No Heroics - is a six-part series that sees a group of British off-duty superheroes living their day-to-day life - which for supposed saviours of the world is actually rather normal, as they just can?t be arsed. Instead, this group of B-listers would rather get drunk and commiserate their lack of superiority in their local superheroes-only pub, The Fortress, reading New Power Express and bitching about everyone who?s more successful than them.
No Heroics Trailer http://tinyurl.com/2ed62reDead Like Me - Georgia Lass is aloof and emotionally distant from her family and shies away from her life. After dropping out of college, she takes a temp job through Happy Time Temporary Services. On her lunch break of her first day, she is hit and killed by a toilet seat from the de-orbiting of the Mir space station. She is informed shortly after her death that, rather than moving on to the great beyond, she will become a grim reaper in the External Influence division, responsible for reaping souls of people who die in accidents (many of which are of a Rube Goldberg-style in their complexity), suicides and homicides.
Through the first season, George has trouble adjusting to her circumstances: collecting souls, while holding a day job at Happy Time. By the second season, she has mostly adjusted to her new role, though still has unresolved issues with her life and her afterlife.
George's family is struggling to deal with her death. Her mother, Joy, is depressed, and visibly repressing it, while Clancy, her father, is having an affair. George's sister, Reggie, acts out ? stealing toilet seats from neighbors and school, and hanging them on a tree ? before being sent to therapy by Joy. She clings to the belief that George visits her, but is starting to lie to cover this up. At the start of the second season, the family begins to break apart as Joy and Clancy divorce.
All of the main characters have issues with their life after death, but they cope with it in different ways: Mason resorts to alcohol and drugs; Daisy puts on a veneer of perkiness; and Roxy is physically and verbally aggressive. Rube and George are more straightforward about their sadness.
Dead Like Me- Season 1 Trailer Taken - Taken spans five decades and four generations, and centers on three families: the Keys, the Crawfords, and the Clarkes. Nightmares of abduction by extraterrestrials during World War II haunt Russell Keys; the Roswell incident transforms Owen Crawford from ambitious Air Force captain to amoral shadow government conspirator; and an alien visitor impregnates an unhappily-married Sally Clarke. As the decades go by, the heirs of each are affected by the machinations of the aliens, culminating with the birth of Allie Keys, the final product of the aliens' experimentation and the key to their future.
Taken 2002 Series Trailer The X-Files - This show spawned a meme (The truth is out there) and created a whole cult following around the duo of FBI agents investigating the weird and the outright extraterrestrial in America. But over time, its paranoia became transcendant, suggesting a much weirder and more sinister world than you'd ever suspected was also out there.
The X-Files Trailer Heroes - Even with the proliferation of superhero narratives on our screens these days, few shows have grappled with the joys and drawbacks of super-powers as much as Heroes has ? for both good and ill. What would it really be like to hear other people's thoughts? Should people with powers be allowed to roam free, using them to cause havoc for everyone else? When Heroes managed to have relatable characters asking these questions, it was the most watchable show on TV. When its characters became incomprehensible, well...
Heroes Trailer The Prisoner - Patrick McGoohan's paranoid spy series about individuality and society was smart, funny, creepy and the kind of thing that people are still trying to catch up to decades later.
The Prisoner - Trailer
Max Headroom - A fictional US drama starring the equally fictional host of a real-life UK variety show? This short-lived 1987 spin-off from 20 Minutes In The Future did more than just vault over the fourth wall with glee; it also brought cyberpunk into mainstream living rooms, and created our lifelong crush on Amanda Pays.
Max Headroom: The Complete Series - DVD TrailerUltraviolet - Before there was True Blood, there was this grown-up, sophisticated look at vampires ? a secret paramilitary force uses high-tech methods to track down vampires hiding in Britain. Tense, taut and relentlessly weird, this show brings an X-Files vibe to the vampire's lair.
Ultraviolet Trailer
Sliders - Physics student Quinn Mallory develops a device that allows him to slide between alternate universes, and he and his friends quickly find themselves unable to get back to their own version of Earth. Each episode is an exercise in alternate history, with the team sliding to a new universe in the hope that they'll eventually find their way home.
Sliders DVD Trailer - Version 2 (2004) Dead Set - How to make zombies seem fresh again? How about a five-part daily mini-series set in the Big Brother house that brought reality TV and horror together in something funnier than 28 Days Later but scarier than Shawn Of The Dead? The only remaining survivors of a zombie apocalypse are the contestants on the closed set of reality show Big Brother. Filmed on the actual Big Brother sets with some of the stars of that show, this is a wonderfully mean-spirited and nerve-fraying miniseries that can't be missed.
