Sci-Fi Adventures Awards - Season 5 (2020-21)

It's finally time for the Ray Hardgrit's Sci-Fi Adventures Awards Season 5! This is the time of the year where I highlight the things I personally thought was really good and incredibly bad about the things I've covered over the last 12 months.

Everything I've reviewed from April 2020 to January 2021 is in with a chance to win something, even if it was really terrible! In fact I should be giving more awards to the terrible episodes because 2020 was truly their time to shine. Here's what's in the running this year:

• Babylon 5 3-16 - War Without End to 4-15 - No Surrender, No Retreat
• Star Trek: Picard season 1
• The Mandalorian season 1
• Doctor Who series 12 + Revolution of the Daleks
  
• Short Treks season 2
• Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century

That's 56 episodes and a Looney Tunes short.

This is going to be a horrific test of memory for me, as I have to somehow recall 2000 minutes of science fiction I watched over a span of 365 days. But it'll be even more horrific for you if you end up running into SPOILERS you really didn't want to see, so if you'd have a problem with me giving away every major plot twist from these episodes you should probably stop reading now.

I know I'm pretty much limiting my audience here to people who have watched all the same things I have, or don't care about spoilers, but hey this article is just bonus content for you really.

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Best Teaser

I'm starting with an award I hadn't thought of until now: Best Teaser. The teaser, (also known as a cold open or pre-credits sequence), is the part of an episode that comes before the opening titles and ideally gives you a reason to keep watching. The Short Treks are too short for teasers, Doctor Who hasn't been doing them much lately and Duck Dodgers didn't have one either, but I've come up with a few ideas:

Babylon 5:

• War Without End, Part 1 - Sinclair's back, and he's found his name on a 1000 year old note, and Ivanova's received a distress call from Ivanova!
  
• No Surrender, No Retreat - Sheridan tells the League to stay out of his way when he starts his fight against Clark.
  

Doctor Who:

• Spyfall, Part 1 - A montage of spies being attacked by creatures that come out of the walls.

The Mandalorian:

• Chapter One - The Mandalorian takes on a bar full of thugs.
  
• Redemption - Two scout troopers discuss what's happening in town.
  

Picard:

• Maps and Legends - An android goes on an unprovoked killing spree.
  
• Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1 - The Borg interrupt a space battle and then flowers come and eat them all.
  

Click to see which episode had the best hook.

It's the loveable scout troopers from the start of The Mandalorian 1-08: Redemption. I was really tempted to give this to Picard's Et in Arcadia Ego because of how insane the whole situation got, but the scout trooper teaser was one my favourite moments of television ever, so it kind of has to win.

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Best Character Reappearance

Sometimes a character will vanish off TV for a while, maybe because the actor left their show, maybe because their show ended, but then they come back for an episode and it's awesome! Potentially. It doesn't always work out.

• Babylon 5 - Jeffrey Sinclair
• Doctor Who - Jack Harkness
• Picard - William Riker, Deanna Troi, Seven of Nice, Icheb, Bruce Maddox
  
• Short Treks - Abraham Lincoln, Khan Noonien Singh, James T. Kirk
  
• Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century - Marvin the Martian
  

Click to see the best returning character.

It's the Rikers from Picard! I'm going to cheat and include both of them, because why not? They're inseparable. Bringing back some of the Next Gen cast could've really backfired for Picard, especially as terrible things keep happening to everyone there, but the Rikers turned out to be a ray of sunshine. Sure they'd had tragedy in their past, it's Picard, but this is far from the worst future they could've had.

And then Will went and showed up again in the finale to save the day, which definitely earns him bonus points.

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Best New Character

Sometimes new characters are good too! To narrow this down I'm limiting it to characters who have made more than one appearance (sorry Edward Larkin and Kestra Troi-Riker), but they don't necessarily have to be protagonists or show up all that often.

• Babylon 5 - Emperor Cartagia
• Doctor Who - Ruth (The Doctor), The Master
• Picard - Laris, Zhaban, Soji Asha, Agnes Jurati, Raffi Musiker, Cristóbal Rios
  
• The Mandalorian - Din Djarin, Baby Yoda, IG-11, Kuiil
• Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century - Duck Dodgers

Click to see who wins.

