The Sci-Fi 25
MOST POPULAR GALLERIES OF 2007: Step into our time machine to explore EW's picks for the genre's greatest moments from the past 25 years

MPTV.net

25. V: THE MINISERIES (1983)
Created by Kenneth Johnson

Giant fascist lizards from outer space — it sounds like something you'd see on Mystery Science Theater 3000. But this parable of tolerance is far more complex and frightening than it seems. While the ''Visitors'' say they ''come in peace,'' they really want to drain Earth's water supply. Just in case you still don't get the point, their insignia looks suspiciously like a swastika.

POP CULTURE LEGACY Besides spawning an equally engaging sequel — 1984's V: The Final Battle — V gave Robert Englund (a.k.a. Freddy Krueger) his big break.

THE BEST BIT In one of the best TV reveals ever, lizard queen Diana (Jane Badler) — still disguised as a sultry brunet human — unhinges her jaw and stuffs an entire guinea pig in her hideously elongated piehole. —Kristen Baldwin

24. GALAXY QUEST (1999)
Directed by Dean Parisot

In this pitch-perfect parody, the cast of a canceled cult TV show much like Star Trek — featuring an egocentric commander (Tim Allen), his alien sidekick (Alan Rickman), and a buxom lieutenant (Sigourney Weaver) — gets enlisted to help save an alien race, who, thanks to intercepted broadcasts, think the actors are real space-faring heroes.

POP CULTURE LEGACY It seamlessly stitched together sci-fi clichés with adventure and nostalgia (not mockery).

THE BEST BIT Sam Rockwell's cocky ''red shirt,'' killed in his first and only episode of the TV show, who spends most of the film fretting over whether he'll get bumped off for real. —Erin Richter

23. DOCTOR WHO (1963-Present)
Developed by Sydney Newman

The BBC's timeless Doctor Who is a 44-year argument for proper sci-fi priorities: (1) an ecstatically tangled, infinitely renewable story line and (2) an understanding that all science fiction, however time- and space-spanning, is local. (Top-flight special effects? Not, as it turns out, crucial.) The Doctor, a Time Lord, powerful but dispossessed, hops worlds and epochs like subway stops, but in spirit he never really leaves London.

POP CULTURE LEGACY With its playful yet sincere commitment to social allegory, Doctor Who has always been a post-empire fantasy — unerringly progressive, but wary, dark, and full of doubts about human goodness.

THE BEST BIT Check out the first season of the newest incarnation, featuring Heroes' Christopher Eccleston as the ninth Doctor (the best ever — apologies to Tom Baker) and the piercing, poignant wit of writer Russell T. Davies. —Scott Brown

more at: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20037541_4,00.html

Hmm, I've seen all of them except Eternal Sunshine....

Can't complain about any of them except ET???? How'd that get in the top 10? I wouldn't have picked Matrix as number 1 either - it's still pretty good though. Too bad the sequels killed it deader than a possum crossing the 405.

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone