Monday

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

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

Tuesday

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

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

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

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

Wednesday

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

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

Thursday

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

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

Friday

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

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

Saturday

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

Sunday

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

Monday

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

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

Tuesday

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

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

Wednesday

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

Thursday

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

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

Friday

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

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

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

Saturday

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

Sunday

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

Monday

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

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

Tuesday

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

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

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

Wednesday

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

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

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

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

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

Seriously. How could anyone resist that?

Friday

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

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

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

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

Saturday

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

Sunday

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

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

Rick Lacy, a character designer and storyboard office for The Venture Bros., posted this concept art, which he describes as a "female lead in season 4." The images are labeled "Nikki mid-30s" and "Nikki nightgown." So will this Nikki be friend, foe, or just another incredibly screwed up character from the Venture universe?

For folks on the West Coast who ended up seeing the first 15 minutes of last night's episode twice, you can head over to the Adult Swim website to catch the episode in its entirety.

[Rick Lacy Presents]

Update: So it seems the episode we previewed was in fact next Sunday's episode — not the premiere. Hopefully, we'll get more details on what's happened since last season' finale in the premiere.

The Venture Bros returns Sunday with an episode featuring that rainbow-wearing superhero Captain Sunshine. Don't remember Captain Sunshine? The Monarch mentioned him a while back when he was in prison:

You've sent the charred remains of Wonder Boy to his beloved Captain Sunshine?

Needless to say, Captain Sunshine is still holding a grudge. But he'll get distracted from any revenge attempts as soon as he gets entangled with the Venture family.

This Sunday's premiere is at once satisfying and exceedingly frustrating. Superman and Batman have been parodied to death, but Captain Sunshine manages to be a surprising combination of the two with a twist of pure Venture Bros. wrongness. Just when you think you've anticipated the brand of jokes coming, the writers run it a tiny bit farther over the line. So why is it frustrating? For those of us chomping at the bit to see the fallout from last season's finale, we're going to be mostly kept waiting. Yes, we do find out who Rusty's new bodyguard is (although I'm not sure it's someone who will last the whole season). Otherwise, we mostly get little nods to the changes from last season. Yes, the clones have been destroyed and Hank's hair is a little longer, Number 21 is taking even worse care of himself than usual, and the Cocoon is still pretty much a wreck, but the main focus is the stand-alone plot. It looks like the creators are going to be slowly dropping breadcrumbs for a while until they lead us to the bigger answers. Of course, gradually evolving mythology is one of the hallmarks of The Venture Bros., but it's been well over a year since we've had any new Venture action, and I've gotten impatient.

But I'll take what I can get, and what I can get is a quintessential episode with a nice blend of new faces and old standbys. Plus, the episode sets up one of the weirder subplots teased in the trailer. And even if there are still a lot of questions left unanswered, at least we can look forward to some regular Venturing for a while.

The fourth season premiere of The Venture Bros. airs Sunday, October 18th at midnight on Adult Swim.

Here's the trailer for the new season again, this year looks packed with lunacy and clone free! First person to start the real life orchard street wolf pack larp crew, and sends pictures will get all of my love.

They Come Back, But Not Quite Alive

Torchwood: When Jack Harkness is understandably upset when Owen Harper is shot and killed. But at least he's got the Resurrection Gauntlet to bring him back to life, right? Well, sort of. Owen still walks and talks, but he's not precisely alive. His heart doesn't beat, his flesh doesn't heal, and his reflexes are gone. And, if that wasn't bad enough, he can't even enjoy food or sex anymore, and Weevils follow him everywhere.

Caprica: Granted, the consequences of bringing Zoe Graystone back from the dead are pretty far-reaching. After all, it results in the creation of the Cylons and the eventual decimation of humanity. But when Joseph Adama encounters a computerized copy of his dead daughter, her concerns with being back from the dead are more immediate. Without a living body, she has no pulse and just generally feels wrong, to the extent that she can't stand being semi-alive this way.

"Playback" Arthur C. Clarke: Caprica's borrowed a page from Clarke here, who wrote a tale of aliens who try to bring a pilot back to life after his ship explodes. They manage to restore all of his memories, but have no idea what kind of body he had, and he's a bit depressed to find that he's just a non-corporeal simulation.

