Tag Archives: sci-fi

Dec 28 2025

Top Ten Films & TV Shows of 2025

2025 delivered many exceptional genre films and television shows that surprised us with their quality and pushed boundaries. Many of them will be remembered for quite some time and others set the standards for existing franchises. Here are the ten best films and TV shows of 2025.

Films

10. Good Boy

Indy the dog stole the show in this inventive supernatural horror film told from the point of view of a good dog trying to protect his owner from a supernatural threat. What added to the suspense was the vulnerability of the dog and the fact that only he could sense the danger threatening his owner.

9. The Life of Chuck

2025 was a banner year for good to great Stephen King adaptations, and The Life of Chuck was the best of them as this heartfelt fantasy film explored themes dealing with loss, sadness, endings, and the wondrous joy of simple everyday things and relationships.

8. Jurassic World: Rebirth

Despite many criticisms made about the latest Jurassic World entry, it was unexpectedly thrilling and engaging. Sure, some of the plotlines were rethreads, but they were presented well and the film delivered some great dinosaur action.  

7. How to Train Your Dragon

This live-action remake of the classic DreamWorks animated film about a Viking teen and his pet dragon proved that it is possible to produce a topnotch live-action film based animated classics. This is something Disney sorely needs to study going forward with their endless remakes.

6. The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Finally, a quality film about Marvel Comics’ first family has been done. Great performances, production and special effects are the highlights of this charming film about family and facing cosmic horror. The film gets extra points just for not depicting Galactus as a giant space cloud!

5. Sinners

Michael B. Jordan is at the top of his acting game playing dual roles in Ryan Coogler’s haunting vampire film. What could have been a simple vampire tale was instead of tour de force from Coogler that explored America’s cultural and racial divide with exceptional visual storytelling.

4. Predator: Badlands

Just like last year’s Alien: Romulus reinvigorated that franchise, so too does Predator: Badlands with its own franchise about alien hunters. This time, the eponymous alien hunter is shown in a heroic light in this imaginative sci-fi action/adventure romp that fleshes out the species of the Predator as it skillfully blends with the Alien franchise.

3. Frankenstein

Guillermo Del Toro wowed audiences once again with his vivid imaginative storytelling skills. The latest adaptation of Mary Shelly’s literary masterpiece follows the essence of the book while veering off into unique directions that explore the father and son dynamic between the title character and his monstrous yet sympathetic creation.

2. Superman

Director and head of DC Studios James Gunn successfully launched the new DC Universe (DCU) with a fresh and interpretation of the Man of Steel. Superman and his colorful superhero world is rightfully depicted in a bright, hopeful light that cleverly raises questions about our current events and society. Superman is a very promising start to the DCU and we can’t wait for the latest entry.

1. TIE: Avatar: Fire and Ash/Thunderbolts*

This is a first for this blog, the two best films of 2025 were that great but so close in quality for different reasons that it was too hard to choose one above the other. So the two best films of 2025 are a tie.

Once again James Cameron proves why he is one of our greatest filmmakers with Avatar: Fire and Ash. The visuals and worldbuilding in this sci-fi epic are jaw dropping and must be seen in large screens. Some of the set pieces are too familiar but Avatar: Fire and Ash does develop many characters and kept us engaged with the plight of the moon Pandora as it faced evil human colonists.

Thunderbolts* aka The New Avengers was unexpectedly the best superhero film of 2025 thanks to heartfelt performances and chemistry among its cast and an emotional story of misfit mercenaries who become unlikely superheroes. Unlike the typical superhero romp, Thunderbolts* focused on characters and explored adult themes of mental and emotional health, loneliness, addiction and depression. We’ll be rooting for these underdogs when they return in Avengers: Doomsday.

