The 1990s were really the heydey for wonderful but not-quite-convincing space skirmishes. We used to see tons of ships flying around our screen, often too many to count. Unlike Battlestar Galactica's quick cuts and weird handheld camera footage, these 1990s space wars were usually filmed with an unflinching eye or a slow pan, letting you see every computer-generated line and explosion.

And it's totally awesome.

You can compare these massive space shoot-outs to video games, but it's not entirely accurate — because the absolute best of these TV shoot-em-ups have more sensory overload, and you can't even imagine trying to interact with them. (I have seen a few video game cut scenes that approach this level of overload though.) You get ships flying in every possible direction, or a hundred individual starships on screen at once, and all you can do is sit there and drool. It doesn't look real, but your imagination fills in the gaps, which only makes it better.

That's really the key — these space battles are super elaborate and over the top, and that helps them draw on your imagination.

Remember when you used to imagine what a whole fleet of Federation and Klingon Starships flying into battle would look like? And then Star Trek: Deep Space Nine finally gave it to us, and it was completely unreal looking, yet amazing:

It wasn't really until the 1990s when you could have tons of ships flying in formation, like these SA-43 Hammerheads from Space: Above And Beyond:

Possibly my favorite 1990s CG space battles came from Babyon 5, however. They were even cheaper looking than Trek's battles, but even more ambitious. Look how much stuff they pack into every frame of these battles. And every penny they don't have for CG effects is more than made up for by the conviction of the actors:

For people who grew up on space battles as shown on the original Trek, Space: 1999, Blake's 7 or even the first few seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation, these dogfights are revelatory. If space battles in the late 1970s and 1980s were all about trying to match the dog-fighting feel of Star Wars, then 1990s space battles were all about massive fleets going at it, sustaining massive casualties and fighting on. And yes, the massive casualties are a big part of why these battles rock so hard — you don't ever quite believe that each of those Federation starships has hundreds of crewmembers aboard, dying every time there's another flare on your screen, but it's still kind of horrifying and exciting to think so.

It really is all about suspension of disbelief — these battles ask more suspension of disbelief from you, but they give more back as well.

Here's some amazing battle footage, showing crowds of ships swarming, in this snippet from Andromeda as well. (Skip the first minute or so of this video):

And some awe-inspiring Farscape action:

And then there's Doctor Who's fake but oh-so-lovely Dalek fleet:

I suspect that we'll see a wave of nostalgia for these 1990s-style fleet-on-fleet battles, one of these days. Just like today, geeks feel nostalgic for guns that went "pew-pew-pew" and models roaring around fake starfields, in another decade everyone will be discovering the beauty of computer-generated space mayhem.

For now, though, the only place you can get this kind of star-fighting (in the United States, anyway) is on Syfy:

Some people interpreted last week's top 10 list of silly alien prosthetics as hating on low-budget science fiction, or dissing the hard work of makeup artists — and that was definitely not the intention. But when you've seen the same few ideas crop up again and again, you tend to get a bit jaded.

For me, personally, Star Trek in the 1990s and early 2000s ruined me for boring humanoid aliens. After the endless parade of people in vinyl pajamas, with different smushy bits of latex on their faces every week, I got rubber-nose fatigue. There's a lot to love about 1990s Trek — Deep Space Nine was frequently brilliant and prescient, and Voyager had some standout episodes — but the infinite assembly of silly faces was not one of the things I loved.

Oh, and the picture above is from Davosmith's amazing Flickr set of Manchester's Fab Cafe. Here's another image from the same set, featuring another one of the creatures on this list:

So here are ten aliens that were obviously done on a shoestring budget, but which absolutely knock your space boots off:

10. The Daleks, on Doctor Who.

The evil genetically engineered cyborgs on Doctor Who are like mini-tanks with buzzing bee voices, and they scared the pants off generations of British (and some American) kids. They've had their ups and downs — if the first Dalek story you saw was "Day Of The Daleks," "Destiny Of The Daleks," "Remembrance Of The Daleks" or the recent one where they turn people into pigs and then dress in zoot suits, you won't understand what the fuss is about. Watch "Genesis Of The Daleks" or "Dalek." (Before you jump on me in comments, I do like "Remembrance," except the Daleks wobble horribly and look just decrepit.) In their prime, though, the Daleks glide along, rasping with anger and pointing their terrible egg-whisk guns. They're utterly cheap — and horrifying. And you only occasinally Runners up: debatable whether the Cybermen are aliens, but they do often look cool. Also, the Draconians and Zygons make the rubber-mask thing look brilliant, and the Forest of Cheem also doesn't look bad at all. I also like the Slitheen, but only design-wise.

9. The Aliens from The Arrival.

Directed by David "Pitch Black" Twohy, this 1996 alien invasion film was probably made for three Snickers wrappers and a handful of arcade tokens — but I really love the look of these aliens, and they way they move on their weird satyr-ish horse legs. Here's a slinky alien transforming itself into a hawt babe, probably because it just watched Species. Also, I love the flaps that cover up its brain, and how they undulate. Nice stuff!

8. The Visitors from V.

They look human most of the time, but when we get the occasional glimpse of their real lizard faces under their human masks, it's super-effective — as long as we don't linger. Here are a couple of choice moments. I love Diana picking at the shreds of her human disguise, like they're a scab (at about 4:00 in the first video). And the speech in the second video is the greatest thing ever:

7. Greedo and the other cantina aliens, in Star Wars.

Weirdly, later live-action Star Wars movies have never featured aliens that felt as interesting and lively as the first glimpse we got in that cantina scene. Of course, we've already exposited about our love for Greedo, but all of the quick glimpses of aliens in this scene have a liveliness that makes you feel like they're each the star of a cool story. Not bad for an underdog film with a tiny $8.5 million budget (not much even in 1977) whose crew was busy trashing the set and making fun of the Wookiee costume.

6. The Jem'Hadar in Star Trek: Deep Space 9.

They actually jumped out at me when I was compiling pics for the post about silly-looking facial prosthetics last week — there was a picture of a Vorta surrounded by Jem'Hadar troopers, and I had to crop the Jem'Hadar out of the image, because they actually looked kind of cool. Something about the way their prostheses work with their faces really feels realistic, and all of those scenes of them struggling with their addiction to ketracel white feel engaging rather than run-of-the-mill. Runner up: Species 8472 in Voyager had some moments of genuine creepitude as well.

5. Black Oil in The X-Files.

A sentient alien virus that can live in hibernation for thousands of years, it appears as a liquid, not unlike crude oil. But it can move on its own, and it's sentient, and it can take people over. There's nothing cheaper than just having some black goo oozing around, and yet it's completely convincing and compelling, and doesn't feel like any life form you've encountered on Earth.

