Danger! Danger! Spoilers Will Robinson!
Supernatural season four episode 5 spoilers are contained in the following post!
A late-night drive into Pennsylvania in the Impala finds Dean unimpressed with the horror movie mood music on the radio, and Sam unhappy with the fact that they’re not out trying to save the world. Remember, last time we saw The Boys, the sixty-six seals (no, not the live show at Sea World) were being systematically broken by Lilith in order to set Lucifer free. Dean couldn’t give a pair of foetid dingo’s kidneys, however, and just wants to get back to honest-to-goodness, by-the-numbers creature feature killing. And don’t we too? I mean, the first four episodes have been a little arc-heavy. That’s allowed, seeing as there are degrees of arcing going on, and it hasn’t actually been all doom and gloom. But this lightening of the whole situation, even in black and white, can only be a good thing. And, as previously discussed, it’s written by Ben Edlund, so it’s about to be a very, very good thing. I can smell it.
The Boys arrive in Oktoberfest-land, and it’s smiles all round for Dean’s Downstairs Brain, while Sam looks on in fond bemusement. What, he didn’t think Dean would be sniffing round anything in a short skirt the first chance he got? Indiana Jones and giant pretzel gags later, and The Boys (posing as FBI agents Angus and Young - get the AC/DC hook there?) are opening a morgue gurney on the first victim. Nice vampire bite marks there - except vampires don’t make marks like that - except in the movies. (Our first clue.) The Boys move onto the local tavern they’ve booked to stay in for the time being and encounter the lovely Jamie (again, for Dean) as they try to locate the eye-witness. Cue a very cute moment as Dean tries his hardest to get into the barmaid’s 
They move on to interview the witness and we get a few giggles over the aceness of the actor portraying him, and the whole set-up. (Catch Sam jump, while Dean just stares like the man’s off his meds.) We get introduced to a side-character who makes for interesting back-story and Fleshing Out Of Guest Stars. Cue another cute moment as Dean reveals why he’s on a mission - and we’re not talking about monsters. As he explains to Sam that he’s “back from the furnace without any of my old scars, right? No bullet wounds, knife cuts, none of the off-angle fingers from all the breaks - I mean, my hide’s smooth as a baby’s bottom” we all know exactly what he’s about to say next, right? Right? I mean, this is Dean Winchester we’re talking about, and he considers himself if not reborn, then having had a major physical reset. And he is determined to right the wrong of considering himself a virgin: if he doesn’t get laid in the very, very near future, there’s going to be Trouble. Sam just finds him, at best, amusing, and at worst, degenerate.
Cut to the next victim, and it appears to be a true-blue werewolf attack - complete with wolf hair at the scene. FBI agents Angus and Young pay the surviving young miss a call and then go to check out the remains of the kebab’d dude. With the heart intact and real wolf hair at the scene there’s no way it’s a werewolf - and Dean’s getting a headache. So they retire to chow down and discuss the myth of werewolves having actual wolf hair - and Dean’s persistence with the bar wench has paid off. They make a date and Sam is quietly amused enough to not tell him he has a hyowj beer-head moustache.
The next death is imminent (this is the end of act two, after all) and we get a sarcophagus complete with half-rotten, all-bandaged mummy straight from an ancient WB movie. Purr wee Security Guard gets squished in all the wrong places and the next thing you know, The Boys are investigating the crime scene Mulder and Scully style. Scully - sorry, Sam - finds it’s all bought from a prop store, and as such, “stoopid”, and Mulder - sorry, Dean - recognises it all for crazy talk. He splits to keep his date with the lovely Jamie. Cut to Jamie being stalked by the fabbest vampire ever to grace a modern TV show - except she maces the guy and make a run for it. Straight into Dean, who takes one look at The Crazy and attempts to punch his lights out. I say attempt - what he does manage to do is yank the dude’s ear off. Nice! A quick chase later and Dracula is making his get-away - on a Vespa. He even has the cheek to beep-beep Dean, stuck behind the wrought iron gates.
