Category: Entertainment

For a show with no aliens or faster-than-light travel, "Red Dwarf" has crammed an awful lot of sci-fi concepts into its 13 seasons.

Frequently as smart as "Star Trek" — albeit on a much smaller budget — Rob Grant and Doug Naylor's BBC sitcom always punched above its weight when it came to big genre ideas. In fact, many of its stories were truly ahead of their time, built around concepts that have since turned up in hit American shows (including the recent "Strange New Worlds" season four finale) and even Christopher Nolan movies.

Below we've picked out 10 sci-fi storylines and premises (and one honorable mention) where Dave Lister, Arnold Rimmer, Kryten and the Cat got there first…

1. Thoughts made flesh

Episode: "Confidence and Paranoia", "Red Dwarf I" (1988)

In "Red Dwarf": Lister goes down with a bout of space pneumonia, which has the unlikely side-effect of making his fever dreams a reality. In a twist that would give Sigmund Freud a field day, his confidence and paranoia manifest as actual humans — the former played by ex-"The Late Late Show" host Craig Ferguson.

In "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine": With a plot that feels more like a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" outing, "DS9" season one episode "If Wishes Were Horses" sees the crew's imaginations literally coming to life. The station is soon invaded by out-of-time baseball stars, fairytale villains, and unseasonal snow, all created by aliens eager to understand the concept of imagination.

2. Total immersion virtual reality games

Episode: "Better than Life", "Red Dwarf II" (1988)

In "Red Dwarf": The crew immerses themselves in a total immersion reality game named "Better than Life". Using some headgear that looks nothing at all like a bicycle helmet, they enter a virtual world indistinguishable from reality — though, of course, Rimmer doesn't deal with happiness well, and manages to ruin it for everyone. (Similar virtual reality tech later appeared in "Red Dwarf VI" episode "Gunmen of the Apocalypse".)

In "Ready Player One": Yes, the holodeck turned up in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" a year before — and the "Recreation Room" appeared in "The Animated Series" a year before that — but they're simulations you walk into. The OASIS in "Ready Player One", however, is undeniably a descendant of the "Better than Life" tech, an all-encompassing virtuality experience built to transport you away from the drudgery of everyday life.

3. Life in reverse

Episode: "Backwards", "Red Dwarf III" (1989)

In "Red Dwarf": Kryten and Rimmer crash-land on a version of Earth where time runs backwards for everyone but them. While they wait for Lister and the Cat to rescue them, they make a living as a comedy duo called "The Sensational Reverse Brothers", while also trying to avoid finding out what happens when you go to the toilet…

In "Tenet" (2020): Temporal terrorists use prototype technology to "invert entropy", allowing them to travel through time in reverse. Director Christopher Nolan uses the premise to stage spectacular sequences where cars reverse down freeways at high speed, cause and effect goes topsy-turvy, and fights are just, well, weird.

As a result, it's incredibly difficult to understand what the hell is going on — the "Red Dwarf" version is shorter, easier to follow, and an awful lot funnier.

4. Take a picture

Episode: "Timeslides", "Red Dwarf III" (1989)

In "Red Dwarf": In the ship's darkroom (for the benefit of anyone under 35, that's where pre-digital photos were developed), a weird turn of events causes pictures to come to life. The crew can subsequently step inside images and interact with people and objects in the snaps — as long as they don't step outside the frame of the original photo. This results in a snowball fight, some wedding crashing, and Lister stealing Hitler's bag.

In "Black Mirror": "Timeslides" gets a predictably dark (but moving) twist in the seventh season of Charlie Brooker's dystopian anthology series. In "Eulogy", Paul Giamatti plays the lonely Philip, invited to assist with a memorial for an ex-girlfriend who's just passed away. Using a tech company's tech to explore existing photos — his last connection to his former love — he revisits painful memories and thoughts of what might have been.

5. The odd couple

Episode: "Marooned", "Red Dwarf III" (1989)

In "Red Dwarf": Starbug crash-lands on a remote ice planet, trapping Lister and Rimmer alone on a strange and hostile world. With their survival in the balance, there's nothing for the two frenemies to do but talk. A lot.