4. The Aliens in District 9.

Obviously, this movie's still fresh in our minds, but the downtrodden aliens in the film look different than anything we'd already seen. Their twitching face-tentacles can't help grossing you out a bit, even as their big pleading eyes lay claim to your sympathy. With a budget of around $30 million, this film is the equivalent of Star Wars or Alien back in the day — a low-budget film that succeeds thanks to a lot of inventiveness born of desperation. And great storytelling, of course. I almost left this film off the list, because we've covered it so much lately, but it clearly belongs.

3. The Vorlon from Babylon 5.

These energy-based life forms are among the First Ones, and inspire a quasi-religious awe among people who see them. So its fitting that their headgear and robes look so alien and unfamiliar. As Sheridan tells Kosh at one point, he can't even tell if it's the same Vorlon under all that covering, or different Vorlons in the same guise.

2. The 456, on Torchwood.

To me, this is the absolute best way to do an alien species on a budget. Shroud it in toxic smoke — and mystery — and just show little glimpses of evil tentacles. The way these creatures shriek and spatter the walls of their enclosure with alien puke will stick in your mind long after you're done watching the miniseries "Children Of Earth." This official still is actually a better look at the 456 than we ever get in the actual television show — and even in this image, they're somewhat indistinct and obscene looking. They're the perfect mixture of mysterious and disgusting, just right for aliens who want to molest your children.

1. The Xenomorph, from Alien.

The studio originally only wanted to give director Ridley Scott a $4.2 million budget, until he showed them storyboards and Mobius illustrations. But, says Scott in a recent interview, "The [revised] budget started out at $.8.2-million and ended up at 8.6, which I think in those days was still relatively cheap. We didn't have the money to do pretty well anything... But in a funny kind of way, you get very clever when there is very little money, because it makes you think." Scott had a stroke of luck when writer Dan O'Bannon took him aside and showed him H.R. Giger's art "like he was showing me a dirty book," and they brought in Giger to design — and sculpt — the alien costume and other alien artifacts. But the other key, says Scott, was disguising the fact that this was still a man in a suit:

We started with a stunt man who was quite thin, but in the rubber suit he looked like the Michelin Man. So my casting director said, ‘I've seen a guy in a pub in Soho who is about seven feet tall, has a tiny head and a tiny skinny body.' So he brought Bolaji Bodejo to the office, and he was actually from Somalia, funnily enough," Scott remarks, having much later directed BLACK HAWK DOWN, which was set in Somalia. "I said, ‘Do you want to be in movies,' and he said sure. And he became the alien. I had him for two months. In the cockpit, there's a pack of cigarettes that says ‘Bolaji.'

Thanks to Alan Bostick, Alasdair Stuart, Madeline Ashby, @Nightwyrm on Twitter, Marlin May, Andrea Zanin, Melinda Adams, Rina Weisman, Micky Shirley, Susie Kameny, Greta Christina, Serene Vannoy, Rus McLaughlin, Minal Hajratwala, Annelise Ophelian, Seth Kaufman, David Fraser, and James Limbach for suggestions!

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

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

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

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

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

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

So here are some reasons why we love spoilers.

The lure of the forbidden:

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

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

The grand conversation:

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

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

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

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

The unconventional seduction:

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

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

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

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

The dreadful admonition:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spock (Star Trek)
Let's start with the really obvious here. Spock's father is a Vulcan ambassador named Sarek and his mother a human named Amanda Grayson. Much of his character, therefore, is based in the contrast between his two halves, with Leonard Nimoy having said that Spock is ""struggling to maintain a Vulcan attitude, a Vulcan philosophical posture and a Vulcan logic, opposing what was fighting him internally, which was human emotion."

Jack of Hearts (Marvel Comics)
The Jack of Hearts was born Jack Hart, the son of Philip Hart, a human scientist, and Marie, a humanoid extraterrestrial of the Contraxian race. His powers, which include such things as flight and the ability to project heat and concussive force, don't come from his parents, but rather his exposure to "zero fluid," a discovery of his father's.

B'Elanna Torres (Star Trek: Voyager)
B'Elanna, chief engineer aboard the USS Voyager, had a human father and Klingon mother, but her father left for Earth when she was a child, leaving B'Elanna to be raised by her mother. Either due to her childhood or her parentage, B'Elanna was short-tempered and often aggressive, but Roxann Dawson (the actress who portrayed B'Elanna) has said that over the course of the series, the character grows from an "unruly teenager" into a woman.

Moonshadow (Moonshadow)
The titular character in this twelve-issue comic book series written by J. M. DeMatteis is an adolescent boy of human-alien parentage. His mother is a human woman from Brooklyn named Sheila Fay Bernbaum, who takes on the name "Sunflower" during her flower-child days. When she's transported to the alien "zoo," she marries one of her abductors, a member of a nigh omnipotent race called the G'l-Doses. They're essentially glowing orbs of indeterminate largeness who use their power to wreak havoc on the universe, causing war and peace, death and life, with no real modus operandi beyond the delight they derive from the randomness of their actions.

Rystáll Sant (Star Wars)
A dancer for the Max Rebo Band, Rystáll has a Theelin father and human mother from New Bornalex. (It's argued, actually, that due to their greatly varied physical characteristics, that most Theelin are hybrids of one kind or another.)

Deanna Troi (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Troi is the counselor aboard the USS Enterprise, with a Betazoid mother and human father.

Jason (Superman Returns)
When Lois's son shows up, we're supposed to assume the father is Richard White, her fiancé (and Perry White's nephew). But then Jason starts showing signs of super-strength and Kyptonite sensitivity, thereby implying that (sorry, Richard) Jason is actually Superman's kid. (The current convention that Superman cannot conceive a child with Lois clearly does not apply here.) So, yes. Superman: deadbeat alien father.

Reverend Golightly and the kitten children of Thomas Kincade Brannigan and Valerie (Doctor Who, new series)
In "The Unicorn and the Wasp" (Episode 7, Series 4), the Reverend Golightly is revealed not only to be Lady Eddison's son, but also the product of an affair she had with a Vespiform, a giant wasplike alien. Awkward.

"Gridlock" (Episode 3, Series 3) sees the introduction of a delightful little nuclear family, made up of Thomas Kincade Brannigan, a cat man, his human wife, Valerie, and their children: a litter of kittens. (It's debatable whether Brannigan counts as an actual alien, as he probably counts more as just a highly evolved feline lifeform. It's also debatable whether Brannigan is named after Thomas Kinkade, the "painter of light." Let's hope not.)

