Sci-Fi Adventures Awards - Season 6 (2021-22)

I think it's about the right time for Ray Hardgrit's Sci-Fi Adventures Awards Season 6! I watched a lot of science fiction between April 2021 and March 2022 and now I'm going to celebrate the highs and say harsh things about the lows.

First though I should let you know that this is probably the last time I do one of these articles. My memory's just not good enough to do them justice, especially considering the amount of episodes I cover in a year. I mean everything in this list is in with a chance to win something here:

• Babylon 5 4-16 - The Exercise of Vital Powers to 5-11 - Phoenix Rising
  
• Babylon 5 - In the Beginning
• Cowboy Bebop 01 - Asteroid Blues
• Cowboy Bebop 2021
  
• Doctor Who series 13 - Flux
  
• Doctor Who - Eve of the Daleks
  
• Farscape 1-01 - Premier
  
• Firefly 1-01 - Serenity
• Outlaw Star 01 - Outlaw World to 04 - When the Hot Ice Melts
  
• Red Dwarf 1-01 - The End
• Star Trek 1-01 - The Man Trap
  
• Star Trek: The Next Generation 1-01 - Encounter at Farpoint
• Star Trek: Voyager 1-01 - Caretaker
• Star Trek: Enterprise 1-01 - Broken Bow
  
• Star Trek: Discovery season 3
• Star Trek: Lower Decks season 1
• Star Wars: The Mandalorian season 2

You can see why I don't want to do these anymore. There's 77 episodes and a movie in that list! 3000 minutes of science fiction from 15 different series! (Assuming I haven't accidentally left something out.) That's a lot of SPOILERS, so study the list carefully before reading further or else you might learn something about one of these stories you didn't want to know.

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Best Teaser

Like last year I'm starting with Best Teaser, the award that has me rewatching the first five minutes of a bunch of episodes to find out which has the greatest cold open! How many episodes did I cover again? Oh, 77, that's right. Bloody hell...

There were lots of good teasers in this batch of stories, especially at the start of seasons where the writers were just a little bit more eager to show off and grab people's interest. Lower Decks had Mariner making the Klingons question the meaning of her intense bass and Tendi showing off The Dog. The Mandalorian featured Mando giving a thief a remote-control jetpack ride and piloting the wreck of the Razor Crest into the ocean. Firefly had the Battle of Serenity Valley and Wash's dinosaur story in the same teaser! And Doctor Who had the Doctor finally exterminated by the Daleks.

 Click to see which episode started with the best hook.

This was a difficult choice, especially with so many ships falling out of the sky, but my heart told me to choose Discovery hurtling out of a wormhole and crashing into ice Star Trek: Discovery 3-02 - Far from Home. Sure we already had Burnham hurtling out of a wormhole and crashing in the episode immediately before it, and that teaser had the advantage of giving us Burnham's reaction to realising that the plan worked and they saved all life in the galaxy, but my heart said to pick this one so that's that. Plus look how pretty Discovery looks in this lighting.

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Best Character Reappearance

This is the award for when a character reappears somewhere you didn't necessarily expect and it's awesome. Maybe they've turned up on an entirely different series, maybe they've been missing for a few years, or maybe they were just presumed dead. Last time the Rikers won thanks to their appearance in Star Trek: Picard, but they've got some competition this time.

The Mandalorian in particular has been bringing back a ton of characters from earlier stories, like Bo-Katan Kryze, Ahsoka Tano, Boba Fett and Luke Actual Skywalker, to the point where it made me watch The Clone Wars cartoon to get some extra context. In a good way.

The Star Trek series also had some interesting cameos, like Zefram Cochrane, Q, Quark, McCoy and The Guardian of Forever. Plus Babylon 5's In the Beginning was a prequel, allowing the return of Kosh and Dukhat.

Click to see the best reappearing character.

It's the Rikers from Lower Decks! I'm going to cheat and include both of them again, for the second year in a row, because I can. I should really give this to Luke Skywalker, because his appearance in The Mandalorian was awesome, but Will Riker pulling the same trick twice and coming out of nowhere to save the day at the end of two seasons of two different series earns him extra points.