Then it’s back to the fun and frolics, as Dean has figured out the ear part of the case: shapeshifter meat ahoy! He pronounces it ‘buckets of crazy’ (no, not THEE Buckets Of Crazy site, but one of his most affectionate terms), especially since Dracula’s costume is also a movie prop, and the actual shifter underneath all these monsters is out to secure the lovely Jamie as his prize. The Boys quickly decide the best way out of all this is to have Sam find the most likely candidate for shapeshifteriness and shoot it with silver bullets while Dean chick-sits. Of course! (Oh, and the crack about The X-Files: “So you guys are like Mulder and Scully or something, and The X-Files are real?” - “No, The X-Files is a TV show. This is real,” was priceless, considering about 90% of the production crew of ‘Supernatural’ is actually from ‘The X-Files’.)
Cue Sam going off all gung-ho to shoot the critter before it pretends to be another great monster of Screenland while ganking someone, and Dean gets left talking to Jamie. Which could be a mistake, as he’s not exactly the most eloquent of people when it comes to talking to chicks. But there again, we’re in for a surprise - Dean’s not really season 1 or 2 Dean anymore, and he certainly is not anywhere near to season 3 Dean. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he’s All New Dean, but he’s definitely moved on. And we get some lovely, lovely background music - all new - to stroke Tragic Dean’s story into Heroic Loneliness territory. It’s working, too - until he comes out with the classic ‘Blues Brothers’ line and we all start giggling again. Purr confused Jamie is prepared to believe, but she’s not exactly comfortable with Dean’s admission of haring round the States killing creatures. Dean covers the awkward ‘Greater Good’ moment with a lovely crack (“Some people paint”) that I swear I thought was going to be summat else: “Some people juggle geese!”. There was just something about the moment that I found very Wash-like, and a ‘Firefly’ quote right at the moment (considering Ben Edlund was a series co-producer and wrote two bloody excellent episodes for the show) would have been hilarious.
Anyway, we knew The Boys would balls it up and go after the wrong suspect, and we were right - cos otherwise the show would be over in ten minutes, right? Where’s the fun in that? And, lest we forget, this episode is all about the movie pattern - so let’s have the actual monster being the one person Jamie has been pals with all this time, and purr wee Action Sam about to shoot the wrong man. Action and giggles ensue as the ‘shifter turns up unexpectedly (as said pal), interrupting Dean finally getting to first base, and spikes the drinks of the damsel and hero. The next thing Dean knows is he’s waking up dressed like an Oktoberfest regular (dig those socks, dude), strapped into Dr Frankenstein’s lightning board. Looks like he’s all ready for an overly-elaborate and easily escapable death routine. Aceness! Except Dean is saved by the bell (literally) and we have a very funny moment at the front door (the old ‘I have a coupon’ moment never fails to make me laugh). Meanwhile Sam is already adding two and two and coming up with secret monster lairs. Sharp boy, that one.
But then we have a lovely performance that really goes for the heartstrings in a big way. Aww, purr wee shapeshifter - I did actually feel sorry for the guy, hearing his story. I loved the exchange between the ‘shifter and Jamie the Victim - the old “You’re lonely because you kill people” - “No, I kill people cos I’m lonely” did raise a smile. But then, he did murder those people. So hey-ho, say The Boys, let’s go shapeshifter-killing. And Sam getting his foot stuck in the door was excellent.
But all good things must come to an end - it was an excellent chase, a merry dance, a wonderful roller-coaster of giggles, gasps and guilty sympathy. And this end came not through the two boys, but the damsel in de dress. Quick-thinking she may have been, but no fibre in her being felt sorry for him, Sam-style? Or did she just know that there was no way round what he had done and she had to end him, Dean-style? Who knows. But she did well. Well, I was thinking that right up until the purr wee ‘shifter’s last moments. He was so eloquent, so tragic! (Quoting some good old fashioned movies, too!) Awww! Come on! No! Can we just have The Boys think he’s dead, so he gets away with it? C'mon! Booo! I were so upset I actually watched the camera on him, and totally ignored Dean in his shorts on the floor (well, the first play, anyway).
This was such a fantastically classic episode, in more ways than one, and it’s a definite keeper Big Time. The comedy episode of season four? Or the funniest damn playing about with the genre we’ve seen in ages? You be the judge. I just laughed my arse off the whole time - until the end. But then, that was quickly and neatly bundled to one side by the sight of The Boys actually being normal mates again - back as they should be. Bloody marvellous.