Additionally, in the 1996 TV movie, the Doctor himself claims to be "half-human, on my mother's side." But generally speaking, nobody listens to anything the Doctor Who TV movie said.

Hera Agathon (Battlestar Galactica)
Hera is the first known half-Cylon, half-human child. Her father is Karl "Helo" Agathon and her mother Sharon "Athena" Agathon.

Oh, and this post is probably work-safe, unless your coworkers are looking over your shoulders at the words on your screen. Or unless you start reading aloud. Some of the videos are a bit saucy, but they're from YouTube.

Tuvok (from Star Trek: Voyager):

Vulcans are automatically sex on legs, because of that whole repressed emotion thing, and the fact that it explodes - erupts! - every seven years with Pon Farr. But Tuvok is especially primed for slash fiction, because of all the smouldering glances he shared with Tom Paris and Chakotay, among others. Plus he's kind of an exhibitionist:


There's a whole web page devoted just to Tuvok slash fiction, with titles like, "Tuvok and Chakotay make a deal. But is it worth it?" Tuvok goes into Pon Farr a lot. There are even multiple stories of Tuvok hooking up with the mirror-universe Bashir, from Deep Space Nine. And Tuvok and Gul Dukat hooking up. Yay!

Jayne (from Firefly):

Jayne, you ignorant slut. For some reason, all of the men aboard the tiny ship Serenity are drawn to the manly brusqueness of the mercenary who would kill them for a nice hat. This Firefly Slash archive is full of Jayne/Mal, Jayne/Simon, Jayne/Mal/Simon. And there's more here. But no Jayne/Wash? Anyway, the Simon/Jayne pairings are surprisingly sweet and tender, with River giving Simon dating advice and Jayne admitting he really wants to turn the doctor out, instead of turning the doctor in. Here's a great passage from one story':

Simon arched his back, pushing up to meet Jayne's caress. His nails dug into Jayne's arm as he moaned low in his throat and shifted sinuously on the bed, spreading his legs wider. Jayne grinned down at him before taking his mouth again, his hand moving with delightful slowness, tongue stroking deep inside him, over and over, possessing without force. Simon gasped against Jayne's mouth, unable to summon any other response to this sure and gentle claiming.

His head felt like it was swathed in cotton and he stared dreamily as Jayne broke their kiss. Jayne watched him with a small, strange smile and nuzzled his cheek, making a satisfied noise under his breath. His hand tightened deliciously.

"Oh god," Simon gasped. "Yes, just like that!"

(Jayne pic from evinou)

Prowl (from Transformers Animated):

There have been a lot of Transformers named Prowl, but the latest version is a robot who turns into a police motorcycle. And for some reason, that's just unutterably sexy to a whole generation of slash-fic writers. Here's Prowl seducing Optimus Prime:

But Optimus a fast learner, and once he calmed, Prowl was quick to reward him. He turned his head inwards, placing careful, soft nips along the thin white plates of Optimus's jawline. So delicate-no wonder he wore the mask during battle. Removing a hand from Optimus's hip joint, Prowl ran it up the other mech's side, palm resting against the smooth curves of headlights as his fingers teased at the underseam of red chest plates. Optimus shuddered, whispering his approval in an unconscious reversion to a heavily accented, uniqe Cybertronian dialect that was so different from the formal, bland Cybertronian used by the Elite Guard.

And here's a debate about the Prowl/Jazz pairing, with links to some great stories. And here's a great essay on Transformers porn someone wants to see.

Miles Vorkosigan (from Lois McMaster Bujold's novels):

Miles Vorkosigan may have been pretty busy, rising above his tragic family life and his disability, to become one of the greatest heroes of ImpSec. But it turns out he's had lots of spare time to hook up with his handsome but dim-witted cousin Ivan Vorpatril, and his stepbrother, emperor Gregor Vorbarra. A treasure trove of Vorkosigan slash stories is here. And there are even more here. And there's the epic slash novel A Deeper Season, which you can read here.

Neroon (from Babylon 5):

Neroon is part of the warrior caste of the Minbari Star Riders clan, and a fearsome adversary. But he's also a legendary lover, especially when it comes to Marcus Cole, the human he fights in a deadly one-on-one battle. The two warriors come to respect each other and (in the minds of slash-fic writers, anyway) to embrace passionately. (Maybe that's why Marcus was a virgin for so long? He was waiting for the right guy to come along?) There are tons of Marcus/Neroon stories here, including this passage:

The feel of Neroon's warm lips caressing his caused Marcus to whimper, feeling the love that Neroon held for him.

"This is our first time together, Marcus. I would have it a memorable and pleasurable experience for you, my beloved."

Marcus bowed his head and then smiled shyly up at his husband. "I love you, Neroon and I will admit that I am nervous about tonight but I know that with you here beside me I can face anything. I want this, Neroon. I've waited all of my life for this moment. I love you, Neroon and I am ready for our first night together. One of which will be repeated for many years to come," Marcus said with a teasing smile as he leaned up and kissed his beloved.

Neroon growled low at the feel of his lover's lips against his as he took Marcus into his arms. Slowly he began to kiss his way down Marcus' neck causing Marcus to moan in pleasure at the feel of Neroon's lips across his skin. Slowly Neroon's hands removed the silk robe from Marcus' shoulders.

More here. And here.

Molly Millions (from Neuromancer):

Okay, so there are only a couple of stories about the heroine from William Gibson's Neuromancer, including a steamy hookup with 3Jane. But we want more! Someone write some, and send us the link.

Obi-Wan Kenobi (from Star Wars):

He may be kind of a dick, but at least the Jedi master is generous in bed. Around the time Phantom Menace came out, there was a craze for Obi-Wan/Darth Maul slash, showcasing how the Jedi and the Sith Lord could have worked out their antagonism. Here they are, dancing around together and trading longing glances:



But he's also hooked up with his teacher, Qui-Gon, his grown-up student, Anakin, and pretty much anyone else who comes by the Jedi temple.

Ford Prefect (from the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy):

Ford Prefect shows Arthur Dent the wonders of the universe, but what else does he show him? And why exactly was Ford so eager to take Arthur with him when he fled the doomed Earth? Story synopses include "The Earth blows up, the boys get it on." Or: "Aliens force Ford and Arthur to have sex." Find out more here. And here. Ooh, and here. Oh, and if you're dying for pregnant Arthur Dent, try here.

