Battlestar Galactica (1978) 01-03: Saga of a Star World, Part 3

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the last third of the Battlestar Galactica: Saga of a Star World TV movie. Well, roughly a third. I haven't measured it to the minute and I have no idea how the film was split when it was divided into three parts for syndication.

If you want to go back to PART ONE or PART TWO you can click either of those links.

I'm sorry it doesn't actually say "Battlestar Galactica" up there, by the way. The words fly onto the screen one at a time, so this is the best I could do without using a distracting looping video. It's a good title though I reckon; it's dramatic without being too cheesy, distinctive enough that it'll be at the top of the results in a Google search, and it just sounds nice out loud. Lots of 'a' sounds in a row.

SPOILER WARNING: I'll be giving away basically everything that happens in the movie.

Battlestar Galactica (1978) 01-03: Saga of a Star World, Part 2

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm still working my way through the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica movie, also known as Saga of a Star World. If you want to go back to the start of the film, click this link: PART ONE.

The film was written by Glen Larson, who was some kind of series-creating machine at the time. Battlestar Galactica was the 6th series he'd created (out of a total of 22), and his previous series, Sword of Justice had started airing the previous week. I feel like he's mostly known for Quincy, M.E., Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Magnum P.I. and Knight Rider, but I might be wrong and there could be a massive fanbase for Manimal, Automan and Night Man.

The film's credited to director Richard Colla, but Glen Larson had a bit of a rift with him due to creative differences halfway through filming and he was replaced by Alan Levi. The reason why Levi wasn't credited on the film was Larson had a bit of a rift with him as well. Apparently Colla shot about 25 days of footage and Levi then shot another 27 days, which is quite a lot for TV. As far as I know the average at the time was about 7 days per episode, so they put a lot of time into this.

SPOILER WARNING: Every single thing that happens in this movie is going to get spoiled.

Battlestar Galactica (1978) 01-03: Saga of a Star World, Part 1

Episode:

1-3

|

Writer:

Glen A. Larson

|

Director:

Richard A. Colla and Alan J. Levi

|

Air Date:

17-Sep-1978

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching the epic first episode of the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica series! Well, first movie really. I've called it episodes 1-3 because it was later split for syndication, but it's all one film.

Battlestar Galactica was originally supposed to be a miniseries made of just three stories: the Saga of a Star World TV movie, The Lost Planet of the Gods, and The Gun on Ice Planet Zero, but things escalated quickly and they found themselves rushing to make another 17 episodes. And then it got cancelled after one season. And then it got a sequel series. And then that got cancelled after half a season. It makes Lost in Space and Star Trek's modest three season runs seem pretty lengthy by comparison, especially as they'd been on repeat in syndication for years.

Though at this point in 1978 there hadn't been a science fiction series like this airing new episodes on US TV in a long while. Space 1999 had just finished in the UK, plus we had Blake's 7, and Doctor Who was on Tom Baker's fifth season (they'd just reached The Ribos Operation), but there was a real absence of glossy expensive American sci-fi. Fortunately Star Wars happened, and executives had suddenly become a lot more interested in stories about spaceships and ray guns... like the one that creator Glen Larson had tried to pitch a decade earlier.

There was a bit of interest by the public as well, as Saga of a Star World aired to an estimated audience of 65 million viewers! That's about five times as many as watched Star Trek's The Man Trap 12 years earlier, and four times as many as watched TNG's Encounter at Farpoint 9 years later... I think. Basically, it was wildly successful. In fact it was later released in cinemas as a theatrical movie... because it cost a damn fortune and they wanted to get some money back. I've seen a few numbers given for its budget and one of the lowest is $7 million (the poster says $14 million). To give that some context, Star Wars: A New Hope cost $11 million the previous year.

Okay, this is basically going to be a reaction video in text form, with comments under screencaps. That means there'll be SPOILERS for the entire feature-length story. I won't be spoiling the rest of the season however (because I have basically no idea what happens in it) and I won't spoil any story content in the 2004 remake series either. The movie is two and a quarter hours long so I'll be splitting this article into three roughly equal parts that probably won't line up with when the syndicated episodes start and end... because I don't actually know. I'm not exactly a classic BSG expert I'm afraid.