"The River Styx Runs Upstream" by Dan Simmons: When a young boy's mother dies, his father has her body resurrected. Although her body has returned, her mind simply isn't there, and she wanders through life as an automaton. The boy's distraught father and older brother eventually kill themselves in their grief, horror, and shame, but the boy doesn't think resurrection's so terrible. He himself goes to work for the Resurrectionists, spending his free time with his resurrected family.

You Bring Them Back Wrong

Doctor Who "The Empty Child:" Well-meaning nanobots attempt to reconstruct a child killed during the London Blitz. But not knowing what a human child looks like, they bring him back as a mindless abomination, with a gas mask for a face and ever searching for his mother. Even worse, the bots decide that this is what all humans must look like, and proceed to transmute healthy children as well.

"The Monkey's Paw" by WW Jacobs: The mystical monkey's paw grants wishes, but never in the way you hoped. After the first wish Mr. White makes results in the death of his son Herbert, his second wish is for Herbert to return. Mr. White never sees his son, but he knows after a horrible accident and a week on the slab, Herbert probably isn't the same. His third wish takes Herbert away.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer "Forever:" Following the same vein as "The Monkey's Paw," Dawn tries to resurrect her dead mother via magic. She also never sees her mother, realizing that what comes back won't quite be her, and breaks the spell before her mother reaches their front door.

They'll Try to Kill You Afterward

30 Days of Night: Dark Days: After Eben Olemaun becomes a vampire to save the remaining citizens of Barrow, he turns to ash when the polar sun finally rises. This sets Stella Olemaun on a quest to bring her husband back to life. But when she succeeds, Eben is still a vampire — and a hungry one at that.

"Herbert West — Reanimator" by HP Lovecraft: Medical student Herbert West is fascinated by life and death, and develops a serum he believes will restart the machinery of the human body. The serum works, but turns the corpses into cannibalistic zombies. West is unrepentant , focused on new ways to find dead subjects for his experiments. Of course, eventually his zombie experiments turn on him.

Practical Magic: After Sally Owens' boyfriend Jimmy turns out to be abusive, she drugs him and accidentally kills him. Fearing prison, Sally and her sister Gillian cast a spell to revive him, but Jimmy's immediate reaction isn't exactly gratitude. He tries to kill Gillian, forcing Sally to murder him once again.

Pet Sematary: Any dead creature buried in the ancient Micmac burial ground comes back to life, just not quite the way you put it in. After losing his young son Gage, Louis buries his son in the graveyard. Sure enough, Gage comes back — and promptly murders his mother.

Lexx: You would think that, given the prophecy that the last of the Brunnen-G would kill His Divine Shadow, the last thing His Divine Shadow would do is resurrect a Brunnen-G corpse. But he did exactly that to Kai, making him one of the living dead as a Divine Assassin. It takes over 2000 years, but eventually Kai does get around to killing him.

Supernatural "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things:" College students and necromancy are always a recipe for trouble. When a broken-hearted boy tries to bring his dead crush back, she's of course got to go zombie and start chomping down on her loved ones.

God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert: For thousands of years, Leto Atreides has ruled over humanity, and always has a ghola — a copy — of his father's faithful friend Duncan Idaho to serve him. But the Duncan ghola's almost inevitably rebel against Leto and try to kill him, forcing Leto to kill all but 19 gholas. Still, Leto keeps bringing in a fresh Duncan ghola after each attempt on his life.

They Bring Death With Them

Pushing Daisies: When pie maker Ned touches dead bodies, they become reanimated, without regard for mutilation or decay. But if he fails to deanimate them after more than a minute, a random person in close proximity dies, taking their place. And for Ned, bringing the dead back to life is further complicated by not being able to touch them, lest they fall dead once again.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer "After Life:" Actually, bringing a body-stealing demon into the world of the living was probably the least of the disastrous consequences of resurrecting the Slayer. Still, when a demon gets loose in Sunnydale, the Scoobies have to kill it before it kills Buffy.

Carnivale: Ben Hawkins has the power to bring people back from the dead, but it comes with a price: one person of Hawkins' choosing must die in exchange for the life. And, try though he might, he can't choose himself.

Torchwood "Dead Man Walking:" Another fun consequence of Owen's walking death is that Death himself comes along for the ride. He's looking for 13 souls to consume so he can remain in the world of the living and slake his thirst for destruction.

It Will Come at Great Personal Cost

The Dresden Files: The sorcerer Hrothbert of Bainbridge committed a crime against his order by bringing his beloved Winifred back from the dead, prompting the High Council to hand down a severe and lasting punishment: they imprison his spirit inside his skull for all eternity. Hrothbert, now "Bob," has been around over a thousand years, but he can't interact with the physical world.

