...born in the nether-regions of technological development.

Lost, for me is completely unwatchable - a violent soap opera and requires total suspension of brain higher function. Abrams' Alias was a better vehicle for his soap opera style and he "lost" it at the end with writers who were clueless as how to intelligently wrap up the series.

Star Trek's finest hours were being enjoyed when the competition consisted of Laugh-in, That Girl and Love American Style. In proper context it was like Marcus Aurelius' writings versus a Hee-Haw skit.

Star Wars episodes 1,2,3 are unwatchable. Horrible acting. Terrible casting and even the perky Natalie Portman appears like she is on barbituates throughout the films. In 1977, when the first movie came out it was magic. It was magic to sit in the first row and see a star destroyer blast over your shoulder - noisy as heck - regardless of the accuracy. It was magic to watch kids stand in lines that wrapped around the theater just to watch a sci-fi flick and wait in them again and again. The magic lasted all the way to the beginning of the second film and then it was lost. Destroyed by Yoda, worse acting and the absence of Alec Guinness which lent credibility to the first one. When the Ewoks appeared in the 3rd film one knew Lucas was just another money-grabber without a message and that his film-making skills were VASTLY over-rated.

STTNG became unwatchable after the first season's curiosity draw waned - as did most of the other incarnations of Trek with the fixation on needless make-up and distracting aliens.

The film Blade Runner, was a unique piece of sci-fi and very well done although a depressing and dark film by my tastes. I liked it when it came out, but as time has passed I don't like the darkness.

I liked Starman, STII Wrath of Khan, disliked Last Starfighter, STIII and STV. ST IV Voyage Home I really wanted to like, but the PC tone and Whale theme poisoned it. ST VI The Undiscovered Country was tolerable and a halfways decent farewell for the old characters.

There has been LOTS of bad sci-fi over the years. Sci-fi shined in an era when there was little Sci-fi. When the sci-fi pulps were written in the 30s-50s, the idea of people in space was a fantastic stretch.

For most 30 and under sci-fi will never hold the same value. They don't know that the phones they text with were inspired by ST communicators and Dick Tracy wrist watches. They can't appreciate how Sci-fi made the technology of today possible. The horrible 80s sci-fi films that popularized computers had their value.

It's a new world. The younger sector grows up, expert users of technology but by far the greatest number will have little imagination or creativity in inventing new technologies or in understanding the old ones. They will text incessantly, update their myspace-facebook-etc, play the games, the brighter ones may even program them, but the actual ability to reach out and grasp a new technology like Prometheus, will be denied to most.

That's where sci-fi helps. It permits a crossover for fertile minds to guide and inspire the scientifically biased, but infertile ones.