Firefly 1-01: Serenity

Episode:

1

|

Writer:

Joss Whedon

|

Director:

Joss Whedon

|

Air Date:

20-Dec-2002

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching Firefly's feature-length pilot episode Serenity (not to be confused with the feature-length feature film Serenity that caps the series off).

Actually to be honest I'm not watching anything. I already watched the episode ages ago and I had a first draft of this article written up, just waiting for me to give it a final pass. I'd even written the text down by the 'Next Episode' picture at the bottom. The text said that the next review was going to be "Babylon 5 season 1, episode 4 - Infection", so that helps narrow down when this article was supposed to be published. Seems that it was originally meant to go up a few days before the 21st June 2016. I get distracted sometimes and forget things.

This means I watched Serenity in a more innocent time, before Joss Whedon's fan site Whedonesque.com shut down when his ex-wife accused him of multiple affairs, before he was accused of being abusive to actors, and before Justice League. Though it would've been a couple years after Adam Baldwin helped make Gamergate a thing. Honestly I think it's best I'm getting this done now, before anything worse comes out. Though if I'd just waited a few months later I could've posted this on its 20th anniversary.

Firefly aired its one short season in late 2002, at the same time that Buffy the Vampire Slayer hit season 7 and Angel reached season 4. That means that Whedon had three series he'd created running simultaneously, which is maybe a little much, even if Tim Minear was the actual showrunner of this one. I checked their US ratings, out of curiosity, and if these numbers I got from the internet are correct then all three shows were getting roughly the same viewers. (Then I threw Star Trek: Enterprise on the chart as well, seeing as that was in its season second at the time, and it was roughly the same as well.) But I guess Fox expected more from its expensive space show as it was axed after 14 episodes and they didn't even air 3 of them. Also they aired this pilot episode last!

Alright, I'm going to go through the whole story scene by scene, recapping, screencapping (from the PAL DVDs), and typing whatever commentary I can think of as I go. This article is going to feature SPOILERS for exactly one episode, this one... except I'm also going to mention something from the pilot of Outlaw Star. So exactly two episodes then. But nothing more.

Outlaw Star 01-04

Eps:

1-4

|

Writer:

Katsuhiko Chiba

|

Directors:

Takeshi Ashizawa, Naoyoshi Kusaka, Takahiko Hoshiai

|

Air Date:

08-Jan-1998 - 29-Jan-1998

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching the first four episodes of Outlaw Star!

I was only planning to write about one episode, but then I discovered how serialised the series is and long I'd have to keep writing about it just to reach the bit with the spaceship in. I've got other series I need to write about, I can't keep posting about Outlaw Star every week, so I've decided to get all four episodes out of the way in the same article. It's a giant-sized super-fast paced extra-value review!

This isn't actually my first time watching the series, I just haven't seen much of it and what I have seen I don't remember much of. That's not necessarily a sign that it's bad, as I'm easily distracted and my memory isn't always great. It might be a really good series for all I know! It'd definitely had a good studio behind it, as it was made by Sunrise, the people who made Cowboy Bebop. Outlaw Star had a more typical origin however, as unlike Bebop it was adapted from a manga.

Okay I'll be going through each of the episodes, summarising what I see and sharing my thoughts, so there will be huge SPOILERS here.

Cowboy Bebop (2021) 1-01: Cowboy Gospel (Quick Review)

Episode:

1

|

Writer:

Christopher Yost

|

Director:

Alex Garcia Lopez

|

Air Date:

19-Nov-2021

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching the first episode of Cowboy Bebop, again. Though this time it's the first episode of the long-awaited live-action version that finally debuted on Netflix a week ago. This would've actually been filmed at some point in 2019 I think, before John Cho's knee injury put the brakes on filming for 6 months. Still, the timing's not that bad, as it's only two months shy of coming out 20 years after the first English airing in 2001.

