Give me a life sized model of Tricia Helfer instead and I'll consider it ;o)

Best sci-fi since Babylon 5? You won't get any arguments from me. I had no idea you guys at the Reg had such good taste. I have to admit, Firefly came close though; I hope you know what you're doing, mobilising such an army of rabid fanbois on your comments section...

Please can we use the British name on British domains? 'Aluminium' PLEASE!

I don't fancy one of those, but if he can make a 7ft replica of the more fleshy cylons (blonde maybe?), I could be interested................

What's the articulation like? Does it just stand there? I'm sure there's a market for some kind of robot love doll, especially in Japan, where there are so many lonely robots. Given that this is a Cylon, it would be a robot S&M dominatrix, with a laser whip etc.

Couldn't we have one of the female "skin jobs"? Surly that'd sell better.

I'd also like to know what the current "mid-season" break is all about on Sky? How can it be mid-season when we're going to have to wait a year for the next one. It's been a good series but I'm beginning to feel they're just dragging it out now.

Must... resist Geek... Urges.... Firefly was better... Noooooooooo.....

I want a life size replicate of Grace Park

A comment is required, in addition to a title.

No doubt Bab5 was an excellent sci-fi show but BSG is the best show of any kind on TV in the last 20 years. I'm a huge Star Trek fan (no i don't have any paraphenalia, but i do have a purple lightsabre, go figure!) have seen all of NG, DS9, Voyager and the abomination that was Enterprise and i can name precisely 4 episodes of all that Trek (Best of Both Worlds, Way of the Warrior, All Good Things, Sacrifice of Angels) that comes anywhere near the quality oozing from every BSG episode to date.

Mine's the frakking jumpsuit with bits of frakking toaster stuck to it.

When will they offer a self delivery option?

Good catch but remember it's a freking yank site they're quoting from.

I want one that moves. Ability to kill would also be impressive.

Someone elses acting ability is as stiff as a robot - guess who ?

Firefly all the way baby

Absofrakkinloutely it is. Although Stargate SG1 would have to get a mention, although I consider that a slightly different genre...

"aluminium" copied straight from the screen -- I don't see the 'merkin version.

It has it's moments, but it also has weeks and weeks of just talking. It's as bad as ST:TNG at times. I finally got around to catching up on my backlog, and watched 3 episodes in an hour, skipping all the talking and moping, and still following the story.

"Let's have them all mope around, being really depressed, and it'll make really good TV" - well, I suppose it works for Eastenders

The robot looks cool, but battlestar in it's new incarnation was pants. Is pants. Only problem is I can't think of anything that is better since B5. They have all panned or been cancelled before getting good.

Though you did word it correctly, "...best SINCE B5". So I don't need to remove you from my bookmarks...

Last time I checked, BSG had turned into a legal drama. Why are Americans so obsessed with lawyers? Just give us some shoot-outs with robots, that's what everyone sane wants!

Hmm, for that kind of money, I think I'll wait till AI Robotics (makers of Lisa 'The Perfect Woman') team up with Realdoll to create a 'fully functional and anatomically correct' robot. Now my bisexual tendencies can't decide between a Data from Startrek or a Pris from Bladerunner...

...one thing is for sure, the future of robotics is going to get interesting!

I expect someone on here is going to want a Paris android...

(or used to say) Joss Whedon is my master now

Sci-Fi shows in descending order of quality:

- Firefly

- Stargate SG1/Atlantis

- B5

- Buck Rogers

- the original Battlestar Galactica

- blakes 7

- space 1999

- ufo

- thunderbirds

- Joe 90

- the star wars kid on you-tube

- someone recording someone else playing lego starwars on a console with a camera phone

- something else vaguely sci-fi but really bad that I can't think of

- BSG

These younguns don't know what they're missing. Servalan, Avon, Orac and Servalan! :-D

Much as I hate to defend the yanks - according to a chemist friend of mine, "Aluminum" is technically more correct.

So...

Sod it, burn all yanks, and lets (for once) be the side that defends using the 'wrong' word. Makes a pleasant change.

(Yay for B5, and if BSG has stopped using that abomination of shaky cam, maybe I'll give it another try)

it better serve as a security system

death by my command:)

as for good, yeah it is good, no series is perfect, sometimes an episode will hit like a Pangalactic gurgleblaster.

Star trek had that after a fashion some of the earlier NG and DS9 ones were wooden, badly written. NG became great when they started to add depth to the klingons and introduced Q (not the borg), enterprice actually had a decent last season.

