AirLockAlpha.com

The Airlock Alpha Portal Awards, which have honored fan favorites in genre television and movies since 1999, will add a 15th category for the 2010 version of the awards.

The Rod Serling Award, named after the creator of the original "Twilight Zone" series, will be first category added to the Portal Awards roster since Best Web Series became a permanent fixture of one of the Web's oldest fan-voted awards in 2007. The Serling Award will honor the best television series of all time, joining a charter class that includes the original "Star Trek," the original "Doctor Who" and Serling's own "Twilight Zone," that first aired in 1959 as a groundbreaking program for serious science-fiction on television.

Serling died in 1975.

To be eligible, television series can not be a past winner of the award or a charter member, and must be out of production for at least 10 years. This waiting period rule will help eliminate knee-jerk reactions to more recently cancelled shows, and instead help keep a focus on shows that have survived over time and remain relevant with fans.

That opens the door to a number of shows over the years including "Lost in Space," "Dark Shadows," "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "Babylon 5," the original "V" series, and even more recently, "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine." Like all the other categories, nominees will be chosen by a select committee of readers and Airlock Alpha staff members known as the Portal Awards International Nominating Committee. Applications for the committee will be accepted beginning in late March.

The idea for the Serling Award came from Airlock Alpha columnist Ed Left, who has been a part of the Portal Awards nominating committee for several years, and now coordinates eligibility lists. Television shows and movies can be eligible if they meet specific criteria, and were first made available between June 1 and May 31 on an annual cycle. The Portal Awards already recognize individuals for lifetime achievement with the Gene Roddenberry Award (formerly known as the Gene Roddenberry Lifetime Achievement Award), and this move will allow the Portal Awards to expand that hall of fame into television shows as well.

The Portal Awards started in 1999, known at the time as the SyFy Genre Awards. After nominations are set, readers can visit Airlock Alpha once a day for 30 days between the end of June and the end of July to vote for their favorites in a number of categories honoring television, movies, Web series, and Web sites. It attracts tens of thousands of voters each year, and is considered one of the earliest online continuing awards programs.

This year's nominees are expected to be announced in mid-June both on Airlock Alpha and though the site's online radio show, Alpha Waves Radio. Voting is expected to start June 25 and run through July 25 with the 2010 winners being announced in August.

"Supernatural" has been a big winner at the Portal Awards in recent years, in 2009 winning for Best Actor/Television by Jensen Ackles, Best Episode/Television for "Monster at the End of the Book" and for Best Series/Television. On the movie side, "Star Trek" was the top movie, while Heath Ledger from "The Dark Knight" and Gillian Anderson from "The X-Files: I Want To Believe" won for best actor and actress.

Airlock Alpha is owned by Quantum Global Media Inc., which also owns the horror entertainment news site Rabid Doll and the television entertainment news site Inside Blip.