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Best New Character

Okay, I watched the first episodes of Cowboy Bebop, Farscape, Firefly, Outlaw Star, Red Dwarf, Star Trek, Next Gen, Voyager, Enterprise and Lower Decks over the last year, so I'm making a new rule that the best new character can't be one of the initial regulars. Otherwise this is going to be ridiculous. Plus they have to be in at least two stories.

There are still a lot of new regulars for me to consider though, like Babylon 5's Captain Elizabeth Lochley, Doctor Who's Dan Lewis, and Discovery's Cleveland Booker. Doctor Who went a bit crazy for a six part season, also introducing Karvanista the angry dog man, Vinder and Bel, Professor Jericho... lots of characters. Discovery gave us Adira Tal and Gray Tal, along with Oded Fehr as Admiral Vance and David Cronenberg as Doctor Kovich, which was pretty unexpected. And Lower Decks gave us Jet Manhaver and Badgey.

Click to see the best new guy.

I'm going to cheat again and say Dan Lewis and Karvanista, because the dog and his human are kind of tied together during Flux, and they're both great. Karvanista's as irritable as he is fluffy and Dan's both the nicest and the bravest bloke in Liverpool.

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Best Uniform

I watched six different Star Trek series last year, so I've got a few costumes to choose from here. Plus there are the uniforms from all the other shows just to make the decision a little harder.

Yeah, this might be a problem.

Okay I'll see if I can narrow this down a little. The Enterprise uniforms have always been a bit too monochrome for me, and the Discovery uniforms are a bit too 'Zap Brannigan'. Plus the velour Star Trek: The Original Series tunics shrank too much in the wash, and the Next Gen costumes gave the actors back pain.

Actually screw it, I'm skipping this one and jumping straight to...

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Worst Costume

Half the time I don't even bother hiding the 'Worst Costume' winner because one outfit is just so bad that I can't even think of anything else on its level. I did have a couple of other ideas, like Wesley Crusher's sweater, and I wasn't keen on the grey 32nd Discovery uniforms either, but this award has got to go to the Suliban uniform from Enterprise.

The material comes across like it was especially designed to look equally bad in the CGI sequences, and gluing bits of rubber onto them did not enhance their appearance.

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Most Hateable Villain

Last year I chose Picard's Narissa as the most hateable villain, not because she was a good bad guy, just because I hated the character. But maybe I'll pick a villain I hate for the right reasons this time.

I've already picked Bester from Babylon 5 a while back, but the series has got some other good candidates like President Clark and Byron. Okay maybe Byron isn't technically a villain, but he's definitely hateable. Doctor Who had a ton of them recently, like Swarm, Azure, Stenck, the Grand Serpent and Tecteun.

The Mandalorian had Moff Gideon, Lower Decks had Badgey, Discovery had Osyraa, Farscape had Crais... plus I could pick Next Gen's Q! I have a lot of options here.

Click to see the most horrible bad guy.

The winner is Vicious from Cowboy Bebop 2021! I went and picked the most annoying villain again.

Vicious probably wouldn't have been so bad in his own series, I liked the actor, but every time he appeared in Cowboy Bebop I just wanted him to piss off again so I could have my bounty hunter series back. I guess he's more unwanted than hateable.

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The 'Michael Burnham' Award for Biggest Damn Space Hero

This award is for the character who does the most aburdly heroic things and saves the day in the most dramatic fashion. Last time John Sheridan won by nuking the villain's city while he was standing in it, then picking himself back up afterwards to win the whole war, but with Michael Burnham back in play he's got some serious competition.

Here are some of the nominees:

• John Sheridan - Escapes from prison, frees Earth from a despot, destroys the Minbari's toughest ship in a prequel.
  
• Michael Burnham - Solves the mystery of the Burn, gives the Federation a source of dilithium, destroys the Emerald Chain.
• The Doctor - Stops the Sontarans conquering the Earth, participates in a scheme that saves a percentage of the universe from the Flux.
• Captain Archer - Infiltrates a Suliban base in a stolen enemy ship to rescue a Klingon.
  