Look, they've given me an actual title card to use for the picture, just like the anime did! Though this time the background text is Japanese and the foreground text is English, which is a nice touch. They've also pretty much recreated the classic opening credits sequence and they've flipped the script on that as well. My ability to read katana hasn't improved any in the last few days but I'm fairly sure this says "Cowboy Gospel", as in gospel music. The original series featured music-related episode titles and they're carrying on the tradition here. That's one of the few things that Cowboy Bebop has in common with Castlevania games.

The original anime series lasted for just 26 episodes and a movie, mostly because the creator, Shinichirō Watanabe, didn't want the series to become something like Star Trek that just keeps going on and on forever. Now we're in 2021 and Star Trek and Cowboy Bebop are both airing new episodes this month, so I guess that plan failed. We're also getting new The Expanse, Lost in Space and Star Wars soon, plus there's a new Blade Runner anime, so it's a pretty great time to be a science fiction fan. Well, assuming any of them are any good.

There will be SPOILERS beyond this point, but not as many as you might expect. The entire season dropped on Netflix at once, so I'm sure most people who've seen episode 1 will have also seen episode 10 by now, but I'm watching through them slowly and I don't actually know where the season goes from here. Plus I've forgotten most of the original anime series, so I can't spoil much of that either.

Cowboy Bebop 01: Asteroid Blues

Episode:

1

|

Writer:

Keiko Nobumoto

|

Director:

Yoshiyuki Takei

|

Air Date:

24-Oct-1998

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching Asteroid Blues, the first episode session of legendary anime series Cowboy Bebop. Look, they've given me an actual title card to use, it's awesome! My understanding of Japanese is fairly pathetic, but I recognise enough of that katakana to know that it's just saying the words "Asteroid Blues".

I've covered cartoons like Batman: The Animated Series, Justice League and Duck Dodgers before, but this is the first time I've ever written about an anime. Well, unless you count Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, which was actually the first article ever published on Sci-Fi Adventures. I have a feeling this is going to be better.

A lot of anime series are based off a manga, like Sunrise's previous space series Outlaw Star, but this one was original. In fact creator Shinichirō Watanabe gave it the tagline "And the work which has become a genre unto itself shall be called: Cowboy Bebop" which would've been incredibly pretentious if the show hadn't then gone and backed it up. This is one of the most well-regarded and important series in anime history, but you don't need me to tell you how famous it is, because... well, it's famous.

The first episode first aired in Japan on 24th October 1998, which is kind of weird as the series started airing back in April. The initial run on TV Tokyo missed out the pilot and half the other episodes, and I have no idea why. The first English airing on Adult Swim missed out three episodes as well, but that was due to it airing during September 2001 and people being a bit cautious about the kinds of destruction they were showing on screen at the time.

The series only lasted 26 episodes and a movie (it was only ever meant to), and I've seen all of them. In fact I've seen this first episode twice! It's been a long while though, so I'm sure it'll have some surprises for me. There'll be no surprises left for you if you keeping reading past this point however, as I'm going to share SPOILERS for the entire episode scene by scene, with screencaps. I'll not say a word about anything that happens in later episodes though.

Star Trek: Enterprise 1-01: Broken Bow - Part 3

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the final third of Enterprise's pilot episode, Broken Bow. It's kind of weird how the series was just called Enterprise, without the Star Trek in front of it. It's like they were trying to distance it a bit from the brand so that people who'd already written the franchise off and decided that they weren't Star Trek fans would give it a chance.

Did the plan actually work? I mean everyone knows that no one was watching Enterprise, but was anyone watching it? Seems that about 12.5 million people tuned in to the first episode when it aired in the US, which was about average for a Trek pilot. It dropped by 26% by the next episode, but the series was still pulling in bigger numbers than the season of Voyager it was following on from.

You've probably noticed that I called it Star Trek: Enterprise anyway in the title up there. That's because I'm a renegade who plays by my own rules. Also that's what it's called on my Season One box set.

You're currently reading part three of a three-part article, so if you want to go back to PART ONE or PART TWO you should click one the appropriate link.

SPOILER WARNING: This will be full of spoils for the episode and earlier Star Trek stories, but everything that came after is safe.

Star Trek: Enterprise 1-01: Broken Bow - Part 2

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm still writing about the very first episode of the entire Star Trek franchise (chronologically speaking): Broken Bow. Sure there are episodes with events that take place before it, but this is 100% set in April 2151 from start to finish. That means it's actually a kind of sequel to the movie First Contact, revealing what happened next. By the same writer in fact!