Honorable Mentions:

28 Years Later, Bring Her Back, Bugonia, Captain America: Brave New World, Companion, The Electric State, The Gorge, The Great Flood, It Ends, The Long Walk, Predator: Killer of Killers, Primitive War, Weapons, Zootopia 2

Television

10. Paradise

This murder mystery that took place in a post-apocalyptic underground town shelter was elevated by great performances by Sterling K. Brown and James Marsden and an engrossing storyline that kept viewers guessing about what happened to the world and who murdered the U.S. president.

9. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

The third season of the only remaining Star Trek show (for now) had its problems such as its uneven tone and showcasing too much of James T. Kirk (the show is supposed to be about Captain Pike). Still, some of the episodes were true standouts that proved there were still great Star Trek episodes to be presented.

8. Marvel Zombies

Put together classic characters from the MCU and zombie horror and what do you get? A terrifically gory and fast-moving series with some outrageous zombie action that demands a second season! Hopefully there will be more than four episodes.

7. Peacemaker

While the season finale dropped the ball as it turned out to be a drawn-out coda with concert footage, the second season of Peacemaker was for the most part a captivating look exploration of the title character’s wounded psyche as he second guessed his place in the DCU.

6. Stranger Things 5

The final season of Netflix’s breakout sci-fi/horror show was a bit all over the place with multiple characters and such, but it was still a solid sendoff to our favorite young residents of Hawkins as they had their final confrontations with the extra-dimensional horrors of the Upside Down realm.

5. Daredevil: Born Again

Marvel’s premier superhero TV show had a solid comeback in this sequel to the original Netflix show. Even though Daredevil and his crime-ridden world are now firmly part of the MCU, the TV show was just as gritty and grounded as the original. Stars Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio turn in some of the best performances of their careers as they reprised their roles as Daredevil and Wilson Fisk, respectively.

4. Severance

The sophomore season of this dark psychological workplace thriller threw audiences for a loop with many unexpected plot twists and character developments. It was very easy to relate to the plight of the office worker drones forced to have their out-of-work identities and memories erased and their efforts to fight the cold company they work for.

3. Pluribus

Vince Gilligan (famous for his TV shows Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul) returned to his sci-fi roots with this quietly disturbing slow-burn TV show about a disgruntled novelist (Rhea Seehorn in one of the year’s best performances) forced to fight isolation, her inner demons, and to save humanity after an extra-terrestrial signal transforms nearly everyone into a global hive mind.

2. It: Welcome to Derry

Part sequel, part prequel to the It films from a few years ago, It: Welcome to Derry was one of the best surprises when it came to TV shows. Each episode was horrifying with macabre set pieces and featured rich character development that fleshed out Stephen King’s fictional town. In addition to the characters, the TV show also had many unexpected twists and fleshed out the expansive King multiverse in an organic manner that made us want to further explore it, no pun intended.

1. Andor

No other TV show came close to matching the artistry of Andor, which is easily the best Star Wars television show of all time and one of the best TV shows of any genre. The second and final season was a tense spy thriller set in the Star Wars universe with many brutal and heart wrenching political storylines that echoed our own civil strife as it chronicled the death of democracy and the bitter origins of the resistance to stand against tyranny. Andor also engaged audiences with thought-out character development which showcased their ambivalent nature in their fight for and against the Galactic Empire.

Honorable Mentions:

Alien: Earth, Black Mirror, Doctor Who, The Eternaut, Eyes of Wakanda, Fallout, Foundation, Gen V, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Institute, Invincible, Ironheart, The Last of Us, Murderbot, Wednesday, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man

  

Sep 8 2025

Star Trek As It Approaches Its 60th Anniversary

As Star Trek celebrate Star Trek Day and commemorate the 59th anniversary of the famous sci-fi TV show, it is important to reflect on the state of the Star Trek franchise and where it is going as it soon approaches its 60th anniversary.

Star Trek has had its highs and lows throughout the decades in terms of popularity, cultural relevance and quality with its glory years arguably being during the 1990s. After the franchise took a forced hiatus in the mid 2000s, a comeback was attempted with the reboot film Star Trek (2009). The film did well and was popular but a significant number of fans did not appreciate director J.J. Abrams attempt to turn the franchise about space explorers, noted for its thought-provoking plots, into a more simplistic shoot-em-up space adventure that emphasized action and explosions over nifty plots and character developments.