It's Laris from Picard! Why? I'm not 100% sure. Maybe it's because she left the series well before she wore out her welcome, maybe it's because I was so happy than she and Zhaban actually survived their episodes, maybe it's just because I like the premise of her character. She's a former Romulan spy who now works on Picard's vineyard and has an awesome Irish accent.

Last year I gave this award to Captain Pike and I said that I hoped that he was going to get his own series, because it would be insane not to give him one. And then he got one! So maybe there's hope for Laris. She could solve crimes in France or something.

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Best Uniform

I didn't write about many series this year, but they've given me a ton of uniforms to pick from.

Short Treks featured a few Starfleet uniforms in season two, including the authentic Original Series tunic, and Picard included four more (Next Gen, First Contact, mid 2380s, present day), so I've got an opportunity here to have them all face off for the title of 'Best Uniform'. Plus Babylon 5 had both the Earthforce and Army of Light uniforms in the episodes I watched, and Duck Dodgers' costume has to count. Plus Stormtrooper armour is a uniform, right?


Click to see the best uniform.

I'm giving it to the season 3 Next Gen uniform. I nearly chose the First Contact uniform with the quilted grey shoulders, and I love the Original Series tunics, but I think the v2 Next Gen uniform had the best mix of colour and class. They bring some life to a scene no matter how drab the location is, while somehow making the actors look dignified despite the fact that they all had to wear muscle suits underneath.

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Worst Costume

The worst costume is obviously the sparkly catsuit with the wicker shoulder pads that Bjayzl was wearing at the start of Picard's Stardust City Rag. In fact it's so bad that I can't even think of a runner up, because nothing else comes close. It's really bad!

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Most Hateable Villain

I've got so many villains to choose from this year, too many to list. Though I am going to go and list a few of them for you, because I've got to write something here:

• Babylon 5 - Emperor Cartagia, Bad Kosh, Alfred Bester, the Drakh
• Doctor Who - The Lone Cyberman, The Master, Jack Robertson
• The Mandalorian - Twi'lek Harley Quinn, Werner Herzog, Moff Gideon
• Picard - Narek, Narissa, Commodore Oh, Bijayzl
• Short Treks - Edward Larkin
• Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century - Marvin the Martian

Click to see the most horrible bad guy.

It's Narissa from Picard! She's not the best villain, not by a long shot. In fact she's the worst, that's why I hate her! I don't know whether it was due to the actress or it's just how the character was written, but she was laying the evil on too thick right from the beginning. Then she had that weird abusive incest vibe with her brother, which just came off like they were trying to copy Game of Thrones (note: I haven't seen Game of Thrones yet), then they had her kill Hugh! An actual character people that liked and didn't want to be dead!

Any hopes that Picard had of being taken seriously as serious television about serious things were destroyed when Narissa turned up, and then she just carried on being the worst for the rest of the season. (Also the samurai Romulan was kind of goofy too).

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The 'Michael Burnham' Award for Biggest Damn Space Hero

This award is for the characters that continually charge into danger to kick ass and save the day against overwhelming odds when the stakes couldn't be any higher. Usually I'd just give it to Michael Burnham, but I didn't write about any Discovery this year, so it's an actual contest this time.

Babylon 5:

• John Sheridan - Personally nukes the homeworld of his enemy, dies, then comes back to end the Shadow War for all time, before flying off to save Earth from tyranny.
• Londo Mollari - Does everything he can to free his world from a tyrant and save them from the Shadows, freeing the Narn in the process.
• Vir Cotto - Steps up and assassinates an evil emperor.
• Marcus Cole - Flies around space hitting people with a stick.
  

Doctor Who:

• The Doctor - Obviously.
• Ko Sharmus -  The bloke on the planet in The Timeless Children who saves the day all episode and ultimately resolves the crisis.

The Mandalorian:

• Din Djarin - Takes on a galaxy of bounty hunters just to save one kid.
• IG-11 - A lot nicer after he's been resurrected.