In "Star Trek: Enterprise": "Shuttlepod One" is the quintessential American bottle episode, a popular TV device in which the action is predominantly confined to a single set. In a plotline remarkably reminiscent of "Marooned", Trip Tucker and Malcolm Reed find themselves contemplating the end after the apparent destruction of the Enterprise. There's not much for the two crewmates to do but talk. A lot.

6. Seeing what they want you to see

Episode: "Camille", "Red Dwarf IV" (1991)

In "Red Dwarf": On a mission to save a doomed spaceship, the crew rescue a female mechanoid named Camille. Or so they think… she's actually a pleasure GELF (Genetically Engineered LifeForm) who can assume the form of anyone's ideal partner. Hence, Lister sees a Liverpudlian woman, Rimmer encounters a fussy hologram, and the narcissistic Cat gets to date, well, himself.

In "Babylon 5": The mysterious Vorlons, one of "Babylon 5"'s oldest races, spend most of the series hiding away in "encounter suits" that hide their true form. But when Ambassador Kosh eventually reveals himself while rescuing Captain Sheridan from a potentially fatal fall, he projects a more angelic form, with everyone on the space station seeing a face appropriate to their own species.

Because the Vorlons have spent thousands of years tampering with the DNA of younger races, we've all been pre-programmed to see them as beatific beings.

7. A white hole

Episode: "White Hole", "Red Dwarf IV" (1991)

In "Red Dwarf": "So, what is it?" "Red Dwarf" didn't invent the white hole — the concept is based on actual theoretical astrophysics — but the sitcom certainly had a big part to play in bringing the less famous twin of the black hole into public consciousness. In the show, the crew encounters a white hole spewing time and space into the universe, and the only way to close it is for Lister to play space pool, sinking a planet into the interdimensional fissure via an over-elaborate trick shot.

In "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds": With all the spatial anomalies that pop up on the final frontier, it's remarkable that it took until the Strange New Worlds season four finale, "Tomorrow's Enterprise", for a white hole to show up.

The "Trek" version may be surprisingly close to current theory, which suggests that the white hole is essentially the flip side of a black hole — while nothing can escape from a black hole, nothing can enter a white hole.

That said, it's unlikely that a real-life white hole/black hole dyad would allow Uhura to communicate with a future version of herself. Or that it would be the birthing site for a giant space baby with no concept of past, present, or future.

8. Manipulating the odds

Episode: "Quarantine", "Red Dwarf V" (1992)

In "Red Dwarf": The crew visits a virus research centre where they discover a selection of "positive" viruses — rather than making you ill, their effects are generally good for your wellbeing. Examples include inspiration, charisma, sexual magnetism and — most notably — luck.

In Marvel comics: Domino made her Marvel debut just before this "Red Dwarf" episode, but we're going to put this down to a case of convergent evolution. The X-Force and "Deadpool" mainstay is well known for her ability to manipulate the laws of chance — just like the probabilistic microbe, her powers turn luck into a tangible property.

9. Hard light

Episode: "Legion", "Red Dwarf VI" (1993)

In "Red Dwarf": Holographic crew member Rimmer is cursed to live his life unable to touch anything, until gestalt entity Legion upgrades his "light bee" — the hovering device that creates his image — to project "hard light". He subsequently becomes, to all intents and purposes, indestructible, while remaining entirely mobile.

In "Star Trek: Voyager": "The Next Generation" was giving light physical form long before "Legion", but what happened on the holodeck tended to stay on the holodeck. Then the Emergency Medical Hologram became a series regular in "Voyager", and needed some way to set foot outside sickbay — his handy "mobile holo-emitter" is essentially an arm-mounted light bee.

"Starfleet Academy"'s photonic lifeform SAM (Series Acclimation Mil) also feels like a descendant of the holographic starship crew in "Red Dwarf V"'s "Holoship".

10. Quantum entanglement

Episode: "Entangled", "Red Dwarf X" (2012)

In "Red Dwarf": An experiment involving a "quantum rod" from a previous adventure causes Kryten and the Cat to become entangled on a quantum level. In other words, it's an excuse for Robert Llewellyn and Danny John-Jules to perform a masterclass in both physical theatre and spooky action, as they move entirely in sync with each other.

In "The Marvels": It's fair to say it's not quite how Albert Einstein theorized it, but quantum entanglement is also used to justify Carol Danvers, Monica Rambeau, and Kamala Khan being tied together in the 2023 MCU movie. The results are slightly different — they keep swapping places every time they use their powers — but it's a similarly loose riff on real-life physics.

Honorable mention: It happened last night

"Thanks for the Memory", "Red Dwarf II"

In "Red Dwarf": When the Boys from the Dwarf hold an epic party to mark the anniversary of Rimmer's death, they get so drunk that four days have passed by the time they wake up. With no memory of the intervening time — why is Lister's leg broken? Who completed that jigsaw puzzle — they try to piece together what happened.

In "The Hangover" (2009): Okay, it's not science fiction, but the hit comedy film is built on exactly the same premise — a bunch of guys get so wasted in Vegas that they end up on a mission to work out how they ended up with one missing tooth, a lost baby, and a tiger in their hotel bathroom.

Recent "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" shore leave episode "Human Best Friend" also recycled that party/amnesia formula.

On Episode 231 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik take a dive deep into their favorite space si-fi across the ages.

From the earliest works of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells to the best of contemporary space science fiction, Rod and Tariq also challenge you with some of the most obscure titles they know.

Download or subscribe to this show at: https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-space.

Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit

Space news of the week

• The Integral Trees
• The Smoke Ring
• Lucifer's Hammer: A Novel
• Star Trek Classics: The Mirror Universe Saga
• Rising Stars Compendium
• Farmer in the Sky
• From the Earth to the Moon (Illustrated 1874 Edition): 100th Anniversary Collection
• Between Planets
• The Expanse Series Collection 9 Books Set
• The Murderbot Diaries Vol. 1
• Ancillary Justice
• Firestar: An Epic of Science Fiction for the Twenty-First Century
• The Martian
• Rusty's Space Ship
• We All Died at Breakaway Station
• Edison's Conquest of Mars: A Classic Mars Invasion Science Fiction Adventure and Early Interplanetary War Story
• The Martian Chronicles
• Fury (Golden Age Masterworks)
• Farewell to The Master: The Day the Earth Stood Still
• The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
• A Talent For War (An Alex Benedict Novel Book 1)
• War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches
• The Chimerium Gambit: The Radiation Angels
• The Great Planet Robbery
• Earth Strike: A Gritty Military Space Opera in the Vein of Battlestar Galactica

Model Falcon 9!

Finally, did you know you can launch your own SpaceX rocket? Model rocket maker Estes' stunning scale model of a Falcon 9 rocket that you can pick up now. The launchable model is a detailed recreation of the Falcon 9 and retails for $149.99. You can save 10% by using the code IN-COLLECTSPACE at checkout, courtesy of our partners collectSPACE.com.

About This Week In Space

This Week in Space covers the new space age. Every Friday we take a deep dive into a fascinating topic. What's happening with the new race to the moon and other planets? When will SpaceX really send people to Mars?

Join Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik from Space.com as they tackle those questions and more each week on Friday afternoons. You can subscribe today on your favorite podcatcher.

Apple TV's addictive multiverse thriller, "Dark Matter," has quietly joined their roster of fantastic sci-fi series alongside hits like "Pluribus," "Severance," "Foundation," "Silo," "For All Mankind," and "Star City."

Adapted from New York Times bestselling author Blake Crouch's ("Recursion," "Upgrade") novel of the same name from 2016, "Dark Matter" is a mesmerizing amalgam of time-travel, existential crises, alternate dimensions, and romantic love that transcends the multiverse. We're entering the final few episodes of season 2, so there’s still room to jump on the show's bandwagon and absorb the quantum entanglement for what's bound to be a cliffhanger finale airing on Oct. 30, 2026.

As "Dark Matter" season 2 heads toward its conclusion, we sat down with showrunner Blake Crouch to ask what it's like to adapt your own book to the screen, and the challenges of moving beyond the scope of his original story.

"The biggest challenge for season 2 was time because we needed to move quickly," Crouch tells Space. "This was a brand new plot and brand new story. Yeah, we had the characters from season 1 and kind of knew where they were heading, but coming up with ten hours of new story was daunting."

