Be Excellent To Each Other

... Yes, 13 Beteo, just live with it, okay? It's not going to become twelve or ten now. It's 13. THIRTEEN!

And all together now, in drawn out cry: "NERRRRRRRRRRRRD!"

And thus the Herald Angels sang of the glorious dawn of more random forum content! This time it's my personal fave thirteen science fiction episodes. Now I don't watch sci-fi that much anymore on TV, but it used to rock my High School, College and University worlds quite a bit - but I will make time for the cream of these series, and a precious few of the ones listed ahead were practically entirely perfect runs. (See if you can guess which ones) So - the number one slot will be taken by a show that already has an entry in the previous twelve, but what show will it be? Aside from the number one, ordering is subjective to whims of the moment so no complaining or calling me broken please. Actually, strike that, feel free to call me an idiot - it's all healthy debate. So, what kicks off my top thirteen...?

What the hell? The X-Files?! But I don't even like the show THAT much. Heigh ho, I do like this one..

13: The X-Files: Darkness Falls


Mr Gruff Voice Tantalises

You can argue there's better X-Files episodes, but frankly I love this series one monster-of-the-week. It's a very simple set-up that's superbly revealed in the pre-credits sequence as foresters gripped with terror try to flee a nameless menace in the woods. There's several dozen of them, and their conviction that they're already dead ramps up the fascination - what the hell is out there? Cue Mulder and Scully. The only odd thing about this episode is that the loss of over thirty loggers doesn't call for a much bigger on-going investigation, but never mind - this pocket sized thriller is a real belter. Perfectly use of outdoor locations in a deep pine forest, the centrepiece is the classic 'cabin under siege' story where it becomes apparent that for all their smarts Mulder and Scully are actually fucked the moment darkness falls. Great guest cast, great ending, great pace.

12: Twilight Zone: Walking Distance


Spoilery Goodness!

An exercise in bitter-sweet melancholy, Walking Distance features a middle aged man called Martin Sloan who leaves his car at a gas station on a cross-country drive and walks up the road to the nearest town. There he finds his childhood. A beautifully evoked sense of loss as Martin encounters his past self, his parents and a carefree summer's day in an idyllic small town. This episode really speaks to me, as sometimes nostalgia overtakes me too. Whilst it doesn't feature any of the menace, the dark humour, the angst or the big guest stars of other equally great Twilight Zones, this is something of a pearl of script-writing, direction and music. And what music! Bernard Hermann pulls out all the stops with this one, with a score as sad and as sweet as Martin Sloan's memories.

11: Cowboy Bebop: Mushroom Samba


Episode Part One of Three

Bebop don't have no episodes, it has 'sessions'. This may seem absurdly pretentious, but it ain't. The little stories Bebop sets forth are more akin to sketches and shaggy dog stories than the usual plot driven tales you get in science fiction. If something's cool, in it goes. Same for something sad, something funny, something just plain bizarre. It's a playground of homages with a mix of spaghetti western, Moebius, American road movie, martial arts all wrapped up with the cool styling of Japanese spaceships. Bebop follows three luckless bounty hunters (named 'Cowboys') and the strange, deliriously giddy resident genius 13 year old girl 'Edward' whom they've somehow acquired on their travels. There's also a dog - possibly super-intelligent, but no one knows for sure as dogs can't talk or do stuff. They live on a cool, battered, cosy ship. The Captain tries to be reserved and cynical, and has a damaged background - but he's rather a good guy at heart. It all takes place in one giant solar system with lots of terraformed planets, some advanced, some backward in their harsh, barren, frontier way. The Captain is forever pursuing cash to keep his beloved ship in the air, and he comes across all sorts of underworld types, and frequently runs into trouble with the authorities. Hmm. Sound familiar?

Anyway, the show has one of the greatest theme tunes ever, a propulsive piece of pulpy spy jazz that sets the tone. Episodes may deal with the weighty pasts of the characters, or wrap themselves up in giddy doodles of a life on the margins. This episode is one of the latter, where the crew are really, really, really hungry and crash land on a planet. They come across trip-inducing mushrooms, and scarf them. Stuff happens. It all gets amusingly silly. Okay, it's not earth-shattering space opera, but let's face it - sci-fi gets damned po-faced at times and we need shows like Bebop around to lighten things up. As usual, the English dub ain't bad but it doesn't possess half the mystery and coolness of the Japanese. Go for the subtitled stuff.

