Basden will attempt to end disasters and suffering across the world by becoming a Caretaker of the World. The first episode is all about a new beer that could wipe out humanity, and it's up to Owen to stop the consumption.

A source told the Sun that, "The show owes a big debt to Doctor Who, though it's drastically different - and Torchwood," which makes me hope this is the beginning of a new wave of Russell T. Davies-inspired comic science fiction from Britain.

[The Sun]

Aint It Cool interviewed Falls last December about the direction the show was going to take, post-WGA strike, but didn't publish the piece for fear of spoiling any potential return for the series. Now that we all know that there isn't going to be any more Journeyman in our future, they felt free to run the interview and reveal who was behind everything, and how Heroes ruined everything. Here're some of the best bits:

Falls on who was behind Dan's time traveling:

Let’s just say it was too specific and grand to be science or government... We would have led you to the water's edge and let you figure it out.

On whether Dan's time travels were for the greater good:

I think the end game was for the good. We wanted to explore some darker themes early on, but our ratings dictated otherwise. I wanted Dan to have to shepherd a hit man through his life to kill someone. It would really fuck Dan up, but there'd be a bigger reason for it. Sort of like life (not the TV show) we would have done it [late in the first season].

On Why Livia Faked Her Own Death:

We kept going 'round and 'round about that. We felt that Livia was keeping some secret from Dan that was huge and tragic.

On what was originally going to end the first season:

Well, it was going to be a plague, but then “Heroes” did that. When we were told “Heroes” was doing it, they suggested we change ours. No way we were going to win that one. We would have come up with something, but remember, I could read the tea leaves in mid-October. I decided then, let's think in terms of 13 [episodes]... [In the never-shot final nine episodes of the season,] Katie and Dan were going to split up for a while. [Dan’s brother] Jack and Dan were going to live together and then Dan and Katie would get back together. Livia was going to die in episode 20. Dan was going to save her in 21. And in 22, Dan would come back to his house in the present like he did in the pilot and someone else would be living there. Katie and Zack would be gone and this time Dan would have no idea how to get his family back.

Aint It Cool also includes a brand new interview with Falls at the end of the story, talking about his upcoming projects.

What Was Hurling Dan Vasser Through Time?? Series Creator Kevin Falls Reveals The Secrets Of JOURNEYMAN!! [Aint It Cool]

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• The Sonic Screwdriver from Doctor Who: This is probably one of the most versatile gadgets in all of science fiction creation. It could be used to disable robots, rewire security grids, repair dead machinery, open locks, and yes, even turn screws. They were never quite clear about how this worked, just that it was "sonic," but it got The Doctor out of more scrapes than McGuyver's Swiss Army knife, and won't raise eyebrows at airport security.
• The Lightsaber from Star Wars: Sure, it was just a sword... or was it? You could use this to open up tauntauns for warmth, melt steel blast doors open, deflect laser blasts, and light your way. Plus, if you have a really steady hand you could probably shave and cut the Thanksgiving turkey with it, and that's just for starters. Plus it has a handy belt loop so you can accessorize with it.
• The Handheld Replicator from Star Trek V: We only saw this thing once on-screen when Spock used it to create a marshmallow while he was camping with Kirk and Bones, but think about how awesome it would be to have this in your pocket. Especially while on a road trip or at the movies. Of course, it's so small in size that you wouldn't be able to get anything substantial out of it, but we envision a river of never-ending candy streaming out that would make your house a pretty popular stop on Halloween. You could even get a toy version of this by mailing a coupon in to Kraft, creating one of the lamest movie tie-in toys ever.
• Ziggy from Quantum Leap: Although unfortunately named after the world's lamest comic-strip, Ziggy was the sentient supercomputer that told Scott Bakula where and who he was, and what he was supposed to be doing. It looked like it was made out of see-through Legos and frequently got whacked by Al in an effort to make it work right, and it would make the perfect PDA. Don't like the lunch meeting it has scheduled for you? Just slap it around a bit.
• Mr. Igoe's hand from Innerspace: Igoe was the mute henchman of Mr. Scrimshaw, and he wanted nothing more than to cause you pain. He had a fake right hand that could pop off and be interchanged with several different tools, including a blowtorch, a corkscrew, a drill, and... a vibrator. Which he puts to good use on the red-haired vixen in the film. Talk about your ultimate handheld gadget, and his license plate even read SNAPON.
• The Neuralizer from Men In Black: Seriously, this pen-sized gadget could come in handy in millions of different ways, and it has the bonus benefit of giving you Jedi-like powers of persuasion as well. Not only could it make you forget things (at user-tweaked intervals), but you could plant suggestions in the newly erased mind the way Will Smith has that woman sass up her life. I'd like to have one just for all the times I get pulled over by traffic cops.
• Honorable Mention — The Bathroom Buddy from Gremlins: In the movie, Billy's dad (who is also the guy who bought the damn Gremlin in the first place) spends most of the movie trying to invent a "Bathroom Buddy" that will revolutionize going to the bathroom. Need a shave? Time to brush your teeth? Thanks Bathroom Buddy! No idea what else it could do, because thankfully the film didn't get too graphic with it. Alas, he never got it to work right, leaving us with a hunk of useless plastic and an empty spot in our pocket.