The reboot film franchise came to an end nine years ago with Star Trek Beyond, which did not perform well in theaters, though its tone was more of a throwback to the original TV shows and films. Since then, there have been many failed attempts to produce a fourth film featuring the cast of the reboot films, but none have succeeded and that franchise is now essentially dead. Or is it?

Meanwhile, Star Trek returned to its TV roots in 2017 with the debut of Star Trek: Discovery, a prequel series to the original show that streamed on the app CBS All Access (later renamed Paramount+). Now, while the TV show ran a respectable five seasons and spawned another prequel spinoff, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, as well as additional Star Trek TV shows, Star Trek: Discovery wound up being divisive among fans. Many complained about the storylines and the characters, with more conservative fans being outright hostile to the show’s featuring of non-heterosexual characters. It did not matter. In this day and age of toxic fandom where cynical content creators are more interested in clicks and views, any iteration of Star Trek would have received scorn.

Right now, Star Trek is at a bit of a crossroads. Its parent company, Paramount Pictures, is undergoing a merger and the fate of the franchise is unknown with many rumors flying around as to its final fate. But there are many reports that the bigwigs at Paramount are bullish on Star Trek and want to continue with the franchise. The question remains is how will it continue? As of now, the only currently streaming Star Trek TV show (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds) will come to a conclusion after its fifth season (the fourth season is currently filming while the third season will complete streaming new episodes this week). After that, a new TV show Star Trek: Starfleet Academy will stream in early 2026, while a sitcom set in the world of Star Trek is in development. Who knows if that comedy will ever see the light of day or even generate any laughs if it comes to fruition.

There are other pitches for Star Trek TV shows, including a prequel series based on a young James T. Kirk, which will be a sequel to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and would star Paul Wesley reprising the role of Kirk. The show has been tentatively titled Star Trek: Year One and would be about Kirk’s early days as the starship Enterprise captain. Meanwhile, Scott Bakula, the star of Star Trek: Enterprise is involved in a pitch for a show that would take place years after Bakula’s show and feature his character as the president of the United Federation of Planets. Unlike other Star Trek shows, this one would not be a show about exploring worlds but have a political slant more akin to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Then there is the fan-favorite idea of Star Trek: Legacy, which would be a sequel to Star Trek: Picard, specifically its popular third season and be about the adventures of the crew of the Enterprise-G. It has been pitched in the past, but so far, Paramount has not shown interest in pursuing Star Trek: Legacy.

Regarding films, there are still plans to produce a fourth film set in the Abrams reboot universe with directors and writers coming and leaving the project. Then Paramount recently announced another film will be produced that will feature all-new characters and situations. That actually sounds interesting but as of now, we have no definite information.

Given all that, there are not any concrete plans for Star Trek TV shows or films aside from the Academy show, which is a bit concerning given that the 60th anniversary is under a year away. You would think Paramount would have something concrete in production. Some of the ideas noted above are interesting and even if they don’t end up as TV shows they can at least become limited series or TV films, just better executed than the hot garbage Star Trek: Section 31. One thing to consider is that 2026 will be a celebration of the original Star Trek, not its sequels and films, and there are three remaining cast members from the original show. Aside from a standard documentary/retrospective, maybe Paramount can find some way to involve William Shatner, George Takei and Walter Koenig in some kind of new Star Trek production. The only limits are time, money and more importantly, imagination. Here’s to boldy going 59 years strong.

Jan 25 2025

A Look Back At Star Trek: Voyager

It has been 30 years since the first episode of Star Trek: Voyager debuted, yet it is still fondly remembered today, especially when it is compared to many modern Star Trek TV shows. Let’s take a look back at Star Trek: Voyager as its 30th anniversary is celebrated.