‘Doctor bloody Who: The Sontaran Stratagem’. At first glance this was very old skool and fun – and why not? Bring back a favourite old baddie, dust him down, give him a fab make-over (but keep the same voice?) and you have a really fun villain. His no-nonsense approach is ace, and I loved the whole Sontaran strutting around thing. Brilliant. And I loved his jibe that “words are the weapons of womenfolk!”. Yeah, they really are. Nice observation! Of course, Martha being back (and then er, being back twice, not to spoil owt) is just too fab for words – and the fact that she gets on wi Donna is ace. Donna’s “he’s too skinny! You hug him, you get a paper cut!” had us in stitches, and she did so well in the scenes where she ‘says goodbye’, and also goes back to see Granddad. I loved her and Doctor ‘saying goodbye’, especially her parting shot. Oh Donna, you are ace. Speaking of the Doctor – loved his little wisecracks (“An intruder? How did he get in, then? Intruder window?”) and his little barbs (“A place full of geniuses? I’ll have to go there – I get lonely”), and of course, his treatment of General Staal and that gobby little shite Rattigan. Nice.
Oh! Oh! Oh! My two favourite bits! The Doctor saying “With all this stuff, you could travel to another planet,”, and Rattigan replying, “If only that was possible,”, and the Doctor going “Were. If only that were possible. Conditional clause,” and the consequent ‘and you call yourself a genius’ bit being silent. Bloody marvellous! I have a long and twisted personal history with conditionals and suppositions, but I have corrected a fair few students of the English language on this very point – and then there was that time I was being assessed by Cambridge for my teaching exam and the bird from Cambridge insisted you could use ‘was’. I insisted otherwise, and to this day it’s been a pet hate. Yeah, I know I’m a geek – it’s my job. Anyway, that was great, and then gobby shite Rattigan pulling the Doctor up on calling it ‘ATMOS System’, when the S already stands for ‘System’. How many times did we do this to people at school when we had a SPUD? Not a SPUD Day, a SPUD (Sponsored Personal Uniform Day). I laffed my arse off. Well and truly.
Well, yeah but no but yeah but no but though… Cos I have to admit, all excited and a little worried about next week’s ep I might be, but I’m more worried about next week’s ‘Supernatural’ episode, ‘Long Distance Caller’. The caller in question is none other than Dad (A.K.A. John Winchester), who is calling Dean, even though he’s dead, gone to Hell, escaped, then apparently melting into oblivion before the purr wee Boys’ very eyes. So what’s he doing calling Dean and giving him earache cos he sold his soul for Sam? How is he able to contact him, how is calling anyone, and more to the point, how did he get Dean’s new-new-new phone number? Let’s face it, The Boys change their phones and numbers more often than they change their flannel shirts, the last time being to avoid Gordon Walker, am I right? Somewhere around episode 3.7 ‘Fresh Blood’, methinks. Anyway, joking aside, what worries me more is two things: that, one, John is calling to tell him THEE demon that holds Dean’s contract is in town, and two, he loves him. Hmm… Since when has John ever used the L word in connection with anybody, much less Sam and Dean? Sure, he’s been dead a while, and maybe that changes a man. But come on, Dean, are you really going to believe it’s him? This is your Achilles heel, your family, and if you don’t listen to Sam, you ain’t going to live long enough to bitch about it.
Anyway, getting back to last week’s ep, ‘Ghostfacers’. It’s had a mixed reaction (cos 90% of it were shot on handcams to make it look 'real'?), but I loved it. The whole thing was like an ‘Ocean’s 11’ moment – you know the bit where George Clooney is doing his justification to Brad Pitt scene, after taking the plans from the office at night, and they’re waiting by the lifts, and he ends by saying summat like “Was that ok? Did that seem rushed to you?” etc., and Brad Pitt’s telling him he thought maybe he rushed it a bit but it was good, like he’d been practising it. It just doesn’t feel like they’re acting, but that they’re after scenes, just talking between themselves as real people. The whole SPN episode felt like that – it freaked me out cos it were almost like behind the scenes footage, but not. The very end scene in the Impala was all back to normal though.
The fact that the characters were at their most essential without being caricatures, that they were accomplishing things cos they had just the right mix of personalities that they needed, that things came out in the wash without ignoring the things we had to be told or being left behind – all this should be no surprise when you remember that the episode were written by the criminally talented Ben Edlund, whose previous writing triumphs include not only some of my favourites from ‘Supernatural’ – ‘Tall Tales’, ‘Hollywood Babylon’ (the ‘Evil Dead’ send-up!), and the seminal ‘Bad Day At Black Rock’, but also two of my favourite ‘Firefly’ episodes, ‘Jaynestown’ and ‘Trash’. (In fact, the very concept that an ex-‘Firefly’ writer / co-producer also works on ‘Supernatural’ is more than enough incentive to watch this show, buff brothers aside!)
