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.

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.

10) Top 10 Star Trek Movies.

Yes, I know. There are only 10 Trek movies, before the new one. (At least this is one top 10 list where nobody can complain that something important got left out.) Mike Scott with the New Orleans Times-Picayune has been ranking the previous 10 films from worst to best. You won't be shocked to hear that Star Trek V is the worst, followed by all the TNG films except for First Contact. Then Star Trek III is the sixth best, followed by Star Trek VI. Scott still hasn't revealed his top four, but the only remaining films are First Contact, Khan, Voyage Home and The Motion Picture. (TMP? Really?) There's also the top 10 Star Trek movie scores.

9) Top 10 Star Trek Moms.

This one is just sort of hilarious, including human moms like Beverly Crusher and Amanda Grayson... but also the whale in The Voyage Home and the Horta in "Devil In The Dark." How come nobody ever puts the Horta on a mother's day card? It's over at TrekMovie.

8) Top 10 Star Trek Villains.

This one makes me sort of sad, since it turns out there aren't actually ten great Star Trek villains. IGN tries valiantly, but winds up packing their list with characters like Kruge (from Search For Spock) and Weyoun (from Deep Space Nine.) Another site, Emagill, winds up packing their list with "the Conspiracy bugs" and Silik. (Neither site mentions Tomalok. Or Kor, from "Mission Of Mercy.") Even Film.com's "top five Star Trek villains," which is a lot less ambitious, winds up including Lursa and B'tor. Really? (Khan belt buckle from Zomboy.)

7) Top 10 Weirdest Star Trek Videos.

This list seems like another super obvious candidate, since if there weren't bizarre fan-made Trek videos, YouTube would have to shut down or become the Susan Boyle channel. Several of these I'd seen before, like the Star Trek Vs. Star Wars video, the Star Trek sex faces video and the Star Trek/A-Team opening credits video. But there's also this pretty awesome coffee commercial, paying homage to Sulu's destroyed coffee cup in The Undiscovered Country and that Voyager episode:

6) Top 10 Star Trek: TNG episodes.

With 178 episodes, and many of the strongest individual episodes in the franchise, there's plenty to choose from. EW picks a fairly solid list, including the "four lights" episode, the "Worf's cha'Dich" episode, and the "is Data human" episode. Plus a couple of clunkers, like the "Wesley's Starfleet Academy adventure" episode. Graduate student and self-proclaimed geek Martin McCrory has a somewhat more rock-solid list, including some bold choices.

5) Top 10 Cheesiest Star Trek Classic Creatures

This list is going to make the salt vampire cry — which will only make it need more salt. Poor salt vampire. Wired has a list ruthlessly mocking some of the creature design on the original series, including my personal favorite, the Mugatu. Just as long as they don't do anything similar for classic Doctor Who.

4) Top 10 Original Star Trek Babes

It's not all scantily clad women — it includes the awesome Romulan commander from "The Enterprise Incident," for one — but this list from Gather.com also showcases quite how ahead of its time, fashion wise, the original Trek was. Check out Andrea the Android's sexy/crazy strap outfit.

3) Top 10 Star Trek Characters.

This one seems like such an obvious idea, but few sites have assayed it. From the original series, this list at Fix My Internet Now! only includes Kirk and Spock, but then goes pretty heavy on the TNG and DS9 characters. Like all right-thinking people, they completely leave out Voyager and Enterprise. (Actually, I'm kidding. My own top 10 list would have included B'elanna Torres, "Trip" Tucker, possibly T'Pol and possibly Tuvok. Becuase I obviously have a soft spot for Vulcans.)

2) Top 10 Star Trek Inventions That Exist Today.

J.J. Abrams likes to say that Trek's 1960s vision of the future has come true, and a couple of different sites have stepped up to bear him out. Filmjunk has a list of Star Trek inventions that we're already using today, including basic stuff like portable memory, bluetooth headsets and biometrics, but also location finding. Networkworld has a somewhat more exciting list of inventions that are now in development, including phasers, tractor beams, cloaking devices and hyposprays. Probably the best list of this type, though, is at Space.com, from Technovelgy's Bill Christensen. It includes stuff like the Tricorder, the communicator, the Universal Translator, "credits," and more.

