Giant Freakin Robot

The Doctors Revisited: The Fifth Doctor
(BBC America, 8/7c)

After a hit-or-miss season, Doctor Who wrapped up its latest season in epic fashion this past Saturday, providing answers about the nature of the Doctor’s “Impossible Girl,” Clara Oswin, and throwing in a last-minute twist that has us chomping at the bit for the 50th anniversary episode this fall. So while we’ve got many months before we’ll see the next installment of the Doctor’s adventures, we can still look back and appreciate the show’s long history. BBC America has been airing specials focusing on each of the Doctor’s incarnations, and the actors who played them. This Sunday the spotlight turns on Fifth Doctor Peter Davison, who played the time lord from 1982 – 1984. Even better, they’re airing the previous four specials prior to this premiere, so you can catch up if (like me) you’ve missed them. Pins some celery to your lapel and tune in.

Elsewhere, the sci-fi landscape is more barren than usual this week, with not much happening amongst books, comics, or games. Still, even with Doctor Who wrapped for the season, there are still several sci-fi shows chugging right along. Syfy has Defiance and Warehouse 13, NBC’s got Revolution, and BBC America’s Orphan Black is in the home stretch leading up to its season finale.

Here’s what’s new This Week in Science Fiction!

It’s hard to believe that Star Trek Into Darkness is finally almost here in the States. We’ve been writing about this movie for several years now, and I can’t even speculate how many words we’ve dedicated to dissecting the hints and rumors and rumors of hints. For those of us here at GFR, it seems almost doomed to be anti-climactic, but the early word from overseas has been largely positive, and at this point I’ll buy a ticket just to watch Benedict Cumberbatch chew the scenery. And for the Abrams haters out there, think of it this way: there’s a very good chance that Into Darkness is the last Star Trek movie you’ll ever see Abrams direct. See? Silver lining!

If you couldn’t care less about the latest big-screen Star Trek outing, fear not. There’s still plenty of other sci-fi goodness happening this week. We’ve got new episodes of Defiance, Revolution, Warehouse 13, Doctor Who, and Orphan Black. The Wachowskis and Tom Twyker’s divisive Cloud Atlas hits home video, and it’s worth watching if you haven’t seen it. You may love it, you may hate it, but it will likely provoke a strong reaction one way or another.

Here’s what’s new This Week in Science Fiction!

Anything with the name “Neil Gaiman” attached is generally worth at least a curious glance, and when it’s in the context of the British writer penning his second episode of Doctor Who, there’s all the more reason to be excited. He won a friggin’ Hugo for his 2011 episode “The Doctor’s Wife,” and he’s back this Saturday night with “Nightmare in Silver,” and it will pit the Doctor and Clara against the Cybermen.

Gaiman always manages to put his own unique spin on existing universes, whether in Doctor Who or his 1998 Babylon 5 episode, “Day of the Dead,” so I can’t wait to see what he does with the Cybermen. Let’s face it, they’re second only to the Daleks when it comes to being overused in the show’s modern incarnation, so a Gaiman twist may be just what they need. The episode is also said to be trying to make them scary again, which is a worthy goal. “Nightmare in Silver” will find “The Doctor and Clara arrive at the dilapidated theme park Hedgewick’s World and are confronted by the Cybermen.” Sounds like a good time to me.

Elsewhere in the sci-fi landscape this week, we’ve got new Defiance, Revolution, Warehouse 13, and Orphan Black, as well as new books hitting the shelves from Andre Norton, David Weber, Jack Campbell, and Robert Silverberg!

It’s all about the collision between man and machine this week. Seriously, it’s rare that any installment of This Week in Science Fiction is able to find some overarching theme for the week’s science fiction notables, but this week it’s like some higher (robotic) power is lining things up perfectly. What does it all mean? Beats me, but it’s kind of awesome.

Friday we’ve got Iron Man 3 ringing in the summer movie season. We could debate about whether that fancy chest implant qualifies Tony Stark as a cyborg or not, but I’d rather use that brainpower to erase the memories of most of Iron Man 2. On the home video front, Star Trek: The Next Generation’s remastered third season arrives on Blu-ray, bringing you the second half of the iconic, unforgettable “A Best of Both Worlds” two-parter featuring everybody’s favorite cyborged Starfleet officer, Locutus of Borg.

But wait, there’s more! In a development that may well send our own Brent McKnight into some sort of diabetic glee coma, the hilariously awful-looking (or awfully hilarious-looking) Manborg arrives on DVD Tuesday. We’ve pretty well got your cyborg needs covered on both the big screen and small, but we’re not done yet! For the gamers among us, especially those who liked last fall’s Far Cry 3, that game is releasing Blood Dragon, a standalone expansion so batshit-crazy that it would make a perfect cross-media double-feature with Manborg. Honestly, it’s all too much for us. I’ve got to go lay down…