Susan Calvin (from Asimov's Robot series):

There are only a few slash fic stories featuring Asimov's misanthropic heroine that I could find, but they come highly recommended.

Rodney McKay (from Stargate Atlantis):

Our favorite silly nerd character from Stargate has been keeping busy in the slash fiction world. Apparently there's a whole shipper community called McShep, for McKay and Sheppard. One story has the intriguing synopsis, "John and Rodney must refrain from having sex for twelve hours." In another story, "John gets caught with his hand in the Rodney jar." Oh my! More here. And here. And here. Ooh, and here's a video:

Aeryn Sun (from Farscape):

She may have had a tumultuous relationship with John Crichton on the TV series, but in the world of slash fic, she's gotten together with Zhaan, Chiana and a host of others. A typical passage:

Aeryn pressed her fingers over the nipples and began to manipulate them lightly, using the friction of the cloth to give Zhaan added pleasure. Letting go of the sensitive peaks, she slid her hands up over them. Zhaan's nipples traced circular patterns over Aeryn's palms. I'm going to make you mumble too, she thought, I won't be alone in that.

Zhaan arched her back, pushing her breasts into Aeryn's hands. Aeryn let go and pressed her own breasts into Zhaan's, pulling the priestess over for another deep kiss. As they slid together into the motions of the kiss, their tongues languidly caressing, their bodies moved closer, breast against breast, belly to belly, sex to sex.

The priestess nudged Aeryn back against the wall, still continuing to kiss her. Aeryn was melting—she was sure of it—the cold wall against her back, the warm woman in front, and every part in between aching for Zhaan's touch. Her hands stroked Zhaan's back, then moved lower, cupping her ass.

Dr. Leonard McCoy ("Bones") (Star Trek)
Kind of the obvious place to start, right? It's kind of hard to think of something to say about McCoy that hasn't already been said. He's probably the original Awesome Space Doctor, providing not only medical expertise to the Enterprise, but also being one-third of the trifecta that is Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. If Spock is the logic and Kirk is emotion, then McCoy is morality glue that holds it all together. (Morality glue?) Originally portrayed by DeForest Kelley, he will be played by Karl Urban in this summer's film.

Dr. Pieter Cross (Doctor Mid-Nite) (DC Comics)
Dr. Cross is actually the third DC hero to don the mantle of Doctor Mid-Nite, and like his predecessors, he a) can only see in pitch darkness, and b) is a doctor. Despite the fact that the chosen spelling of midnight looks like the name of a bad motel, it's a little refreshing, really, to have a superhero who uses the title of "doctor" and has the medical degree to back it up. Cross, in addition to his vigilante activities, still puts in a full day at the office and is always willing to take time to deal with a medical emergency. On top of that, he's the superhero community's physician of choice, having done everything from emergency surgery on Hourman to removing the Brainiac virus from Oracle to removing a bullet from Lois Lane to giving Power Girl her annual checkups. (I kid you not; Pieter Cross is a lucky man.)

Dr. Janet Frasier (Stargate SG-1)
Dr. Frasier is basically amazing. She is a compassionate physician and finds herself not only dealing with Earth diseases, but alien ones as well, as she treats extraterrestrial refugees. Over the course of the show, she adopts a daughter, Cassandra, an alien orphan.

Dr. Owen Harper (Torchwood)
Owen is the medical officer for Torchwood Three. He's kind of sarcastic, kind of abrasive, and eventually also kind of wonderful. He spends his spare time getting romantically entangled with both of his female coworkers, a female aviator from 1953, and, well, pretty much whoever else he happens to run across. In the show's second season, he dies, but gets better. Sort of. In that he essentially becomes the team's resident snarky zombie boy for the rest of his run.

Dr. Simon Tam (Firefly TV series, Serenity, 2005 film)
A brilliant young doctor (graduating in the top three percent of his class at the Medical Academy), Simon became a resident trauma surgeon in a major hospital and his future looked bright. That is, until he has to bust his sister out of the Academy, where she's being experimented on, escape, and join up with a less-than-savory crew that conducts less-than-legal business. Lucky for him, their business tends to keep his medical training pretty well in demand. (Plus, he's pretty much a shoe-in to win Best Dressed among the ship's crew. He owns some nice waistcoats.)

Dr. Carson Beckett (Stargate: Atlantis)
If there were a competition for Most Awesome Doctor On This List, chances are Beckett probably wouldn't win, although he might earn a few points for sharing a last name with an existentialist playwright. At the same time, he's a pretty competent physician and has the honor of being the only Scottish doctor on this list. He also probably holds the honor of having the most awkward character death on here, but at least he's back now. As a clone. Which is also kind of awkward.

Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
Maybe he's not exactly a certified physician, but you have admit that creating a living being out of a bunch of dead people is about as impressive as you can get when it comes to medical skill. Unfortunately for everyone concerned, however, Victor both fears and rejects his creation because of its ugliness. Way to be a pansy, man.

Dr. Thomas Elliot (Hush) (DC Comics)
He started out as Bruce Wayne's childhood friend, despite being kind of a nutjob of a kid, and went on to become a successful, Harvard-educated surgeon. Unfortunately, he eventually becomes the doctor of one Edward Nigma (The Riddler), which spells bad news, considering Elliot is the guy who tried to kill his parents as a kid (and half-succeeded) and now hates Bruce Wayne. Well, he and the Riddler realize they have that in common, and Dr. Elliot invents himself an alter-ego to work on the whole bringing-down-Batman plan. And thus, Hush is born.

Dr. Stephen Franklin (Babylon 5)
Dr. Franklin is the chief medical officer aboard the space station, and as Wikipedia describes him:

Dr. Franklin is a strong-willed, kind person and idealistic leader on Babylon 5; he is also a workaholic. He is not afraid to take risks to save a patient's life; this habit can occasionally get him into trouble. He has strong moral and ethical values, but he can also be self-righteous and a perfectionist at times.

And while those qualities make him kind of awesome, they also kind of make him addicted to stimulants in the show's third season. He, of course, beats the addiction and goes back to the awesome.

Dr. Miles Bennell (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956 film)
The good doctor is called into town to look at the uncle of the cousin of his ex-sweetheart, who somehow seems not to be himself as of late. (This ex-sweetheart also seems to be able to call in some pretty convoluted favors.) Dr. Bennell is at first unable to find anything wrong, but a little more investigation leads him to discover the pod people, come to Earth to replace us. And, of course, snatch our bodies in the process-A fate which Bennell warns us of the last dramatic fourth-wall-breaking moments of the film. (The 2007 adaptation, The Invasion, features Daniel Craig as a doctor named Ben Driscoll. It unfortunately also features a bad movie.)