1) Top 10 Star Trek Technobabbles from Cinemassacre.com.

I can't believe they managed to pick just ten of these, although to be fair like half of them are Data or Geordi. I love the idea that this is "science that's made to sound plausible and realistic, but really it's full of shit." In general, the video is priceless:

So there you are. All we need now is for someone to add this top 10 list to their own top 10 list of Star Trek posts, and the recursiveness will be perfect.

Oh, and here's a runner up:

Best Unintentionally Funny Star Trek Fight Scenes

Sadly, there are only nine things in this list at Unreality Mag, so it doesn't really belong in a list of top 10 lists. But it's a wonderful tribute to the unrestrained, juggernaut fighting style of William Shatner. Including this great smackdown:

The termination shock is where the solar wind runs into the interstellar medium, which is astronomy jargon for "whatever is in space beyond our solar system." We learned a lot about this region of space when Voyager II passed through it last year, but IBEX will be able to study the interactions happening out there in far greater detail. Particles called energetic neutral atoms are ejected from the termination shock at high speed. IBEX will measure these particles as they strike it, and piece together an image of what's going on as the solar wind slows and ripples. NASA likes to compare it to an Impressionist painting in their IBEX press releases, but it's really more like...well, science. IBEX has been in orbit for more than a month, but it needed time to push itelf into a very high-altitude orbit and run some tests. Now it's ready to rock.

So what will IBEX find out there? It's such an unexplored region of space that scientists really have no idea. They believe that the termination sock filters out cosmic rays that would otherwise bombard the solar system, and they have some rough ideas of the heliosphere's irregular dimensions, thanks to the Voyagers, but beyond that, it's an unknown frontier. Image by: NASA.

NASA Launches IBEX Mission to Outer Solar System. [NASA]

Produced by GITCorp, the DVD will include PDF versions of more than 500 different Star Trek comics from Gold Key's original 1967 series all the way through to DC/Wildstorm's early 21-century efforts (IDW and Tokyopop's more recent series won't be included, but are still in print for you to read the old-fashioned way):

Each issue is being scanned by the company, cover to cover, including all of the advertising, and stored in individual PDF archives. GITCorp is using an interface similar to their prior DVD comic collections to access the PDFs in the collection. The DVDs can be used on both Windows and Macintosh computers.

Putting together a collection spanning four decades has not been an easy task, especially due to the fact that Trek comics have been produced by so many different publishers over the years. According to Ray Pelosi from GITCorp, it has been a daunting to get all the comics and to sort out all the licensing issues required to bring it to market and he thanks CBS Products for all the help they provided to make it all happen.

As someone who still has a deep and abiding love for Peter David's run on the DC series in the early '90s, the idea of being able to re-read all of those issues (and try and get past by fear of Pablo Marcos' art on the Next Generation series of the same period) for $50 is more than a little tempting, I have to admit. Is it too late for me to start believing in Santa again?

TrekInk: First Look At Star Trek: The Complete Comic Book Collection DVD [TrekMovie]

Unusual evening entertainment aside - Seriously, a Star Trek hypnotist? I'm not the only one who thinks that that's got to be a really niche market, right? - the convention, running August 5th through 10th, offers fans the chance to meet a pretty impressive line-up of stars from each of the series in the long-running franchise, as well as Zachary Quinto from Abrams' upcoming movie. You'd have to have a heart of stone to not be even vaguely tempted by Sunday afternoon's Voyager cast reunion panel, if nothing else.

The full line-up of the convention is available at TrekWeb, including the arcane pricing system of having your photo taken with the actor of your choice (Scott Bakula - $109. Why not just $100? What does that extra nine dollars do, exactly?). Start saving up your dollars for Saturday's Deep Space Nine lunch with Dr. Bashir, Odo, Dax and Quark now.