Bab 5, ahhh season 2 and 3 had some of the best material around, first show to leave the "all aliens are bipedal" mold, the shadowwar, lorien's speech about time, and who could not feel sorry for sheridan every time that kosh said something so weird that discussions still rage today

Yes yes, war on terror, invasions, torture et al I can take no problem.

Just not the abuse of the English language.

Americans, learn to spell correctly, it rightly pisses me off.

Color is another one, or vacation, the list goes on...

Good man Tony for fixing that one :-)

so change left over for a weekend in NYC from a coupla grand then?

ohhh wow two Icons! cool

Ahh blake and his orac... otherwise known as a box made out of windows....(spooky-wierd!)

(I did like the orac3 on bit tech though nice mod!)

oops my age is showing.

Well, they resurrected the Doctor, so maybe.....

The big question is, who to play Servalan?

As to BSG. Pah! A political soap opera in space. More sci-fi in Bob the Builder.

Ask, and ye shall receive:

"On 24 April 2008, Sky One announced that they had commissioned two 60-minute scripts for a potential series, working alongside Blake's 7 Productions, a subsidiary of Blake's 7 Media who owns the licence to the show" - wikipedia

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7364663.stm

The description doesn't state whether the inhibitor has been removed or not.

If it's higher level cognitive functions are not inhibited it could decide to turn on it's owner!

Never mind articulation, the question is: does it do nice even golden brown toast?

Oddly the merkins believe it is better to have tried and failed than to have not tried at all... consequently an attempt to spell correctly is better than not attempting to use words at all... so bravo well done.. you tried. In the same vain getting it wrong in Iraq was better than not doing anything! Oh and locking up an inocent man is better than not locking up anyone.

and heres some new Merkin corruptions...

Soldering is now pronounced 'sodering'

a bot (as in robot) is pronounced 'bolt'

Space: Above and Beyond.

Halo owes much to that show. Except 'Who Watches the Birds', that was a bad episode.

Move out 5 8.

The "quality oozing from every BSG episode to date"? Every episode... even that god-awful one with the boxing match?

Series 1: Excellent

Series 2: OK

Series 3: Erm, it's watchable at the end...

I couldn't care less about their legal system, mystical visions and who gets to wear the President's Hat this week. Where did the firefights, nukes and firing solutions go?

B5's FTW.

You really want Blake back? I can't imagine the resurrected show's going to be up to much without Paul Darrow as Avon. Still, I'll keep an open mind - even if it is Sky One!

Maybe your chemist friend should have a word with the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry.

Yes, it was originally called aluminum, but that was obviously wrong so it was changed - why does Al have to be different from Ga, In and Tl? Then some time in the twenties the American Chemistry Society threw a tantrum and said they wanted to spell it differently.

IUPAC recognises aluminum as an "acceptable variant" which means, "We don't like it, we know you won't change it, so we'll pretend that we're allowing you to do it".

I just don't know why the merkins can't get some consistency in their vowel hatred. Shouldn't they have called it aluminim?

and he's not happy as he was quite enjoying the retirment home :-)

Seriously though, I hope Sky go ahead with the new show.

writers' strike maybe?

The idea of the courtroom drama was to draw parallels with current(ish) events in the real world ; with Dr. Balthar (probably misspelled, not enough geek-fu, so shoot me) as Saddam (at least according to a recent interview with him (ok, his actor) in The Onion's AV Club).*

That's what good sci-fi does, though - uses it's fantasy setting to give a different perspective to real-world issues (ie. how do you fight an enemy that looks just like you).

* nested parenthesis in a comment? - yeah, I went *there* baby.

Oh dear, you should be banned from the register for total disloyalty in quoting the beeb when it was covered on El Reg...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/24/blakes_seven/

Oh dear oh dear.... Centurion, take him away and throw him out an airlock.

I'd rather have a pair of sixes; and I ain't playin' cards.

Babylon 5's a big pile of shit!

Yes, bring back Blake's 7. Hopefully with Paul Darrow set later, obviously.

Also, Stargate rules. Doctor Who almost does, but it's tainted by the musical theatre crowd (constant stupid background music). And yes, by that I probably do mean wotsisname. Hopefully someone will take over and make it better. Saying that, some of them have been superb.

Cool Cylon, but I'd rather have one of the old ones. Do they still blow up when you switch on a microwave next to them? Never watched much of the new series, I've tried, but as someone said, it's a political soap in space, with loads of post 9/11 bullshit.