• Faye Valentine - Flies her ship into a missile to save her friends.
• Din Djarin - Deliberately gets himself eaten by a Kryat Dragon in order to blow it up!
  
• Luke Skywalker - Wipes out a whole ship full of unstoppable robot super soldiers.

Click to see who saved the day.

It's got to be Michael Burnham. The others did some amazing things, especially Sheridan who deposed a tyrant and helped create an Interstellar Alliance, but Burnham crash-landed without a ship or a crew, discovered that she was in a dark future where the Federation had nearly collapsed, and had it fixed within two years. If Sheridan had fallen someone else would've taken his place, but the galaxy was a dark place until Burnham returned to save it.

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Best Action Scene

This award is for any kind of action scene that isn't a space battle. So shootouts, fight scenes, chases, that kind of thing.

Some ideas that jump to mind are the bathroom fight in Cowboy Bebop, the car chase in Outlaw Star, Burnham and Book fighting the Exchange in Discovery, and the canyon chase in The Mandalorian. But I've got a lot of good action to choose from here.

Click to see what wins.

It's Mando's fight on the explosives truck in The Believer!

Mando's an incredible fighter but he definitely trained to be a tank, relying on his armour to take a lot of blows, and here we get to see him adapt to fighting in considerably less impressive armour. He also has to adapt to fighting off endless waves of enemies carrying thermal detonators as he struggles to help the Empire get a cargo of explosives for their evil schemes. It's a complicated situation. It's also an incredible looking sequence for a TV Series.

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Cleverest Use of Trickery or a Loophole

This award should be Doctor Who's to lose, but the Doctor's been a little less ingenius during the Chris Chibnall era so it's not a sure thing. Here are some of the possible winners:

• Babylon 5 - Sheridan smuggling cybernetic telepaths onto the Earth ships to shut them all down at once and fly to Earth without a fight.
• Cowboy Bebop - Spike pickpocketing the bloody eye and impersonating the buyer.
• Cowboy Bebop (2021) - Vicious using a holographic disguise to avoid an obvious double cross and sieze control of the Syndicate.
• Doctor Who - The Doctor coming up with a clever plan to escape a time loop, but first using a fake plan to throw off her pursuers.
• Discovery - Burnham and Book swiping all of Discovery's dilithium to trick the Titan vessel into lowering their shields.

Click here for the cunning victor.

I hate to say this, but I have to give it to Vicious. His plan to take over the Syndicate was so damn cunning that it actually seemed out of character for him. Sure it relied on him being able to defeat a room full of guards single-handedly, but he could, so that wasn't really a flaw.

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The "Wait, WHAT?" Award for Exceptional Absurdity

Sometimes an episode will do something that kicks me right out of a story, ruins my immersion, and leaves me staring at actors on sets wondering what the hell the writers were thinking. This award is for the situation or reveal that hit my suspension of disbelief the hardest, and with Doctor Who and Discovery both in the running it's going to be close.

Here's what Discovery's bringing to the table this time:

• Georgiou shuts down 32nd century holograms by blinking too fast, a trick she knew from the 23rd century.
• Discovery has an entire cityscape inside it that's bigger than the ship itself, with turbolifts flying everywhere.
• A mutant kid caused the detonation of dilithium across the galaxy all on his own by screaming.
• Saru decided to assign Ensign Tilly to be Discovery's first officer

Meanwhile Doctor Who has:

• Tecteun attempts to destroy the entire universe to stop the Doctor meddling with her plans in the alternate universe she's moving over to.
• She deliberately has the Doctor captured so she can bring her with her.
  

Plus Outlaw Star has Hot Ice Hilda getting away with wearing a fake face over her eyepatch, Lower Decks has a guy accidentally becoming an energy being and meeting the Koala, and Enterprise ends its pilot with Archer learning the wrong lesson from his flashback and deliberately flying into a hazardous ion storm. The idiot.

Click to see which is dumbest.