Final verdict? How can you lose with The Boy’s naughty words bleeped out, and pure comedy gold moments like Dean’s one-fingered responses pixelated out, The Boys having to explain the obvious to dumbass Ghostfacers (cos obviously they don’t watch the show), proper creepy ghosts, and of course Sam in a party hat? So The Boys didn’t actually ‘solve’ this one themselves, but hey, you don’t win them all. And it would have probably given the Ghostfacers enough mis-placed incentive to go do another crazy piss-take of ‘Most Haunted’. But not during the seasons of SPN that we have left, but then that’s ok. We have much more pressing problems to solve, and solve well: Dean’s Deal. Cos if he’s left to go down, there will be Trouble within the SPN fanbase and general SPN community. Still, it’s going to be nail-biting stuff during these last three episodes, that’s for sure!
So Harry Connick Jnr were bloody ace, appearing in Wanchai last Wednesday night. He sang wi that super-smooth hot chocolate type voice, did some cheeky banter, changed some lyrics to thank the ex-pats for coming, and basically did the whole Harry thing. We loved him. My only gripe? At 90 mins he were on too short – and the venue sucked the Big One. he mentioned not once, but twice, how it looked amazingly like an aircraft hangar, and he weren’t wrong. Whoever decided that the Wanchai Convention Centre would double as a concert venue wants a bloody good hiding. Twats. The fact that more than half of the audience were 50 feet away from’t stage would probably be the first indication, even if I were a complete fucking numptie, that it weren’t really suited.
And now it’s Good Friday, and yay, it’s pretty good cos I have four days off now. Just have to avoid the food poisoning-come-gastroenteritis that Bestest Flatmate and Bestest Mate both have. Apart from that, it’s smiles all round, cos it’s one week till L.A., and then about twelve hours after I get back, the BBC start showing series four of ‘Doctor bloody Who’. Does life get any better than this? Well obviously it could, I’m just trying to work out how.
Moving on, I think there is a veritable shitload of people jumping up and down, squeeing and performing their very own versions of victory dances all over the US and in fact the world right now. Yep, the unthinkable has happened – the CW (channel) has renewed ‘Supernatural’ for another season. Which means, kiddies, we get the end of season three plus a shiny, shiny season four! How fab is that? Which officially makes Eric Kripke a Big Damn Hero: he’s done the impossible, and that makes him mighty. I can’t say how relieved I am that we’re getting season three filmed as we speak, never mind a new season. Have done a few new Winchester Wallpapers on this very subject. Would have been rude not to. After all, what does this mean for Dean and his deal? Sam and his 
I’m not upset cos it’s free. I’m upset that I pay for a bloody channel run by the Beeb themselves, and yet they’d rather make money selling it to the local network to show for free (with adverts! Adverts!) than put it on the channel that people actually pay for anyway. Cos let’s see, ooh, letting Beeb subscriber’s in Hong Kong see it first COS THEY PAY FOR THE BLOODY CREATORS’ CHANNEL would be wrong, when you can make money selling it to ATV first. You do realise we will get ‘Doctor bloody Who’ series three eventually in Hong Kong. I say eventually – I mean 2009. I e-mailed em and asked the bastards when they were going to let us watch it on the subscribed channel. Could they afford to bump the 379th repeat of ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ or ‘Spooks’ to possibly squeeze in a little new programming? And I’m sorry, but ‘Robin Hood’? ‘Robin bloody Hood’? Are you taking the piss? This is the flagship series for BBC Entertainment in Asia? Really? Really?
