OK, here's mine. Black and white movie. Set, I think, in New York. A giant stop motion bird with a male (?) head is roosting in a skyscraper and eating people. I think it showed up a couple times on the weekend monster movie in the 70's. No, it's not Q.

So long as they lose, I'll be happy. That was one of the fun parts of the show: this small band of rebels had no chance against the Federation, and let the audience know it.

Because entertainment is personal. Everything else that I consume, in the end one thing is about the same as another. It honestly doesn't matter which brand of food I buy, or what what car. So long as they get the job done, they're all the same. With a book, movie, album... I want THAT one, by THAT creator, and I want them to make more. Simple as that. I don't want music that sounds like RUSH... I want new RUSH.

Kickstarter, by the way, only gets you money from those who were going to give you money once you made it anyway. Yes, you get it in advance, and you can thus start from nothing instead of using your own money, but you don't actually make MORE income. It's not a way to increase budgets, or fund things with no existing fan base. They have to already want it.

But you need a way to justify the argument that making a new show is what is making people pay. If Netflix makes a show and nobody watches, they can save tons of money by not making more shows. If nobody watches it on Netflix but there are tones of pirated downloads... well, what have they gained? Canceling the show again will save money and cost them no lost memberships. However, if they see that a million subscribers are watching every new episode of a series, Netflix could reasonably conclude that those million will not drop their subscription so long as the show creates new content (and that can easily be tracked).

Thus, if you are a Netflix member and watch a show via torrent instead of on Netflix, you would indeed be hurting the show.

The only way to figure out how to add enough value so that people do pay, is to look at those that don't pay and try and find a way to make them pay. After all, that's your target audience: those who like a show, but aren't yet paying. They're the "undecided voter" of all this. You don't have to worry about the base that's already giving you money, or the haters who will never give you money.

Even if everything drops down to 70's BBC budget levels, I doubt it would work

Should we point him to Zarban's site, or let him live in ignorant bliss?

They'll be good for human society, I agree. Any nation built on capitalism, not so much. That's probably not a bad thing, but naturally you're going to see pushback.

When it comes to fan fiction, fan films, etc, there's two components.

1) There's something about a show where you love it, but they're not quite going in the direction you wish they would. You could do it so much better.

2) Nobody is going to go out of their way to read your little amateur story, but make it about Buffy and there are whole sites where you can post it and get tons of readers.

Media, people posting rumors to internet forums... I tend to treat all online news as rumor for the first few days.

There's a bit in the great New Adventures book Love and War, where we see the various versions of The Doctor presented as separate aspects who compete somewhat. It's suggested that the Seventh Doctor sort of killed the Sixth because he wasn't taking things seriously and there were important things to do. The incarnations being separate also comes up in how the 4th Doctor becomes the 5th.

As for why he doesn't visit companions, mostly it's for real world reasons although you can naturally retcon it in the show Previous companions are name dropped now and then, but while there were plans to bring some back it never happened apart from The Five Doctors, The Two Doctors, and bringing The Brigadier back for two other episodes.

I am glad the show has gotten, somewhat, away from a single female companion. You do need someone traveling with him, so he can bounce dialog off of them (having him team up with a local can have the same function, true). Male companion, teen companion... hell, maybe a father/daughter combo. Lots of room to experiment, and with luck they'll have decades to try everything