Flagship Show

Star Trek: Voyager was the flagship TV show of the fledgling United Paramount Network (UPN) that launched on January 16, 1995, with the airing of “Caretaker” the pilot episode of Star Trek: Voyager. When the TV show premiered it was largely anticipated though many fans had reasonable reservations about yet another Star Trek TV show. After a decades-long drought, fans were inundated with TV shows starting with Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), which was followed by Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9), and then Star Trek: Voyager. It was supposed to address complaints Paramount Pictures executives had about DS9 for straying too far from standard Star Trek.

Showrunner Rick Berman, who also ran TNG and DS9, was reportedly hesitant to produce another Star Trek TV show that would run concurrently with DS9. However, the Paramount Pictures executives were adamant about creating another Star Trek TV show that more closely followed the standard starship-visiting-planets formula to help launch UPN. Given this task, Berman and his associates sought to differentiate Star Trek: Voyager from other Star Trek TVshows.

A Lost Crew in Space

The premise was fairly simple, a starship called Voyager from the United Federation of Planets and Earth is flung to the far corner of the galaxy (the Delta Quadrant) with a crew made up of Starfleet officers and renegade Maquis freedom fighters (more on them later). With limited resources and on their own, the Voyager crew has to find a way back home while exploring on the side and encountering strange new worlds, yada yada.  

Kate Mulgrew starred as Captain Kathyrn Janeway, who commanded the Voyager and was dedicated to upholding Starfleet’s ideals while protecting her crew. At the time of her casting, there was a lot of hoopla and celebration because the main character of a Star Trek TV show was a woman. Other characters included the ship’s first officer, Chakotay (Robert Beltran), the leader of the Maquis and a former Starfleet officer, Tuvok (Tim Russ), the ship’s stoic Vulcan security officer, Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill), a disgraced former Starfleet officer who gets his chance at redemption by serving as Voyager’s helmsman, B’Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson), a half-Klingon Maquis member who became Voyager’s chief engineer, Harry Kim (Garrett Wang), a young Starfleet ensign on his first assignment, and the Doctor (Robert Picardo), a holographic medical program that performed the duties of the ship’s chief medical officer.

At the end of “Caretaker”, Voyager picked up two alien shipmates who are native to the Delta Quadrant and bring needed knowledge about the local space. They are Neelix (Ethan Phillips), a Talaxian drifter who ends being the ship’s cook and ambassador of sorts, and his girlfriend Kes (Jennifer Lien), an Ocampan who operates as the Doctor’s medical assistant and helps the program develop a personality. As the series progressed, it added Jeri Ryan to the cast as the former cybernetic Borg drone called Seven of Nine while Lien departed the series. Seven of Nine became the show’s breakout character thanks in part to the performance of Ryan as she served as the show’s version of Spock. In other words, a stoic outsider who questioned humanity while discovering her own.

Essentially, the TV show combined aspects of the original Star Trek and Lost in Space, and it worked for the most part. Yet, there was glaring issues with the TV show which turned out to be a harbinger for the creative drought the Star Trek franchise was beginning to suffer from at that time.

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Feb 24 2012

Sci-Fi Oscar Bias

On Sunday the Academy Awards will be presented and I really don’t care which film wins for best picture because I haven’t seen any of the nominated films. I’ll eventually watch some of the nominees on cable though. But looking at the list, I realize that as usual there isn’t a science fiction film nominated for best picture. Well, The Three Of Life features scenes of the Earth being set afire from our sun going supernova billions of years from now, but that film doesn’t dwell on those described moments. Then there’s Hugo, which has some arguably slight sci-fi elements, namely the dramatization of Georges Melies and his silent film Voyage To The Moon, but Hugo is more of a fantasy film and an ode to early filmmaking.

Some research reveals that in the entire history of the Oscars only six science fiction films have been nominated for best film. They are A Clockwork Orange, the original Star Wars, E.T. The Extraterrestrial, Avatar, District 9, and Inception. (On a side note, Inglourious Basterds is considered by some to be science fiction only because its ending establishes the film to be about alternate history.) Sure sci-fi films dominate the technical categories such as special effects and sound, but that’s about it when it comes to recognition from the Oscars.