Galaxy of Star Trek Actors To Appear At Las Vegas Convention [TrekWeb]

Five papers published in a recent issue of Nature explain the crossing of the termination shock, the outer edge of the solar system where the solar wind (particles expelled by the sun) dies off. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 exited at opposite ends of the solar system (north and south, relative to the orientation of Earth), and found that the interstellar magnetic field alters the shape of the heliosheath. Voyager 2 discovered that the termination shock is much more dynamic than astronomers guessed, with the solar wind ebbing and surging like rippling waves at the beach. Voyager 1 found some mysterious cosmic rays that scientists haven't figured out yet, and researchers also learned that energized ions from interstellar space help push back against the solar wind.

It's incredible that the Voyagers are still working, considering that astronomers in the 70s weren't even sure if they would accomplish their primary mission to explore Saturn and Jupiter. The amount of data they have generated is immense - much of what we know about the outer planets, even today, is based on Voyagers' exploration. Their distance from Earth is difficult to comprehend - it takes more than 14 hours for radio signals from the probes to get back to us. Although their radioisotope generators will run out of power in the next few years, and their orientation thrusters will use up the last of their fuel, they will continue their steady flight into space at more than 30,000 mph. There's really nothing out there to damage them or slow them down, so they will be traveling for a long, long time. It will take tens of thousands of years before they're anywhere near another star, and it might be millions of years before their journey finally ends. They'll be carrying those weird golden records that Carl Sagan designed just in case, but if anyone ever finds them, they'll probably serve as an epitaph to a human race long since vanished.

You can check out a longer article I recently wrote about the Voyagers over at HowStuffWorks. Image by: NASA/JPL.

The laboratory at the end of the solar system. [Nobel Intent]

As you can see, Trek's crews have always treated the Prime Directive like a speed limit on the Interstate. But the high point of Prime Directive violations was the late 1990s, which surpassed even the late 1960s of Kirk's cowboy-ism.

At the same time, the United States was reducing its troop presence around the world. Why did Starfleet start interfering more, even as America was throwing less of its weight around? The late 1990s was an era of military spending cutbacks and base closures, when the U.S. seemed to be less influential without the threat of the Soviet Union to rally our own citizens, let alone our allies.

I know what you're going to say: It's all down to Star Trek: Voyager's Captain Janeway and her "anything goes" approach. But first of all, Janeway's not the only culprit. Ben Sisko on Deep Space Nine also played fast and loose with the Directive more in the late 1990s than in its earlier seasons. And the Federation also threw its non-interference principles out the window, in different ways, in both 1998's Star Trek: Insurrection and 2002's Star Trek: Nemesis.

But also, consider that Voyager is a metaphor for the U.S.' more confusing situation after the Cold War. Instead of being one superpower facing another (like the Klingons, Romulan or Borg) suddenly the Voyager is isolated in a quadrant full of independent players, each of whom has its own agenda. Just as the Soviets were replaced with Bosnians, Serbs and Kosovans and the U.S. had to form alliances to deal with messy situations, Voyager faces a bunch of warring races and Janeway has to strike deals with different races to escape in one piece.

All of which makes us wonder: If Star Trek were on the air as a television show now, and it took place during an era where the Directive applied, would we see fewer violations? After all, U.S. troop levels in other countries have rebounded, and we're once again involved in a massive confrontation overseas. Would a 24th century Trek step more lightly around the galaxy, to counterbalance the United States' greater use of force?

Illustration by Stephanie Fox. Additional reporting by Nivair H. Gabriel.

Usually when we throw together a list of "the best this" or "the definitive that," we're willing to concede that we might have missed something. But this time, we're screeching and flinging our own feces with the total confidence that we have covered all of the space monkeys in history. Mostly thanks to the obsessive-compulsive maniacs at Monkey Conspiracy, who compiled an exhaustive list of monkey films. Plus Mr. Monkey's List of Famous Monkeys. Top image from Adrian Platts.