***"That's what good sci-fi does, though - uses it's fantasy setting to give a different perspective to real-world issues (ie. how do you fight an enemy that looks just like you)."***

Nooo, that's what lazy writers do. They take real world events and change the names and locations. It saves having to think up a decent story yourself. And that fully sums up BSG.

Good sci-fi writers create entire worlds, physics, biology, belief systems and political systems from scratch and then mould a compelling and original story around that.

Babylon 5 was a bag of shite. Total bag of shite. Shite idea, shite script, shite acting.

"...Last best hope..." Shite.

Shite. Shite. Shite.

I think i will stick to Battle Of The Planets thank you very much

( now who's showing his age lol )

...an honourable mention must go to Farscape, surely?

Yeah, yeah, the whole Buck Rogers thing (which was pants anyway IMHO), but Farscape did it much better, funnier, good scripts, great special effects and with some truly horrifying characters. I mean, Scorpius? C'mon!

Another great Skiffy show killed off by the networks....*sigh*

Ok, if you want to be silly, I see your Battle of the Planets and raise you....Starfleet.

"What is the secret of F-01?"

Best entertainment ever when nursing a stonking student hangover on Saturday morning. We always assumed that we couldn't understand it because the plot was too complicated to follow while wrecked. It never occurred to us that it was aimed at kids and was just blatantly vague and inconsistant.

Sometime later, when the dust had settled and life had assumed a semblance of normality, Brian May and Eddie Van Halen recorded Brian's version of the theme music together. Best guitar battle ever pressed to vinyl IMHO.

There wouldn't have been the new BSG. It borrows heavily from SF storytelling principles which B5 pioneered.

This vulture has been pecked to death by cats.

I've always considered B5 and Battlestar to be more of a drama set in a Sci-Fi setting as compared to Star Trek, Stargate, Farscape, which was Sci-Fi with drama.

But yes, Battlestar is definitely the best dramatised Sci-Fi show since B5, without a doubt. Come to think about it, can't think of any other dramatised Sci-Fi since B5 OTHER than BSG.

Think I'd rather have Grace Park standing in the corner of my living room, but this would do if I had that much money to throw away.

Paris...cos.

Oops, may have double posted, hopefully the mods will catch the other one.

When I was studying chemistry a few years ago, one of my tutors informed us that Aluminium was now the internationally accepted form of the word, in exchange for the american Sulfur being used in place of Sulphur. However, since in general the americans were ignoring this, he said he was going to continue using Sulphur in protest :)

Actually Rutherford (or whoever invented Aluminium in the first place) called it Alumium, from the stem Alum with the -ium ending to follow the metal naming standards at the time.

Then, for some reason, he renamed it and bizarrely chose Aluminum which after he sobered up realised didn't fit the naming scheme he was trying to follow so he renamed it Aluminium.

To be fair he prolly selected Aluminum because compounds sounded stupid otherwise, try saying sodium aluminate and then try sodium aluminiate. This is probably why Americans call it aluminum (although we all use aluminate pronounced alooominaate)

So Aluminium it should be.

However try getting the Brits to use Sulfur, even though that is now the IUPAC spelling.

Platinium FTW.

Oh, B5 was excellent and the new BSG is awful. Dr. Who with Chris Ecclestone was very good, not sure about the new dude though, although the ones with that Life on Mars fellow as the Master were pretty good.

***"This vulture has been pecked to death by cats."***

That's nothing. This one was torn to bits by a Radeligian cateagle.

Agree 100% with Kane. I really can't figure out why Farscape gets so little recognition.

Also agree 100% with Mycho. B5's 5-series story arc was epic SF - and if you can't recognise that then you wouldn't know quality SF if it came and kicked you in the nads!

... I must ring my mother.

Life-size Cylons are all well and good, but I really want a Viper (Mk II not those weird Mk VIIs) and I want it to be able to fly and the guns to work :)

Imagine swapping out all those suits of armour for these guys....THAT'D be cool!

You think this is expensive? The guy who made the Blakes 7 Teleport braclets is now offering replicas for safe - at £150 each! Yes, thats right £150 for plastic piping and a few bits and pieces including sliver foil. What was that Barnum said?!

Vacation

Aluminum

Elevator

trunk

Call

Cellular phone

......

I hope that has the effect of fingernails on chalkboards.

ohhh and tick one for firefly for me, thanks

Yes that the one with the pulse beacon in the pocket

i want a robot S&M moderatrix, too!

While I enjoy different shows for different reasons, Farscape had to be one of the most original shows, with the best actors cast for thier parts in quite awhile. Moment of silence for its premature death *cry*

BSG is a decent dramatic show with scifi elements, I won't take that away from it.