Crouch again serves as "Dark Matter's" executive producer and showrunner, this time being liberated from the novel's initial plotline and free to continue the story of Jason (Joel Edgerton) and Daniela (Jennifer Connelly) Dessen as they flee from a mob of duplicate Jasons chasing them across parallel existences while struggling to maintain some semblance of a marriage. Come for the trippy time loops and strange variant worlds, stay for the exceptional acting and drama!

"It was a case of go, go, go, and actually I think it kind of helps the process not be precious," explains Crouch. "We sort of committed and went with it. For the second season arc, we wanted to open up the aperture and not just focus so heavily only on the family, but to check in with Ryan and Amanda and Leighton. It seemed like an amazing opportunity to build out the world."

Crouch and his creative team were extremely happy with the debut season's aesthetics, and this sophomore outing was mostly about being faithful to that, although the new batch did indulge in a couple of standalone chapters where the writers got to play a bit and take some big swings.

"It was never something we were afraid of," Crouch adds, avoiding multiverse tropes and clichés. "Because I was starting to write 'Dark Matter' in 2014 and there are plenty of amazing things that came before that dabbled in it. But when the book came out, it was the first story that went all in and committed to the idea of the world in a grounded, emotional, character-driven way. And we always try to stay true to that identity.

"Sometimes the multiverse can be fun shock and awe when it comes to showing how wild and crazy different worlds can become. But for our characters, everyone is just shades of the same core character. And I think that approach hopefully keeps it from falling into some of those trope traps.”

Romance is frequently at the heart of Crouch’s work, which allows the series’ acclaimed cast to evolve and stretch their skills within the complicated narrative.

"I love the way Jennifer describes this second season as a continued exploration of a marriage," he shares. "And in some ways the new season of 'Dark Matter' gets far more deep into the relationship of Daniela and Jason. Because in season 1 they're together for a few minutes in the beginning and then he’s out the door and ultimately gets abducted. He doesn’t return to his family until the end of the penultimate episode."

"There's a sense in season 1 that it’s a love story between these two characters, but Jason 1 and Daniel 1 have very little screen time," he elaborates. "In season 2, we not only get to see how they interact day-to-day, but how they deal with the fallout. "

"I feel a lot of gratitude to work with such amazing creative minds, from our production designer to our actors and directors and editors. It's very humbling to get to work with so many smart people who are all trying to execute your vision."

"Dark Matter" season 2 airs new episodes each Friday exclusively on Apple TV. Fans can also catch up on the entire first season on Apple TV.

Pixar's Academy Award-winning director Brad Bird — of "The Incredibles" and "Ratatouille" fame — has been out of the spotlight for a while, working on a project that's been percolating inside his noggin for three decades. That project is "Ray Gunn", and it's finally on the horizon.

The first dynamic trailer for "Ray Gunn" arrived in September, giving us a glimpse of this cool sci-fi crime thriller. Like his previous works, it's an animated movie energized with spectacular visuals and starring the vocal talents of Sam Rockwell, Alan Tudyk, Scarlett Johansson, and Tom Waits.

If you're into retro-futuristic elements like flying cars, jet packs, blazing laser pistols, scary robots, alien hoodlums, and a classic whodunnit storyline, then this will be right up your alley.

Produced by Skydance Animation and directed by Brad Bird, "Ray Gunn" has a long history of development dating back even before Bird's glory days at Pixar. From this sneak peek, it's clear that a lot of love and attention to detail have been poured into this highly anticipated project, which arrives exclusively on Netflix on Dec. 18, 2026.

But what exactly is "Ray Gunn", and why did it take so long to get made?

What is Ray Gunn about?

The adult-oriented plot revolves around a hard-boiled private eye in Metropia named Raymond "Ray" Gunn (Rockwell), his one-eyed alien partner Eyera (Waits) and Venus Nova (Johansson), a sassy pop music starlet who's embroiled in a scandal that might cancel her career and possibly end her life.

"Ray Gunn's" murder mystery screenplay was co-written by Bird and Matthew Robbins, who he penned the script for 1987’s "Batteries Not Included" with.