First of all, of course, there are the Planet of the Apes movies, which are almost their own genre. (We won't even get into the thorny question of whether apes are monkeys.) it's the distant future, except in the Burton version where maybe it's an alternate Earth, and apes have taken over, and humans can't talk. It's all part of some bizarro analogy for race relations in America.

Space Chimps, coming this summer, is an animated movie about the grandson of the first chimp in space. Ham III gets blasted into space by an unscrupulous senator. Then, somehow, he gets zapped to a faraway star system, where he has to help overthrow the evil ruler of another inhabited planet. Good thing two other smart, resourceful chimps are on board his spaceship.

Captain Simian & The Space Monkeys. An animated show from the mid-1990s, and yet another story about astronaut monkeys. This time, a monkey-naut in the 1960s gets lost in the outer reaches of space, only to get picked up by a race so advanced, nobody can pronounce their name. The monkey gets an upgrade, including enhanced intelligence and high tech, and recruits a squad of other monkeys to fight a villain who's half-human, half-black hole (and who wants to destroy the universe.)

Lost In Space. The TV show and the movie had many important differences, but one central element remained constant: Penny's space monkey. In the TV show, she befriends a weird alien monkey with long ears named Debbie, or Bloop, after the funny noise she makes. In the movie, the monkey's named Blarp, and instead of being a real chimpanzee with a funny hat, she's CGI mixed with animatronic:

Star Trek: Voyager. In one of the most memorable episodes of Voyager, "Resolutions," Captain Janeway and Chakotay get bitten by an insect, so they can never leave a particular planet. Voyager has to go warping off without them, leaving Janeway and Chakotay to put on funny vests and take up gardening and pandering to J/C shippers. But there's a complication: Janeway meets a cute-ass monkey, who threatens to steal her affections away from Chakotay. Which one will she choose? Luckily, Voyager comes back with a miracle cure before Janeway has to decide. That was close!

2001: A Space Odyssey. There are some apes tossing a bone around on a lazy Sunday, and then a big obelisk/monolith thingy shows up. I don't think the apes ever get into space in this film, but space comes to them. So I'm including it.

Monkeys In Space. A twice-weekly webcomic about a group of monkeys zipping around the galaxy and trying to wipe out the remnants of the human race. And score some bananas:

Moon Pilot. Another movie about chimp astronauts, this 1962 Disney comedy features a space chimp who makes contact with a race of telepathic aliens, who just happen to look like hawt babes. No human astronaut wants to follow in the path of the alien-crazed chimp, until he sticks a fork in a young trainee's ass at a dinner party, prompting the man to volunteer by mistake.

The Right Stuff. NASA wants to send monkeys up into space before it sends up any trained astronauts, prompting the classic line: "The issue here ain't pussy, it's monkey." But why can't it be both?

Robot Monster. An alien invader, looking suspiciously like a man in a gorilla suit with a diving helmet on his head, manages to kill everyone on Earth... except for six people. The film was such a huge disaster, the director reportedly attempted suicide (unsuccessfully.) Here's a clip:

Rocket Man. A spaceship full of humans blasts off into deep space, with the humans in suspended animation. But the ship's resident chimp (you have to have one, it's regulations) accidentally wakes one of the humans up, and he has to spend months entertaining himself while the other humans sleep. Good thing he's got a chimp to keep him company.

Space Ghost. In the original 1967 cartoon, Space Ghost had twin sidekicks, Jan and Jace. (Not unlike the wonder twins in Superfriends.) And Jan and Jace had a pet monkey, Blip. Similarly, the Wonder Twins had their pet blue monkey, Gleek.

The Existential Adventures of ASTRO-CHIMP, First Monkey In Space. An animated program on the Sci Fi Channel, this is yet another astronaut chimp show, which supposedly is incredibly boring and pointless despite its cool name.

The Monkey In The Rocket by Jean Bethell. A children's book about monkeys in the space program. Sample lines: "Sam and Bam are Monkeys. They are very special monkeys that live in a very special place... at the Blue Sky Rocket Base." Sam is the bravest little monkey, who volunteers (sort of) for a one-way trip to the farthest reaches of the universe... and oxygen starvation!