Picard:

• Jean-Luc Picard - Manages to hold onto life just long enough to save a colony of androids.
• Seven of Nine - 'Big damn space hero' is basically her job description now.
  

Short Treks:

• The kids in Children of Mars who spend an episode bullying each other while the song 'Heroes' plays.

Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century:

• Duck Dodgers - Perhaps the greatest hero of the 24½th Century.
  

Click to see who'll save every one of us.

I came really close to giving this to Seven of Nine, because like I said she's a professional space hero who turns up when people are in trouble, but it has to be Captain Sheridan. The dude sneaks off with a starship, fights his way through ancient beings tough enough to kill a Vorlon, then nukes a Shadow city while he's standing in it. Afterwards he just picks himself up, leads the biggest fleet in history to end a cycle of conflict and manipulation that's been going on for millennia, and in the last episode I watched he was taking on Earth's corrupt president to save his own homeworld from tyranny.

Even Michael Burnham would have to agree that's not bad.

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Best Action Scene

Anything that's not a space battle is eligible to win best action scene, so shoot outs, fist fights and chase scenes all qualify.

• Babylon 5 - Marcus vs Neroon, G'Kar vs Centauri guards.
• Doctor Who - Cyberman attack.
• The Mandalorian - Bar fight, fortress shoot-out, Mando vs Jawas, Mando vs droids, IG-11 vs stormtroopers, Mando vs TIE Fighter.
• Picard - Dahj vs Zhat Vash, château fight, Seven vs Narissa.

Click to see what wins.

IG-11's anti-stormtrooper speeder bike rampage from Redemption brought a huge grin to my face. I was as happy as a Baby Yoda in a bag on a droid on a bike during the whole thing. It helps that the music's great.

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Cleverest Use of Trickery or a Loophole

This award is typically Doctor Who's to lose, considering the series is all about an immortal space wizard saving the universe through trickery, but it's only fair to list the other contenders too:

• Babylon 5 - Londo tricking Refa into going to Narn, Londo tricking Cartagia into going to Narn, Sheridan tricking the League into letting his ships patrol their borders, Neroon tricking his boss into giving Delenn an opportunity to end the war.
  
• Doctor Who -  The Doctor disguising another Tardis as her own to capture and crush a team of Daleks.
• The Mandalorian - Mando planting the tracker on the space station to lead the X-Wings there.
• Picard - Picard cunningly disguising himself as a criminal, with an eyepatch and French accent.
• Short Treks - Pike pretending to be a prisoner to test an officer.
• Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century - Eager Young Space Cadet telling Marvin that it's his birthday and then giving him dynamite as a present.

Click here for the cunning victor.

It's got to be Londo tricking Lord Refa into trapping himself in catacombs with a group of angry Narns, and planting a data crystal on him that makes him out to be a traitor. There was nothing in the series before this that hinted that Londo was capable of anything this clever, but it was so satisfying that I wasn't about to complain.

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The "Wait, WHAT?" Award for Exceptional Absurdity

This award's for the most egregious bullshit in an episode, so it's a shame there's no Discovery episodes in the running this year. To qualify an event has to be crazy enough to risk collapsing the whole story around it and put severe strain on my ability to suspend disbelief.

• Babylon 5 - Sheridan tells the Vorlons and Shadows to "get the hell out of our galaxy" and it works.
• Doctor Who - Lenny Henry plans to rewrite people's DNA to use them as hard drives. The Doctor was flying around in the Tardis for years before becoming Hartnell.
• The Mandalorian - Mando puts his ship back together overnight in a wasteland.
• Picard - Giant space flowers take down a Borg Cube. There are giant tentacle robots hiding outside of space just waiting for the go ahead to slaughter all life.
• Short Treks - The giant turbolift chamber, Discovery-era starships in the Next Gen era, everything in Ephraim and Dot.
• Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century - Nothing jumps to mind.

Click to see which is dumbest.

I have no idea why Chris Chibnall thought it was a good idea to subvert the Hartnell era of Doctor Who right after a Christmas special honouring it, but that's what this latest season went and did. Hartnell's Doctor learned to be a good man and a hero from his human companions and we got to watch it happen. We saw the first time the Tardis got stuck as a police box! Now he's just another step in a long chain of Doctors in the police box Tardis.