And the winner is... the giant turbolift city inside Discovery, for proving that it doesn't matter how spectacular the ride is if you haven't managed to get the audience on board. When a viewer's suspension of disbelief fails they're more likely to make fun of your expensive effects sequence than be impressed.

I mean it isn't all that different to the truck fight in The Mandalorian, as it's a flashy CGI-augmented action scene where the hero fights the bad people to get a vehicle to themselves, but despite all the money they've obviously spent I had the exact opposite reaction to it. The trouble here is that the questions raised by the setting are far more interesting than what's happening. Why is there a space within Discovery big enough to park the entire ship inside? Did the producers not think anyone would notice? It doesn't help that the fight is intercut with scenes of another group of people walking from one end of the ship to the other, while struggling with the oxygen being turned off. There's plenty of air in the vast turbolift chasm, just not in all of the places they walk to.

After giving this some thought I finally decided that Starfleet must have used Tardis-style bigger-on-the-inside technology to make the turbolift shafts gigantic in order to give people time to have conversations during the journey. I couldn't tell you what the protagonist actually did during the scene though as I wasn't paying attention.

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Best Spaceship

For this award each spaceship can only win once, so the X-Wing and Millennium Falcon are already out forever, along with the EAS Agamemnon, the Tardis, the first four hero Enterprises (Original Series to First Contact), and the White Star. There are a lot of great ships still competing though, and I won't have another chance to do this, so I'm going to make this a top five.

• Babylon 5 - The two kinds of Starfury, the Minbari War Cruiser.
• Cowboy Bebop - The Bebop, the Swordfish II.
• Farscape - Moya.
• Firefly - Serenity.
• Outlaw Star - The Outlaw Star.
• Red Dwarf - Red Dwarf.
• Trek pilots - Excelsior-class, NX-01 Enterprise, Voyager.
• Discovery - Discovery/Discovery-A, Voyager-J, Book's ship.
• Lower Decks - The Cerritos, the Vancouver, the Titan.
• The Mandalorian - The Razor Crest, Slave 1, TIE Fighter, Arquitens-class command cruiser.

Click to see multiple spaceships.

5. The Bebop

Fifth place goes to the beat up interplanetary fishing trawler Bebop from Cowboy Bebop. The anime version and the live-action version are a little different, mostly around the engines on each side, but I'm counting them both here because I want to.

I'm also giving a shout out to all the smaller ships it carries inside its hangar, as they're pretty iconic as well.

4. Serenity

Serenity from Firefly also has two different appearences, and you never know which version of the ship is going to show up in a scene.

Personally I prefer the newer curvier version over the one in this picture, but it's the ship's interior that impresses me the most. They built the whole thing as two separate sets so they could show off and walk from the bridge all the way down to the engine room in one shot. Then they built it all again for the movie.

3. The Razor Crest

Third place goes to the Razor Crest assault ship used by Din Djarin in The Mandalorian.

RIP to a heroic little vessel that suffered more than most hero ships. Over two seasons it was stripped bare by Jawas, smashed into an ice planet, invaded by spiders, dropped into the ocean, and blown up by an orbiting cruiser. I have to admit that its final fate came as a total surprise to me, as he'd just got the thing rebuilt!

2. Red Dwarf

The mining ship Red Dwarf doesn't really do anything except move slowly and take up a lot of space (the thing's like 6 miles long), but I love its distinctive look. Uh, I mean this distinctive look specifically, not the various other looks it's been given over the years.

It also gets bonus points for its Starbug shuttles, even though I haven't written about an episode with them in yet.

1. USS Voyager

But first place goes to the Intrepid-class USS Voyager NCC-74656.

I've noticed that a lot of people aren't that keen on Voyager's look. I've seen it compared to a spoon and a trowel, and I've read harsh comments about its tiny warp nacelles. Personally though I love the design. The hull surface a little plain, but the design is exactly as complex as it needs to be and it's covered in all the tiny details that sell it as being authentically Next Gen-era Starfleet. She definitely looks better to me than the angular concept design that they nearly went with.

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Best Death

Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence, so it's inevitable that a few characters are going to die along the way. This award is for the character that went out in the most interesting, heroic, dramatic or memorable way, and I can think of a few candidates.