Torchwood "They Keep Killing Suzie:" The other Resurrection Gauntlet actually does bring the dead back to full-fledged life. But naturally there's still a catch: the resurrected person draws life energy from the living wearer, and permanent resurrection means the death of the living wearer.

Full Metal Alchemist: After their mother dies, Edward and Alphonse try to revive her through alchemy. Not only do they fail to bring her back from the dead, they lose physical pieces of themselves in the process, with Edward losing his left leg and Alphonse losing his entire body.

Supernatural: The Winchesters thrive on death and resurrection. When Sam is shot and killed, Dean trades his soul for Sam's life, with the bartering demon collecting in just a year. Sure enough, after a year, Dean dies and head off to Hell.

It Will Attract Unwanted Attention

The Outer Limits "Josh:" When reclusive Josh Butler resurrects a young girl through a strange electromagnetic pulse, it attracts the attention of a tabloid TV reporter looking for a scoop. Unfortunately, it also attracts the attention of the US Air Force, who promptly seize Josh and start performing medical tests.

The 4400: Shawn Farrell manages to bring a bird back from the dead, just one example of his amazing healing abilities. But not everyone is thrilled about his strange new powers, and they bring him to the attention of Jordan Collier, which is a bit of a double-edged sword.

It's Only Temporary

AI: Artificial Intelligence: The evolved mechas who find David frozen beneath the water are able to give the robotic boy his greatest wish: time with his long-dead adoptive mother Monica. The resurrection only lasts a day and can never be repeated. David's okay with the arrangement, since that one day is perfect, but it's a clear audience tearjerker.

They Were Actually Okay With Being Dead

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Willow assumed that Buffy's death by interdimensional portal had sent the Slayer to a hell dimension, and conjured up some ill-advised magic to bring her back. Unfortunately, Willow never considered that Buffy might actually be in Heaven, leaving her in a major season-long depression as she adjusts to inferior life back on Earth.

Supernatural: Okay, so Dean didn't exactly enjoy his stay in Hell, but he's dealing with some very Buffy-like issues on his return to Earth. He clearly remembers his agonizing time in Hell and got a real taste for torture. And God might have pulled him out of Hell, but his plans for Dean on Earth involve more havoc and torture.

Green Lantern: Maura Rayner is infected with a sentient virus sent by Sinestro and her son Kyle failed to get back in time to save her. He uses his powers to revive her, but she won't have any of it. She senses that, once dead, there's something wrong with being alive and begs him to let her be dead once again.

You Never Really Liked Them in the First Place

The Venture Bros.: Dean and Hank Venture are a tad on the death-prone side, so their father always keeps a few clone slugs around to imprint with their memories. But once they're alive again, he generally treats them as nuisances — or ignores them entirely. But he does find it handy to have a spare organ donor (or two) around.

Red Dwarf: Nearly the entire complement of the Red Dwarf is killed off in the first episode, only to be resurrected in the eighth season thanks to a little nanobot magic. Lister is no longer the only human in the universe, but he and his cohorts immediately run afoul of the newly reconstructed crew.

It Makes for Unnecessary Sequels

And Another Thing... by Eoin Colfer: We said goodbye to several major characters from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series (as well as the entire planet Earth) at the end of Mostly Harmless. Presumably Eoin Colfer's sequel will see Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, and Trillian ride again, and Arthur's none too pleased about it.

Leaving aside characters with alphanumeric names (like Star Wars' R2-D2 and C-3PO), characters who also have serials number imparted to them by their governments but are not generally addressed as such (as in Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Giver), and characters whose first names happen to mean a number in a different language (as with many of the characters in Stardust and Mobile Suit Gundam), there are several characters who are either designated with or often called by a number:

Number One (Star Trek "The Cage"/"The Menagerie"): More than two decades before Captain Picard started referring to William Riker as "Number One," Majel Barrett filmed the original Star Trek pilot, where her character was known only as Number One. Like Riker, Number One was the Enterprise's first officer, but the novel Vulcan's Glory suggests Number One was her actual name, given to her because she possessed the top intellect of her planet's generation.

Number 5 (Short Circuit): Although roboticists Newton Crosby and Ben Jabituya were out to create artificial intelligence, they probably didn't expect any of their prototypes to suddenly gain sentience, and so assigned them numbers in lieu of names. But after prototype Number 5 becomes self-aware (and escapes the clutched of the US military), he decides that, as a living being, he should have a name, and calls himself Johnny Five.