The reveal even steals the honour of being the first female Doctor away from Jodie Whittaker! I don't know why some writers love 'Everything you know is a lie' twists, but when a TV show pulls the rug out from under me I usually end up falling over and landing on my ass, metaphorically speaking.

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Best Spaceship

For this award each spaceship can only ever win once, so the X-Wing and Millennium Falcon are already out forever, along with the EAS Agamemnon, the Tardis, and the first four hero Enterprises (1966 to 1996). There's still plenty of ships left in competition though:

• Babylon 5 - The two kinds of Starfury, the Shadow vessel, the Minbari War Cruiser and the White Star.
• Doctor Who - The Cyberman ship, the Dalek saucer.
• The Mandalorian - The Razor Crest.
• Picard - La Sirena, the Borg Cube, the ancient Romulan Bird-of-Prey.
• Short Treks - Pike's version of the Enterprise.
• Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century - Duck Dodgers' rocketship.

Click to see a spaceship.

I had to give it to the original White Star from Babylon 5, as this is the last chance I have! The ship opened up the scope of the series and finally gave the protagonists the ability to have some influence on the chaos outside the station.

Some people think the ship looks like a plucked chicken, but I think it looks more like flying shark with a gun in is mouth, guns for eyes and purple camo to make it undetectable in front of any garish nebula. Either way, it went out looking like a fiery phoenix as it smashed into a domed city and exploded with the force of two 600 megaton bombs. The White Star died as it lived: killing unstoppable invincible aliens and looking like a badass while it did it. Its uniqueness is only slightly diminished by the fact that there's another hundred ships that look just like it and have the same name.

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Best Death

Space is a dangerous place, especially in an action-adventure series, and there's inevitably going to be casualties along the way. Some of these people died a hero's death, some of them not so much, but what matters is what kind of impact their death had on the story and on me.

• Babylon 5 - Lord Refa, Cartagia, John Sheridan, Bad Kosh, Neroon.
• Doctor Who - Ko Sharmus.
• The Mandalorian - Kuiil, IG-11.
• Picard - Dahj, Hugh, Icheb, Narissa, Bruce Maddox, Jean-Luc Picard.
• Short Treks - Edward Larkin

Click to see the winning dead guy.

This one was really difficult for me, especially as there's two lead characters in my list who died and came back! I knew I wasn't going to reward Picard for killing off half its guest stars, but beyond that I wasn't sure who to pick.

I think it's got to be Neroon though, because of out of nowhere his heroic sacrifice was. For three seasons he'd been Delenn's nemesis and it looked like he'd betrayed her so that his side could dominate their world. But it turned out he was sneakily setting up Delenn to save the day with a heroic sacrifice, and when he realised the full extent of that sacrifice he went and took her place! It's one thing to die to save a world, but he stepped in front of that bullet to save someone who had been an enemy, and he did it like a boss. 

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Most Shocking Twist or Reveal

It's time for the Most Shocking Twist or Reveal award, where the real SPOILERS are! This will pretty much cover all the big surprising events I haven't already spoiled so its your last chance to back out.

Babylon 5 -

• Sinclair is Valen! 
• G'Kar will one day strangle a mind-controlled Londo to death to give Sheridan and Delenn a chance to escape.
  
• Sheridan's wife is still alive! 
• The Vorlons are just as bad as the Shadows and they're both fighting over the best way to look after the other races! 
• Cartagia is a crazy person who plans to have his own planet destroyed.

Doctor Who -

• The Doctor isn't Gallifreyan, they copied her regeneration ability and lied to her. 
• She's had many former lives before the First Doctor and they also had a police box Tardis. 
• The Master destroyed Gallifrey. 
• Orphan 55 is post-apocalyptic Earth.

The Mandalorian -

• The 50 year old target is Baby Yoda.
• Moff Gideon has the Darksaber.

Picard -

• Dajh gets killed in episode 1.
• Her sister works on a Borg Cube.
• Data had a human brother. 
• The Romulans were right about robots destroying all life.
  