The first one that jumps to mind is Byron from Babylon 5, who finally brought his frustrating story arc to an end by shooting a puddle of leaking fuel, incinerating himself and his followers. That should be an easy winner really, but there's also Outlaw Star's Hot Ice Hilda detonating a bomb while falling into a sun in order to save her new crew from a magic pirate.

Meanwhile in the Trek series, Voyager's Commander Cavit got himself killed because he decided to run across the bridge instead of bracing for impact, Lower Decks's Shaxs went out fighting a room full of Pakleds on an exploding ship, and Darnell went off with another man's murderous salt vampire wife and became the first ever person to die in Star Trek.

Also Rimmer exposed the entire crew of Red Dwarf to lethal radiation by his inept repair job on the drive plate.

Click to see the winning dead guy.

I really want to give this to Hot Ice Hilda or Byron, but I can't not give it to Shaxs. He's not the first Federation security officer to go out in season one, however he is the first to go out on an exploding starship with his uniform stained with the blood of all the Pakleds he was pummelling. I honestly did not expect the series to kill off one of the best characters after just 10 episodes, but the guy died doing what he loved: violence.

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Most Shocking Twist or Reveal

This is a bit like the "Wait, WHAT?" award, except with more joy and positivity. Well, maybe not for the people involved.

Babylon 5 featured Sheridan's shocking endgame for the cybernetically augemented telepaths he had in cryo, Discovery revealed that the Federation was close to collapse due to the detonation of their dilithium, and Lower Decks surprised us with the identity of Mariner's mother. Meanwhile The Mandalorian kept giving us surprise guest stars like Bo-Katan and Ahsoka from The Clone Wars, a very much alive Fennec Shand and Boba Fett, and Luke Skywalker.

Plus it seems weird to count the premise of a series as being a twist, but I'm sure someone went into Red Dwarf not knowing that the whole crew dies or started Voyager not realising that they were going to be trapped in the Delta Quadrant.

 Click here for the shocking reveal.

The most shocking reveal award goes to Luke Skywalker!

I knew there was a possibility that he'd be the Jedi that Grogu had called to, he was definitely the most obvious candidate, but it didn't seem likely to me that they'd go to the expense of de-aging Mark Hamill for a TV series. Turns out that I was wrong! I guess Disney+ isn't stingy with its budgets.

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Greatest Moment

Moments are awkward, because there's a lot of them in an episode, and even more of them in 77 episodes. I'll see what I can remember though.

Babylon 5 gave us the Agamemnon flying through the exploding defence platform, Bester telling Garibaldi how he'd been brainwashed, and Ivanova's 'god sent me' speech. Plus Firefly had Mal's incredibly cruel joke on Simon when he told him Kaylee was dead, and the time he resolved a hostage situation in one shot while walking onto his ship.

The Mandalorian was full of awesome moments. Like the time Mando had to decide if he was going to go against his religion and take off his helmet so he could find his son.

The Trek series had their moments too, like Burnham getting drugged in Discovery, and Holo Mariner arriving to save her mother from Actual Mariner in Lower Decks.

Did I mention that Mando deliberately got himself eaten by a Kryat Dragon in order to blow it up?

And the most awesome moment is.

Man this was a difficult choice, but I'm going with Mariner vs Mariner. It was so perfect seeing Mariner's scheme to get some holographic revenge on her holographic mother get derailed by the surprise appearance of herself. The whole damn set up was so bloody clever and I loved it.

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Funniest Moment

Oh man, now I need to think of even more moments.

Okay, uh, there's Boba Yoda's insatiable hunger for eggs in The Mandalorian, Sulu's hand puppet plant in Star Trek.... I suppose half of Red Dwarf and Lower Decks would qualify. I've got other awards to get to however, so I'm not going to keep you in suspense a second longer.

Click here for the funniest moment.

The award goes to: every moment of Lower Decks featuring The Dog! It's as loveable as it is horrifying, perhaps even moreso!

I'm starting to realise that Lower Decks might be really good at moments.