Let’s start with ‘Ashes To Ashes’, shall we? Sat and watched a double-bill of episodes one and two of this shiny, shiny new series. First thoughts? Not exactly gelling with me at moments, and yet the Gene Genie is so very good. Back with a vengeance, except he’s also got a Sam side at times. Not bad at all, not bad at all. The settings and costumes, cars and wine bars, it’s all good. DCI Alex Drake? Not so sure… Didn’t take to her very easily int first episode, but during the second ep while the poor bird’s doing her ‘this is my fantasy, I’ll do what I want and you lot will bloody well listen to me’, I did start to like her a lot. And they have given us a new series so far – and at least they’re not trading on Sam Tyler to get em by with this new tart. Speaking of which, I’m not happy with poor Sam carking it in a river due to chasing robbery suspects, or whatever the excuse was for him having disappeared. It does throw up all kinds of metaphysical and quantum-related arguments such as just how linear Time is supposed to be, and how it’s supposed to pass in different situations. I was upset to see newspaper clippings in Gene’s office with headlines like ‘Force pays tribute to Tyler’ etc., after he’s supposed to have died in the river – except no body was found. Insert another round of ‘hmm’s here. Anyway, it’s doing the job at the moment, so I’ll be hanging on for all eight episodes (I assume the format will be the same), but I’m already hoping they won’t drag this out for two series.
And so to ‘Supernatural’. How absolutely cracking were that first episode of season three (‘The Magnificent Seven’)? Someone’s definitely whacked up the gain on Sam’s whole ‘Ah’m savin’ ma brother’ thing while throwing in new characters that are thankfully not going to irritate me, and then we have all kinds of personal hunts going on with purr wee Sam. And let’s not forget Dean’s new-found ‘live before I die – or rather, get sucked down into Hell’ kick. It’s all good. It’s all fab. And the second episode ‘The Kids Are Alright’ had me in stitches. There were so many hilarious moments as purr neglected Dean tries to believe that the wee kiddie he meets is not actually the result of one of his weekend chick-orientated roadtrips in his dim and distant past after all. But then him being all disappointed and doing the balloon-burst shoulder-sag manoeuvre as he finds out for definite that little Ben is not his kid was heart-breaking. Awww... it’s going to be a bumpy ride for both brothers before all this is sorted out, and no mistake.
One of them things was to watch all of the movies I’ve wanted to as they’ve come out. I’ve seen ‘Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’, ‘CJ7’, and now last night I saw 'Enchanted’ – admittedly, for the Patrick Dempsey element (otherwise known as Dr McDreamy, or ‘that Grey’s Anatomy dude’), cos trust me kids, I ain’t watching bloody Disney crap without a reeeeeeaaaaaally good reason. That said, I did kinda giggle and smile all the way through, mostly cos half of it seemed to be tongue in cheek, half of it seemed to be going for smooth sarcasm. Or was that just me? There were laugh-out-loud moments, and of course you have to have obligatory ‘oh no, I’m no longer in love with my handsome Prince, whatever can be the matter with me?’ moments, and the evil Queen monster moments, etc., etc. However, it mashed it all together pretty well, and Timothy Spall popped up fert second time this week as a toad. Funny, that. Who’d have thought purr wee Barry the bricklayer would end up in cash cows like Disney flicks and Johnny Depp musicals? The mind boggles.
One other thing I had to accomplish before I go back to work was to finish off my ‘Supernatural’ boxed set of season two. I know the rest of the world has seen it, and most of the USA are waiting for every new episode of season three as they're let out, one by one, by studio execs (rest assured though, ‘Supernatural’ fans support the WGA strike, so waiting a few extra months for new episodes still witing to be filmed is not a hardship. Especially when it means people like Ben Edlund, who’s given us episodes for both ‘Supernatural’ and ‘Firefly’, and as such is a Big Damn Hero in our books, can get the contracts they deserve. It’s only right, after all).
Anyway, going back to finishing off the boxed set: tricky. I picked up the end of season two on Hong Kong’s AXN channel over here, so I’ve already seen the last four episodes. What I missed were the few eps before it. So last night I ploughed into the box and came up with the very last unseen ep. It was a Moment – I really, really wanted to watch it cos I’ve been waiting to see it all season, but I really didn’t want to watch it cos it would be the last one ever. Well, until season three hits our shores, anyway. But I had to open it and watch it. And, oh my dog, was it a complete and absolute gem – ‘Hollywood Babylon’. No, not the possibly spurious Kenneth Anger book, but another fun look at how spirits can really give you a bad day. Or not, if you’re Dean Winchester and you love to eat and play with radios.