• Picard dies and is downloaded into a robot body.

Short Treks -

• Everything in Ask Not is just a test.
• Children of Mars ends with Mars being attacked by synths.

Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century -

• Dodgers and Marvin have utterly destroyed Planet X. No one gets the shaving cream atom.

 Click here for the shocking reveal.

Sinclair is Valen! Turns out Babylon 5's first lead character was always fated to travel back in time to become the ancient Minbari prophet who won the Shadow War a thousand years ago and created their modern society. Babylon 5 dropped a lot of bombshells in the stretch of episodes I just watched, but this has to be the biggest of them. Well, except for maybe the Shadow and Vorlon twist. They're close.

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Greatest Moment

The one thing harder than having to think back through 2000 minutes of sci-fi to remember my favourite moments, is having to do it when I've already given a dozen awards away. Every time I think of something, I realise it's already won Best Teaser or Best Action Scene and I have to try again.

But I've got a few other ideas. Like the ending of Picard's last episode where the crew warp off to adventure and an alternate heroic end theme plays. Or the discovery of the buried Tardis in Doctor Who. Plus there's Londo wrecking his room in a one-take whirlwind of despair, and Vir waving to Mr Morden's severed head.


And the winner is.

It's the Doctor's lamination montage in Spyfall, Part 2!

I've found the Chris Chibnall era of Doctor Who to lack the spark and wit of earlier seasons, so when something actually surprises and amuses me it stands out a lot more.

Spyfall, Part 2 started with the companions managing to land a plane without a cockpit thanks to a high quality guide planted there by The Doctor. I was expecting to get a throwaway line later on which acknowledged that she'd gone back and sorted it out, but instead we actually got to see go through the process of making the thing, with the help of a couple of historical figures. It was a perfect match for Jodie Whittaker's Doctor and easily my favourite part of series 12.

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Funniest Moment

Well now I've just gone and made things even harder for myself by choosing a funny moment for my greatest moment. It wasn't really the funniest moment however. I've got a few other ideas what might be though, and I didn't watch any Orville this year so everything's in with a chance:

• Picard - Anything to do with holograms.
• The Mandalorian - Mando setting the Jawa on fire during negotiations, Jaws chanting "EGG, EGG, EGG!", Baby Yoda sipping soup watching Mando fight Cara Dune.
• Short Treks - The Tribbles cereal advert. That whole Tribbles episode in general.
• Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century - Basically any of it.

Click here for what is surely the objectively funniest moment.

It's the post-credits Tribble cereal advert from Short Treks' The Trouble with Edward!

I was really tempted to give this to those Jawas from The Mandalorian, but then I thought back to how that cereal advert caught me so much by surprise, and how much effort was put into it (they even drew art for three boxes!) and I realised it had to be the Tribbles.

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Best Opening Credits Sequence

There's only three opening credits sequences in the fight this time as Short Treks and The Mandalorian don't really have one and Babylon 5 season 3 already won last year.

• Babylon 5 season 4's dramatic clips of characters in action.
• Doctor Who season 12's semi-symmetrical swirly space milkshake weirdness.
• Picard's trippy images of vineyards, Borg Cubes and synthetic life.

Click to reveal the result.

It's Babylon 5 season 4! Doctor Who's current titles earn points for being distinctive and weird, but I'm not keen on the new version of the theme music. The visuals for Picard's opening are great and I like the way the melody has been sneakily borrowed from The Inner Light (in fact I'm glad the series has opening titles at all in 2020), but it's not 'all-time classic' good.

The Babylon 5 season 4 opening, on the other hand, is one of my all-time favourites. The season's called No Surrender, No Retreat and that may as well describe the music as well: the opening's progressed past the bleakness of the season three titles and has moved onto resolute ass-kicking. It maybe loses points for being a series of clips instead of having unique imagery like the other two series, but they're really good clips! Mostly.

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Worst Visual Effect

Either Babylon 5's gotten better this year or I've just forgotten most of it, as there's only three examples of terrible visual effects I can think of this time around.

