Giant Freakin Robot

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.

John Crichton & Aeryn Sun, Farscape
If you asked me to narrow this list down to just one entry, to the single relationship that stands above all the others, I would jettison everything but John and Aeryn without a second’s hesitation. Much of that is down to the white-hot onscreen chemistry between actors Ben Browder and Claudia Black. But the two unlikely lovers also go through more in four seasons than most couples do in 60 years together, and they still come out of it together.

The real test of love is not hanging together in the good times. It’s in clinging to each other when things go as bad as you could possibly imagine, and then somehow find a way to get worse. John and Aeryn go through all manner of horrors together, but the true genius of the show’s writers comes when Crichton is split into two identical versions of himself, and the show’s core group is then split as well. One Crichton stays with Aeryn, and their romance continues to blossom…until that Crichton – her Crichton — dies. When the surviving Crichton reunites with Aeryn’s group, she’s suddenly faced with a man wearing her lover’s face, but who is — as far as she’s concerned — just an empty echo, one that only makes her grief worse. It’s a brilliant, uniquely sci-fi way of solving that old Moonlighting problem of what happens when the will-they-won’t-they couple finally gets together. And in spite of that terrible, seemingly insurmountable obstacle, Crichton and Aeryn eventually find a way back into each other’s arms. Let the universe throw whatever it wants at them, they’re in it for the long haul.

There are a few names out there whose involvement with a project guarantees my interest, at least at first. Joss Whedon is on that list, and damn near everybody else’s right now. Babylon 5’ s J. Michael Straczynski holds an honored spot. Supernatural creator Eric Kripke is pretty much the only reason I’m watching Revolution, and why I still hold out hope that it might get better. And then there’s Rocke O’Bannon, the guy responsible for Farscape. He could host a bar mitzvah and I’d show up to ask if I could buy a ticket. So the news that he’s got not one, but two new TV projects arriving in coming months has me more than a little beside myself.

The show we’ve been talking about a lot here at GFR is Syfy’s Defiance, a series that will play to many of O’Bannon’s Farscape strengths with the tale of humans and assorted aliens attempting to co-exist in the aftermath of a devastating war. He’s also behind The Cult, a CW series that is so meta it hurts. The Cult is about a TV series about a fictional cult leader who seems to be influencing the show-within-a-show’s fans in strange ways. It’s a premise that has the potential to explore the ever-evolving relationship between content creators and their fans, a sort of worst-case-scenario of what would happen if Joss Whedon — or Rockne O’Bannon, for that matter — started using his influence over fans in nefarious ways.

Science fiction is an indelible part of our pop culture… but it doesn’t usually lend itself to dance music. Maybe it’s time that changed. Believe it or not, starships can dance.

Watch it happen in the video embedded below. To watch it you’ll need the password “starships”.