Though First Contact wasn't just written by Brannon Braga and neither was this, as this time around he was joined by Trek overlord Rick Berman. It seems a bit strange to see Berman credited as a writer, as up until this point he'd mostly been the franchise's executive producer, succeeding Gene Roddenberry. But he had written the Next Gen episodes Brothers and A Matter of Time, and he'd been giving notes on all the Trek scripts scripted during his reign.

Broken Bow is a feature length episode with a lot to write about so I've split this article into three parts for the sake of everyone's sanity (especially my own). You're currently reading part two, but if you want to jump back to the first part you can click THIS LINK.

SPOILER WARNING: I'll be spoiling this episode and others that came before it, but everything that aired after it is safe.

Star Trek: Enterprise 1-01: Broken Bow - Part 1

Episode:

1

|

Writer:

Rick Berman & Brannon Braga

|

Director:

James L. Conway

|

Air Date:

26-Sep-2001

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm reviewing the 629th story in the Star Trek franchise, Broken Bow! I figured I might as well, seeing as it's its 20th anniversary today.

But unlike all those other episodes, this story doesn't push the timeline forward. Trek had spent 14 years in the Next Generation era, but this took a huge jump 227 years backwards from Star Trek: Voyager to tell a story about Starfleet's early days. Prequels were in at the time, with Star Wars returning to cinemas with The Phantom Menace, so I suppose it wasn't a surprise that Trek would want to jump on that bandwagon. This was a real turning point for the Star Trek franchise though, as after the final Next Gen movie, Nemesis, the franchise spent the next 17 years stuck in its own past.

Personally I would've preferred to find out what happened next in the 24th century... and now I've got Lower Decks, Prodigy and Picard for that, so I'm happy. At the time though the franchise wasn't really inspiring much enthusiasm in people. Deep Space Nine had been over for a few years, Insurrection had been a real disappointment, and Voyager had kind of rolled past the finish line on fumes. Plus even though Trek hadn't exactly been heavily serialised, it had built up enough mythology during its Next Generation era to be daunting to some viewers. Enterprise had a premise different and interesting enough to bring some hype back to Trek and it promised to provide a jumping on point for people who didn't know the difference between a Cardassian and a Kazon. It definitely got me to jump back on board after skipping the last few seasons of Voyager... though I may have jumped ship again a few months later. It's not my favourite of the spin-offs to be honest.

I'll be going through the entire episode writing comments under screencaps, so this will contain MASSIVE SPOILERS. There may also be spoilers for episodes and movies from earlier shows as well; anything before 2001 is fair game. Though unlike the commentary tracks on the disc, I'll not be spoiling anything that comes after it.

Star Trek: Voyager 1-01: Caretaker, Part 2

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the second and final part of my review of Caretaker. If you want to jump back 70,000 light years and read the first part, CLICK HERE.

I should probably put some trivia here to fill up the space. Uh... Star Trek: Voyager started in January, so that's kind of unusual. Trek series usually like to start around September.

Deep Space Nine was already 12 episodes deep into its third season at the point that Caretaker aired, but after Past Tense the series took a two week break so that Voyager could be the only new Trek on television for a fortnight. They really wanted as many eyes on this as possible, and it seems like they got around 12.4 million viewers in the US on that first airing. It's a bit of a step down from Emissary's 17.7 million, but it's still a really good number, not much lower than what the Original Series (13.1m), Next Gen (13.9m), and Enterprise (12.5m) got on their debut... possibly. To be honest I calculated these figures myself from numbers I found on the internet and I don't trust any of them.

SPOILER WARNING: Caretaker probably isn't the only episode that's going to be spoiled here, as I'm considering everything from TOS's The Man Trap to DS9's Past Tense to be fair game.