Fifth (Stargate SG-1): One of the few characters with an ordinal number for a name, Fifth gets his name in a fairly straightforward manner: he's the fifth human-form Replicator to be created on the planet Halla.

V (V for Vendetta): Most people who live through encounters with the mysterious anarchist V think they're addressing him by a letter, and his propensity for using V-based alliterations when introducing himself seems to confirm this. But it's much more likely that V derives his name from the source of his vendetta; when he was subjected to medical experimentation at the Larkhill Resettlement Camp, he was the man in room five — marked with the Roman numeral "V."

Number Six (The Prisoner): Residents of the mysterious Village are known by a number rather than their actual names — including at least 16 individuals known only as "Number Two" — probably to protect the secrets they all inevitably carry. Number Six, the titular prisoner, protests in the opening that he's a free man, not a number, but it's implied that Number Six may be known by yet another number: Number One.

The Cylons (Battlestar Galactica): The creators of Battlestar Galactica have said that cylon Number Six is a tribute to The Prisoner, and it follows that each humanoid cylon model would have its own number, with the notable exception of the Final Five. Most cylon models are known collectively by a human name as well (the Sharons, the Leobens, the D'Annas), but individual Sixes tend to have individual human names, like Natalie, Caprica, Shelly, and Gina, perhaps because of they are so often used as infiltration agents.

Seven of Nine (Voyager): Names designate individuality, a concept the Borg have no use for, but sometimes it is convenient for the Collective to identify individual Borg drones. So when the formerly human Annika Hansen was assimilated into the Collective, she was given the designation Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero-One. Even once she was unhooked from the hive mind, she preferred the shortened "Seven of Nine" to her human name, the latter of which she does not take up again until her Borg implants are completely destroyed.

Eight (The Specials): It's fairly obvious how Eight earned its superhero name. A hive mind, Eight consists of eight individual bodies who can physically act independent of one another, but share a single consciousness.

Thirteen (House): As long as we're labeling House as science fiction, we may as well mention Dr. Remy Hadley, better known as Thirteen. In one of his trademark moves to dehumanize his fellowship applicants, Dr. House assigned each applicant a number (and occasionally a humiliating nickname). Thirteen really took to the numerical naming system, refusing to divulge her actual name to her fellow applicants, and continuing to answer to Thirteen long after she'd earned a place on House's team.

Henchmen 21 and 24 (The Venture Bros): With the exception of the ill-fated Speedy, each of the Monarch's henchman is known only to their boss as a number. Henchmen 21 and 24 (the former is known to his mom as Gary) are genre-savvy enough to be content with their numerical positions in the Fluttering Horde. When they learn their new teammate is Henchman 1, they rightly assess that he's marked for death.

84 (P.S. 238): In a school filled with superheroes, Julie Finster has a pretty routine set of superpowers: flight, invulnerability, speed. In fact, her power set is so ordinary that instead of getting a cool superhero name, she's just called "84," since she's the 84th person to possess that particular grouping of powers. Needless to say, it's a tad demoralizing.

Agent 99 (Get Smart): James Bond may have been called 007 from time to time, but Agent 99 takes use of her code number to the next level, never answering to any other moniker (okay, in one episode, her fiance calls her Susan Hilton, but that isn't actually her name). In fact, she married Maxwell Smart and bears him twins without him ever learning her real name, proving once and for all that she's the better spy.

Agent 355 (Y the Last Man): In the historical spy network known as the Culper Ring, there was a female agent code named 355, whose identity has never been definitively determined. Similarly, in the fictional Culper Ring of Y the Last Man, Agent 355 is a highly competent spy whose name is never revealed (at least not to the reader). Her odd relationship with her name parallels that of Alter Tse'elon, the Israel commando whose real first name is not spoken (until the end) for fear of attracting the Angel of Death.

Experiment 626 (Lilo and Stitch): The alien mad scientist Dr. Jumba Jookiba created 626 strange and dangerous lifeforms. The wanton destruction caused by the final experiment, 626, condemns them both to life in exile, but the experiment escapes to Earth, where a young Hawaiian girl names him "Stitch." Of course, once Stitch's destructive nature has been reigned in, there are still 625 other experiments to contend with.