Dead Set | Trailer | E4 Surface - This awesome, scary show about giant, electricity-emitting sea beasts had its monstery life cut tragically short after just a half season. But this riveting tale of crytozoology lives on in fans' hearts. Even though it had very earnest giant monsters, Surface never took itself too seriously. And that's what made it brilliant.
surface trailer
Pushing Daisies - Call me a sentimental old fool if you must, but I still miss Bryan Fuller's romantic (in every sense of the word), larger-than-life murder mysteries, especially when we think of the whip-smart old-school screwball dialogue, the unfailing sense of fun and, most of all, Chi McBride's cynical private eye, Emerson Cod.
Pushing Daisies - Trailer Eureka - The spirit of Andy Griffith lives on in Syfy's gentle comedy-drama that never forgets that science fiction is always as much about the characters as it is the unknown. Not that they stint on generous helpings of the unknown when it's necessary... As long as it can all be tied up within the hour, of course.
Eureka TV SPOT
Red Dwarf - Originally more a sit-com that happened to take place in space than a real SF show, the longer this British series continued, the more it started investigating the possibilities of the genre in ways that real sci-fi hadn't thought of. Worth it for Better Than Life and Back To Reality, if nothing else.
Red Dwarf - Series 1 Trailer Space: Above And Beyond - Before Apollo and Starbuck began frakking and fighting in Battlestar Galactica, the Wildcards of Space: Above and Beyond were dogfighting in their Hammerheads, bar-brawling with in-vitro hating racists, and elbow-deep in martian mud as alien artillery screamed from the sky... [The show featured] twenty-four compelling episodes about relatable, almost ordinary characters overcoming extraordinary challenges through teamwork and sacrifice... S:AB was also one of the first shows to treat high quality visual effects as just another narrative tool.
Space Above and Beyond Trailer for Season 2
True Blood - The vampire series True Blood strives to fill every sick fetish you didn't even know you had. In an alternate reality, vampires have come out of the coffin ? no longer do they hide from society. And vampire-human assimilation is a very tricky thing, especially when all the characters hate each other, sleep with each other, and have to fight off giant sex-partying demons together. But the show's at its best when it goes whole-hog bananas.
True Blood Trailer Quantum Leap - Let's hear it for blue unitard time-jumping. When Sam Beckett, played by a young Scott Bakula, gets lost in time after a failed experiment, he winds up body-jumping through the ages. And each body has its own problems and issues that Sam has to help him/her through. But he's not alone ? his best friend, Al the hologram, appears from time to time to smoke cigars and drop some wisdom. The best part of this series is its cliffhanger endings, which almost always end up with Sam in a dress.
Quantum Leap DVD Trailer Jericho - Nuclear bombs devastate 23 American cities, and the small town of Jericho struggles to cope in the absence of supplies or outside help. Like the new Battlestar Galactica, this show examined how our social and political institutions would hold up after a major disaster ? but it also transformed into a suspenseful thriller about a post-apocalyptic U.S. falling into corporate-sponsored fascism. By the end, Jericho's fate seemed intertwined with whether the U.S. would survive in any recognizeable form ? and the show still sticks in our minds.
Jericho Trailer Jekyll - Steven Moffatt's quasi-sequel to the classic novel brought a new take to the story, with James Nesbitt compelling as the descendant of the original story's Dr. Jekyll (Or is he...?) and future Bionic Woman Michelle Ryan proving that she really could act, as assistant/enabler Katherine Reimer. Ignore the uneven humor of the first few episodes and become as frustrated as I was that they never made a second season.
Jekyll Trailer Roswell - Sexy teen aliens with problems is a formula for greatness. Katherine Heigl burst out into our consciousnesses, playing an alien human hybrid stuck on Earth, along with her friends. Trapped in Roswell, NM (What are the odds) these clones of alien royalty discover they have superpowers, and a lot of teen drama ensues. A highlight of the series home town diner waitress Liz Parker played by Shiri Appleby and her alien antennae work attire. It was like Dawson's Creek, but with aliens ? so yes, it worked on many levels.
roswell trailer
Andromeda - The relatively peaceful Commonwealth has fallen at the hands of the Nietzcheans, who see themselves as Nietzsche's ubermenschen. The only one who can save civilization, Dylan Hunt, is frozen for 300 years on the event horizon of a black hole before he finally escapes and leads a rag-tag crew. Sharp, thought-provoking writing from Deep Space Nine veteran Robert Hewitt Wolfe and others helped this show stand out, especially in its first couple of years.