Dr. Sherman Cottle (Battlestar Galactica)
The Chief Medical Officer of Galactica, Dr. Cottle is also the only real physician-surgeon aboard. As the Battlestar Wiki describes him:

Cottle is somewhat eccentric and is considered a "bastard" among some of Galactica's crew, in addition to his penchant for being a heavy smoker, despite knowing the risks, and one not overly impressed by positions of power. He is, above all things, a healer. To him, nothing else really matters, be it rank, riches, or species.

Despite his somewhat abrasive manner, he's still well-trusted among the crew.

Dr. Samuel J. Loomis (Halloween franchise)
While its debatable whether or not the Halloween films are remotely science-fiction (although Michael Myers pretty inarguably displays some rather superhuman abilities), it's pretty safe to say that Dr. Loomis is just about the most awesome licensed psychiatrist in the business. After all, one of his main charges is more or less Unmitigated Evil. Then again, Loomis also doesn't have a great track record with keeping Michael from killing people. But he does get to say things like, "Death has come to your little town, Sheriff." And in Donald Pleasance's voice to boot.

Dr. Donald Blake (Thor, Marvel Comics)
Dr. Blake was Thor's original alter ego, having somewhat accidentally discovered the ability to transform into the god while on vacation in Scandanavia. Blake was a surgeon and while not being Thor, was actually seen practicing medicine in the comics. He is also said to have worked with Thor on multiple occasions, but what exactly that entails is a little beyond me.

The Doctor (Star Trek: Voyager)
The Doctor might be an Emergency Medical Hologram, but he's more than just a bit of hardware. In an attempt to build his own personality, he develops artistic talents and a holographic family, as well as friendships with his crewmates. He even writes a novel titled Photons Be Free.

Doctor Gogol (Mad Love, 1935 film)
Doctor Gogol is a brilliant-but, of course, completely mad-surgeon. After all, he's played by Peter Lorre, who pretty much invented brilliant-but-mad. Gogol is (madly) in love with an actress named Yvonne, and when her husband, a concert pianist named Stephen, has his hands crushed in a tragic accident, she comes to him, begging for help. He obliges by replacing Stephen's hands with those of a recently executed knife murderer. The results? Well, let's just say that Stephen and that kid from Idle Hands should get together and form some kind of support group. And Doctor Gogol? Completely mad. But also brilliant.

Dr. Cecilia Reyes (X-Men, Marvel Comics)
A Puerto Rican doctor, Cecilia has the ability to project a forcefield around her. As Wikipedia says:

Cecilia Reyes decided to become a doctor when her father was gunned down in front of her as a child, and she was unable to do anything to help him. The X-Men tried recruiting her when it was discovered that she was a mutant, but Reyes had no interest in being a superhero. However, when Operation: Zero Tolerance, a government-backed anti-mutant task force, targeted her, she was forced to join forces with the X-Man Iceman and other mutants to escape New York City and track down Bastion, Operation Zero Tolerance's leader.

Doc Benton (Supernatural, 3.15 "Time is on My Side")
When people started turning up with surgically removed organs and a dead man's fingerprints all over them, the Winchester brothers begin looking into it, as they are wont to do. Their investigation leads them to Doc Benton, a nineteenth century surgeon who discovered the secret to eternal life and now has a habit of replacing his parts whenever they wear out. Maybe it's not the best plan to win a guy friends, but it sure makes great use of his surgical skills.

Doctor Strauss, along with Professor Nemur (Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes)
Although nobody really remembers the name of the doctor who tripled Charlie Gordon's IQ, you have to admit that pulling that off is no small feat. Unfortunately, the effects are-not to ruin the ending-not exactly all they're cracked up to be. Additionally, Strauss and Nemur can claim the credit for one of the most famous mice in sci-fi.

Dr. Julian Bashir (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
As Wikipedia tells it:

As a child, Julian Bashir fell behind in school, and was evaluated as having learning difficulties. Because of this, his parents, Richard and Amsha Bashir, had him subjected to genetic engineering. The procedure made him mentally superior to most humans, and greatly enhanced his physical abilities. However, because human genetic engineering is illegal in the United Federation of Planets, Bashir and his parents kept his procedure a secret throughout most of his adult life.

Throughout the course of the show, he gets to do such exciting things as end up in a prison camp, see the woman he loves (Jadzia Dax) marry someone else, and attempt to integrate some other genetically engineered people into Federation culture.

Dr. Henry Jekyll (Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson)
Unlike his more temperamental counterpart, Dr. Jekyll is a well-liked, friendly doctor. The secret life he leads as Mr. Edward Hyde, however, puts that likeable reputation at stake, thanks to a potion Jekyll invented. Perhaps the lesson here is that you shouldn't mix your own drinks, even when you're a trained professional.

Time travelers hunted them to extinction:

"Big game hunters from the future may have wiped out the dinosaurs," suggests Arthur C. Clarke, in the course of explaining one theory of time travel. (That you can travel millions of years in either direction, but not any closer to your own time, because then you run into your own timeline.)

Also in the early Isaac Asimov story "Big Game," aka "The Hunted," an explorer hears a drunken story about time travel and what really killed the dinosaurs off. A similar idea plays out in A Gun For Dinosaur by L. Sprague DeCamp and "A Sound Of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury, but I don't think it actually results in the dinosaurs' extinction in those instances.

There's a weird-as-heck twist on this idea in the story "One Giant Step" by John E. Stith. In an alternate future, the super-intelligent descendants of the dinosaurs invent time travel. So they travel back in time 65 million years to meet their dinosaur ancestors. "That's one small step for a reptile, one giant step for Reptilia." But one of the three travelers, Ektor, has smuggled back some bombs, which he uses to wipe out all his own ancestors, because of all the suffering and mass extinction of other species the reptile overlords have caused. "Reptiles were not meant to rule the Earth... let some other species take over," he announces before detonating.

And commenter QuantCoates points out that 2000 A.D.'s strip Flesh demonstrates conclusively that stegosaurus-riding cowboys from the future actually killed the dinosaurs.

Aliens did them in:

The Cybermen, Doctor Who's second worst enemies, turn out to have killed the dinosaurs - and the Doctor's math-whiz sidekick Adric - in "Earthshock." It's all because Adric wasn't quite fast enough with those logic puzzles, actually.


In Animorphs, Megamorphs #2: In The Time Of Dinosaurs by K.A. Applegate, the Animorphs travel backwards in time to the dinosaur era. There, they meet two warring alien races, the Mercora and the Nesk. The Nesk divert a comet so that it slams into the Earth, aiming to destroy the Mercora. But instead, the comet merely wipes out the dinosaurs, and provides power for the Animorphs to return to their own time again.