1812 (Farscape): In terms of numbered names, the DRD robot 1812 gets his from a fairly unusual source. Instead of 1812 being a serial number or a numbered designation, it's a reference to the 1812 Overture, which Crichton teaches the little service bot to play.

Subject 781227 (Kyle XY): Zzyzx, the company funding Adam Baylin's research, saw the child-shaped being Adam Baylin developed in his lab as a biological computer rather than a person, reflected in him getting a serial number in lieu of a name. It's only after 16 years, an escape, and a bout of amnesia that Subject 781227 finally gets a name: Kyle Trager.

But on the off chance that the Doctor can't stop River, here's the clash many of you have been clamoring for:

And if River beats Brock Samson from the Venture Bros. as well? How about this:

That's right, the kid from the Twilight Zone. He'll send her to the Cornfield! What's she going to do about that?

If River wins all of these contests of badassery, she'll go on to face Batman, the Dark Knight, Gotham's watchful avenger tomorrow.

If any one of River's challengers beats her, than he'll face Batman tomorrow. If two of River's challengers win, then they'll have to face each other before going on to Batman. And if all three challengers win? We'll worry about that when it happens.

River Tam faces a threefold challenge — will she still be swinging tomorrow? You decide!

We open, quite appropriately, with the tanks that once contained Hank and Dean's clones, emptied at the end of last season. They don't look quite empty. Is Dr. Venture growing new clones, or is there a new project running? And who'd this new bodyguard.
Now we're back to the season finale, with the Monarch's henchman running around the Venture Compound lawn, with the slaughtered Hank and Dean clones at their feet.
Rusty runs through the Venture Compound while pursued by a violet light, possibly from a certain flying cocoon?
Well, something is going down with those cloning tanks. Sadly, we still don't get a very clear picture of what's inside of them.
And there are Nazis in the cloning room. Are we having a Boys from Brazil moment? Are they looking to clone Hitler? Or Girl Hitler?
Oh, and Rusty's there, too. Hi, Rusty!
Oof. Whatever the Nazis are up to, it doesn't seem to end well for them. Or maybe it turns them into supermen in a glowy, painful way.
It looks like Rusty wastes no time replacing H.E.L.P.eR. An Astro Boy send-up kills a snake in Brock's old room.
The Sovereign of the Guild of Calamitous Attempt makes a return...
...and yes, he's still David Bowie.
An aged Phantom Limb (with his hands now clearly visible) plays the tuba. (Edit: Several commenters note that this is probably one of Phantom Limb's Fantomas ancestors, which makes much more sense given the presence of Buddy Holly. Good call, folks.)
And he appears to be trying to jam with Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper.
21 still lives with his mom. It's nice to know some things don't change.
And we take a moment while Pete White and Master Billy Quizboy dance and mix drinks. But what are those things around their necks? Evidence of spinal cord injuries, or mind control collars?
Evidently, Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer are channeling Avatar. I wonder if this could be anything other than a dream sequence, but in Venture Bros., anything is possible.
Finally, we see Brock, but what happened to his beautiful mullet?
Time has not been kind to hunchback Dean, but he still keeps around mementos of his prettier youth.
Seriously, who gave Hank a gun? I do dig the hair, though.
It looks like another showdown on the Venture lawn. Are those blotches of orange butterfly wings?
Rusty plummets from the top of the Venture compound, possibly in the same episode as image #3.
A somewhat udder-looking gun from the Cocoon. I wonder, do the different canons fire different materials?
What unholy slash fic did this come out of? Also, Billy looks kind of hungover.
General speculation is that this is Captain Sunshine, finally getting revenge on the Monarch for the death of Wonder Boy.
And there goes the Monarch screen.
Dean starts going off about how he loves Hitler. Commenter m-d suggests that he's talking about Girl Hitler, and I suspect he's right. Perhaps this is related to the Nazis in the cloning lab? Also, is that Sergeant Hatred? What is that on his face?
Hank is not only growing his hair to look like Brock's (or at least like Brock's used to), he's spending some questionable time with Dermott Fictel, who might be Brock's son.
Rusty meets 21's LARP crew. He seems less concerned about what 21 is doing there in the first place than all the graffiti on the X-1, making me wonder if he's Rusty's new bodyguard.
It looks like Sergeant Hatred is still hanging around the Ventures. Is he locked in that room to protect Hank and Dean from his urges?
This may take place after Captain Sunshine's attack, as the Monarch screen is now resting on a makeshift stand. Also, the casual way Rusty asks Dr. Mrs. Monarch for 21 suggests that whatever 21 is doing with Rusty, it's no secret from his employers.
The Monarch asks 21 to kill the cab driver downstairs. Funny, the Monarch used to just kill cab drivers himself.
Also, grief has not treated 21 kindly.
Dean really had no chance when Rusty put him in that first speedsuit. Now he's going to be wearing those things for the rest of his life. And Rusty seems be telling Dean about arch-nemeses like he's explaining the Facts of Life. At least he seems to be paying attention to one of his kids.
Commenter tnmnsquare wondered if this was a Spider Jerusalem reference, but I think the bald head just makes it look that way. Those are ordinary 3D glasses — from the future.
I have no words for what is going on here.
Really, none.
Dean's body withers into dust, and we're out. Can't wait for November.