Films like Blade Runner and 2001: A Space Odyssey have made the top 100 list from the prestigious American Film Institute’s AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies, yet weren’t nominated for best film in the year they were released. Many other sci-fi films have stood the test of time, while some best picture nominees and winners have been forgotten by today’s audiences. For instance, we continue to talk about The Empire Strikes Back and Back To The Future, yet the movies that won for best picture in the years these sci-fi classics came out are largely ignored (1980’s Ordinary People-IMO, for the record, Raging Bull should’ve won that year; and 1985’s Out Of Africa-not even sure what that movie was about). How about the sci-fi films that were nominated? Does anyone actually believe that Annie Hall is a better film than Star Wars? Sure maybe a bunch of elitist snobs do but despite what George Lucas has done with the saga, the original film has stood the test of time and is a popular as ever. In the case of Avatar, there were stories of many Academy members having an axe to grind with James Cameron and had a rapid disdain for Avatar because of all the computer animation. For my money District 9 was a better film than either Avatar or the winning film, The Hurt Locker. With E.T., it was a better film than Gandhi, but by the time the awards came out there was an obvious backlash against Steven Spielberg’s film.  You can thank the marketing departments that plastered E.T.’s mug on everything at that time. Plus Gandhi was considered more respectable, mainstream and IMPORTANT.

It’s vital to realize that the Oscars are really just popularity/political contests and marketing campaigns among Hollywood insiders who award the statues to sentimental favorites and buddies. The Academy Awards are awash with tales of snubs and cronyism and outright dumb selections which goes beyond sci-fi films. Take the pick of Crash in 2005 over the more popular and more controversial Brokeback Mountain. Or the trite comedy Shakespeare In Love over Spielberg’s classic Saving Private Ryan. That oversight was primarily due to a massive marketing campaign by the former’s executive producers.

Oddly this bias doesn’t extend to fantasy movies because those types of films have received best picture nominations since the 1930s (1937’s Lost Horizon and 1939’s The Wizard Of Oz were the first fantasy films nominated for best picture) right up to this year. One even grabbed the Oscar for best picture nine years ago; that was The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King, which many fans felt was the weakest in Peter Jackson’s trilogy. It should be noted that the bias against animated films is even worse, but that’s another story.

The hostility against sci-fi films by the Oscars is clearly evident and will continue for the foreseeable future.  It’s a shame really, since so many past sci-fi films are considered classics not just by fans but by mainstream viewers and critics. This prejudice may have begun with science fiction’s B-movie origins. But as anyone can tell you, sci-fi films have become more sophisticated and true pieces of cinematic art. Shockingly if you go to online sci-fi forums there are many members who put down sci-fi films and don’t consider them worthy of being nominated. So the bias even permeates among many so-called fans who just can’t see these films past their settings. The bottom line is that the Academy has to get over this bias and join the rest of the crowd. Until then we can only root for an occasional acting nomination or the reliable special effects category. Either that or wait for the Saturn or Scream Awards.

José Soto

Feb 14 2012

Top Ten Sci-Fi Film Couples

It’s that time of year lovers! In commemoration of Valentine’s Day, here are the silver screen’s most romantic couples in the world of science fiction. The films they appear in aren’t always romances, actually, one of the entries on this list comes from a gritty, action-packed movie. The fact is there aren’t many sci-fi romantic films, so the focus is on the characters in a sci-fi film. Either way, these characters made for memorable couples and romances.

10. Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese (The Terminator): OK this is a bit of a stretch. Romance in The Terminator? The one with all the explosions and darkness? Yes, it isn’t apparent when Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) first saves Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) from the T-800, but as the movie progresses, the two begin to bond, culminating in a tender and passionate love moment.  Their brief encounter comes as a welcome relief in the midst of all the gore and gunfire and leads to humanity’s savior, their son John Connor.