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Best Opening Credits Sequence

Alright, this award is for the best opening titles sequence, and I'll be judging them on both the theme music and the imagery. Babylon 5 season 4 won last year, so that'll be sitting this one out, but there are a ton of other series in the running this time.

There's Babylon 5's fifth season opening, Cowboy Bebop, the other Cowboy Bebop, Doctor Who: Flux, Farscape season 1, Firefly, Outlaw Star, Red Dwarf season 1, and half a dozen Star Treks. Not The Mandalorian, that doesn't have opening titles. It'd definitely win a 'Best End Credits' award though, with its showcase of concept art.

Click for the result.

The winner is Cowboy Bebop! I was tempted to give it to Voyager (or Lower Decks), but Cowboy Bebop came into this game to win. Its opening is so iconic that the Netflix live-action version basically just recreated the whole thing and kept the music.

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Worst Opening Credits Sequence

The winner is Enterprise, there's not even a contest here. The sad thing is that the visuals are actually very good, it's just the music that drags it down.

I know that a lot of people actually like the song Where My Heart Will Take Me, it does at least have a fitting message, but even they would probably concede that it sounds jarring coming right after a dramatic teaser.

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Worst Visual Effect

Babylon 5 usually has this one in the bag, though this time the most unpleasant visual I can think of is the stock photo of flowers that ripples onto the screen to demonstrate a telepathic message. The original Star Trek's The Man Trap is cheating by being from the 60s, but its spaceship shots have been mangled by the compositing process, its morph fade effects have the background shifting along with the character, and they even got the transporter fade misaligned. Red Dwarf's hologram effects are pretty ropey as well, as you'd expect coming from BBC on a sitcom budget in the 80s. It's a miracle the shots of Red Dwarf  herself came out looking so great really.

There's also the nasty VR effect in Cowboy Bebop, the sword moving when Mirror Burnham got stabbed in Discovery, the Suliban squishing under the silo door in Enterprise, and Luke's uncanny valley face in The Mandalorian.

Click to see the worst effect.

The award goes to: the terrible looking VR effect in Cowboy Bebop! It's like someone's used four Photoshop filters at once and my eyes are begging me to stop looking at it.

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Best Looking TV Series

This is almost certainly going to go to one of the most recent series, so it's between Cowboy Bebop, Doctor Who, Discovery and The Mandalorian. Those last three have all won the award in the past, with Discovery winning twice, but Cowboy Bebop was a stylish series and it won't be going down without a fight.

And the prettiest TV show is...

It's The Mandalorian again!

Discovery still has its moments (when it's not going overboard with the blue tint), and Doctor Who was jumping around a ridiculous number of locations last season, but The Mandalorian has only gotten better at its StageCraft LED backdrop magic.

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Best Space Battle

Alright, now I've reached a proper award! Though I don't remember seeing many really good space battles last year. The Mandalorian had some great dogfighting, but the only real space battle was actually a scheme to board Gideon's cruiser. Discovery and the The Orville have had amazing battles in the past, but this time the best Disco could manage was a bizarre sequence where Detmer flew rings around the Emerald Chain mothership like it was Star Wars, and The Orville didn't even turn up.

There was Voyager's battle around the Caretaker array though, plus the NX-01 versus the Suliban in Enterprise, and the Titan swooping in to save the Cerritos in Lower Decks. Farscape practically started with a space battle and Outlaw Star had the big messy space battle around the asteroid dock falling into a star.

Plus Babylon 5 featured the Earth-Minbari War and the Earth Civil War, so there was a fight or two there as well.

Click here to see who wins.

It's Susan Ivanova vs Clark's advanced destroyers in Babylon 5's Between the Darkness and the Light! They were Omega-class ships enhanced with Shadow technology which put them on the same level as her Vorlon enhanced White Stars, but Ivanova informed them that she's "the right hand of vengeance" and "death incarnate" and then went and proved it.

Being fatally wounded by a bit of debris after the battle was won did spoil her victory a bit, but she got better.