And the music is just gorgeous.

10: Battlestar Galactica: 33


Yes, it is every bit this cool.

A mission statement for everything that was to come. Inconceivably, a lot of the net didn't think the BSG pilot all that much when it first aired. One of the most catastrophically narrow-minded reviews ever that Harry Knowles penned bemoaned all the changes the show had made, and all the Blade Runner allusions, without realising that the foundations laid meant that something truly staggering could be built. So for those who brushed aside the pilot, for those who plain old missed it, the show realised that it needed to grab the audience by the balls and drag them into a nightmarish small metal world of paranoia, fear and recycled air. It's Das Boot mixed with survival horror as the cast are pushed to the edge both physically and mentally by having to retrieve fighters, get the convoy to jump systems, plot a new course, set up a fighter screen, fight off an attack and then retrieve fighters and jump again every 33 minutes. No mistakes can be made, the Cylons only have to get lucky once. Critics raved about this episode on release, and no wonder. The detail is staggering; corridors covered in photographs of the lost, clocks every with post it notes with scribbled a '33' on them and everyone with lank, matted hair, crumpled clothes and hollow eyes. This pilot kicked over the tidy, bland, uninspiring stall Star Trek Voyager and Enterpirse had set out and replaced it with a moonshine whiskey still run by Tyler Durden, who'd punch you in the face in return for shots. There was no doubt we were looking at the future of space-opera in the craggy pockmarked face of Edward James Olmos and the slap-headed grousing of Michael Hogan, and their gruff camaraderie under pressure.

9: Eerie Indiana: Zombies in P.J.s


Part One of Three

Only Firefly matches Eerie Indiana's hit-rate for awesome episodes, with Eerie Indianna proudly proclaiming just one duffer from a long run. (Despite a good opener, Firefly's 'The Message' is just too badly plotted for me to enjoy.) Hence it was almost impossible for me to choose a stand-out from one of the most under-rated and criminally neglected TV shows of all time, but Zombies in P.J.s has just so many great ingredients! First of all you have the brilliantly slimy Rene Aubejonois Jnr as the villain. Then you have the highly mysterious Dash-X. This white-shock-haired kid was a semi-regular on the show, and it was very difficult to decide where he stood. Usually he ends up helping the young hero, Marshall Teller, but only out of self interest or a survival instinct. In the final episode where Marshall wakes up to find himself on a TV show called Eerie Indiana, he is betrayed by his two sidekicks who want to be the show's leads. Of these, it's strongly hinted that Dash-X isn't an alternate universe evil actor attempting to kill Marshall with a rifle, but rather the real Eerie Indiana deal instead. Dash-X basically does Christian Slater doing a Jack Nicholson - only inconceivably better than his one-trick-pony Hollywood elder.

Anyway, this episode revolves around the hapless local shop owner Mr Radford being conned into letting a slime-ball hypnotise the town with a catchy advert, forcing them to buy tons of junk on credit. A cracking consumerist satire, zombie movie and morality tale rolled into one - and like nearly every Eerie episode, highly amusing to watch. Like with the rest of this Joe Dante fuelled series of champions, you just can't get enough!

8: Captain Star: Edge of the Universe


Part One of Three

Captain Star is yet another forgotten classic, not even graced with a DVD release. A 90's CITV cartoon with the vocal talents of Adrian Edmondson, Richard E Grant and two other fine actors, it featured narcissistic, intergalactic hero Captain Star's attempts to battle a mid-life crisis being stuck on a nameless uninhabited planet waiting for orders. Every week Star and his plucky crew would run into a very unique problem. In this typically surreal adventure the Nameless Planet dips off the edge of the universe and into another, which is masked by a curtain. And on the other side of the curtain sits a big audience crowded around a circus arena, who lure a keen crew into making a show of their various talents. But all is not so innocent, as each trip to the arena by sucks away at each of the crew's souls. On average a Captain Star episode would show thrice the imagination of Star Trek and Doctor Who and thrice the humour of the rather splendid Futurama. Why it remains forgotten is a mystery to me. Richard E. Grant is especially wonderful as the weary, self-obsessed, emotionally retarded and fussy space captain who alternatively belittles his crew and exalts them as the greatest foursome to cruise the stars. He can be commonly found sitting in a wheel-barrow, philosophising and summing up the preceding episode in a banal two-liner.