Sorry, your chemist friend is wrong. (But just think how much fun you can have telling him)

The internationally agreed name for element number 13 is 'aluminium', with 'aluminum' being an acceptable alternative.

The problem goes all the way back to Humphry Davy who made the first attempts at separating the raw metal from pure aluminium oxide - alumina. He called the then hypothetical element 'alumium' at first before settling on 'aluminum' where it remained for a few more years before becoming 'aluminium' to fit in better with the majority of metal names.

However, the Brits didn't get it all their own way, the internationally agreed spelling for element 16 is 'sulfur'. Tragically, it is now also the recommended spelling in the UK according to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. Presumably the precious little snowflakes in today's schools can't be expected to spell 'sulphur'.

Thanks,

But I'll take the poseable "Boomer Skinjob" instead. LOL!!!

Hmmmm...Stargate SG1...Vega 4...Babylon 5...Blake's 7...Mystery Science Theatre 3000...The 4400...

I smell a rat.

"so change left over for a weekend in NYC from a coupla grand then?" i would love to see someone try to get one of these onboard a jet.

No that is my boyfriend, he likes chrome. Or you could tell them it's a new type of phone iCylon?

You could put it in the hold, would f#ck up those luggage handlers that abuse our suitcases.

Cool! can I invent an element?

Original BSG was better. Get the FOX news camera guy away from the cameras. It's like watching Blair Witch with more Shamalamadingdong script writing.

...but not even a tiny mention for Lexx? I'm still in love with Xevv (that's Xenia Seeburg, go look her up). And why did they can Total Recall 2070??? Oh well....

Hmm, sulfur. Sorry, I can't do it, I just can't do it. Mind you, I can't remember the last time I had to write it down so I think I'll live.

I was in HMV the other day and saw a dvd for Serenity going for 3 quid. I don't have a TV so I've never heard of it. Is it any good or am I better dropping my money down a drain?

"Oddly the merkins believe it is better to have tried and failed than to have not tried at all... consequently an attempt to spell correctly is better than not attempting to use words at all... so bravo well done.. you tried."

We just don't really feel the need for certain extraneous letters. We WILL use them when appropriate.

Ex: labour/labor, colour/color

What point does that extra "u" serve, here? When pronouncing "four" vs. "for", the former has more of a short "oo" that the latter's "oe"; that is, it is pronounced (slightly) more like "foor" than "fore"

Do you folks really pronounce the "u", or is it silent? That is, do you generally pronounce as "laboor" and "coloor" (with the short "oo"), or do you pronounce, as we do, more like "labore" and "colore" with a "long-o" vowel sound of shortened duration? (This is NOT intended as snark; I'm actually curious as to whether those "u"s are actually pronounced.)

"In the same vain getting it wrong in Iraq was better than not doing anything! Oh and locking up an inocent man is better than not locking up anyone."

As has been mentioned before and often: never criticize/criticise another person's language without checking your own. I presume that you meant "In the same VEIN..." (...although getting involved in Iraq was both vain -- that is, availing of nothing -- and vain -- as in the vanity of one man who wanted to prove that his were bigger than his Daddy's!)

...And I have to admit: it *IS* true that your police don't go about randomly locking up innocent Brazilian electricians in the London tubes, so I guess that puts you one up on us! ;-)

"and heres some new Merkin corruptions...

Soldering is now pronounced 'sodering'"

Actually, we pronounce it more like "soddering"; your version (using standard "single-consonant-after-a-vowel" rules) would more likely be pronounced "SOE-dering", which I don't believe ANYONE here uses. (And again; no snark being intended, but do you folks on that side of the pond actually pronounce the "l"? "SOLL-dering? That just sounds odd to me.)

"a bot (as in robot) is pronounced 'bolt'"

Nope. Never heard that one -- neither "bolt" nor "boat"; always pronounced as "bott". I'm not saying that NO ONE does; just that I've never heard it.

Then again, we have so many regional accents in this country that the story is told that, back in WWI -- before radio and movies had started blurring regional pronunciations -- the U.S. Army 's non-coms were largely from the mid-west as they were the ones who could translate the orders from the largely northeastern officer corps and pass them down to the largely southern enlisted rank-and-file. (I don't actually KNOW that that's true, but it is claimed.)

"and heres some new Merkin corruptions..."

I heard complaining about our spelling. Now it's time for me to complain about your punctuation. Learn to use apostrophes correctly!

And while we're splitting hairs, "merkin" is a pubic wig.