Star Trek: Voyager 1-01: Caretaker, Part 1

Episode:

1

|

Writer:

Michael Piller & Jeri Taylor

|

Director:

Winrich Kolbe

|

Air Date:

16-Jan-1995

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the 343rd story in the Star Trek franchise, Caretaker! It also the first story of Star Trek: Voyager, the fourth live-action Trek series and the successor to Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The episode gives a 'story by' credit to Rick Berman, Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor, who were also the show's three creators. Each of them apparently had an equal amount of input and control, so the series had three captains at this point. Berman had succeeded Gene Roddenberry as the executive producer of the entire franchise, and had worked with Piller to create Deep Space Nine. Piller had been the saviour of Next Gen, coming in as the new head writer during season 3 to fix it, and had been running DS9 for the last two and a half seasons. Taylor had also been a Next Gen showrunner, as she'd taken over from Piller for its final (disappointing) season. So they were definitely the three most obvious candidates to create a Trek series at this point.

With Next Gen over it made sense to make this another Trek show about a Starfleet crew flying around on a starship, but the three creators made things difficult for themselves by choosing to isolate it from almost everything established during the earlier shows. They couldn't fall back on the classic iconic villains, like the Romulans, Ferengi, and evil admirals. Plus their premise of a ship on long journey meant they had to give viewers something new every week. They also had to deliver an action-packed tale of survival in deep space, without being too bleak and dark for the studio. And they had a network looking over their shoulders now, as the series was airing on UPN, unlike Next Gen and DS9 which had been made for syndication. The potential was there for something great though.

Caretaker was filmed as a feature-length story, not a two-parter, but I'll be tackling it in two parts for the sake of my sanity. I'm going to be recapping and screencapping the whole story in addition to my commentary, so there's a lot here for me to cover. There's also going to be HUGE SPOILERS... but only up to January 16th 1995. I might spoil a episode like Where No One Has Gone Before or The First Duty, but I'll never say the words "Spore drive".

Star Trek: The Next Generation 1-01: Encounter at Farpoint - Part 3

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the final part of my three-part Encounter at Farpoint review. If you want to jump to earlier parts you can click here: PART ONE or here PART TWO.

It's not really the most interesting looking title card I'm afraid, especially if you're seeing it three times in a row. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the only episode of all of Star Trek to just have a starfield in the background while its title is up and nothing else, but I could definitely be wrong about that. On the plus side at least it has a title for me to show. For later live-action spin-offs like Star Trek: Discovery all I can show up here is the series logo, though I'm crossing my fingers Strange New Worlds will bring them back.

SPOILER WARNING: I'm going to recap the entire episode and maybe even mention things from earlier episodes and movies. I won't spoil anything that comes after though.

Star Trek: The Next Generation 1-01: Encounter at Farpoint - Part 2

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm still going through Encounter at Farpoint, the very first episode of seminal syndicated sci-fi series Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I feel like Star Trek: The Next Generation probably shouldn't work as a title, but it does for me. It helps that 'generation' is a sciency word and 'next' has an X in it. Plus it's arguably better than just naming the series after the setting like the next four series did (Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise and Discovery). Though it was really only the next generation in real world terms, as it was made two decades after the original show but set eight decades after the last movie.

This is the second part of a three part review by the way, so if you're on the wrong part and you want to go back to the start you should click here: PART ONE.

SPOILER WARNING: I'm going to recap the entire episode and maybe even mention things from earlier episodes and movies. I won't spoil anything that comes after though.

Star Trek: The Next Generation 1-01: Encounter at Farpoint - Part 1

Episode:

1

|

Writer:

D. C. Fontana and Gene Roddenberry

|

Director:

Corey Allen

|

Air Date:

28-Sep-1987

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching the 106th story in the Star Trek franchise: Encounter at Farpoint! That's such an old school sci-fi title; it sounds like it's from a tie-in novel.

Encounter at Farpoint is also the very first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which itself was the first of the live-action Trek spin-offs. The Rick Berman-era of Trek started here. 15.7 million people tuned in for the episodes in the US, and 11.5 stuck around for episode two, The Naked Now. The series then hovered around that level for the rest of the run, with even season seven pulling in 11 million, so it's no bloody wonder they kept making more spin-offs.

I got that information from Wikipedia so you know it's all true. Though hang on, Wikipedia claims that The Naked Now is actually the third episode, not the second. The reason for this is that Encounter at Farpoint is a two-hour telefilm that can be split into two parts. Though I'm going to be splitting this review into three parts, because I've got a lot to talk about. It's a fairly important episode!

CBS spent a lot of money to go back to the original negatives and remaster the entire series, and it really looks fantastic now in HD. It's one of the best remasters I've seen, it's awesome. Though you can just go to TrekCore if all you're after is beautiful high resolution screencaps, you don't need me for that. So instead I've decided to show off the authentic fuzzy 1987 version of the episode...because I've spent money buying the ancient DVDs and I'm determined to get some use out of them. You should be grateful I'm not showing shots captured from a VHS tape recorded off BBC 2 really.

I should also give you a SPOILER WARNING as I'm going to give away absolutely everything that happens in this story. I might also spoil things from other Trek stories that came out before 1987 (so The Man Trap to Star Trek IV: The One with the Whales), but that's as far as my spoilers will go.

Doctor Who (2005) 1-01: Rose

Episode:

697

|

Serial:

157

|

Writer:

Russell T Davies

|

Air Date:

26-Mar-2005

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm writing about Rose, the first episode of modern Doctor Who. Because after writing about the first eight Doctors it seemed a shame not to write about a Ninth Doctor story.

It's kind of amazing to me that this actually features the actual Ninth Doctor instead of a new First Doctor, and they didn't reset the continuity despite the huge gap between stories. This aired 9 years after the TV movie and 15 years after the final episode of the classic series. Doesn't quite beat the 18 year gap between Star Trek: The Next Generation and the Original Series but it's pretty close.

Here's some more facts for you, to save me from writing an actual introduction:

• This is the first of just three episodes of Doctor Who to have a companion's name in the title (four if you count the Feast of Steven chapter of The Daleks' Master Plan). The others are Smith and Jones and Amy's Choice.
• The episode had the shortest title in all of Doctor Who's then 42-year history until it was beaten a couple of years later by an episode called 42. I don't think that one's in any risk of getting outdone any time soon.
• If they'd kept the numbering, this would've been the first episode of season 27.
• It's the first season opener since The Ribos Operation in 1978 to introduce a new companion, and the first to also introduce a new Doctor in the same story since 1970's Spearhead from Space.
• It's the first story since Mission to the Unknown in 1965 to not feature a single returning actor (even the TV movie had Sylvester McCoy).
• It was directed by Keith Boak, the same guy who did the farting aliens in the Aliens of London two-parter and then never came back. Though to be fair he didn't write it. The episode was written by Russell T Davies, the same guy who wrote the farting aliens in the Aliens of London two-parter. Also the producer for this era.
• I'm not actually sure if I watched this episode on the day it aired, the only Doctor Who I'd seen at that point was the 1996 TV movie, so I wasn't exactly hyped. But it seems very plausible that I walked into a room with it on, saw a wheelie bin burp and then walked back out again. (I watched it a few years later though).

This is going to be a full recap review commentary full of screencaps and SPOILERS, so I'd suggest watching the episode first before reading it. In fact, to be safe you should probably watch all 696 classic episodes as well, even though I'm sure any spoilers I drop about them will be incredibly minor. And I'll be spoiling absolutely nothing about episodes that aired after it; I won't even say the words 'bad wolf' because there's no reference to them in this story at all.

The Orville 1-01: Old Wounds (Quick Review)

Episode:

1

|

Writer:

Seth MacFarlane

|

Air Date:

10-Sep-2017

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures I've got a surprise mini-review of The Orville's brand new pilot episode for you!

The Orville is a live action sci-fi comedy drama series by Family Guy and American Dad creator Seth MacFarlane, starring himself as the captain of the U.S.S. Orville, a starship on a mission to boldly go and discover some new worlds and civilizations and stuff. I've read a lot of reviews by folks who've already seen the first three episodes and they weren't exactly kind to the series, but I'm still a little optimistic. I've often thought that it's a shame that talented Star Trek fans always go to so much trouble to replicate the classic series exactly with their fan films, when they could go for 'close enough', drop the name, and make some money for their hard work, and now it seems MacFarlane's done exactly that! Plus he got Iron Man/Zathura director Jon Favreau to direct the pilot, which seems like a smart idea.