"The elevator pitch that I boiled it down to is 'Buck Rogers' meets 'The Maltese Falcon,'" Bird told Discussing Film regarding the movie’s influences. "You take the slightly more naïve, optimistic design view of the future, and then you add a dark underbelly to it.

"Usually in these stories, the city is kind of a grimy place. In 'Blade Runner,' it's acid rain and this future you don’t want to be in. But I thought there was something fun about juxtaposing a positive vision of the city of the future, and then showing that still there's going to be corruption and lies."

Ray Gunn has a star-studded line-up of vocal talents too, including Sam Rockwell, Alan Tudyk, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Waits, Matt Berry, Bobby Cannavale, Michale Chernus and Patton Oswalt.

Ray Gunn's long journey to our screens

What’s so cool about this neo-noir passion project is that it reunites Bird with former Pixar Chief John Lasseter ("Toy Story"), with whom the duo delivered some of the storied animation studio's biggest hits. Lasseter left Pixar in 2018 to head up the animation division at Skydance the next year.

The idea for "Ray Gunn" has been bouncing around Hollywood since the late '80s when Bird was with Amblin Entertainment. Its plot was inspired by Blake Edwards' "Peter Gunn" movie, Will Eisner's The Spirit and The B-52’s tune "Planet Claire," but set in an alt-future with humans and aliens.

After a successful run working on the first eight seasons of "The Simpsons," "Ray Gunn" was set up at Turner Feature Animation in the mid-90s but was eventually shelved before Turner merged with Warner Bros., where Bird directed 1999's "The Iron Giant."

Even while working on other live-action endeavors like helming 2011's "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol" and 2015’s "Tomorrowland," or spending time on Pixar's "Incredibles 3," Bird held onto hope that "Ray Gunn" might be revived after years of development hell.

Fortunately, he moved on from "Incredibles 3" in 2021 to join Lasseter at Skydance Animation, and the rest is history after setting the movie up at Netflix instead of his old home at Pixar.

Watching this new trailer, it’s hard not to compare its design aesthetics and overall plot devices to movies like "Blade Runner," "The Fifth Element," and maybe a touch of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"

"Ray Gunn" debuts on Netflix on Dec. 18, 2026, and will also have a limited 70mm theatrical release starting Dec. 4, 2026.

We all love Steven Spielberg and his innumerable contributions to the art of cinema over the decades. His latest entry into the genre, "Disclosure Day", wasn't quite as warmly received by audiences, but it's nevertheless an entertaining sci-fi flick that's worth checking out. And good news on that front, because "Disclosure Day" will be streaming on Peacock from Oct. 9, 2026.

Produced by Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment for a cost of roughly $200 million (including marketing), "Disclosure Day" first touched down in cinemas on June 12, 2026. It had some of that old Spielberg magic, but ultimately felt a decade late to the UAP party; a story linked to another era where folks got all their news from local television stations.

Critics were tepid toward the alien conspiracy movie, with our own "Disclosure Day" review calling it a "close encounter with Spielberg's brilliance that doesn't quite make contact". Despite it not living up to the highs of "Close Encounters" or "E.T.", it's still a compelling thriller.

Word of mouth wasn't exactly overly enthusiastic either, and it ended its theatrical run collecting $241 million worldwide. By Hollywood's math, a movie needs to return 2.5 times its initial budget to break even, which means that "Disclosure Day" wasn't really the lucrative summer firecracker that the studio had hoped for.

"Disclosure Day" stars Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson and Colman Domingo in an often engaging but sometimes confusing cover-up plot about a Kansas City meteorologist and a tech whistleblower chased by a sinister group trying to sequester evidence that alien beings have been living amongst us on Earth.

Directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by longtime collaborator David Koepp ("Jurassic Park," "The Lost World: Jurassic Park"), "Disclosure Day" will begin streaming exclusively on Peacock starting Oct. 9, 2026.

40 years ago on Sept. 12, 1986, musical icon Michael Jackson debuted in "Captain EO," a 17-minute long 3D sci-fi fantasy film. The catch? You could only see it at Walt Disney World's EPCOT Center in Florida, or — six days later — at Disneyland’s Magic Eye Theater over in Tomorrowland.

