Best
series:
Farscape, proving that people and Muppets
do mix, with hilarious, dramatic and extremely inventive results.
Best
Newcomer:
Roswell (High). Transcending its
'Dawson's Creek with aliens' trappings, it became an extremely watchable
show. Runner-up: Angel, getting past its Buffy-related hang-ups,
it became a great show in its own right.
Best
actor:
Ben Browder, for making John Crichton fallible yet
intelligent, out of his depth but in control and at turns sane and completely
loopy throughout the two seasons thus far of Farscape.
Best
actress:
Claudia Black, for providing just enough toughness
and sexiness in the role of Aeryn Sun in Farscape and for her wonderful
performance when Crichton was in her body.
Biggest
Disappointment:
LEXX. It went on forever. And then the
twist was rubbish and hardly anything was explained.
Best
Idea:
Casting Tom Baker in Randall and Hopkirk
(Deceased). All he had to do was play himself and he was sublime. Why has
he been so underused since Doctor Who?
Worst
Idea:
In fourth place: the BBC's great idea of
repeating lots of Doctor Who went bad when they stopped again. In third
place, vegetable aliens arrive saying stupid made-up words because it's 'funny'
in The Strangerers. In second place, most of the story outlines for the
entire sixth season of Voyager. 'Seven wrestles'; 'Tuvok goes a bit
camp'; 'Borg kids learn how to be human' but worst of all 'The crew goes to an
Irish village. Twice'. But in first place: Channel 4's scheduling of, well,
everything. What's the point in buying 45 minutes of programming if you have to
edit out half of it due to its time slot?
The jms
award for the most clichéd script:
Andromeda, where every line has to be run
through several checks to make sure it's turned up in at least three previous
Sci-Fi series. Runner-up: Urban Gothic, where in one episode someone
turned out to be a robot. Has Tom de Ville never seen The Twilight
Zone?
The
Chris Carter Award for pretentious episode titles:
The Andromeda team. Check some of them
out.
The 'Oh
my God, is that still on?' Award for the show that's passed its peak:
Third place: South Park, continuing to try
to offend people when it's already done its job too effectively to surprise any
more. Second place to 3rd Rock from the Sun, which had a great first
season. It's now going into its sixth. First place: The X-Files. Clearly
a show that's going to be milked until it can give no more, it's on for an
eighth year, and Gillian Anderson has signed up for a ninth. Is the woman
mad?
The
Channel 5 Award for gratuitous nudity to sell something:
Second place: Urban Gothic. It was the only
thing that kept most people watching. First place: LEXX. 'It's not
pornography,' said the creators. So explain most of the content of Boomtown
then.
Paul
Spragg
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