The SF Site: Babylon 5.1 by Rick Norwood

Babylon 5.1
by Rick Norwood

SF on TV

Websites
Other Babylon 5.1 Columns
For more information, you can try the following sites:
Rick Norwood's Website
Worldwide TV Schedule
The Official Babylon 5 Website
The X-Files
Pocket Books: Star Trek
Paramount Star Trek

Ratings
Ratings are based on a four star system.
One star means that the commercials are more entertaining than the program.
Two stars watch if you have nothing better to do.
Three stars is good solid entertainment.
Four stars means you never dreamed television could be this good.

Before he created Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry created a tv series called The Lieutenant, about the peacetime US Marine Corps. It is just out on DVD from Paramount, and it is pretty good. So far, I've only watched the first two disks. The four episodes on the first disk were excellent, the four on the second disk, including one written by Roddenberry and clearly intended to be the introduction of the characters, not so good. Roddenberry's love for plots featuring lots of sexy women is apparent. Think "Mudd's Women" meets the Marines. I can see why someone decided to air the better episodes first.

The Lieutenant

Falling Skies has ended until next Summer. It was the best sf on tv this summer, but the appealing characters and good special effects didn't quite make up for the glacial slowness of the plot, nor for the occasional lapses in logic -- like allowing a girl who may be a spy to live, even though she knows things that could lead to the destruction of the human race.

Doctor Who, Fringe and Once Upon a Time return this month.

Doctor Who SF on TV in September 2012

Saturday, September 1
Doctor Who "Asylum of the Daleks" by Steven Moffat, Season Seven Premiere

Saturday, September 3
Grimm "Quill"

Grimm Saturday, September 8
Doctor Who "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" by Chris Chibnall

Monday, September 10
Warehouse 13 "Endless Wonder"
Alphas "Gods and Monsters"
Grimm "The Good Shepard"

Saturday, September 15
Doctor Who "A Town Called Mercy" by Toby Whithouse

Monday, September 17
Warehouse 13 "Second Chance"
Alphas "Falling"
Grimm "Over My Dead Body" (date uncertain)

Saturday, September 22
Doctor Who "The Power of Three" by Chris Chibnall

Monday, September 24
Warehouse 13 "The Ones You Love"
Alphas "The Devil Will Drag You Under"

Alphas Friday, September 28
Fringe "Transilience Thought Unifier Model-11", Premiere of the Fifth (and Final) Season

Saturday, September 29
Doctor Who "The Angles Take Manhattan" by Steven Moffat
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Friday, September 30
Once Upon a Time "Broken" by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz

In October look for Arrow, a series about the DC comic book hero Green Arrow, a new version of the old tv series Beauty and the Beast, and the new season of The Vampire Diaries. In 2013 the BBC plans a made-for-television movie about the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who.

Rick Norwood is a mathematician and writer whose small press publishing house, Manuscript Press, has published books by Hal Clement, R.A. Lafferty, and Hal Foster. He is also the editor of Comics Revue Monthly, which publishes such classic comic strips as Flash Gordon, Sky Masters, Modesty Blaise, Tarzan, Odd Bodkins, Casey Ruggles, The Phantom, Gasoline Alley, Krazy Kat, Alley Oop, Little Orphan Annie, Barnaby, Buz Sawyer, and Steve Canyon. Visit his web site at comicsrevue.com.