Since it was revived on the BBC, Doctor Who has pretty much stayed around the Earth. One reason for this is that they don’t have the special effects money to make convincing extraterrestrial settings. They won’t have this limitation in a cartoon version of Doctor Who which is under development:
Called Infinite Quest, it is one continuous story to be shown in 13 instalments alongside the next series during BBC3’s Totally Doctor Who.
David Tennant and Freema Agyeman will voice their characters, and the lovely Anthony Head will pop up in a brand new role (ie not Mr Finch the Krillatane from series two, Who fans).
Writer Russell T Davies tells us: “The Doctor and his assistant Martha follow a trail of clues across wild and wonderful alien worlds, to find the location of the legendary lost spaceship, the Infinite.” Bring it on!
In addition to Christopher Eccleston, another former actor who appeared on Doctor Who will be on Heroes. Eric Roberts, who played The Master in the 1996 Doctor Who movie, will play an associate of Claire’s father (aka “Horn-Rimmed Glasses”).
Battlestar Galactica fans might want to try to figure out the meaning of this one. Slice of SciFi has found the eye of Jupiter and took a picture:
Actually this was taken of a roof of a mall in San Francisco. If Cylons show up there, don’t say we didn’t warn you. That’s the second strangest BSG story for this week. Coming in at number one is this report from Media Bistro that a 1987 memoir from Dirk Benedict, the original Starbuck, is a best seller in the United Kingdom:
According to Abebooks.com, former Battlestar Galactica star Dirk Benedict is a bestselling author in the United Kingdom. Thanks to his appearances on the latest edition of TV’s Celebrity Big Brother, used copies of Benedict’s 1987 memoir, Confessions of a Kamikaze Cowboy, have apparently become quite the sought after commodity, jumping to #3 on Abebooks’ UK charts. In addition to telling behind-the-scenes tales from his Hollywood days, Benedict also used the memoir to discuss his belief that he staved off prostate cancer through exercise and a macrobiotic diet. Which he apparently still takes seriously; according to the show’s website, Benedict exploded with rage a few hours ago when the producers gave him udon noodles instead of soba.
TrekWeb has portions of an interview with Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell.
Time has published Ten Questions for William Shatner. Here’s the ones dealing with Star Trek:
Lost producer J.J. Abrams is working on a Star Trek movie for 2008 about a young Kirk and Spock, and there are rumors you will make an appearance.
I did have a talk with J.J., and he outlined what he wanted to do. Getting a character who is supposed to be dead to talk to his younger self is a storytelling problem. But if you want to guarantee the audience will come in droves, one of the things you might do is include some members of the old cast.
You are so indelibly linked to Captain Kirk, how do you pass on the torch to a younger actor?
Well, you light a match … No, I really have nothing to offer. I can’t say to some young actor, “Play it this way,” because he’s going to play it his way. But I will say, he’s got to be young and good-looking and rich. And charming.
Some people say Star Trek is past its prime, and it’s time to move on. Would you agree?
There was something about Star Trek that sustained it all those years. But with so many entities of Star Trek out there all at once, the audience began to leave it. Now there’s a huge experiment going on: Will the audience pick up their love affair? We don’t know. And as talented as J.J. is, this is the real test for him. He’s got to give a known quantity the Abrams twist and yet maintain the Star Trek game.
If you want to see the original young Kirk in high definition, combo DVD/HD-DVD’s will be released at the end of 2007 with the enhanced verions of Star Trek. Blu-ray versions will be released later.
Variety reports that Disney has purchased the rights to Edgar Rice Burrough’s John Carter of Mars series. This could make for a series of films which would fit in well with Disney. I wonder if Epcot’s Mission to Mars will be revised to work this in. Personally I’m still having trouble understanding how we flew all the way to Mars and then, after exiting, were right back in Epcot.
SciFi Friday is a weekly feature of Liberal Values
