Our feline overlords, including:
The late lamented Banana, who will live on as the ship’s cat aboard the sailing vessel Nightjar in my novel DAUGHTER OF NO NATION, where he will be worshipped by Watts, a doctor from Ehrenmord:
And the most fierce BOG of the Toronto Gang of Fur:
Have submitted below the list of TV and film spaceships that, henceforth, will need cats. Make it so, all you apes.
Starship Enterprise (the Kirky Spocky one). The obvious answer here is for Doctor McCoy to be digitally replaced with a feline-American actor.
Starship Enterprise (Picardy version) Spot the cat should take over Deanna Troi’s role. Except, you know, when he can’t be bothered. Or would rather be Guinan. Or perhaps just petted by Guinan. How many of you would like to be petted by Guinan? Too bad, Spot has dibs. Anyway, he should be in every single episode. We do like the one where he scratches the crap out of Riker’s face. (I do not want to know if you would like to scratch the crap out of Riker’s face.)
Enterprise (Bakula edition. Mmm, Bakula. Sorry, got distracted there.) Wanky wanky British spy man with all the angst and whining–was his name Malcolm?–is to be replaced outright with a sexy CGI cat spy. Captain Archer may keep the beagle if T’Pol gets a cat who totes pwns the doggy’s beagle-butt.
Starship Enterprise (the alternate Kirky Spocky one): I’m up for Karl Rove in cat make-up. You?
Moya of Farscape – Ribbons and other chase-me-chase-me chew toys are to be attached to the DRDs, and a small family of young, adorable felines will play with them through all scenes where they appear. This technique could be applied to the scutters of Red Dwarf, too, though of course they have Danny John Jules.
Babylon Five – Were there any cats on B5? It has been too long.
Galaxy Quest – Alan Rickman should have a Maine Coon. They would look so good together.
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century – would anybody be sorry if the dubba dubba Twiki robot were replaced by a fabulous and articulate feline?
Battlestar Galactica (new version) Okay, we have the recurring line about bringing the cat inside, and that’s a start, but more is required. We’re thinking a whole new reimagining whereby the reason for looking for Earth is less “the near-total destruction of humankind!” (because, you know, yawn) and more “because Earth’s where the cats are!” Basically the Twelve Colonies mope themselves into a stupor over their pointless catless existence and then the Cylons come along and say, “Hey, let’s go find us some superior life forms!” From there it’s just hairballs and orgies.
Finally, Serenity of Firefly receives a half-pass on this, as River Tam may well be one of the rare characters who really is part cat as opposed to just being a poseur.