Giant Freakin Robot

If there’s one thing the internet loves, it’s a mash-up. We’ve seen Prometheus melded with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Doctor Who given a magic carpet ride with The Big Lebowski. Even a gorgeous Pixar facelift given to our beloved Star Trek. But the real challenge for a successful mash-up is to combine two thematically dissimilar properties in a way that looks organic. And you can’t get much more dissimilar than Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica and NBC’s one-time sitcom juggernaut Friends.

Kudos, then, to YouTuber MugAGum for managing to find enough silly-looking material to create a BSG version of the Friends opening credits, accompanied by the relentlessly peppy strains of The Rembrandts’ “I’ll Be There for You.” Let’s face it, Battlestar was a pretty damn dour show on the best of days, so it’s not material that lends itself to frivolity. Nevertheless, we’ve got Starbuck having a water-hose fight, Baltar flexing for the camera, and Admiral Adama slurping spaghetti. Good times.

So wait, if Battlestar Galactica is Friends, what does that make Caprica? Just Shoot Me? Suddenly Susan? God help us — The Single Guy?

Last night Trek fans across the country got to hunker down in theaters and watch one of the best cliffhangers in science fiction history play out on the big screen. The “Best of Both Worlds” theatrical event was the latest of several special theater screenings of Next Generation episodes, coinciding with seasonal releases of the remastered series on Blu-Ray. “Best of Both Worlds, Part 1” has pretty much set the bar for sci-fi TV cliffhangers since it first aired in 1990, but in the years that followed, some of our favorite genre shows have given that iconic Next Gen episode a run for its money. Here are seven sci-fi cliffhangers that left us screaming at the television.

SPOILERS BELOW!!!

Babylon 5 — “Z’ha’dum”
B5’s third season went out with a literal bang. After traveling to the Shadows’ homeworld of Z’ha’dum, Sheridan nuked their capital city and plunged, moments before the explosion, into a deep chasm. The war pauses while the Shadows regroup from Sheridan’s strike on their homeworld, but that doesn’t mean our heroes are in a good place. Sheridan is presumed dead. Garibaldi is missing, apparently abducted by a Shadow vessel. Ivanova and the rest are left with an uncertain future, one which, as G’kar’s closing monologue so elegantly states, will be born in pain.

The Colonial Fleet had it easy back in the good old days. And by the good old days, I mean the late ‘70s. I realize that’s probably the first time anyone has referred to the late ‘70s as the good old anything, but it’s true. See, back then the original Battlestar Galactica was on the airwaves, and things weren’t so bad for the Colonial Fleet. Sure, they were fleeing homicidal robots who wanted to exterminate them, but they got those weird-looking robot dog things, you got to hang out with Dirk Benedict, and things seemed generally pretty upbeat in spite of that whole attempted human genocide thing. Plus, back then it was way easier to spot Cylons.

When Ron Moore rebooted BSG in 2004, suddenly the Cylons could disguise themselves as regular people, or ridiculously hot Amazonian goddesses with glowing spines. What’s a Colonial refugee to do? Thankfully we’ve got this handy-dandy PSA that runs down all the telltale signs that you may be talking to / sharing lunch with / frakking / or unwittingly sharing colonial secrets with, a Cylon.

It’s amazing the lengths fans will go to when it comes to celebrating or honoring their favorite shows, movies, games, books, and so forth. Just go to Comic-Con any year and you’ll see cosplayers sporting home-built props, costumes, and makeup that rival some Hollywood movies. Fans spend thousands of dollars of fan films, LARPing groups, you name it. We report on a lot of those projects here at GFR, and one of the more insane (in a good way) ones we’ve heard about recently is a chap in Clearwater, Florida who is building a half-scale replica of a Cylon Raider ship from Battlestar Galactica in his backyard. Why, you might ask. But if you have to ask the question, you probably wouldn’t understand the answer.

Eugene Haggerty is creating the replica to be a centerpiece of the upcoming Galacticon 3, and will also be traveling to other conventions, including DragonCon, Shoreleave, Hurricane Who, and more. Here’s a shot of the frame of the Raider replica.