That's also the premise of the story "The Dreams A Nightmare Dreams" by Harlan Ellison. (And in the essay "Revealed! What Killed The Dinosaurs! And You Don't Look So Terrific Yourself," Ellison also suggests it was actually television and other mass culture that wiped them out.)

And then there's the Futurama episode, "The Why Of Fry." Fry asks the Giant Brain at the center of the Infosphere what killed off the dinosaurs, and it replies, "Meeee!"

Cthulhu, an alien from way back, takes credit for wiping out the dinosaurs in Neil Gaiman's short story "I, Cthulhu." (Thanks to commenter m_faustus for pointing this out.)

A superior species emerged:

The classic movie Reign Of Fire explains everything. Dinosaurs died out because dragons evolved as a superior life form, and the poor dinos just couldn't compete. If only the dinosaurs had had Christian Bale on their side.

Writer Jeff Hecht also advances this theory in his story "Extinction Theory," which ran in Asimov's Science Fiction in 1989. It postulated that "the evolution of intelligent dinosaurs was the real cause of the mass extinction at the K/T boundary."

They did it to themselves:

In the Jim Henson Productions show Dinosaurs, which is basically The Simpsons starring dinosaurs, we follow a whole dinosaur civilization... but the show ends on a downer note. The dinosaurs abuse their own environment and cause the extinction of several species they need to survive... so they try to cool the planet down, seeding some clouds with special rain-causing bombs. This overshoots and causes an Ice Age, wiping the poor dinos out.

A similar fate befalls the advanced dinosaur civilization in the novel Toolmaker Koan by John McLoughlin, according to commenter EllenRose.

They didn't die out after all.

Once again, Doctor Who comes to our rescue. In the stories "The Silurians," "The Sea Devils" and "Warriors Of The Deep," we learn that some of the dinosaurs had a super-intelligent civilization, which left no trace. The super-smart dinosaurs went into suspended animation, bringing some of their regular dinosaur brethren with them.

The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle has explorers visiting a hidden land where dinosaurs still survive. Which, presumably, helped to inspire King Kong, Land Of The Lost, and countless others "dinosaurs still hanging out" tales.

And then there's the always-reliable Star Trek: Voyager, which introduces the Voth, a race of super-intelligent hadrosaur descendents in the episode "Distant Origin." Before the extinction happened, the dinosaur people left Earth and wound up in the Delta Quadrant. Here's the end of the episode, with TOS music added randomly:


The cartoon DinoSquad, according to Alasdair, tells of two Velociraptors who decide to wait out the dinosaur extinction by hanging out in a cave... for 65 million years. Just, you know, chillin'. At some point, they develop telepathic powers (like one does) and when they finally emerge, they have the power to convince people they're actually human. Oh, and one is good and the other is evil.

The dinosaurs survive the rise of homo sapiens - who start killing them off, in the Anonymous Rex series by Eric Garcia. So the dinosaurs live amongst us in secret, wearing fake human suits, and carry on their dinosaur culture in secret. (Thanks to ItMoons for pointing this one out!)

And of course, the novel Dinosaur Wars: Counterattack tells the story of what happens when the dinosaurs come back from outer space - and they want their planet back.

Or maybe it really was an asteroid:

That's the theory advanced in Armageddon, where a similar fate awaits humans. Or the novel In The Shadow Of Omen, where an asteroid is directed to smash into Earth on purpose. Or Shiva Descending by Gregory Benford and William Rotsler. There's also the Night Of The Comet explanation, as commenter Se7a7n7 points out: a comet turned the dinosaurs to red dust... and it's coming back.

Additional reporting by Alasdair Wilkins.

Congratulations. You're finally in charge!

I'm finally in charge. I'm finally Captain Janeway. If you live long enough...

That's a better way to look at it. You're not replacing Amanda Tapping...

No-one can replace Amanda Tapping. The fans say, How do you feel about having to fill Amanda Tapping's shoes?" I said, look, "I would rather wake up in the morning, go into the bathroom and see Amanda Tapping than me." So I understand how the fans feel. She's a great actress and a beautiful person. I, on the other hand, am a very good actor and a very beautiful person.

I understand there's going to be a journey for Woolsey this season.

Yes, I'm changing. I'm growing. I'm becoming less of a dick. I appreciate the fact that he's Richard Woolsey and not Dick Woolsey, because that would be hard. To go to work every day and have people calling you "Dick" all the time.

And part of his epiphany comes from just not being able to work the technology.

I had two or three very humorous moments, where I don't know how to use the doors, I don't know how to find the cafeteria... I'm the new guy. And also, because he's not sort of a people person, people don't feel comfortable walking up and saying, "Mr. Woolsey, the cafeteria's this way." But I am warming up, and people are starting to feel sorry for the fact that I'm kind of a loner. I think by the end of the season, all the regular guys are going to, if not love me, respect me.

And you have a thing where you have nine pages of dialog where you argue in front of a tribunal?

I have the big dialog days. You play a hologram on Star Trek, and you have to spew line after line. I spoke in paragraphs on Star Trek. So I think they liked the fact that I handled dialog pretty well, so they give me stuff to say. But on the other hand, now that I'm playing a human and not a hologram, I'm allowed to say things like, "Well, uhh," or "You know..." which I could never do before. I had to be precise and I could never funfer. Now that I'm just a person I can funfer occasionally. Not funfer like soap opera actors funfer when they can't remember their lines, which is one of my favorite things to watch. "Hey, uh, you know man." That kind of thing. I don't do that.

What was it like working with Andy Dick on Voyager?

The first day on the set, he said to me, "Hey your name is Picardo. It's so close to Captain Picard. Do the fans make fun of you?" And I said, "Excuse me. Your name is Andy Dick, and you're going to make fun of mine?" And after that, we got along pretty well. He's wild. That was the week that the TV Guide article came out about him while we were shooting. What should I say? It was very, uh, revealing. I know that he likes to expose lots and lots about his life. Which I admire and respect, but actually, you know what? I don't think my life is quite as exciting as his.

I think your life is way more exciting than his at this point.

I like that you think that.

On Voyager, you were playing this artificial life form. Unlike Data, you looked human, but you weren't. You were like the opposite of Data.

He was more human than me. Especially early on. Wow, you've got it all. In fact, the next time I get interviewed, I'm going to call you. Because you understand my role on Star Trek even better than I did.

Did you try to convey that you looked human but weren't?