This episode did have some of the best one-liners – kicking off the moment they walk onto the studio lot, Sam complaining the weather is not really conducive to Dean’s plan for prowling the swimming pools looking for hot chicks – cos the weather’s “practically Canadian”. Nice! At last they just own up to the fact that everything is shot in B.C… Dean’s ‘bite your tongue, heathen!’ at Sam’s snarky comment that they dig up Joey Ramone, the whole ‘I’ve got a radio, I’m not listening to you, Sammy’ gag, Sam coming a-knocking when Dean’s in Tara’s trailer and it is a-rocking and the consequent “you’re one helluva PA”, and pretty much every time one brother turns on the other. It was kinda touching to see Dean awkward and shy, trying to talk to one of his seemingly many film idols, and then the true film geek in him comes to the surface – he’s just as bad as the rest of us, for all his huffing and pretending he’s not interested… Bloody funny stuff. 
And then we come to more in-jokes – the posters. In every exec’s office, int background, were posters for their previous works, etc. Except if you look closely, they’re not. Every one were an old ‘Supernatural’ episode given a suitable horror flick name. Season one’s episode ‘Scarecrow’, and the infamous Fugly Dude on the scarecrow frame, became ‘Cornfield Massacre’ – even though it happened in an orchard. (And that was the point of the antagonist’s plight – what you produce for Hollywood gets changed, tinkered with, balls-up by producing execs, until you don’t recognise it any more.) Also season one’s episode ‘Route 666’ (famous for Dean finally getting his kit off and proving he does have biceps the size of Baltimore) was immortalised as ‘Return of the Monster Truck’ (cos of Sam’s earlier protest ‘I miss conversations that didn’t start with “this killer truck”?’). There was even a ‘Carnivore Carnival’, in reference to season two’s ‘Everybody Loves A Clown’. And in a very ‘Yes Virginia, there is a Hercules’ Xena kinda way (“Welcome to Camp Wannachuk, where every day you’ll see a sunny day – cos that’s ma name, Sunny Dey!”), everyone behind the scenes on the real TV production of ‘Supernatural’ seemed to be represented onscreen for a change – McG, ‘Jerry’ (thee Jerry Wanek?), etc. Wonder why there was no dude called Eric… But let’s not forget, it also guest starred none other than ‘American Gothic’, ‘The West Wing’ and of course ‘Midnight Caller’ dude, Gary Cole. How fab is that? He dunt change a bit, that’s all I’m going to say…
David Tennant (I saw ‘Secret Smile’, I’m not going to argue with him), John Barrowman (the only man in ‘Doctor bloody Who’ who carries a gun and will shoot people in the head – or just beat the crap out of them – and he’s “not just heterosexual”), Nathan Fillion (Cap’n Mal sir – and he’s Canadian), Kevin Smith (no, the other one – we will forever be in love with Ares’s arms, his witty banter and wonderful rendition of brooding, smouldering manliness. And he was a Kiwi. Oh Ares, you are missed), Sir Sean Connery (do I need to explain why?), Aaron Kwok (hey, I saw ‘After This Our Exile’. And he were born in Hong Kong in 1965, so I’m pulling territories).Purple Nurples (#1)
1oz Malibu Coconut Rum
1 oz Triple Sec
1/2 oz Blue Curacao Liqueur
2 oz Cranberry Juice
Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with Ice. Shake and strain into a glass.
Purple Nurples (#2)
1/4 oz Blue Curacao liqueur
1/4 oz vodka
1/4 oz apple schnapps
1/4 oz sweet and sour mix
1/4 oz grenadine syrup
Pour all ingredients over ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake, strain into a shot glass, and serve.
I’m the first to admit that I love watching ‘Supernatural’ – fert Jensen Ackles quotient, some would scathingly say.
I’m a sci-fi geek – anyone who reads this will tell you that. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine? I’m there. Babylon Five: get tae fuck. Firefly: I’m there wi bells on. Star Wars: only the first – original – three will do (alright, that’s episodes 4, 5 and 6 fert fellow-geeks). Doctor bloody Who: Two, a wee bit of Five, or Nine, or hyowj great lashings of Ten will do it. Red Dwarf: early eps = in. Films like ‘Alien’ and the sequel ‘Aliens’ : I’m in (‘Alien 3’: no. Good concept done horribly wrong – same as the film version of ‘Stargate’). 
Point is, I like sci-fi, grew up on it (‘The Pretender’, ‘Quantum Leap’, ‘The Outer Limits’, ‘Tales From the Crypt’, ‘The Twilight Zone’, to blame but a few), and still love it to bits. But that dunt mean I have to put wi this shite just cos someone thought it’d be a good idea to try and re-package ‘America’s Next Top Model’ while taking a wild leap at back of the money-making train that is ‘Heroes’.