Dark City:  Director's Cut I'll have to begin this review with a disclaimer:  I bloody love Dark City, Director's Cut or no Director's Cut.  It's not a situation like Blade Runner, where the original is nigh-unwatchable compared to the later Director's or Final cuts. On the contrary.  What Dark City:  The Director's Cut did was make a great movie even BETTER, and frankl

Firefly You knew it was coming. You knew because it's pretty much the sci-fi show of the hipster generation. You knew because it was made by the ever-popular Joss Whedon, who has come to symbolize a kind of underdog artistic integrity in a wasteland of cookie cutter primetime TV. You knew because...well...Firefly. It's hard not to gush about this show, because there honestly has never been a

2001:  A Space Odyssey Well, as I move into the final days of Sci-Fi Month, I can't help but include at least one really, really well-known title. 2001:  A Space Odyssey is referred to not just as one of the greatest sci-fi movies ever made, but as one of the greatest movies ever made, period.  But, it had its critics at the time of release, and it still has its critics now.

Tin Man I know, I know, it's another miniseries.  I wasn't actually going to include another miniseries on here after The Lost Room, and this spot was going to go to Space:  Above and Beyond. Here's the thing though about Space:  Above and Beyond. 1)  It's not very good 2)  It was short-lived and not well circulated 3)  Battlestar Galactica (reimagined) was better

Woops!  Fell off the blogging wagon for a couple of days there.  I plead the sickness.  Back to Sci-Fi Month! The Rocketeer The Rocketeer is, in my opinion, one of the most criminally underrated films in Hollywood history.  Not CRITICALLY.  Critics, in fact, quite liked this film, and the science fiction community did too.  Audiences, however, passed over it in favo

Reboot OK, this is the last time I cheat by including a kid's program.  Probably. Reboot rarely seems to end up on "best of" lists, and I actually don't know why.  I suspect it's due in large part to a very, very troubled distribution history.  I think it goes something like this: 1)  Canadian program is hugely successful thanks to an original idea and (at the time) groundb

Wall-E OK, I'll own this right now and admit I'm probably (definitely) going too far on this one.  Wall-E is, after all, a family film first and a sci-fi film second. But I feel compelled to include it in my list of favourites because I think that science-fiction has a place at the juvenile level as well.  Growing up, I read a lot of YA science fiction, like Alfred Slote or K.A.

Futurama What can be said about this series that hasn't been said already?  While overshadowed The Simpsons, Futurama remains a hilarious, nerdly love letter to science fiction tropes and cliches. The jokes are brilliant.  The characters are hilarious and varied.  The music, art and direction are all top-notch. But I think what really sets this show apart from anything else

Jeremiah J. Michael Straczynski of Babylon 5 ends up in my good books once again with a far darker series, the post-apocalyptic Jeremiah. Jeremiah follows...well...Jeremiah (Luke Perry of 90120 fame), a roughly thirty-something year old man who has grown up in a world ravaged by the "Big Death", a mysterious, possibly human-engineered disease that fifteen years ago eradicated all people "o

The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello Yesterday I cheated a bit by including a miniseries on my list of great sci-fi TV shows.  Today I'm cheating a bit by including a short film on my list of great sci-fi movies. I'm okay with this exception for two reasons:  1)  a list of great sci-fi short movies would not only be incredibly hard to curate for the average in

The Lost Room Everyone, literally everyone, sci-fi fans and sci-fi haters alike, has had the same reaction when I have played this show for them: "Can we watch the next episode?  Like, right now?" The Lost Room centres on a group of Objects (capital O) that were all at one point in a motel room just outside of Gallup, New Mexico.  This motel room somehow vanished inexplicably, and, a

THX-1138 George Lucas' directorial debut, expanded from an award-winning student film, THX-1138 is a grim, cheerless film.  That may be part of the reason why it was so commercially unsuccessful, even after a re-release on the heels of the tidal wave of Star Wars.  This movie is certainly not what people think of when they think of Lucas.  It is a lot of black

Babylon 5 Babylon 5 had the misfortune of going toe-to-toe with Star Trek:  Deep Space Nine.  I say "misfortune" because to insinuate that Paramount in any way ripped off J. Michael Straczynski 's concept which they had earlier passed on, only to air their DS9 pilot just weeks before Babylon 5's debut, is to bring up a flame war that needs no further vocalization.  Only the

Silent Running On the surface, Silent Running looks like a simple environmental film, but past that basic exterior lies a thought-provoking meditation on the solitary nature of life in space. The visuals and special effects of the movie are consistent with director Douglas Turnbull's previous work on 2001: A Space Odyssey and it's clear he carried on pioneering that field with Close Encoun

Red Dwarf Its easy to see why this show has such a lasting appeal.  Where Star Trek, and shows like Star Trek, are populated by the absolute best and brightest of humanity, the pinnacle of intellectual and physical prowess... ...Red Dwarf shows us the rest of humanity. The slobs, the failures, the neurotics, the morons.  Red Dwarf celebrates the losers of Star Trek and

The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne I said before that some shows on this list would be new to most people, and I'm sure that this will be one of those occasions. The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne was a very short-lived steampunk series that ran initially on CBC in Canada and Sci-Fi Network in the US.  It posited that Jules Verne's stories were not mere fiction, but were actual ad