When last we left The Venture Bros., Hank and Dean's clones had been sacrificed during an all-out assault on the Venture compound, Brock had quit his job as the Ventures' bodyguard, and Henchman 21 was holding the decapitated head of his bosom buddy, Henchman 24.

The creators have promised that now that their clones have been destroyed, Hank and Dean will actually age past their perpetual sixteen years, physically if not mentally. Dean may be harboring sympathetic feelings for fascist dictators, but at least now Hank has better hair.

Now that Brock has quit the bodyguarding business, it looks like Rusty will be employing a new bodyguard (Brock will reappear, but it may be a few episodes before we see him). With all of the interactions between 21 (or Gary, if you prefer) and Rusty, I can't help but wonder if 21 is Rusty's new bodyguard, perhaps moonlighting when he's not working for the Monarch. Also, I wonder how far we have to get into the season before Sergeant Hatred decides Master Billy Quizboy is the perfect outlet for his pederastic urges. Sadly, we'll have to wait until November for the full episodes to begin.

[via AICN]

The Skywalkers (Star Wars): The Skywalkers are more or less the gold standard for family dysfunction. Putting aside that twins Luke and Leia have the hots for one another, Papa Vader chopped off Luke’s hand, nearly killed him, and annihilated Leia’s entire home planet. Makes those family dinners pretty awkward.

Adding Han Solo’s DNA to the family tree doesn’t improve matters, as his Force-sensitive offspring Jaina and Jacen just end up battling to the death.

The Connors (Terminator): If it weren’t for all the time-traveling killer robots and the apocalyptic future, Sarah Connor’s treatment of her son John would be considered abuse. She intensely isolates the future leader of humanity’s Resistance against the machines, and encourages in him a level of paranoia, violence, and general criminal behavior that most parents would tend to avoid. And the future John will befriend Kyle and Derek Reese, never revealing to them that they are his father and uncle respectively. And, given that John and Sarah spend so much of their lives running from Terminators, they develop warm fuzzy feelings for a couple of them. A reprogrammed T-800 serves as John’s first father figure and Cameron proves a vital (and confusingly sexy) addition to the Connor clan.

The Ventures (The Venture Bros): Rusty Venture is a walking dysfunction all on his lonesome. Unable to live up to his father’s impossible example, Rusty turned into a pill-popping, underachieving neurotic with a shaky moral center. And it doesn’t help that his brother JJ (who played Abel to Rusty’s Cain in the womb) is successful in the very areas where Rusty fails. Conversely, Rusty treats his own children with less than benign neglect, cloning replacements whenever they are killed (which is often) and leaving their emotional care to the ultra-violent, highly promiscuous spy Brock Samson.

The Cylons (Battlestar Galactica): The Significant Seven models of Cylon are a big, dysfunctional family in their own right, albeit one that pulls out the heavy artillery when a disagreement over the family pets goes to far. But it’s within the individual model lines that the dynamics get particularly screwy. When everyone shares the same face and the same programming, personal identities and relationships tend to get blurred. At least one of the Sharons wants to be Sharon Agathon so badly that she sampled her fellow Eight’s memories and put the moves on her husband. And then there’s this scene:

The Mulder/Spender Families (The X-Files): It’s little surprise that Fox Mulder developed an interest in conspiracies given how much of his upbringing was based on lies. Bill Mulder, the man Mulder believed to be his father, traded Mulder’s sister Samantha for an alliance with a group of alien colonists. As result, Samantha is repeatedly cloned and Mulder develops an obsession with aliens and conspiracies. And no one told Mulder that his biological father is, in fact, the Cigarette Smoking Man, the ruthless conspiracy agent who has antagonized Mulder throughout his FBI career. The CSM has Mulder’s partner Dana Scully abducted, tries to ruin his career, lies to him about his sister’s fate, and generally torments him. Still, that’s nothing compared with the CSM’s treatment of his other son, Mulder’s half brother Jeffrey Spender. The CSM berates Spender for being inferior to Mulder, shoots him, and authorizes his agents to perform horrific and disfiguring experiments on him. It’s all enough to make Mulder’s emotionally distant relationship with Scully, the mother of his own child, seem downright warm and fuzzy.