7: Star Trek The Next Generation: The Best of Both Worlds Part 1 & 2


Part one of lots

Basically an epic TV movie chopped into two halves. And yet the cunning of this two-parter is what epic thrills it gets on such a relatively small effects budget. Action is mainly limited to camera shake and occasional static effects shots of phasers failing to penetrate big floating bricks. Where the tension and the excitement lie is a taut, convincing script, some of the best acting TNG has seen and an a brilliant score. The episode kicks off with the discovery of the loss of an entire Federation colony, where a town once was a crater remains, the bustling settlement literally scooped up out of the ground by the Borg. An admiral and Picard discuss their chances. "Hell, we're not ready," is the superior's blunt statement. An encounter with the Borg reinforces this, as the Enterprise proves outmatched in every department. There's so much to admire here. The 'zombie' advance of Borg drones when the away team start zapping power nodes. The shock at witnessing the remains of the Wolf 359 battle, losing over forty ships in one encounter. Picard's pre-battle tour and weighing of the chances in Ten-Forward. Best of all is the score, from the driving synth-hammering of the Borg theme to the high pitch sustained-note giving fearful anticipation. The plot itself is remembered by everyone so I won't go into it. Suffice to say that for this baby the writing and direction were so good that it could get away with having Geordi duck under a slowly descending door to represent the destruction of the engine room and have one of the biggest battles in Federation history off screen, and we didn't care.

6: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Hush


Part One of Five

You all probably know this one, you certainly know the show. Hush is one of the great Whedon experiments - can you do a silent movie on TV? Whilst the Twilight Zone have attempted as much before, conventional TV network wisdom had it that such an attempt was sheer folly in today's channel hopping environment. It's a credit to Fox that they let Whedon follow his creative urges, just before they were all tragically pod-peopled in time for the cluster-fuck that was their handling of Firefly. Hush features several shit-scary floating 'gentlemen' who descend on Sunnydale. They rob the town's people of their voices and drift along breaking into people's houses, cutting open their chests and extracting their livers. If you have to be told why this episode is so scary, you're clearly criminally desensitised or an idiot. Shots are framed to echo the best German expressionist films, and the scares and matched by the humour - witness the corking briefing Giles gives with an overhead projector presentation. It deserves its top spot on the most fan lists.

5: The Prisoner: Free for All


Part 1 of 5

The most satisfying of the Prisoner episodes. It's election day in the Village, and No.6 campaigns to be voted in as number 2! Poor old Six really gets battered around in this one, mostly by a cavalcade of absurdity as the Village makes a mockery of everything he holds dear. The stupendous Eric Porter guests as Number 2, switching from amused bonhomie to ice-cold controller. A chief delight is the off-the-wall performance by Rachel Herbert as number 58. Her nonsensical gibberish follows Number Six around as he does his usual angry cat-like prowling and glowering. And then when you think you've got the episode pegged, it twists into something darker. The best Prisoner episodes whipped by with the verbal fencing between six and two, and this one is the cream of the crop. Leo McKern may have made the best foil for McGoohan, but this one features the strongest script. A real satirical joy with a cruel bite.

4: Babylon 5: Chrysalis


Everything that ever happened in the most gloriously pompous show of all time.

It surprised everyone. Early series one Babylon 5 was seen as a pale imitation of Star Trek, episodic monster or crisis-of-the-week affairs on a low-budget space station. There were moments, but nothing could prepare people for the sheer dark magnificence that was the episode Signs & Portents. In one episode a massive back-story came into focus, a tantalising mystery was placed in front of the viewer, characters were defined by the simple question, "What do you want?" and a chill ran down the spine as a dark, violent future was foreshadowed. Plus you got a cool space battle. But I'm not talking about that episode, I'm talking about the one where EVERYTHING CHANGED. Up to this point series cliff-hangers in science fiction shows were made with the promise of a speedy resolution in the following next series episode. A bit of a dramatic 'What happens next!?' hook and then back to normal.

Chrysalis kicks off with giant space-spiders attacking a colony, and gets mightier, kicking over every table in the room.