Andromeda Trailer
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - Creating a TV show based on a couple of old movies about killer robots from the future didn't seem like such a great idea ? until the Chronicles showed us just how rich the story of humanity's future savior growing up in a doomed world could be. Everything is colored by the knowledge that the apocalypse is probably inevitable and imminent, and yet you may not even live to see it. Over time, the show also gave us uniquely memorable artificial intelligences, including the super-computer John Henry, grappling with what it means to be alive.
The Sarah Connor Chronicles - trailer
Farscape - Astronaut John Crichton is flung across the universe via wormhole, and finds himself smack dab in the middle of a vast interstellar conflict between several alien races. Adopted by a misfit crew aboard a sentient spaceship, Crichton finds himself sucked into the war even as he tries to find a way home. Cool aliens (created by Jim Henson), intriguing character development, and sexy humor made this show a fan favorite for the ages.
farscape trailer V (Original) - Beautiful alien visitors arrive, promising to help humanity and provide peace and prosperity... but it turns out they're actually evil lizard people, bent on enslaving us. This always-great premise is an excuse for lots of fun paranoia, but also crazy action sequences, like a lone woman standing her ground and shooting at a spaceship with her handgun. This show made alien-fighting fun again.
V The Original Miniseries Fringe - Created by Nerd Pack JJ Abrams, Roberto Orci, and Alex Kurtzman, Fringe follows the increasingly weird and transdimensional adventures of a team that investigates fringe science events. As the mad scientist, special investigator, and mercenary researcher get closer to understanding the science conspiracy at the heart of the tale, they discover that their own lives are bound up in it. Scary, silly, and head-explodingly gross, Fringe became an instant classic when it debuted last year.
Fringe Season 1 Trailer Dollhouse - It's hard to think of a TV show that's created as much controversy in recent years as this one ? people see its mind-wiped slaves-for-hire premise as a metaphor for ****, **** or just plain slavery. But creator Joss Whedon has been going out of his way to push people's buttons ? and now it turns out that the supposedly fun fantasy-fulfillment of being able to hire a programmed human really does destroy the human race in the end.
Dollhouse Trailer Futurama - Pizza boy Philip J. Fry is cryogenically frozen in 1999 and wakes up a thousand years later to a world of alcoholic robots, predestination paradoxes, and celebrity heads kept alive in jars. It takes repeated watchings to fully appreciate the hilariously jam-packed send-ups of pop culture in general and science fiction in particular, but you'll need a pause button and a firm understanding of mathematics to get all the jokes lurking in the background.
Futurama Trailer Season 1 Stargate Atlantis - Despite being a spin-off of Stargate SG1, SGA has built up its own unique fan base. The show takes place on amilitary Gate-base in the Ancient-built Lost City of Atlantis. From there, mussy haired John Sheppard leads his team through their own Gate and all across the Pegasus Galaxy, stopping only to fight the evil alien Wraith and to trade quirky banter. Perhaps the real stand out from SGA isn't the planets, that all mysteriously look like the wilderness of Canada, or the city, or Sheppard's Cash posters ? but the comic timing of the crew, especially Rodney McKay, played by David Hewlett.
StarGate Atlantis TrailerBattlestar Galactica (remake) - The BSG reimagining is many things: a theological investigation, a mirror for our current politics, and one of the best space-war dramas of all time. But more than anything, it shows what can happen when you take a great premise ? the last surviving humans flee through space after a robot-led genocide, searching for Earth ? and take it seriously for a change. Almost everything that's great about this version of the show comes out of treating that premise with respect, and showing how our social institutions fare in that situation.
Battlestar Galactica - Season 1 - Trailer Firefly - Buffy may be Joss Whedon's best-known show, but this is his most influential, especially for science-fiction lovers. The saga of a crew of underdogs, survivors of an interplanetary civil war, doing dirty deeds to survive and trying to keep a low profile, managed to spawn some of the genre's most memorable characters in just a dozen weeks on the air. Nobody doing science fiction today ? especially space opera ? can fail to be influenced by this show.
Firefly Trailer
Star Trek: The Next Generation - The first live-action Star Trek spinoff served up two embarrassing years of warmed-over crap, and then a funny thing happened ? the stories started getting really good, and the characters became archetypes in their own right. The Borg and Q are as much a part of science-fiction lore as anything the original series served up. By the time it ended, TNG really was the only Star Trek for an entire generation.
Star Trek: The Next Generation 1987 Promo
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