2025 Hugos: Goodreads / Librarything stats | Novel | Novella | Novelette | Short Story | Graphic Story or Comic | Related Work | Dramatic Presentation, Long and Short | Fancast | Poem | Lodestar | Astounding

A reminder that the deadline for Hugo voting is coming up fast. Sending best wishes to this year’s Hugo team, but also personally relieved that I have stepped away from it myself.

I didn’t finish all of these, but I watched enough of them to decide my votes.

Short Form

6) Fallout: “The Beginning” – I watched half of this but really had no idea what was going on. Voters who enjoyed the entire season naturally nominated the season finale, but on its own it doesn’t make a lot of sense. I think there is a strong case for diving the Dramatic Presentation categories differently, for Best Episodic Drama and Best One-Shot Drama or something like that, which would better reflect the way we actually consume sf media.

5) Agatha All Along: “Death’s Hand in Mine” – I really enjoyed the series as a whole, which looked gorgeous and is acted with conviction; I just wasn’t sure that the plot of this one made sense.

4) Star Trek: Lower Decks: “Fissure Quest” – and here we have not only the season finale but the second last episode of the season getting on the ballot. I watched the first few seasons of Lower Decks, really enjoyed them, but haven’t seen any of the fifth series apart from the two finalist episodes. Even so, it all makes sense. Bumping this one a little below the other on grounds of plot complexity.

3) Star Trek: Lower Decks: “The New Next Generation” – and it makes a difference in your appreciation of a season (and indeed a series) finale if you are familiar with the characters; I loved the closure but I also loved the humour.

2) Doctor Who: “Bubble and Dot” – tremendous effects, impactful plot, an evil society, apparently Ncuti Gatwa’s first filmed scenes, and he started as well as he continued.

1) Doctor Who: “73 Yards” – in my original ranking of Season One I put this third and “Bubble and Dot” top, but I’ve rewatched this and reassessed it, and now I definitely like it more. Apparently Millie Gibson’s first filmed scenes. Gets my top vote this year.

Long Form

6) The Wild Robot – I hate cute anthropomorphic robots, and the animation is actually rather poor. Didn’t last past the first 20 minutes.

5) I Saw the TV Glow – writing this post, I realised that I couldn’t remember anything about it although I watched it only a couple of weeks ago, which is never a good sign. Checking other sources than my memory, it’s a commentary on cult TV that doesn’t quite hit the mark.

4) Furiosa – looks fantastic, but really, such awful people doing such horrible things to each other; ick.

3) Dune II – sat down to watch this on streaming and it weas fifteen minutes before I realised that I’d actually seen it in the cinema. Looks great and well acted, but a little lacking in soul.

2) Wicked, Part 1 – I did not have time to watch more than just the start of this, and probably won’t have time to before the voting deadline, but it’s clearly the kind of thing that I will enjoy a lot when I see the full thing.

1) Flow – an incredible achievement of animation and mystery. You could watch it over and over. I only watched it once, but it gets my vote.

I may do a note on my Best Series vote if I have time.