‘Star Trek: Section 31’ got us thinking… Should you have to do your homework before you watch a movie?

Let’s start with a small thought experiment. It’s Saturday night and you spot a new “Star Trek” movie on your Paramount+ homepage. You’re not a hardcore fan but you enjoyed “The Next Generation“, “The Wrath of Khan” and the JJ Abrams reboot. You’re also drawn in by the fact this interstellar version of “Mission: Impossible” is headlined by Michelle Yeoh, who starred alongside James Bond in “Tomorrow Never Dies”, recently appeared in “Wicked”, and won herself an Oscar for “Everything Everywhere All at Once”. That’s got to be worth a…

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The best sci-fi TV shows of the 1950s

Early television in the 1950s was a freewheeling frontier of both live and taped offerings mostly dominated by comedies, game shows, kids programs, and westerns like “I Love Lucy,” “The $64,000 Question,” “Leave it To Beaver,” “The Mickey Mouse Club,” “The Honeymooners,” and “Gunsmoke.” But while post-war America’s interest in outer space and science fiction blossomed as the decade ran its course seeing the Soviet Union launch Sputnik, the world’s first satellite, in 1957 and igniting the Space Race, a wealth of science fiction offerings had already sprouted up on…

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This Week In Space podcast: Episode 148 — Clavius Base

Clavius Base – Why Clavius Crater Is the Best Spot for Nasa’s Moon Base With Dr. Pascal Lee – YouTube Watch On On Episode 148 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik speak with Dr. Pascal Lee about why Clavius may be the ideal place to build our first lunar base. The very mention of Clavius, a vast lunar crater, brings to mind spectacular images from “2001: A Space Odyssey”— landing spacecraft, alien monoliths, and more. Notably, though, Clavius is not on NASA’s dance card as a…

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Sony’s latest State of Play highlights three incredible sci-fi games coming to PlayStation 5

We’re now halfway through the first trimester of 2025, which means that video game companies everywhere are rushing to show off some of the biggest releases arriving in the near future and 2026. On Feb. 12, Sony’s first State of Play stream of the year revealed several fantastic-looking titles from partners all over the world, and adventures set in outer space had a huge presence. Space-set science fiction games are finding lots of success right now. So much so that it’s becoming hard to keep track of them all, especially…

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Best sci-fi comedies of all time

Out of this world laughs and galactic giggles ahead in this list of the best sci-fi comedies of all time. One of the most mesmerizing things about the science fiction genre is the sheer scope of ideas that can be dreamt up, and this aspect lends itself perfectly to comedy; with something so out-of-this-world, there’s a real opportunity to make people laugh. There are crazy and bewildering plots spanning generations, from the twisted future of Idiocracy to the bulging-brained alien invasion of Mars Attacks! To put it simply, there’s a…

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This Week In Space podcast: Episode 147 — Not As They Seem

Not As They Seem – Mick West on UFOs, Conspiracy Theories, and Pseudoscience – YouTube Watch On On Episode 147 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik speak with Mick West, a passionate conspiracy debunker who, rather uniquely, proceeds with kindness and empathy as he unravels some of the key pseudoscience of our time. Of particular interest to us is the spate of relatively recent videos of UFOs/UAPs from the US Navy, among other sources. He’s got a lot to say and took a deep dive into…

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This Week In Space podcast: Episode 145 —We’re ‘Star Bound’ with a guide to America’s space program

On Episode 145 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik meet the authors of a new book about spaceflight called “Star Bound: A Beginner’s Guide to the American Space Program, from Goddard’s Rockets to Goldilocks Planets and Everything in Between,” Emily Carney and Bruce McCandless III. Related: ‘Star Bound’ serves up a ‘snarky approach to space history’ and the American space program (exclusive) Emily started the popular Facebook group Space Hipsters, now 66,000 members strong, and Bruce is a retired lawyer and space enthusiast who also happens…

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What is Section 31? The ‘Star Trek’ spy organization explained

The United Federation of Planets may hold itself up as a futuristic utopia but it also has a dark underbelly. Covert intelligence organization Section 31 carries out the missions Starfleet pretends don’t happen, bending the rules in the name of keeping everyone else safe. Since making its first appearance in “Deep Space Nine“, Section 31 has broken cover in numerous “Star Trek” TV shows and movies. Now, Starfleet’s guilty secret is getting its very own movie, as Michelle Yeoh’s Philippa Georgiou is brought back into service with an all-new team…

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This Week In Space podcast: Episode 144 —The great lunar armada

The Great Lunar Armada – 2025 Will Be a Big Year Moon Missions – YouTube Watch On On Episode 144 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik take a look a pair of private moon missions by Firefly Aerospace and ispace that lifted off this week and so much more. 2025 is the year that introduces the Great Lunar Armada! A small fleet of private and publicly-funded orbiters, landers, and rovers are heading off to explore Luna Incognita this year, and it will only speed up after…

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Battlestar Galactica at 20: the show that reinvented space opera

If you wanted to assemble a time capsule of late 1970s pop culture, the original “Battlestar Galactica” would be a good place to start. Not only was it an unashamed attempt to cash in on the record-breaking success of “Star Wars” — to the extent that George Lucas’s lawyers wrote some very angry letters — the disco stylings of Glen A. Larson’s big-budget TV space opera tie it to a very specific time in history. The show’s wholesome family values, robot dogs, and kitschy, “Saturday Night Fever”-esque fashions always jarred…

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