I did try to do this sort of funny, Johnny-on-the-spot kind of... But Data also moved in this exaggerated sort of way. I liked being a know-it-all. Of course, he was a know-it-all too. But I was sort of a stuffy, arrogant, curmugeonly know-it-all, where he was a childlike, sweet and Pinnochio-like know-it-all. We were both know-it-alls. Is it knows-it-all or know-it-alls?

Every other one of the Doctor's cunning plans, in Doctor Who. The Doctor is always hatching plans that fall completely flat. This is especially true in the original series, where stories had to last 90 minutes or longer. In "The Ark In Space," the Doctor plans to attack the Wirrn while they sleep — but they left a guard behind. And then he plots to stop them by electrifying the bulkheads — but they attack the electricity supply. In "Pyramids Of Mars," he builds a fancy anti-mummy machine, which the mummies wreck. Then he plants explosives on the mummies' spaceship, which fail to explode. In "Parting Of The Ways," he builds fancy Dalek-brain-busting machine... which he doesn't have the gumption to use. The Doctor has a clever scheme to get hold of the Master's laser screwdriver in "Last Of The Time Lords"... and it won't work for him. And so on.

The last battle against the Tripods, in The Pool Of Fire by John Christopher. The humans have a clever plan for attacking the domed cities of the alien Masters: sneak in and pour alcohol into the water supply, incapacitating the Masters so the humans can crack their protective domes. This works most places, but totally fails in the Panama Canal dome. There's a backup plan, which involves primitive airplanes and bombs. This fails too. And then there's a third backup plan, involving hot-air balloons and bombs. This almost fails as well, because the balloons just bounce off the dome — except that Henry lands his balloon on the dome and cradles his bomb against the dome's surface, sacrificing his life to make it blow up.

Pretty much every plan ever on Firefly. Let's rob a train — even though it turns out to be full of Alliance troops. Let's take on some passengers, what could go wrong? Let's crash a fancy society ball. Or better yet, let's team up with Saffron, the woman who double-crossed us last time. It'll be fine this time!

Whenever Sisko tries to get sneaky on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Captain Benjamin Sisko has many fine qualities, but subterfuge is not one of them. When he tries to trick the Romulans into joining the war against the evil Dominion by giving them a fake holo-recording of a meeting where the Dominion discusses invading the Romulans, it totally blows up in his face because Romulan senator Vreenak sees the fake for what it is. (But luckily for Sisko, Garak the "simple tailor" from Cardassia has a back-up plan, that blows up in Vreenak's face: literally. The resulting debris looks like the result of a Dominion attack, and the fake holo-recording looks much more genuine after it's been damaged in the explosion. Similarly, Janeway is always coming up with plans that fail on Star Trek: Voyager, including trying to shut down the evil clown in "The Thaw" and tricking the sentient missile into thinking they're in a minefield so they can shut it down in "Warhead."

In Ursula LeGuin's The Lathe Of Heaven, pretty much every well-intentioned attempt to use George Orr's reality-altering dreams for good purposes fails. Like when Heather tries to fix the problems George's dreams have already caused by inducing more world-warping dreams:

Heather begins to believe his story and seeks him out at his hideaway. Finding him in a state of exhaustion and desperation she says she will hypnotize him ( she learned it in college) and suggests that he dreams that the aliens are not on the moon and that Haber is really a good man who will cure George, not use him. This spontaneous plan backfires when George dreams that the aliens are no longer on the moon. You guessed it. George dreams that they came to the earth itself. Portland is nearly destroyed and civilians are killed by friendly fire as the military overreacts but it turns out that the aliens are peaceful beings without weapons, who are psychic and whose native element is the dream state itself.

Pretty much every escape attempt in The Prisoner. In the 1960s spy-village drama, the man known only as Number Six tries a whole variety of gambits to get away, from stealing a helicopter to getting elected Number Two to smuggling himself in crates to building a boat. He's the Wile E. Coyote of superspy escapees, and he meets with similar luck to Wile E.

That whole plan of sending soldiers into a nuclear reactor and not letting them fire their weapons when they're surrounded by alien monsters, in Aliens. Not to mention blocking off the bulkheads but not paying attention to the ceilings.

The whole trap-the-Predator idea in Predator 2. The feds have been tracking encounters with the Predator2 ever since the first movie, and they have a plan to capture a live specimen using a slaughterhouse that the Predator has been raiding for food. They think they can blind the Predator by blocking out the infrared spectrum of light — but the Predator just switches its helmet over to ultraviolet and wastes them all.

All of Horza's best-laid plans in Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks. Infiltrating the pirates? Abandoning one of them to die (but leaving him the detonator of a nuclear weapon)? Impersonating the pirates' leader? Assuming the injured Idiran soldier who got away won't cause any more trouble? It all works out spectacularly badly.

Altering history turns out to be a flawed plan in the 2002 movie of The Time Machine. Our hero, Alex Hartdegen, wants to save his girlfriend from getting killed by a mugger by going back in time and changing history. But after he finally builds his time machine, he goes back and can't change the past. No matter how many times he changes things, Emma still gets killed.

The dinosaur trap in Planet Of The Dinosaurs. In this fine, wonderful movie, a group of space travelers are at the mercy of a vicious Tyrranosaurus Rex. First, they try to poison the creature by leaving some Allosaur meat outside its lair, laced with poison berries. The plan goes south because the creature attacks from the rear. Their second plan, to coat wooden stakes with the poison and impale the creature on them, fails... until it finally works.

The Iluminati and friends come up with a whole host of plans to stop the Hulk when he comes back from outer space to trash everything, in the comic series World War Hulk. Iron Man comes up with some incredibly fancy battle armor that lasts about five minutes. Mr. Fantastic creates a huge machine that simulates the feeling the Hulk gets from being pacified by the all-powerful Sentry... and the Hulk smashes it right away. Dr. Strange tries to reach the Hulk's friendly alter-ego Bruce... and the Hulk smushes his hands. Oh well.

Lili's gambit on Earth: The Final Conflict: Lili Marquette is among the Taelons, who are attacking Earth, and tries to sabotage the engines on their ship. She sort of succeeds, but Zo'or deals with it by expunging the extra energy out into space.

Stargate is full of failed gambits: Sheppard tries to distract the Super-Wraith with a flare and run to a puddle-jumper in the Atlantis episode "The Defiant One," but the Super-Wraith left the puddle-jumper's shields on. When that fails, he challenges the Super-Wraith to a pointless knife fight and early gets slaughtered. In the SG-1 episode "The Serpent's Lair," the SG-1 crew plants C-4 explosives around a Goa'uld ship, but then Apophis himself shows up and captures them. Meanwhile, Colonel Samuels has a plan to attack Apophis using special warheads... which totally bounce off. Oops.

