This Year's TV: The Returners

I went on, at tedious length about the new "golden age" of genre TV, now I'd like to review the year, ok so the year isn't over but particularly with the writers strike sending everything all ahooey this seems as good a time as any to review this year. As there has been so much I thought I'd split it between this post about the returning series and the next about the new boys.

A favorite of mine last season none the less suffered from some sluggish episodes in between the big stories. There was also the fear that for a series about a giant galactic convoy it was going nowhere. In that respect pitching this as the final series has most definitely done it the world of good. The Razor 2 parter concerning life on the Pegasus was good and had all those nice fan touches like classic cylons. The series itself is really motoring, in fact my biggest criticism is that with all the individual storylines going on we don't get as much of Edward James Olomos as Adama, who has been sidelined of late but still owns every scene he is in. There is also now a palpable sense of danger, the fleet took heavy losses in episode 1 and the government is verging on totalitarian plus religious wars in dogtown its really looking like all hell is really about to break loose. And that's just in the fleet. Overall its been a cracking season so far, and I'm genuinely looking forward to a conclusion of some sort, even if they wait until next year to show the second half.

Wild fan speculation: The fleet is wiped out, cylons populate the earth and become the humans we are today

Worst outcome: They find earth in the 1980s and have flying motorbikes.


Lost was the big "Must watch" show with mass crossover appeal. However for the past 3 years you could sum up the show by saying "Watch the first 5 episodes, ignore the middle and watch the last 5, you'll get the best bits with none of the tedious treading water that the middle of each series gave. Indeed when Lost was good, it was excellent, and when it was bad it was just plodding. There was speculation that this was because there was a disagreement between the show runners and the studio, the studio wanting things to be left open so that the show could run into the ground, the show runners preferring a set timescale, while this was up in the air the series did suffer from an over abundance of padding, particularly in the case of Jack, where I'm amazed we didn't have an oh so significant flashback to the Christmas where he didn't get that scaelextric set he so dearly wanted. However with a 5 year timescale now set in stone this is possibly up for the award of most improved. Things are really rolling, flashbacks have been (For the most part) replaced with flash forwards, adding a new layer of mystery and things just seem to be moving.

Wild Fan speculation: Ok not so wild but I predict that we'll see the circumstances of the Oceanic 6's rescue by series end, and that the final series will be wresting control of the island from the baddies.

Worst Outcome: We see a prolonged flashback concerning Jack learning to ride his first bike.


Heroes had a lot to live up to in its second series. The first was brilliant, but almost self contained. It left a little open but resolved many of its outlying plots. Indeed the first few episodes of the new season seemed to be faltering, but its slow burn and is slowly (On BBC2 speed at any rate) building up interest again, still to see the results of the post writers strike episodes when they allegedly undertook a serious rethink about the direction. Sill, going strong so far.

Wild Fanboy speculation: As long as they can run it out I reckon the underlying story will generally focus on a series "Big Bad" as a framing for development of history and character.

Worst Outcome: It starts getting bogged down in its own history and goes the way of the X-Files.


Arguably the oldest of these old series, Atlantis was one of the few not to be affected by the writers strike managing to deliver a whole series with no interruptions. It sagged in places as all stargate series tend to but we had some fun individual episodes and the arc plot when it kicked in is suitably meaty. Also worth noting is that they finally did an episode where T'ulc and Ronin kill everything. We also got the spinnoff TV movie The Arc of truth to complete SG1's Ori plot which was entertaining and a satisfying conclusion, although as a criticism it lacked the epic feel of some of SG1's season finale's.

Wild Fanboy Speculation: Teyla will be the next series main bad.

Worst outcome: They decide to do more replicator stuff.

Next post, the New boys