Favorite Sci-Fi (if you must, Fantasy as well) Universes?

[Fireblade]

Firefly and Starcraft's korpulu sector, for the South..IN SPESS factor.

the grim darkness of the 41st millenium was always cute, as well.

Yeah, I figured you'd be all over the whole ex-Confederate theme in Firefly.

I wonder who the Bobby Lee of Firefly was.

[grumbler]

Q ... I'm a big John de Lancie fan (it was a shame that Legend tanked), so I've got to give Trek cred for springboarding him, but I absolutely hated Q right from the get-go. I'm amazed TNG made me into such a Trekkie, when they kicked off the series with an impossibly overpowered character who could only serve deus ex machina roles.

Agree that the actor is great, but TNG, ironically, dealt with the issue of omnipotence extremely well (in probably the best episode of the entire series, the one where they go to the planet that is entirely destroyed except for a little patch kept intact by, well, the "Space Tom Bombadil" and found him overpowered by the grief of being omnipotent).  How the same team could do that episode and then, with even a semi-straight face, have "Q" was impossible to understand.

Why hit a home run in a major-league ballpark and then be satisfied with getting singles in T-ball? 

[DontSayBanana]

I enjoyed Q's interaction with the crew in TNG, but his appearances outside TNG were disastrous.  de Lancie and Stewart worked well together, but Brooks just didn't have the same chemistry and Janeway was intolerable.

Brooks worked in more of a rough-and-tumble format, so yeah, there was no chemistry there. With Janeway, it's a shame that Genevieve Bujold dropped the role at the last minute; I was unhappy from the beginning with Kate Mulgrew as a replacement, and she had almost no chemistry with any other element from Voyager- it took a couple seasons before she even had any with Robert Beltran (Chakotay).

[Neil]

I enjoyed Q's interaction with the crew in TNG, but his appearances outside TNG were disastrous.  de Lancie and Stewart worked well together, but Brooks just didn't have the same chemistry and Janeway was intolerable.

Brooks worked in more of a rough-and-tumble format, so yeah, there was no chemistry there. With Janeway, it's a shame that Genevieve Bujold dropped the role at the last minute; I was unhappy from the beginning with Kate Mulgrew as a replacement, and she had almost no chemistry with any other element from Voyager- it took a couple seasons before she even had any with Robert Beltran (Chakotay).

The terrible writing didn't do her any good either.  When she was willing to sacrifice her crew in order to save the life of a holographic masturbatory aid, the character loses a lot of respect.

[Neil]

Q ... I'm a big John de Lancie fan (it was a shame that Legend tanked), so I've got to give Trek cred for springboarding him, but I absolutely hated Q right from the get-go. I'm amazed TNG made me into such a Trekkie, when they kicked off the series with an impossibly overpowered character who could only serve deus ex machina roles.

Agree that the actor is great, but TNG, ironically, dealt with the issue of omnipotence extremely well (in probably the best episode of the entire series, the one where they go to the planet that is entirely destroyed except for a little patch kept intact by, well, the "Space Tom Bombadil" and found him overpowered by the grief of being omnipotent).  How the same team could do that episode and then, with even a semi-straight face, have "Q" was impossible to understand.

Why hit a home run in a major-league ballpark and then be satisfied with getting singles in T-ball? 

The grief of being omnipotent?  Being omnipotent means never having to grieve.