Jackson had already been anointed the King of Pop in the ‘80s with the stellar multi-platinum album "Thriller" when the creative cosmic tumblers aligned, joining the immense talents of Jackson, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola and the wizards of Disney's Imagineering to create one of the most unique sci-fi entertainment offerings ever conceived.

With impressive special effects, catchy songs, dynamic dance numbers and co-starring Academy Award-winning actress Anjelica Huston as the witch queen known as the Supreme Leader, "Captain EO" was a huge attraction seen by millions of Disney guests.

It told the story of a rag-tag crew of space misfits led by Jackson's charismatic Captain EO (in a sweet white leather uniform) on a mission to a sinister industrial planet to deliver a mysterious gift to its despotic ruler. Plenty of hijinks ensue with EO's oddball companions: Major Domo, Hooter, Idy & Ody, and a winged kitten creature named Fuzzball.

After crash landing on the dark world directly onto the homing beacon, EO and his crazy crew are apprehended by a gang of warrior henchmen and hauled into the throne room to face the wicked alien ruler who is imprisoned in anger and hate.

Huston is electrifying in her Giger-esque makeup, supported by a tangle of banded black cables and sporting long fingernails that were deliciously thrust into audiences’ eyes using the magic of 3D and the special red-and-blue-lensed glasses handed out when arriving for each screening.

When EO's crew manifests into a musical band to offer a song to the Supreme Leader, Hooter trips over the power cord to ruin the performance. The commotion tries the queen’s patience and she dispatches her cruel Whip Warriors to capture EO and send him to her deepest, darkest dungeon.

But EO fights back with an illuminating t-shirt (hey, it was the '80s!), some fancy dance moves and a surge of musical energy to unlock her beauty. This transforms Huston into a colorful enchantress with her grim lair now becoming a lush Greek-like temple. Darkness turns to light and everyone leaves as peaceful galactic friends.

It's an honest plot with heart and humor filled with cool tunes and a sprinkling of in-your-face 3D moments for the whole family, and really, what else would you expect from a Jackson/Disney collaboration in the decade of excess?

The two prominent songs — the original "We Are Here to the Change the World," and "Another Part of Me" — are used to great effect throughout the simple narrative. I can fondly remember leaving the Magic Eye Theater the first time I saw it in the 1990s with an uplifted attitude and the renewed vigor needed to brave the epic summertime Disneyland crowds. Over the years I’d revisited the film a dozen times and it's remained a fun time capsule of unbridled spirit perfect for its age and even more relevant today.

Production began on "Captain EO" in the summer of 1985 with "Star Wars"' creator George Lucas serving as producer and legendary Francis Ford Coppola of The Godfather fame in the director's chair. James Horner, who’d later go on to compose the music for "Titanic," was enlisted to pen the original score. Essentially an expanded music video similar in format to 1983’s horror short, "Thriller," "Captain EO" was filmed entirely in Los Angeles with Lucas's ILM unit called in for a VFX polish.

Costing nearly $30 million to produce, "Captain EO" was, at the time, the most expensive short ever filmed on a per-minute basis. It was also a pioneering attraction that used in-theater 4D techniques that delivered floodlights, fog, smoke, starfields, meteors and LED laser effects out into the audience in conjunction with the added visual component of its 70MM 3D filming process.

"For all those who share Walt Disney's dream and delight in the promise of the future, we cut this ribbon signifying the opening of the 3-D musical motion picture space adventure, 'Captain EO!,'" proclaimed Coppola at its 1986 Disneyland premiere.

The attraction ran continuously at Disney World’s EPCOT Center until 1994 and lasted three years longer at Disneyland's Magic Kingdom before it was closed in 1997.

Upon Jackson’s untimely death in 2009 it returned for an encore tribute run between 2010 and 2015, including re-releases at Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland Paris before vanishing completely to be locked up forever in the Disney Vault. It was also broadcast once though on MTV for a 1995 Michael Jackson tribute.

While an official Disney streaming option is nowhere to be found, there are YouTube channels that have uploaded enhanced and/or upscaled copies of "Captain EO" if you've got a hankering for some heart-warming sci-fi.

With so many dire warnings, dystopian fare and AI doomsdays prophesied everywhere you turn, maybe we all need a little bit of Captain EO's hopeful “The planets are linin' up, we're bringin' brighter days” message.