Axiom’s Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy

The first three categories of the Finals here will be very quick as I have explained before that I just don’t watch enough tv to really gauge these and while I have watched some on Hulu all it really served to do was reinforce for me the reason I never watched any of this on tv in the first place. I’m sure it’s all very good, fine entertainment. But I just don’t have time. So…

Best Travel/Leisure Show: Destination Truth

Best Cooking/Food Show: Ace of Cakes

Best Action TV Series: 24

Best Classic Movie:

This was kind of tough, as I had previously picked all of these contenders except for Wuthering Heights. This brought me down to my original three first-teamers (we had to pick four in the last round so I tacked on something else but these three were the real choices). Pride of the Yankees is the first to be tossed, reluctantly, despite Gary Cooper’s stellar performance and the fact that I still cry almost every time I watch it—I say again, outside of A League of Their Own this is the best baseball film ever made. Chosing between Some Like It Hot and NOTLD ’68 was tougher than I expected, but in the end Marilyn and her two big boobs—Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis—just couldn’t top the film that started the horror genre I love most, by the director in that genre I love most. My choice:

Night of the Living Dead ‘68

Worst Reality Series:

This is a tough choice for a completely different reason. Each of these steaming piles of excrement deserve whatever lavish hatred can be heaped upon it. I originally broke out the well-worn coin and began to run through the series of coin flips this choice seemed at first blush to require. But upon studying the list this is actually a rather easy decision. Four of the five finalists are celebrity driven crap. Denise Richards I’ve abused enough in print (not the way I’d choose to abuse her to be sure but we play the hand we’re dealt), and Paula Abdul is just… just… well, I think I’ve said enough about her, don’t you? I have zero interest in Keeping Up with the Kardashians and I’m not skinny enough to Live Lohan. Which leaves us with the only selection here that is all about regular folks. Well, regular folks dumb enough to be on the show, anyway. Celebs all cancel each other out here and we’re left with:

Temptation Island

Round 2 Nominations:

Best Web Original:

Another tough choice. I have to pick five of these this time and… well, let’s just say I had a good reason for only picking two in the last round here. Did my best, though:

1. Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog – While everybody most definitely can be wrong, not this time.
2. Spacerip – Can’t say enough about this gem of a show. Just love the animations, the subject, everything about it.
3. Best of Penn Says – Why, you ask? Why not! Not saying I always agree with him but this isn’t awful.
4. National Geographic Animals – One can never go wrong with Nat’l Geo. Always good nature programming.
5. National Geographic Travel - Even this was kind of interesting.

Worst Web Original:

This was a little easier:

1. Retro Minute – Still smoldering from these “creative geniuses” taking this great premise and wiping it out.
2. Barely Political – Barely watchable is closer to it.
3. Dating Brad Garret – Why?
4. Funnysodes – Misnomer.
5. Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show – Whatever they were going for here they missed.E

Round 3 Nominations:

Best Science Fiction Movie:

I really wanted to sink my teeth into this one but there were a couple of problems I had with the category. One, Underworld: Evolution and Xanadu are absolutely, unequivocally not Science Fiction. I don’t think Bedazzled is either but I couldn’t find it on Hulu which was the second problem. The only other problem was that the first one I circled, Planet of the Apes, turned out to be that awful Tim Burton remake. Which left me with these:

1. John Carpenter’s The Thing - Does this need an explanation? A true classic of the genre.
2. The Fifth Element – A very good film. Nothing special.
3. Starship Troopers – I know it’s not faithful to Heinlein’s original story but it’s still a pretty good action picture. And I’d much rather see Denise Richards in this than that awful “reality” show of hers.
4. Titan AE – A good representative for the animation side of things.
5. Pitch Black – Had to pick this one for Vin Diesel’s character. He sandblasted his eyeballs so he could see in the dark?!? Don’t try that at home, kids.

Best Science Fiction/Fantasy TV Series:

Matt wondered whether or not these two genres should be put together. Just call it “sf” (for “speculative fiction”) and that takes care of the problem. Getting this list down to four was a problem. Firefly is omitted because I thought Whedon well represented on the list:

1. Angel – Just a great show that, like its parent show, never failed to deliver and even eventually surpassed BtVS for the time the two ran together. Whedon’s dark, brooding vampire with a soul was the perfect mirror for the dark, brooding streets of LA.
2. Babylon 5 – One of my all-time favorite science fiction shows, with one of the best characters ever created: Susan Ivanova. A different kind of show in that it was one big story from the beginning, a novel played out in chapters of one hour apiece, Straczynski’s masterpiece was never to be missed in my household.
3. Buffy the Vampire Slayer – All in all, the single best tv show of the past two decades in my estimation. The Slayer-verse was fodder for endless conjecture and conversation, and even though we all felt we knew the characters they, as our friends in real life can, would often surprise us in ways that were totally predictable given the situation.
4. Sliders – I just love the premise of this show—my favorite Star Trek episode was Mirror, Mirror— although I thought some of the plots rather pedestrian. Most of the stories were very good.

Best Videogame Coverage:

Don’t know, don’t care, don’t play. Did watch, though, and found all of these contenders informative in their own way. Here’s how I picked it:

1. Arcademojo
2. E3 ’08 Live – Watched a couple clips of demos and discussions of Resident Evil 5.
3. Game Reviews – Found this to be a no-nonsense discussion about games for gamers by gamers. I didn’t really care about it but it seemed to me this would be very informative if I knew enough about the subject.

Worst Movie:

Picking something made for ten bucks, like Atom Age Vampire, here is just too easy. I only came up with one film, though:

1. Liar, Liar – The only film I really liked Jim Carrey in was The Dead Pool, for the same reason Scream is by far my favorite film of Drew Barrymore’s (mmmmm, watching her spit blood gave me such a warm glow), although I have heard of a couple I haven’t seen that people tell me were good that I might give a shot. This was awful.

Worst Scripted TV Series:

1. Team Knight Rider – If you’ve seen it you know. If you haven’t, RUN!
2. Alf – I know there are people who love this. I’m not one of them.
3. The Munsters Today – What, what, WHAT could make anyone think this was a good idea?!?
4. Valentine – See #3 above.
5. The Pretender – You’d think this would be a favorite of mine. But I always liked The Fugitive and this is just a blatant, unimaginative rip-off of it.
6. Swamp Thing – See #4 above.

(Editor’s Note: The general public can participate in the nominations as well. Go to the links above for any or all of the categories you are interested in and cast your vote for the shows you think should win. All of the general votes will be tallied up and count as one panelist in deciding the final winners. PSW)