"This is too big for you," says the tough to Garibaldi when he interferes with a possible criminal conspiracy. And for once the tough is right, as Garibaldi gets shot in the back and falls into a coma, but not before warning the hero Sinclair that the President's life is in danger. Now, in Star Trek land Sinclair would save the President next episode and Garibaldi would pop back out of his coma. Instead, everyone utterly fails at preventing evil from triumphing. Sinclair can only watch as things fall apart around him. In possibly the greatest moment of the entire five year run Sinclair runs up to command and control to try and get a warning out to the President who is travelling on his ship EarthForce One on a pre-election campaign tour. But the signals are jammed by the very conspiracy Garibaldi failed to stop. Sinclair barks for the news channel, it's put on screen and they all watch as - in a chillingly realistic way - a standard live news report showing the giant EarthForce One silhouetted against Jupiter and Io has one of those 9/11 moments as the ship explodes. A stunned newscaster speaks, "... medical ships are scrambling but... with an explosion that size... there really is no hope for any survivors..." That's not all as a Jack Ruby loose ends tidy hints at traitors within the very command staff and bald-headed space-Nippon Delenn climbs inside a big cocoon in her bedroom. The episode closes with a shattered looking Sinclair murmuring, "Nothing is the same anymore," and it wouldn't be. Next episode he'd be gone and the many, many, many triggers the show's creator had set up throughout series one began to be pulled, one by one. This was a novel on television, entirely preplanned with the answers laid out and with a refusal to cop-out. Quite simply my fave show of my teens.

Though I can't watch it now. Christ, those comedy routines were bad.

3: Firefly: Out of Gas


Fan Trailer

A test of a classic all-time episode lies in the number of times my day-dreaming revisits, on walks to and from work. I slip in extra scenes, expand the dialogue and generally ponder some geeky fan-fic extension in my head. Out of Gas is a keeper, and it's that one moment that elevates an already excellent episode into one of the best stories I've seen. We've all had Space Captains in TV shows express an affection for their ships. The Doctor fusses over his Tardis, Adama is fiercely protective of his old rust-bucket, Captain Star is tetchily defensive of his atom-boiler powered squat ship The Boiling Hell. (Oddly, Star Trek remains an exception. I can only ever recall Kirk of all captains getting all misty eyed over his ship - which lets face it in all its gleaming glory wasn't ever really at all lovable.) Malcolm Reynold's love for Serenity is the beating heart of the show, and it's never better evoked than the moment when a fat used ship-salesman takes him round the yard, extolling the virtues of some hideous orange ship.

"Tell you what, you buy this ship, treat her proper, she'll be with ya for the rest of your life. Son, hey son? You hear a word I been sayin'?"

If you don't get misty eyed at that scene, there's no hope for you. This is a rare gem of science fiction that has only one brother in its effort in portraying the tight knit family struggling to survive in a floating tin can they call home, that brother is Cowboy Bebop, which shares a fair similarities. But nothing can match the love laboured on Firefly's characters and the strange need we fans feel to share in that existence. Stepping on board Serenity simply feels like going home.

2: Doctor Who: Human Nature / Family of Blood



The best story in a long, long, long run of Doctor Who. Everything in this two-parter is utterly perfect. The villain is creepy and magnificently 'other' in a Stephen King way. The Doctor is taken way out of his comfort zone and placed in genuine danger. The period setting is hyper detailed with a real sense of place and the cast is perfectly selected, with Jessica Hynes providing the most compelling emotional connection for the Doctor in the show's history. The chief baddy is utterly immense in the form of the strange, mesmerising, Twilight Zoney 'Baines' and there's a real emotional pay-off without easy answers. And it's all about death and denial and has a real tear-jerking look at the death of a common man, and by implication the hollowness of the Doctor's existence. Throw in sinister scare-crow men, a fairy-tale ambience to the monsters, a time setting filled with foreboding as a public school's students live in blissful ignorance of the blood-soaked war that will soon claim them and a real sense of menace and sadness and you've got what I'd further argue to be two of the best British television episodes of all time.

1: Star Trek TNG: The Inner Light


Don't like this? You're an idiot.

So good it made me cry.

The Enterprise is plodding along doing that thing it does when everyone isn't having some wacky adventure of the afternoon when the ship suddenly encounters a harmless looking probe. It strobes lights at Picard, who falls into a coma. He then wakes up and finds himself in a small village on a planet that hasn't discovered space-flight, with a wife who loves him and good friends and a bit of a mild drought going on. Picard naturally suspects some attempt to brainwash him, or to extract information. He attempts to flee to his ship - only the Enterprise isn't there orbiting. Nothing's orbiting this planet. They've never even made contact and there's no way off planet, let along to the nearest star base. The people aren't angry at him trying to escape. They treat him as a neighbour, a friend and a husband who's gone a bit funny in the head, a bit feverish - no doubt because of the coma he's just awoken from after hitting his head when he fell in that field. So Picard, foiled, decides to play along, to bide his time.

