timetravel

(S03E02) To be or not to be? That is the question.

And so, the venerable Doctor and his new assistant Martha Jones arrived in London in the year 1599 to pay a visit to the Globe Theatre, where they would meet none other than Mr William Shakespeare.

Of course, this was not the first time our hero had met The Bard, but it was certainly one of the most memorable.

(S03E01) You can say what you like, but I won't be listening -- Doctor Who is one of the best, if not the best, television programmes of all time, and Russell T. Davies' current incarnation of the character and franchise is no exception.

The return of series three was marked by several important milestones in the character's chronology (if a linear method of cataloging the Doctor's life can be described in traditional terms); the introduction of a new companion, the setup of plot and theme for the rest of the series, and the subtle hints at bigger things yet to come.

Warning: spoilers after the jump.

(S02E06) One of the reasons why Sam Tyler finds himself stuck in 1973 goes back all the way to episode one of series one of Life on Mars.

When Sam's girlfriend in 2006 was kidnapped by a serial killer, Sam set out to try and find her, only to suffer the accident which catapulted him into the past.

I honestly don't recall the plot element of Sam's kidnapped partner being resolved in series one, but I could be wrong.

Either way, it was resolved in this week's episode -- which centered around racism once again -- mostly to help push forward the romance between Sam and Annie Cartwright, but also to cement Sam's existence in the past as a reality, not a hallucination.

The promos for the second, and final series of Life on Mars have started sprouting up across the UK.

I spotted a bus stop ad earlier tonight in the west end of Glasgow, designed in a typically 1970s fashion -- replete with the late 1970s BBC logo -- promising the return of this excellent retro-cop time-travelling show on Tuesday 13 February on BBC ONE in the UK.

John Simm will return as detective inspector Sam Tyler, who finds himself still stuck in 1973, following a car accident (the title of the show comes from the last tune he was listening to on his iPod before his accident -- David Bowie's Life on Mars).

This show only last 11 episodes, in 1986-87, but they're episodes I remember fondly.

In 1886 Texas, Sheriff John Grail tracks down four outlaw cowboys. Before anything can happen, a weird force comes out of the sky and zaps them to 1986! When they get there, they form a detective agency and solve crimes (OK, not right away, but they find it's the only thing they can do), all the while trying to adjust to all the new inventions and culture of the modern world.

(S01E12) The season finale of Eureka trots out another classic science fiction plot. Alternate time lines can have some very interesting effects (I was a bit sad there wasn't a Delorean). The finale leaves some major questions hanging around for next season.

I wasn't around when the original Star Trek premiered on September 8th, 1966; I was but a fleeting thought to my parents. However, I did watch plenty of the series as it ran over-and-over again in syndication. As I got older I noticed that the show wasn't just entertainment, but a teaching tool as well. So, in honor of this breakthrough science-fiction show's 40th (!) anniversary, I present to you the five things I personally learned from Star Trek (not what I learned from All I Really Need to Know I Learned from Watching Star Trek, written by Dave Marinaccio.).

Alien babes are hot (and apparently easy): They're also extremely warm all of the time, because they barely wear any clothing. I guess there weren't any Puritans that landed on other planets in this galaxy (the only place they landed was at Plymouth Rock. Thanks alot, guys!). Maybe it was due to the era that the show was broadcast in, but it seemed like Captain Kirk was getting a little sumthin' sumthin' every episode. Didn't he ever think he could get Venutian VD, or Klingon Clap? Not very smart for a starship captain.