The first is this superimposed crack on a character's mask in Falling Toward Apotheosis. It's hard to composite damage onto a moving piece of glass, especially when the actor puts his hand in front of it, but that doesn't change the fact that they failed at it. The second example is the end of The Long Night, where Sheridan's fleet flies away to their final battle against the Vorlons and the Shadows, with fighters flickering in and out of existence and only a handful of ships even getting an engine glow (in their defence, the VFX people were really busy at the time).

But the third example has to be my winner.


Click to see the worst effect.

It's the Drakh from Lines of Communication! This one earns trippe points because it's also a practical effects fail and an acting fail. The suit looked bad so they tried to cover it up with a blur effect and that looked bad too, especially with the performance the guy is giving.

Babylon 5 had amazing alien makeup for a series with such a low budget, it was easily Star Trek's match, but they really messed up with this one.

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Best Looking TV Series

The award for 'best looking TV series' has always gone to either Doctor Who or Discovery so far, but now Picard and The Mandalorian are in the running and it's a much tougher battle to call. Doctor Who really punches above its weight these days when it comes to visuals, but Picard's got a huge budget and The Mandalorian has its amazing virtual set (and also a huge budget). One thing's certain, it won't be Babylon 5 winning this year.


And the prettiest TV show is...

It's The Mandalorian! The other series look great, but The Mandalorian goes the extra mile with its visuals. It looks like a movie and likes to spend time just observing the worlds it travels through. Plus it ends each episode with pictures of the concept art so you can see how close they got it (usually pretty damn close).

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Best Space Battle

The 'best space battle' battle was crazy last time with Discovery's Such Sweet Sorrow, Orville's Identity and Babylon 5's Severed Dreams going up against each other. This time the contest is a lot less dramatic, none of my choices would be considered a contender for the greatest space battle ever seen on TV, but there's still some good fights in there.

Babylon 5 is the obvious place to look for large-scale space combat and it didn't disappoint. I saw the majority of the Shadow War this year, with battles in episodes like Walkabout, Shadow Dancing and Into the Fire. Plus Delenn took on the Drakh and Sheridan kicked off the Earth Alliance Civil War.

The Mandalorian and Picard both had minor dogfights by comparison, in The Gunfighter, Absolute Candor and Et in Arcadia Ego, but they have the benefit of modern effects and huge sacks of money so they're in with a real chance as well.


Click to find out what won.

It's the Battle of Proxima III from Babylon 5's No Surrender No Retreat!

This isn't the most impressive of the space battles I saw, in fact it's not even the most impressive battle from Babylon 5 season 4, but there's so much more going on in it than visual effects. Sheridan's facing off against his own military and is working to recruit the other ships to his side, or at least determine if they're going to shoot at him or not. The is complicated by the conflicts going on aboard the ship, with first officers disagreeing with their captains. Sheridan's victory is inevitable, there's no need for him to pull off a clever tactical move at the last moment to save the day this time, the real question is which ships are going to be destroyed by the end of it and how many Earth Alliance officers are going to die.

Overall it's one of the most interesting space battles I've ever seen on television and that's why it wins.

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The "I Know That Actor From Somewhere" Award

It's a known fact that sometimes actors from one thing will turn up in another thing, but occasionally a particular guest star will stand out and catch my attention. Like when Sterling Archer and Battle Angel Alita appeared together in the same Short Treks episode. The Mandalorian had a surprising number of comedians turn up, but it was Clancy Brown and Ming-Na Wen that I recognised. On the other hand, the most notable guest star in Doctor Who for me was the bloke from 90s sitcom Game On, because it reminded me that Game On existed.

Oh plus a bunch of Star Trek actors appeared on Picard, but I don't think that should really count.


Click to reveal.

The winner is Tamlyn Tomita from Picard, playing the villainous Commodore Oh. She's half Vulcan, half Romulan, and yet has an Asian name for some reason.

I'm giving the award to her just because of how surprised I was to see her again. I know she's been in Stargate, Heroes and 24, but I remember her as Lieutenant Commander Takashima way back at the very start of Babylon 5. She was supposed to be a regular but she only turned up in the pilot movie, so she's actually appeared in more Star Trek than B5 now.