9. Jake Sully and Neytiri (Avatar): Blue alien love baby! This film presents every sci-fi geek’s wish of having a big blue alien as a girlfriend. The love between Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) builds gradually. Initially she’s disgusted by him but then starts to admiring him until love took hold.  And towards the end, viewers see that her love for him is transcendent even after she sees Jake in his frail human form.

8. Superman and Lois Lane (Superman and Superman II): From the moment that Superman (Christopher Reeve) saved intrepid reporter Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) from the helicopter accident and made his world debut, she only had eyes for the big boy scout. The sweeping romance continued in the sequel but ended in one big copout.

7. WALL-E and EVE (WALL-E): This is one unconventional romance, it’s between two robots but that’s science fiction. Ultimately the two exemplify the notion of opposites attract. WALL-E is a curious, Chaplinesque garbage robot, EVE is a suave, tough, and pristine scout robot. Naturally, he falls head over tank treads for EVE but she only comes to love him during the film as they save humanity.

6. Henry  and Claire DeTamble (The Time Traveler’s Wife): Relationships are hard, but how much harder is it when your husband has a genetic abnormality that makes him time travel uncontrollably throughout his lifetime? That’s what viewers see when Henry (Eric Bana) literally pops in and out of the life of Claire (Rachel McAdams), even on their wedding day! Warning: the ending is a tearjerker.

5. H.G. Welles and Amy Robbins (Time After Time): This underappreciated sci-fi film has H.G. Welles (Malcolm McDowell) time traveling to San Francisco in 1979 to track down Jack the Ripper. Along the way, the sweetly naive Welles meets strong-willed, modern  bank teller Amy (Mary Steenburgen) and they soon have an affair. The chemistry the actors shared was obvious (they even got married in real life for a time) and made the film more special.

4. Cornelius and Zira (Planet Of The Apes and Escape From The Planet Of The Apes): Their relationship wasn’t the center of attention in the first film but forms a strong foundation in the third film. Across the first three Apes films viewers see a tender, loving simian couple who strongly respect and cherish one another. Sadly, this makes the end of the third film so heartbreaking when they are brutally killed. It’s still hard to watch Zira’s (Kim Hunter) final moments when she embraces Cornelius’ (Roddy McDowall) body as she dies.

3. Doc Brown and Clara Clayton (Back To The Future, Part III): Marty McFly’s time-traveling partner (Christopher Lloyd) is trapped in the 1880s but finds existence there to be rewarding thanks to a chance encounter with schoolteacher Clara (Mary Steenburgen again). She gets extra bonus points from us since she’s a big science fiction fan! The tortured choices that Doc faces on whether or not to return to the present or stay with his true love really do a number on him. But alas, love conquers all.

2. Han Solo and Princess Leia Organa (Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back): Who would’ve thought of it? A scruffy, unpolished smuggler and a headstrong, independent space princess falling for each other. Han (Harrison Ford) and Leia’s (Carrie Fisher) relationship lift the first Star Wars sequel with their romantic tension and squabbling that reaches a climax when they first kiss passionately while fixing the Millennium Falcon. Plus, as every fan knows the film has one of the greatest comeback line to “I love you.”

1. Starman/”Scott Hayden” and Jenny Hayden (Starman): Poor Jenny (Karen Allen) is still mourning the death of her husband when she gets the shock of her life when he is reborn in front of her. Actually the resurrected Scott is a stranded alien (Jeff Bridges) who takes her husband’s form and enlists her help to get back to a rescue spaceship. Like any romantic road trip picture, the two don’t quite connect at first but begin to like then love each other. What helps the romance are the passionate performances by both actors, John Carpenter’s direction and the haunting yet uplifting score by Jack Nitzsche.

Finally, let’s give a shout out to those without a beloved on Valentine’s Day and mention the big screen’s best would-be lovers. In an ode to unrequited love in the realm of science fiction that honor goes to Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) and Inara Serra (Morena Baccarin) from Serenity.

Annette DeForrester