Trailer: Game of Thrones Season 2

HBO's Game of Thrones is the best drama on television at the moment, and this new trailer for its second season - which premieres next month - is an outstanding bit of work

The Best TV and Film Title Design of 2011

I'm a big fan of title design for film and television, and it's something that's becoming a bit of a lost art. So many TV shows and films are doing away with lengthy title sequences. I think that's a shame, because a good title sequence gives you time as a viewer to sink into the intended mood of the piece, stop thinking about the outside everyday world, and prime yourself for a properly immersive experience.

My two favourite title sequences for last year are embedded below. For film, it's the titles to David Fincher's excellent The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. After that, HBO's Game of Thrones. They're both outstanding pieces of visual art in their own right, and match their respective works perfectly.

If there's a set of opening titles that you particularly like, from last year or even from decades ago, let me know in the comments.

Babble On part #10: "And the Sky Full of Stars"

In "And the Sky Full of Stars" Commander Sheridan is kidnapped and, kept aboard Babylon 5, is subjected to a hallucinatory interrogation by two mysterious operatives from Earth. They want answers to Sinclair's whereabouts during the fateful 'Battle of the Line' - answers that Sinclair is incapable of giving to them.

This, the eighth episode of Babylon 5's first season, is absolutely one of the most crucial episodes of the series on narrative basis. The core part of Sinclair's back story is the Battle of the Line, what was supposed to be humanity's last stand against the Minbari and what instead led to the spontaneous and still-unexplained surrender of the Minbari.

Doctor Who: "The Renaissance Man"

Tom Baker and Louise Jameson return as the Doctor and Leela in this second release in Big Finish's new Fourth Doctor Adventures range of Doctor Who audio dramas. In this adventure the Doctor tries to take Leela to an intergalactic museum, only to find the TARDIS has arrived in the English countryside instead - or has it?

It's certainly easier to engage with "The Renaissance Man" than it was the preceding story, "Destination: Nerva". I've grown used to the different sound of Baker and Jameson's voices, for one thing. I also knew in advance that the story would only be two episodes long, something that caught me off-guard the last time and left me feeling a tiny bit cheated. The other advantage that "The Renaissance Man" has is that writer Justin Richards absolutely nails the dialogue for the Doctor and Leela. Baker in particular seems to relish the script, which is filled with the sort of amiable nonsense he's so adept at performing. There's also a good supporting cast here, including Ian McNiece as the villainous Harcourt.

Space Rangers: "Pilot"

1993 was a great year for American TV science fiction. Not only did Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5 launch (and as you know, I've been writing about them quite a bit lately), we also got The X Files, Lois & Clark, SeaQuest DSV and a bunch of other shows.

The X Files was probably the most successful of the "class of 1993", but the least successful was probably Space Rangers. Created by Pen Densham, one of the writers of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, it lasted six episodes before it was quietly and unceremoniously shoved off the screen. Since I've been giving the other two space shows of '93 a fresh appraisal, it seemed only fair to dust off my copy of Space Rangers and giving the pilot a watch.

It's predictably dreadful, but dreadful in that bizarrely watchable way. It's fairly fast-paced, and breezy, and certainly colourful, and it has that same use of slightly too early computer-generated effects as Babylon 5 had. It follows a team of peacekeepers known as the Space Rangers, based on the colony of Fort Hope, as they travel around rescuing starships in peril and fighting off attacks from the mysterious "Banshees".