Alright, this is going to be a super-rushed next-day quick review with no recap, few screencaps and no second draft, but there will still be a few mild SPOILERS scattered around. I won't spoil the whole plot for you this time though, or the jokes (the trailer beat me to it).

Stargate: Atlantis 1-01: Rising

Episode:

1-2

|

Writer:

Robert C. Cooper & Brad Wright

|

Air Date:

16-Jul-2004

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about another epic feature-length Stargate spin-off series pilot episode! They didn't put an episode title on screen for me to screencap, but my sources (the DVD box) tell me that it's called Rising.

My sources also tell me that it was co-written by two guys who'd been there since the start of Stargate SG-1: Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper. Wright was its co-creator and Cooper came up with a lot of the backstory of the universe. It's been a long while since I've seen this episode and I can't remember if it's any good, but if anyone's got a handle on the convoluted mythology it's them.

It's definitely not me, as I'd stopped watching SG-1 for a long while by the time the spin-off started and I never got caught up with it. I skipped the entire 'search for the Lost City' arc, the blonde Dr. Weir episodes and, well I don't actually know what I've skipped... because I skipped it. Which may be a bit of a problem for me, seeing as Rising first aired the week after the SG-1 season 8 premiere New Order and picks up the story where it left off.

It aired in July 2004, ten years after the Babylon 5 and Deep Space Nine episodes I've been writing about lately, so that puts Stargate Atlantis in the Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who era of sci-fi television, where bringing back old series that died in the 80s was apparently in fashion. Meanwhile, Andromeda and Enterprise were about to start their final seasons, Firefly and Farscape fans were still holding out for some kind of ending, and Revenge of the Sith was just a year away from bringing the Star Wars prequel trilogy to a conclusion.

I'll be recapping the whole story and writing my comments as I go, so this will basically be wall to wall SPOILERS for the episode. I might even spoil a few things about earlier Stargate SG-1 episodes, but probably not much because... well, I didn't watch all that much.

Stargate SG-1 1-01: Children of the Gods, Part 2

This is the second and final part of my Children of the Gods article. You can go to part one by clicking the text that says 'part one' here: Part one.

Beware of SPOILERS for both this episode and the movie.

Stargate SG-1 1-01: Children of the Gods, Part 1

Episode:

1

|

Writer:

Jonathan Glassner & Brad Wright

|

Air Date:

27-Jul-1997

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm kicking myself for not realising that it'll be Stargate SG-1's 20th anniversary this year! If I'd held onto this post for another month it would've worked out perfectly, but I already promised I'd write about this next and I'm two weeks late, so I decided to click publish on it today and hope I do better with the next anniversary.

What else came out in 1997 anyway? It seems like it was a good year for fantasy movies to get their own wildly successful semi-faithful TV franchises, as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Stargate SG-1 both kicked off within a few months of each other. I have to admit that I'm more of a Buffy fan, but Buffy's about vampires and Stargate's about stargates so this is the one I'm writing about on my sci-fi site. Other science fiction series starting in '97 include Deepwater Black, Earth: Final Conflict and Timecop and I've got even better reasons for not writing about them. Meanwhile Star Trek: Deep Space Nine finished off its 5th season, Babylon 5 got done with year 4 and Voyager wrapped up season 3.

They may have chosen the least exciting shot possible to put the title over, but Children of the Gods is the beginning of an epic TV franchise to rival Star Trek, that lasted for 354 episodes and 2 DVD movies! It also rivals Star Wars with how much it got screwed with years after the fact, as co-creator Brad Wright decided to have it re-cut to replace visual effects, tighten up the storytelling, restore the original Joel Goldsmith score and use a slightly more exciting shot for the title. Oh plus his revised Final Cut also removes the nudity that Showtime apparently made them put in, because it didn't exactly suit the family friendly 90s TV sci-fi tone they were going for.

But I don't have the Final Cut, so I'm watching whatever version came in my season one DVD box set, and I'll be writing all kinds of SPOILERS as I go. I'll also be spoiling the Stargate movie, but I won't say a word about what happens in the rest of the series. Or any other series.