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Worst Season (Up to This Point)

This one's going to be easy to figure out. I can just look at my scores and calculate which season has the lowest average. And if I disagree with the answer I can just pick something else!

Last time Short Treks season 1 took this effortlessly, but this time it's got more competition with Doctor Who's disappointing 12th season. Or I might just give it to Picard first season, for somehow feeling rushed while also taking forever to get going.


And the winner is...

The worst season is Short Treks season 2, so Short Treks has won two years in a row! I love the idea of the series, an experimental playground to test new talent (plus that Tribbles advert had more wit and entertainment than most whole episodes of current Doctor Who), but overall it just isn't working for me.

I was really tempted to choose Doctor Who as it didn't bring me a whole lot of joy this year, (honestly it could almost come down to a coin flip), but... I didn't.

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Best Season (Up to This Point)

This is the same as the last Award, except opposite. Last time Babylon 5's third season won, but can the series dominate for two years in a row when it's up against The Mandalorian's incredible first year? Is it possible that I've changed my mind and done a 180 on Doctor Who series 12 in the 10 seconds since the last award and I love it now?

I've put the numbers into the machine, pressed the buttons, and the answer is...


Click here to see what won.

The best season is Babylon 5 season 4! Some people prefer the third season, but I feel like season 4 is the most confident, consistent and downright modern feeling season of the series thanks to its slick direction and strong serialisation.

The Mandalorian had a fantastic introduction, but you ain't going to beat B5 at its peak with your first season (and just 8 episodes).

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  Worst Episode

This is another easy one for me as I can just look at the numbers.

Babylon 5 has the notoriously terrible Grey 17 is Missing, and Lines of Communication with its fuzzy Drakh, but Doctor Who has the horrific Orphan 55 and Can You Hear Me? Meanwhile The Mandalorian has The Gunslinger, and the two Trek series have their own strong contenders, with Picard giving us Stardust City Rag and The Impossible Box and Short Treks presenting Ephraim and Dot and The Girl Who Made the Stars.


Click to reveal my least favourite episode.

It's Ephraim and Dot! I really didn't like this episode. In fact I disliked it so much that I had to go on a Looney Tunes/Tom and Jerry marathon afterwards just to make sure I still loved cartoons (I did).

It fails at being Looney Tunes because it doesn't pull off the comedy and it fails at being a celebration of Star Trek history because everything in it is wrong! They didn't even put the name on the Enterprise at the right angle. Plus it's just not pleasant to look at.

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Best Episode

This is the last award and it's another easy one. No need for thinking this time, I already made up my mind back when I watched the episodes. Of course when I say 'Best Episode' what I mean is 'the episode I liked the most'.

Babylon 5 has given me a lot to choose from, but I'll go with And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place, The Long Night and No Surrender, No Retreat as my nominations. I didn't like the revelations that came out of it later in the series, but Doctor Who's Fugitive of the Judoon was a solid piece of television. Picard gave us Remembrance and Nepenthe, Short Treks had The Trouble With Edward, and The Mandorian went on an amazing sandcrawler raid in The Child and ended with the incredible Redemption. Mando jumped into the sky and wrestled a TIE Fighter man, it was nuts!


Click to reveal the bestest episode.

The best episode award goes to The Mandalorian season 1, episode 2: The Child!

I thought Babylon 5's And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place might win this, but I guess my heart likes The Child just a little bit more. It's a real roller coaster ride, going from a bounty hunter ambush, to exploding Jawas, to a sandcrawler raider, to an inappropriate use of a flamethrower during negotiations, to a quest for the egg, to Baby Yoda revealing his Force powers and Mando killing a massive mudhorn with a tiny knife. I was already sold on The Mandalorian after episode 1, but this proved it wasn't just a good series, it had the potential to be a bloody great one.

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Awesome, I've finished writing about another block of sci-fi reviews! Now I get two months off to relax... except not really, as now I've got a video game site to write for instead. Sci-Fi Adventures will return in April, but if you're looking for something else to read each week while you wait then you can always check out Super Adventures.

Thanks for reading by the way! I'll make it up to you by reading your comments.