SciFi Friday: First Glimpse of Doctor Who Christmas Episode, Star Trek Casting, Trashing Mistakes, And Fred Thompson Revealed

The BBC has released the first publicity shot for this year’s Doctor Who Christimas episode in which Kylie Minogue plays The Doctor’s companion. The episode, “Voyage of the Damned” takes place aboard the Titanic. Those who held off on watching Doctor Who until it starting airing on the SciFi Channel saw The Shakespeare Code tonight. While entertaining, this episode (and pretty much the entire first half of the season) was weak when compared to the final six episodes.

There are reports that William Shatner is saying he will not appear in the movie, but Leonard Nimoy will appear. Zachary Quinto, who plays Sylar on Heroes, is reportedly pushing to play Spock in the upcoming Star Trek movie. Besides possibly Quinto and George Takei there will be yet another connection between Heroes and Star Trek. Dominic Keating, who played Malcom Reed on Star Trek: Enterprise will play an Irish mobster in a recurring role.

Slice of ScFi Reports on a couple of upcoming miniseries from the SciFi Channel:

Coming up for the new season will be “Tin Man,” a six-hour miniseries that takes a new look at the Dorothy and Wizard of Oz story and brings it into the 21st Century…

The other new six-hour miniseries on tap for SCI FI will be something called “Going Homer.” This one will make good use of “Stargate SG-1″ and “Farscape” star Ben Browder and will be directed by Andrew Prowse (”Farscape”). Prowse is currently in post-production with his new film “Heatstroke,” a scifi actioner starring D.B. Sweeney.

“Going Homer” is a modern-day turn on Homer’s Odyssey but takes place on a road-trip that a 12-year old boy takes from Los Angeles to New York. He makes the journey to avoid the bitter custody battle ensuing over him. During his travels he is able to see and communicate with the ancient Greek and Roman gods. Problem is no one else can see or hear them as these giants of Earth’s past walk among mortal men, which makes it hard for the young boy to seek refuge from those gods out to destroy him. Other gods in the pantheon, however come to his rescue as he struggles to find his way home.

Fox has decided to trash the work done so far on for the next season of 24 and start over–something they might have considered last season. The interesting aspect is that the story was to take place in Africa. Either this would mean the entire season would have had to take place in or near Africa or they would have to scrap the real time format. I know there were some dull moments last season, but they would be nothing compared to all those episodes it would take to have Jack Bower fly to Africa. Some might argue that if he can drive anywhere in Los Angeles in a portion of an episode, he should be able to fly to Africa within an hour.

The producers of 24 aren’t the only ones to realize they need to go stop rehashing the same old thing. Disney is giving up those embarrassing sequels to their classic animated movies:

In a strategy shift, the Walt Disney Co. said it will stop making lucrative direct-to-DVD sequels of such classic animated films as “Cinderella,” a move that reflects the growing influence of former Pixar Animation executives John Lasseter and Steve Jobs, who once called the films “embarrassing.”

The change comes with a shake-up at the company’s DisneyToon Studios, including the removal of longtime President Sharon Morrill, who will continue with the company in another capacity, Disney said Friday…

DisneyToon will now only produce original DVD films, including an upcoming film starring the fairy Tinkerbell. It isn’t clear whether sequels already in production, such as “Cinderella III,” will continue…

Although those DVDs were moneymakers for the studio, Disney purists scoffed, including Messrs. Lasseter and Jobs. In a 2003 conference call with financial analysts, Mr. Jobs said how much he hated the DVD sequels.

“We feel sick about Disney doing sequels,” Mr. Jobs said. “If you look at the quality of their sequels…it’s pretty embarrassing.”

When Disney bought Pixar, it put former Pixar President Catmull and Mr. Lasseter in charge of its own animation efforts. Mr. Lasseter has made no secret of his disdain for sequels in general, although he is working on “Toy Story 3.” That movie is planned to be released in theaters, however, scheduled for 2010.

And, finally, P.Z. Myers has outed Fred Thompson. I’m not speaking about those rumors that he’s gay. Myers exposed him as an evil alien:

thompson.jpgmangalore.jpg

2 Comments

  1. 1
    KerryDemocrat says:

    OMG…separated at birth?

  2. 2
    Ron Chusid says:

    Or perhaps one and the same under the mask.

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