Mama Ripley and the Alien Hybrids (Alien Resurrection): Ellen Ripley spends three movies ensuring the destruction of as many Alien xenomorphs as she could take a flamethrower to. Then, in the fourth film, her clone gestates and “births” an Alien queen. Tainted by Ripley’s human DNA, the queen develops a womb, letting her give birth to an Alien daughter of her own. Like so many children, the newborn Alien digs grandma a whole lot more than mom, and matricide ensues. Ripley repays her grandchild by getting it sucked out into space, but not before they share a vaguely erotic moment:

The Petrellis (Heroes): The Petrellis are generally marked by three characteristics: they all have superpowers; they all have secret parents, siblings, or offspring; and they are constantly trying to kill one another. Claire shoots her uncle Peter. Peter shoots his brother Nathan. Patriarch Arthur plans to murder his son Nathan. And brothers Peter and Sylar are constantly trying to kill each other. Only matriarch Angela Petrelli (wife of Arthur and apparent mother of Nathan, Peter, and Sylar) stays out of the attempted murder racket, though she’s pulling most of the other family members’ strings.

Just about everybody in Dune: The noble houses of Dune are dysfunctional precisely because they resemble so many of history’s noble families: propagated through inbreeding, filled with members of uncertain parentage, and driven by political marriages so that you can’t help but go to war with your cousin. That many of the series’ characters were conceived as part of the Bene Gesserit’s breeding program helps to further entangle the families. And the spice agony, which causes a person to take on the memories (and sometimes personalities) of all their ancestors, allows a person experience the full spectrum of familial dysfunction without ever leaving their own head.

The Endless (Sandman): Sibling rivalry is bad enough without having siblings who are the immortal embodiments of the world’s greatest forces. Dream gets along fine with his sister Death, but their sibling Desire, in concert with its twin Despair, interferes constantly in his affairs, and takes great pleasure in trying to bring the wrath of the Furies down on Dream’s head. Although generally fond of youngest sister Delirium, the Endless tend to ignore her incoherent babbling until it is far too late. And Destiny quietly watches on, acting only when his great book tells him he will do so. The only sensible one seems to be Destruction, who retired from his position and stays out of family matters.

If the flash scene (pictured) at the end of the second episode of JJ Abrams' new drama really did suggest that Joshua Jackson's Peter is some kind of clone (coming, as it did, after a scene where mad scientist Walter hinted at an unusual medical history for the character), then I'm completely calling Venture-related shenanigans.

This means that both Venture Bros and Fringe are shows about, in their own ways, the failures of both science and the family dynamic, featuring strained father-and-son relationships (even if Jonas Venture isn't around any longer) and characters trying to live up to the achievements of the past, cloned children and blonde bodyguards who may be the most sensible people in the series. Throw in Mark Valley as some kind of undead Monarch, and I think we've got something here. You may mock now, but when the Fringe team start going looking for "the pattern" and find g-g-g-ghost pirates you'll know where JJ and friends are really looking for inspiration.

Given that every episode of the show's third season so far has revealed secret histories of various characters in one way or another, it's entirely reasonable that fans at the Television Without Pity forums think that we're headed for a particular and peculiar reveal by the end of the season:

[W]hat if Monarch was actually Rusty's twin? Think about it...this season, we've established that Jonas was a real asshole. Dumping a twin off somewhere and manipulating his life so we could become a super-villain doesn't seem so far-fetched, especially if Jonas knew Rusty would be a burnout case in his adult life (even without the apparently untimely death), and he figured an even lamer adversary would be needed. And if you throw in Jonas not knowing about a third kid getting absorbed (wee JJ, channeling John Constantine), it's even funnier. The only question would be if Monarch knows about it.

Another fan takes that ball and runs with it:

If Monarch is a long-lost brother to Rusty, all signs point to the fact that their point of relation has to be the fact that they have the same mother as opposed to both being Jonas Venture's kids.