I can't say anything more about this one. I can't go any further, it'd ruin things. Suffice to say it's the most emotional piece of science fiction I've ever seen. Utterly beautiful it is, with a real moving coda. The only shame is that the reset button of the show shrugged the entire thing of within a few episodes. No matter, for this is as perfect a piece of story-telling as you will find and Patrick Stewart sells it beautifully - running the full gamut of emotions in a completely believable way. You grow to love the character of Picard within this episode, and the images stay with you. I'm not that big a Star Trek fan, I own none but some of the movies on DVD - and yet I really, really think that this is some of the best television I've seen. The Inner Light is that perfect episode. And despite being unsure as to the order of the other episodes in this list, this one without doubt remains at the top. I urge you to see it.

...

Whelp, that's the list. Been compiling that for a while on and off. But what fave sci-fi episodes have you lot to share, eh? Join me in a celebration of all that is nerdily dramatic. JOIN ME.

Many, many bananas, sir. Most excellent.



Always have. Always will.

Objects in Space tends to be a favourite Firefly ep of mine. Mainly for the ending. There's not much wrong with any Firefly though. I find it hard to tolerate much STTNG because the acting is pretty routinely terrible. Yes that includes Mr Stewart who I've never seen be good in anything.

One of my favourite B5 eps is A Day In The Life, concentrating on some of the lesser folk on board. Quite moving when they have the job of moving all the dead bodies.

Despite many people loving Hush from Buffy I think it's absolute. As every episode from series 4 was. Hate it.

Also when I tried watching Eerie again about 5 years ago, I found it unwatchable. Which was a shame as I thought it was really good at the time.

Agree about Human Nature/Family of Blood but I would say that some creaky acting lets it down from being perfect.

Thoroughly well done for compiling the list though.

Pete, your writing is as good as any reviewer I've ever read. Good show.

DOUBLEPLUSGOOD

That right shit me up when I first watched it, being 9 or so. I didn't realise it was in the first season, nor that I'd been watching practically right from the very start.

Fucking brilliant, chap.

I had a TNG box set on VHS a decade or so ago that had two episodes for each crew member. Picard's video had "The Inner Light" and "Darmok". That got some play, I'm telling you.

Pete, you cock! I had the Cowboy Bebop theme stuck in my head for most of last week & now you've mentioned it it's there again

Great stuff. I'll make an effort to see or re-watch all of those.

I'd have 'Darmok' on there from TNG, and Stargate:Universe's recent episode 'Time'.

some good picks there.

I'd agree with 33 (although 3.4 was some f'ing episode!) and Hush.

The last ep of s1 of Sarah Connor was very likeable though and I'm sure I could find an ep from the original V to put on there.

My fave Twilight Zone isn't sci fi though. It's one called 'Dealer's Choice'. It has Morgan Freeman in it and is just the best 25 mins of telly ever. If you ever get the chance to see it, you must. It's about some guys playing poker against the devil.

You know, sometimes I suspect you're the anti-matter me.

I really hated 'A Day in the Life' reckoning it to be a great concept ruined by awful humour, a shonky script, flacid direction and the series 5 bane - the repeated hammering home of how much Sheriden and Delenn love each other - with sickening doe eyed stares and everyone banging on about how great they are. Patrick Stewart is God in my book, especially since he's from my home-town and in his portrayal of Claudius, Gurney and Sejanus a most exellent actor. He IS Halleck Gurney in my head when I read Dune.

Eerie is still great. Try it again with added beer.

Anyway, ta for the grats.



I think I was 12 when I watched that - same reaction! I'd never seen anything like it before, and it stayed with me. Groundbreaking stuff, believe it or not.

Blucey, Curiosity, I'll see if I can find those you mentioned. I'll let you in on the bubbling unders in a bit. Anyone else feel there's unfair much needed exceptions?

Is that X-Files episode the one with the



I've a hopeless memory for TV. I've watched maybe four or five seasons of X-Files on DVD and I could barely describe half a dozen. I always preferred the monster of the week stuff though as you knew it would be a self-contained story, rather than not knowing when that particular plot arc would end.

At least having a crap memory means it's a good excuse to watch them all again at some point and then buy the rest of the series.

