Ronald D. Moore's reimagined take on the campy '70s series "Battlestar Galactica" may not have sounded like a good idea at first, but what began as an underdog remake grew jet engines of its own and set a six-year course for unprecedented sci-fi success. Digging into religious, philosophical and sociopolitical issues that mirror those of the present day while setting new standards in the way the genre is approached onscreen, this sci-fi drama has everything - brains, brawn, beauty.... and some terrifying goddamn robots that want to destroy humanity. Television at its finest.

 

 

 

How could a dozen different actors play the same role on the same show throughout its duration? Why, regeneration, of course! This ridiculous little show about a time-traveling, wise-crack alien from the planet Gallifrey happens to be the longest running Sci-Fi series of all time, and one of the most popular television shows in BBC history. The U.S. is slowly catching on, and who knows? Maybe by the 19th Doctor those of us on this side of the pond can actually make sense of what the hell is happening.

 

 

Despite NBC's cancellation of the show just three years after its 1966 debut, "Star Trek" set fire to the fuse of a million imaginations in ways never before caught on film. Starring the iconic William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, the U.S.S. Enterprise's "mission to boldly go where no man has gone before" was cut short, but the baton was picked up by a late-blooming success that birthed a cultural phenomenon, resulting in a barrage of spinoffs, an animated series and a dozen films, the most recent of which was arguably the best - meaning we'll be seeing a lot more Star Trek in the future.

 

 

 

 

To say that "Star Trek: Next Generation" had high hopes would be a bit of an understatement; the Sept. 1987 pilot drew an audience of 27 million viewers and went on to become the most-watched of all the Trek series - and easily the best overall. With cinematographic special effects and far more complex, magnetic characters than the original series, "Next Generation" triumphed over seven seasons, claiming 18 Emmys and spawning three films, as well as an entirely new generation of trekkies, for better or worse.

 

 

 

 

"The X Files" was the #1 sci-fi TV show of the 1990s. Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson), the believer and the skeptic, do their best to subdue the love story as they spend each episode investigating the most bizarre of paranormal cases. A couple of films followed, but ultimately most will remember the series for bringing aliens and conspiracy theories to the mainstream.