"Soldering is now pronounced 'sodering'"

I don't think that's a particularly new pronunciation. I've been pronouncing it "soddering" for nearly 50 years, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't the first.

"a bot (as in robot) is pronounced 'bolt'"

Never heard that one. Like somebody else said, probably a regional variant.

But I'm not sure it's really worth starting another war over. :)

Heart because I love listening to British accents.

Come on REG, BSG had a sparkling witty first season, but what came after is political-mental-diarrhea.

I had to literally delete the rest of the episodes I had downloaded after the boxing match episode, that show died when Baltar was chosen president. Those Cylon capital ships that look like prostitution shops, gosh!

BSG now causes me will to vomit ever since!

I love how the British misspell words. It so cute pretending to spell like the French. I have one of the 1st best selling books published in London in 1686 and there isn't a RE ending or an unneeded U anywhere in it. As far as the silent L in solder, its been there along with the silent L in Salmon and other Latin words for over 2000 years.

Do these Cylons come with paperwork with all the corners cut off?

Get Serenity! Firefly (of which Serenity is the movie) rocks!

Also, if anyone would be kind enough to buy and send me one of these, I'd almost certainly be able to have it march about. And probably shoot things!

I'd prefer a nude lifesize "clone" of Katee Sackhoff please.

Oh yes indee-de!!!!

If you want it done right, use the Vegans. "Tails High, Brothers!"

I want an ORIGINAL cylon not the modern CGI created hunk of junk!

/me leaves humming the old BSG theme and wonders whatever happened to Baltar

American spelling: 300 million for, 30 million against. We win. 8-P

English (and I mean REAL English) is still one of the official languages of India. 1 billion against. You lose.

Interesting to see a mention of Space Above and Beyond. I don't think I've heard anyone mention it in years! I think I still have all the episodes on VHS somewhere, too bad it got canceled by Fox like everything else good.

Not only the billion Indians - you can't even count. The UK hasn't had a population of only 30 million since WWII.

Personally, I always pronounce the "l" in "soldering" and "colour" and "labour" have more of a long "e" sound than the American "ore". And why is it you buggers can't pronounce a short "o", as in "drop". It's not "drap", there is no "a" present. This is even more hilarious when you're trying a genuinely foreign language.

BSG season 1 is all I saw; It was was okay. SG1 is watchable in a soapy kind of way. Firefly sucked.

Sci-fi at its best - babes, spaceships and lots of fights involving both babes and spaceships. Its Nash Bridges in space!

Ok, so some of the episodes really lost it, but who needs plot with that formula?

Paris, cos there isn't a 7/9 icon.

There's actually close to 60 million in the UK now, then add on Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and as mentioned, India. More people, bigger geographical area and a lot more timezones. A win every way.

Oh, and how about ZED? The only excuse I can think of for the US pronunciation is the alphabet song, where the correct version doesn't rhyme.

Can we have a mushroom cloud icon? Ideal for unwinnable on-line wars.

8k for this, life-size fully functional model, I will pay :P

If it doesn't make toast, its not a cylon

@ Robert Davis

QX, mate!

@ Chris McKinnon

Another SF show that Fox batted around the schedule and never promoted worth a damn... Great stuff, though.

Can I just have the real thing delivered? I'm sure I can provide a good home to Lucy Lawless....

Serenity was good, but will spoil Firefly for you if you watch it first.

Firefly was brilliant and is usually also available for cheap, as far as series collections go. You'll get more out of Serenity, too, if you've watched the series first.

BSG is worth watching, even if most of the political and logistics situations are contrived beyond belief.

>"And while we're splitting hairs, "merkin" is a pubic wig."

We know...

A fool and his money are soon parted.

Star Trek Next Gen kicks ass and Buck Rogers is a classic but specicially speaking about films you cant beat 2001: A Space Odyssey, closely followed by the excellent Sci-fi horror Demon Seed.

And of course The Matrix figures in there too

ARRRRRGGGHHHHH!

Labour and labor? are you kidding me?! You suggest the ‘U’ is silent, it isn’t, it affects the accent of the ‘a’ and the whole pronunciation of the word. With proper pronunciation of the way you spell it, it would sound like ‘La’-‘Bor’ not ‘Lay’-‘bore’

Yanks, just give it up, I know you pride yourselves in ego inflation more than actually getting things right, so it's hard for you to acknowledge the fact that you speak ENGLISH, so you have no grounding to even try and defend your bastardisation of our language.

But this will carry on for as long as your ignorance requires for you to call a game you pick-up and run with an elliptical object 'football'....