The Scary/Angry Monkey Show. On Invader Zim, Zim's robot servant Gir is obsessed with a TV show that's either called Scary Monkey or Angry Monkey. It seems to consist of a monkey, sometimes wearing a band-aid, looking somewhat pissy or freaky. He's obviously in outer space, or why would he be in such cramped quarters?

Dexter's Laboratory. The monkey Simion gets shot into space and becomes hyper-intelligent (of course) and then becomes a supervillain. His dastardly scheme: Invade Earth to get revenge on all the humans who helped make him the megalomaniac he is.

Monkey Business by J. Otto Sebold and Vivian Walsh. The first monkey in space, conveniently called Space Monkey, comes back to Earth and starts a business to capitalize on his fame: he builds a supercomputer that turns out objects that look like cubist cupcakes. Nobody's sure what they are, but they're tremendously popular. Then it turns out if you point a TV remote control at the objects, they open up into tiny apartments.

Rewind for a minute, and here's the moment when Silverman and Paris first start getting all googly-eyed about each other. And she manages to insult the crew ad-libbingly while also having to mouth some writer's hideously-written lines. Poor early-career Sarah Silverman. We still wish she would fuck us. I mean, if she would do Paris then surely . . . surely Sarah Silverman would fuck io9.

The Theremin Era (1950s-1960s). The emphasis is on weird noises and screechy howls. Sometimes, it's an actual electronic scream, as in the Doctor Who theme, or to some extent the Outer Limits theme. Sometimes, it's an actual human trying to sound like a theremin, like the Star Trek theme's crazy opera singer. Either way, the message is clear: This is some freaky shit right here.

The Disco Era (late 1970s-early 1980s). You can totally boogie down to the theme tunes of Amazing Spider-Man, Bionic Woman or Logan's Run the series. Some themes, like Buck Rogers, try to sound sort of "adventure-y" and bring up associations with John Williams' heroic theme tunes for Star Wars and Superman: The Movie. But mostly the message is: groovy times ahead!!! Put on some tight pants and boogie!

The Orchestra Era (1990s). The themes from the two Star Trek TNG spin-offs, Babylon 5, Andromeda, Seaquest and even Time Trax all feature heroic-sounding strings and soaring horns. There's a strong melodic hook, but it's not as toe-tapping as the themes from the 70s and early 80s. Message: Epic saga (with heartstring-yanking) ahead.

The Alt-Country Era (early 2000s). Okay, so this was just two shows: Firefly and Enterprise. But it still felt like a mini-trend, especially since these were half the SF shows on TV at the time. You had the twangy voice, the deep soul-searching lyrics and the guitar anti-heroing. "Take my love, take my land, but you can't take my faith of the heart." Message: It's tough out here on the frontier.

The Weird Wailing Era (mid-2000s). All of a sudden, shows like the new Battlestar Galactica and Heroes featured a Middle Eastern-sounding person in distress, or just voices going "oooh" in the background. The new Doctor Who had a boppier version of the original theme, but whenever the Doctor acted mysterious, you'd hear a distinct "ooooh" sound in the background. In many ways, it's like a throwback to the theremin era. The message it sends: This is some freaky shit right here.

Famous names: Gene Roddenberry, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Deforest Kelley, James Doohan, Harlan Ellison, Theodore Sturgeon.

Crunchy goodness: 3

Spinoffs/Sequels/Copycats: Eleven films, plus Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager and Enterprise.

Sights you'll never unsee: The half-black, half-white space racists running through fake yule log flames. A big blob ordering Abraham Lincoln to wrestle Vulcans. Captain Kirk flying a starship into a space dildo. Spock flamenco-dancing. It goes on and on.

Life lesson: "You'll have to get your entertainment somewhere else." — Captain Kirk.

Most painfully dated moment: The planet where the Vietnam war never ended.

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