There are like three attempts to stop the comet in Deep Impact. First, the spaceship Messiah is launched to drill into the comet's surface and plant bombs, which only split it into two still-destructive comet pieces. Then Earth tries to launch a ton of missiles, which only make the comet more pissed off and splodey. The smaller piece of comet hits and creates a mega-tsunami. Just as the much larger piece of comet is about to hit, the Messiah flies into a fissure in the comet piece and blow it up.

Every Terry Gilliam hero ever pretty much makes screwy plans that don't work out that great. Like Sam Lowry in Brazil, who has a plan to erase Jill from the records so they can escape — which doesn't work out that great, because Jill gets erased for real. And James Cole in Twelve Monkeys thinks he can avert the future plague by tracking down Jeffrey Goines and the Army Of The Twelve Monkeys, but they turn out to be a total red herring.

Thanks to Lauren Davis, John Kim and Liz Henry for research help.

7. When one person displays a new and bizarre ability, that's the work of evolution, because survival of the fittest is making only the strongest genes survive. Actually, if there's only one person in the entire world who can shoot cherry-colored death rays out of his eyes, that's not evolution — that's a mutation. It's evolution if the cherry-eyebeam guy has a easier time mating with Famke Janssen than anyone else, and thus makes tons of babies, all of whom can do the red-eyeblast thing. Mutations are only the building blocks of evolution, not the result of evolution. Go back to school, Mohinder.

6. Evolution is puberty. In the X-Men, for some reason, bizarre powers always manifest themselves whenever they first start getting hair in new and unusual places. And it's always treated as though the person's development as an individual is a form of, or a manifestation of, evolution. It's like puberty goes hand in hand with the sudden emergence of weird new genes, and your changes as an individual is confused with the transformation of your whole species. I also love the idea that there's one X-gene, which somehow activates a whole range of powers, from heat-vision to being a chicken-man.

5. Creatures with totally different ancestors will end up looking sorta the same, just because. Biologist and science fiction author Joan Slonczewski says a big problem with most science fiction is that it depicts convergent evolution as happening all the time — that's why aliens look sort of human, and aliens and humans can inter-breed. In fact, divergent evolution is way, way more common than convergent evolution. Divergent evolution is when creatures who share a single ancestor — like, say, mammals — evolve to be very different from each other over time. You're not likely to get just one unique creature in an ecosystem, like the great worm in Dune. Instead, you're likely to get a diversity of creatures from one ancestor. Convergent evolution, when creatures with different ancestors evolve to be similar because they're filling a similar evolutionary niche, is much rarer. (An example of convergent evolution, says Slonczewski: birds, bats and flying fish.)

4. Your children will inherit your body-mods. Maybe the earliest evolutionary theorist was Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) who believed in the idea of "soft inheritance," where you pass on your acquired characteristics to your kids. If your body adapts to circumstances during your life — for example, if a particular organ gets smaller because you use it less — then your children will inherit it. (That organ will be smaller in your kids.) In fact, only genetic changes are passed on. But that doesn't stop science fiction from presenting changes to a creature's body, or non-genetic adaptations that you make in the course of your life, as being heritable. (Lamarck's ideas are sometimes mischaracterized as, "if you lose a leg, you'll have one-legged children," but he wasn't that silly.) In David Cronenberg's 1979 classic The Brood, a cutting-edge psychotherapy causes patients to manifest their darkest emotions in their own bodies — and one transformed woman gives birth to monster children that she can control telepathically.

3. Humans could evolve overnight into a new species in just one generation. In Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio, humans' junk DNA suddenly starts expressing, and certain people are strongly sexually attracted to each other. These chosen people's children, the ones who survive, are a radically different species from homo sapiens. And Bear shows how this is just like when homo sapiens suddenly sprung up overnight, nearly 200,000 years ago. The new breed of humans are super-intelligent and mega-awesome. But it's pretty unlikely that super-rapid evolution would happen within only one generation.

2. It's possible to de-evolve people with rayguns or whatnot. Because evolution is a straight line and always happens in totally predictable ways, it's also a reversible process. You just need the right "de-evolution" device, like in the totally radical movie Mario Bros., where Dennis Hopper's King Koopa, who turns anyone who opposes him into a primordial sludge. Or, in the Next Generation episode "Genesis," a mutated T-virus from whiner-in-chief Reg Barclay causes everybody on the ship to start devolving — including Captain Picard, who starts turning into a lemur/pygmy/marmoset hybrid. Because Picard's too multi-faceted a guy to devolve into just one type of creature. Something similar also happens in the Doctor Who episode "Ghost Light," where an evolution-doubting clergyman is somehow de-evolved into an ape.

(Which reminds me: How exactly did "Ghost Light"'s interplanetary explorer/surveyor character travel all the way across the galaxy to survey Earth, but manage to be unaware of evolution? Is Earth the only planet where creatures don't just stay the same forever?)

1. We can predict evolution and accelerate it with technobabble. Random weird things, like going really really fast, or getting exposed to weird radiation, or just eating some weird fish, will cause you to evolve 1,000,000 years into the future, like in that Voyager clip above. And then there's the totally AWESOME Voyager episode where the crew meets the long-distant descendants of Earth's dinosaurs, who are spacefaring and intelligent. Janeway deduces they're the great-great-great-great-grandkids of the dinos by asking the computer to predict dinosaur evolution millions of years ahead. Because, of course, evolution is completely predictable in a vacuum, and you don't need to know anything about enviornmental factors.

Famous names: Produced and co-created by Rick Berman, who rescued Star Trek: The Next Generation from painful, Roddenberry mediocrity; while Voyager was mediocre more often than not, even its worst episode was better than most of the clunkers fromThe Next Generation's first season.

Crunchy goodness: 3

Spinoffs/Sequels/Copycats: The next series, Star Trek: Enterprise, took the basic premise of a ship on its own and added more potty jokes and a male captain who manages to say "ass" in almost every episode.

Stunt casting: After Cronenberg vet Genevive Bujold didn't work as the captain (see the extras disc on the Season One Voyager DVD set for fascinating outtakes), the producers cast ex-Mrs. Columbo and Remo Williams girlfriend Kate Mulgrew.

Design breakthrough: The intentional use of Art Deco motifs on the bridge and other sets meant that even if the episode sucked, there was still eye candy, 'cuz Art Deco rules.

Star Trek Voyager Encyclopedia