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Worst Season (Up to This Point)

Last time this award was won by Short Treks and the time before that it was also won by Short Treks. But Short Treks ain't here this time, so it's going to be a more interesting contest.

It's going to be easy to figure out though, as I can just look at my scores and calculate which season has the lowest average. And if I disagree with the answer it gives me I can always choose something else! Here's what I have to pick from:

• Babylon 5 season 5.
• Cowboy Bebop (2021).
• Doctor Who series 13 - Flux.
  
• Discovery season 3.
• Lower Decks season 1.
• The Mandalorian season 2.

And the winner is...

It's Netflix's Cowboy Bebop!

The first episode made it seem like it was going to be a fun remix of the acclaimed anime, but it turned out to be a dark and seedy crime serial about a psychopath plotting to take over his syndicate and kill his former friend.

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Best Season (Up to This Point)

Babylon 5 has been dominating this award up until now, but season 4 is disqualified due to already winning last time, so can the first half of season 5 compete against a more mature The Mandalorian and a Star Trek show in its third season? Can it even compete against Lower Decks?

All I know for sure is that Cowboy Bebop's not going to win this.

Click here to see what won.

The winner is The Mandalorian season 2! Babylon 5's Byron saga just couldn't compete with the best live-action Star Wars we've gotten in a long while. At least not in my subjective opinion.

Lower Decks came really close to matching it though. Well, closer than I would've expected anyway.

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  Worst Episode

This is going to be another easy one for me to figure out. I just have to check my numbers and see which is lowest. Here are my bottom five episdes, starting with the Netflix Cowboy Bebop episodes:

• Darkside Tango - Jet teams up with his old partner to find the man who framed him.
  
• Blue Crow Waltz - A flashback to how Spike and Vicious became enemies.
  
• Supernova Symphony - Vicious kidnaps Jet's daughter to make him hand over Spike.
  

There's also Doctor Who's Survivors of the Flux, where the companions go on a mission around the world to find someone who has premonitions of doom, and Star Trek's The Man Trap, where the crew accidentally pick up a shapeshifting killer with a craving for salt.

Click to reveal my least favourite episode.

The winner is Cowboy Bebop's Darkside Tango! That's the one with Jet's noir flashback and Faye dancing with the dog. Mixing a noir detective story with a comedy about people arguing about what to do for so long that they never leave the house was maybe a bad decision. There was a bit of a tonal mismatch there. It didn't help that the detective story was dull and obvious, and I really wanted someone to leave the house and catch a bounty already! Or at least attempt to.

Star Trek's The Man Trap was second place, because it spent half the episode following a salt vampire around hallways.

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Best Episode

One final award. You'd assume that I'd be listing some The Mandalorian episodes at this point, seeing as it won best season, but Babylon 5 season 4 is back in play and it's not messing around. In fact it's brought three episodes:

• Face of the Enemy - Garibaldi lures Sheridan into a trap and learns Bester's masterplan.
• Intersections in Real Time - Sheridan is tortured.
• Endgame -  Sheridan puts his plan into action to end the Earth Civil War.

It feels to me like Firefly or Farscape should've made the list, maybe even that episode of Doctor Who with the time loop, but unfortunately for them Lower Decks has moved in to the top five and made itself at home, with:

• Crisis Point - Mariner goes on a mission of vengeance in the holodeck.
  
• No Small Parts - The Cerritos is ambushed by the Pakleds.
  

Click to reveal the last best episode.

It's Babylon 5's Endgame! The epic finale to the Earth Civil War arc could've been an epic disappointment, but the series stuck the landing and gave episodes like Chrysalis and Severed Dreams a worthy resolution. With spaceships and explosions and everything! In fact the only real flaw in the episode is that it came at the end of season 4, leaving season 5 feeling like an expansion pack.

Second place is Lower Decks' No Small Parts. How is a comedy Star Trek cartoon this good? It makes no sense.

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NEXT EPISODE

Right, now I'm done with awards forever! I never have to remember things that happened in episodes ever again.

I do have to keep writing about Babylon 5 though, until it's done, so next on Sci-Fi Adventures Garibaldi goes on holiday in The Ragged Edge.