It's a shame the X-Files arc fizzled to nothing. I used the LOVE that show, up until season 5 when I suddenly stopped watching it (I suspect I starting drinking). Knowing that the arc is a damp squib means that I'll never really get the urge to plough through the series again. I can still watch the excellent stand-alones like 'Clyde Bruckman' and the Rashomon-style 'vampire' one with Luke Wilson.

edit: 'Bad Blood'

Pete, that was brilliant, thank you. Made me want to watch a load of sci fi now. (Although I have to confess I have never seen Firefly, or even heard of Cowboy Bebop)

One show I did really like that I don't see much mention of is Farscape. That had some good moments, and was a pretty dark show.

It is, aye. Creeped me right out.

Awesome list! Wasn't it hearts the gentleman were trying to steal in Buffy though? I thought someone else was livers. Tooms!(sp?) In X Files. That was one of the scariest things I'd ever seen on tv when I watched it.

FIX.
THIS.
NOW.

Firefly is currently on 320 on sky at 8pm.

Anyone else think that Pete should be writing stuff for Empire or some other movie magazine/website? And has anyone got any contacts or anything that he should be submitting stuff to? The lad deserves some sort of monetary reward for his lovely, flowing prose.



This was the best X-Files episode and it was in the best series (Number 2). Man, I loved that show back in the day.

@wilw has a podcast where he talks about ST:TNG episodes and things. Apparently.

*decloaks* oop, how did I end up here, then? I've thought the exact same thing when reading Pete's reviews before. I actually sent his Transformers 2 review to my mate at Empire way back when as I thought he'd find it amusing. Which he did. But after seeing your comment there, Rixondale, I sent this lovely selection of sci-fi paens to him to see what he thought (terribly presumptuous Pete, hope you don't mind).

Anyway, he likes them, but says their roster's full at the moment. However, he will definitely keep you in mind for reviewage as you're "clearly the right kind of geek". If you were interested that is.

*recloaks*
*realises he can't remember where he put his cloak*
*makes do with the stained tablecloth in the corner*

Don't worry, I'm well known for being wrong all the time.

Gosh!

Yes, I am most interested! I'm even tempted to grow a patented Kim Newman look to give me that reviewing 'edge'. Now all I need to do is to work out how to do a review of Shooting Bang Bang Blockbuster #242 that won't take up six or seven pages of Empire.

Righto, I'm checking out that book about freelance magazine writing in the library. And yes, I reiterate, I'm very interested. And decloak again soon, Findus Fop!

This thread has made me discover that the complete Eerie Indiana DVD boxset is only £14 at Amazon. I was supposed to be saving money this month.

Great work Pete and I'm glad you put Star Trek the Next Generation in the number 1 spot.

I used to love that.. every night on Sky 1 at 5 or 6pm. I've seen every episode and loved it where everyone else took the piss! I'm glad I'm on this forum with likeminded individuals.

It is? I didn't even know it was out over here! Ooh!

As a published journo (heh) and as someone that's read your stuff, anything that [e|a]ffects your writing style would be a bad thing, IMO.

Ta.

I'm not sure if it's about writing style though, I think it's more of a guide to submitting, legal stuff and good work practice.

You'll need a mac and a trilby, and a quick-fire, wisecracking relationship with a female journalist. Also, try to develop an alchohol problem, ideally drinking neat bourbon in a grimy bar.

I could have sworn it was grimy bourbon in a neat bar. No wonder my writing career floundered.

My writing career has clearly been stifled by drinking girly drinks in overpriced bars.

And the fact that I still haven't finished my damn play!

Ahh, so you're going down the "Sex in the City" writing route, eh?

As is Grim..., judging by the shoes.

I'm at the end of the route, mate. I got annoyed that a subed put a grammar mistake into an article and everything.

It'd be like if Twins was remade with you and Giles Coren.

Do I get to be Arnie?

Not so much.

No, that's Craster.

Someone needs to do a photochop now.

Genius.

Now we need Grim... as Danny DeVito, please.

With that fur I think Pod gets to be the dog, too.

Perfect.

How about one with Grim... as Arnie and Gaywood as Danny?

Look, you'll have to pay me more for extras.

Excellent! Like I say, there's nothing solid there at the moment but definitely worth pursuing. I'll be seeing him in a few weeks when I'm back in the UK so will give his nuts a Chinese burn when I'm there to see if he'll spring into action and make room for a new freelancer.

Just keep writing though - as everyone has said, it's always a joy to read.

Beex wants 5% of any $$$$ you make, though.