The notion that Rusty is a bastard-spawn would solve a lot of the unanswered questions about Rusty's past as far as the absence of his mother: Jonas had an affair with Monarch's mom behind Monarch's dad's back, shortly after the birth of the Monarch. The affair was exposed to Mr. Monarch as a result of the pregnancy and a deal was cut: Mrs. Monarch went into seclusion and gave birth to Rusty, who by this point had absorbed JJ into his body. As soon as Rusty was out of his mom's womb, she flat-out rejected him as far as having the doctor handing him off to Jonas while Mr. Monarch ominously tells Jonas to take his illegitimate child out of their home and never come back.

Which leads to why Monarch hates Rusty: the affair between him and Monarch's mommy destroyed Monarch's parents marriage, even though they stayed married for appearance sake. Given the plot point in the season one premire, as far as Monarch seeking out surrogate parents in the form of butterflies after his parents' deaths (as well as his apparently haphazard indifference towards them dying), maybe he only has negative memories of his family, perhaps spurned on by back and forth recriminations over Mrs. Monarch's affair with Jonas ruining the until that point storybook marriage? Not to mention his at times, sexist attitudes towards women. Growing up knowing that your mom is a slut who had a child with a man who isn't your dad could screw a guy up, and lead to Monarch striking out as the living symbol of his mother's adulterous, marriage ruining affair as far as Rusty is concerned.

Rusty finding out that he was the result of a illicit adulterous affair his father carried out would probably drive him up the walls even moreso, especially if he finds out how his mother rejected him in favor of Monarch. Which in turn would make for some interesting plotlines for Rusty's money trouble as far as him possibly suing Monarch for his share of his mother's estate, let alone how JJ would react to who his mother was...

Of course, other fans have a completely different identity for Rusty's missing mother:

I think the reason why we don't see Rusty's mother is because he doesn't have one. Rusty is a clone.

Talk show host: Dr. Venture what would you say was your greatest adventure and parenthetically eh, your greatest invention.

Jonas: Well Dick, those are both very good questions, but I'm afraid I have only one answer. My Son

Folks, Rusty is an experiment. Think all the way back to this exchange for the episode called "The Incredible Mr. Brisby"

Rusty: Congress has outlawed all cloning in North America

Mr Brisby: Congress? Bah they aren't men of vision, men like you and me, men like your father, and I vaguely remember him mentioning that he was dabbling in cloning

The reason why he haven't seen Rusty's mother is because he has no mother. Rusty is just a clone of Jonas.

Well, considering poor Dean and Hank's clone status, that isn't entirely out of the realms of possibility... But if this is the case, then does this make Dr. Girlfriend now Dr. Mrs. The Monarch Venture? She's going to run out of room on her business cards, if that's the case.

The Venture Bros. [Television Without Pity Forums]

Starting this Sunday, in time for that night's season 3 premiere, Venture Bros. production house Astrobase Go is offering an exclusive t-shirt to accompany that week's episode:

Each week we premiere a brand new episode of The Venture Bros. television program, we will premiere a brand new t-shirt to go with it RIGHT HERE. The shirt will remain on sale for one week only—until the next episode and the next shirt premiere. We'll only print as many shirts of each design as we receive orders for (okay, we'll probably make a couple for ourselves, too) and once the ad for a shirt is removed, that shirt will never be available again.

Fire up the Murdermobile and call your arch nemesis—because you're about to become a fully licensed member of The Guild of Calamitous Intent the moment you slide one of these 100% cotton American Apparel fine jersey short sleeve black beauties over your cybernetic exoskeleton or henchman's tunic! Emblazoned in gold with the official logo of the recognized leader in organized havoc, this shirt says to the world: "I come in separate cuts and sizes for Men and Women!

"But wait..." you say. "Two weeks equals 14 days, not 13. I'll have to go the laundromat every 13 days now, which is an odd number and completely throws off my weekend plans. What are you trying to pull?" To which we say..."HOW ABOUT A BONUS T-SHIRT?!"

That's right, Venture Bros. Shirt Club subscribers will also receive the coveted SUPER-LIMITED EDITION BONUS BROCK SAMSON KODOKAN BLOOD JUDO T-SHIRT, which is available to SHIRT CLUB SUBSCRIBERS ONLY and is included FREE OF CHARGE with your subscription.

The Amazing Shirt of the Week Club [Astrobase Go]