Like many a recovering Star Wars fan, I await the premiere this Friday of Star Wars: The Clone Wars with a mix of excitement and dread. Excitement for the opportunity to see a new vision of George Lucas's beloved universe brought to the screen. Dread that, if without meaningful character development or a coherent plot (did you see any hint of a story in those trailers?), director Dave Filoni's pixelfest could be as much fun as watching another person play a videogame.
And yet despite my frustrations with the franchise, I keep coming back. I love this mythology, this universe, and these characters.
That's why it was so refreshing to hear the rumor that fellow Star Wars aficionado Simon Pegg (Hot Fuzz), who's playing Scotty in the upcoming Star Trek, had declared his desire to write an episode of Lucas's long-gestating live action TV series, supposedly set between Episodes III and IV. Pegg supposedly worried, however, that he may have alienated Lucasfilm by publicly criticizing The Phantom Menace.
Star Wars needs an overhaul, like what Christopher Nolan did for Batman or what J.J. Abrams intends to do for Star Trek. I'm not saying Pegg's the one to reinvent the saga from a galaxy far, far away, but it should be a fan of the series who knows it and loves it. As the saga's creator, Lucas never felt what it was like sitting in a darkened theater as a young would-be fan not knowing what to expect, seeing "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." pop up for the first time, and bathing in John Williams' blaring fanfare as that imperial star destroyer first passed overhead.
Is reboot-mania getting out of hand? There's a forthcoming straight-to-cable Scooby-Doo live action movie, featuring young unknowns and none of the actors in the two Sarah Michelle Gellar/Freddie Prinze big-screen releases, about how the Mystery Machine gang got together in the first place. Granted, this should answer some longstanding burning questions (How old are these kids supposed to be? What do they do for money? Why aren't people who spend all their time debunking the paranormal more freaked out by the fact that their dog can talk?), but it makes me wonder: how much backstory do we really need on our favorite characters?
For instance, I'm both anticipating and dreading the upcoming J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie because, while it'll be fun to see a young Scotty and Spock, I'm not sure it'll really add any depth to the characters as we already know them and may even detract, as reductive pop-psychologizing in the movies often tends to do. (I don't really want to learn that Kirk became a womanizer because of, say, abandonment issues after his father skipped out on his mom.) I know Hollywood would rather milk familiar franchises till they're dry than come up with new ones, but geez, haven't we reached the bottom of the barrel yet?.
PopWatchers, are there any franchises you don't want to see rebooted under any circumstances? Are there franchises you think actually would benefit from a reboot? (And to read EW.com's new gallery of franchises that need to call it quits, click here!)
There is a thing, in case you didn't know it, called slash fiction. It's where fans take beloved characters of pop culture, usually sci-fi, and imagine romances between them. And these romances are usually homosexual in nature, more often than not involving Captain James T. Kirk and his trusty Vulcan bonhomme, Mr. Spock. Don't bother Googling — it invariably sucks, with the rarest of exceptions.
Let's see. I'm a practical girl. My life isn't sticky enough to warrant Men in Black's Neuralizer... Anyone who saw Annie Barrett and me hitting each other in the face yesterday with the "New Arrival" balloon Oxygen sent over to promote Tori & Dean knows I shouldn't be trusted with a working lightsaber... Click's universal remote sounds rather appealing, but I'm guessing there's some moral there about not f'ing with time... I don't really want a plug in my head, so I'll just have to hope that Trinity is around if a helicopter needs to be flown... Assuming Star Trek's beam machine isn't considered a "toy," I'll have to go with The Fifth Element's makeup applicator (pictured). Not because I'm vain, but because I'm clueless when it comes to that stuff. You?
TV Squad has compiled a list of five of the TV theme songs with the worst lyrics (complete with cringeworthy credit clips). All worthy selections, but let's dig deeper, shall we? The worst TV theme song lyrics of all time belong, of course, to Star Trek — what, you didn't know the Trek theme (from the original 1966-69 series) had lyrics? It did, written by series creator Gene Roddenberry himself (and apparently over the objections of composer Alexander Courage), but they were never used; Roddenberry apparently wrote them only so he could grab half the publishing royalties. Anyway, thank your lucky starships that you've never heard anyone sing Roddenberry's Trek lyrics because they're horrible enough to be used as a weapon against the Romulans.
But I suppose we can't count lyrics that didn't actually burrow into your eardrums while you were watching the credits. I'd also nominate the lyrics for That Girl (sorry, Earle Hagen), but thankfully, the show dropped them early on for the bouncier, jazzier instrumental arrangement of the theme. The Patty Duke Show theme is also filled with howlers ("A hot dog makes her lose control"), but at least it fits the sitcom's premise ("They're cousins, identical cousins..."). So I'll go with the "Tossed Salad and Scrambled Eggs" closer from Frasier (pictured), a show I otherwise like, but whose ending theme* grates on my ears every time I hear it. I mean, what does this non-sequitur lyric have to do with the show, anyway? (That teeth-gnashing "eggs/pegged/eggs" rhyme doesn't help.) Plus, the melody lurches every which way like a seasick drunk on a cruise ship in a squall. It's a perfect excuse to mute your TV, especially since Frasier's final gag is always performed in pantomime anyway.
Let's hear your worst TV theme lyric suggestions below. (Clip URLs are appreciated.)
*Speaking of crazy ending themes, has anyone ever deciphered the lyrics to the closing theme of WKRP in CIncinnati? I like this song, but who the hell can make out the words?
New York City's Bowery Hotel was the place to be last night, especially for TV stars who needed a break after a rigorous few days spent promoting their new and renewed series at their respective networks' upfront presentations. And who better to host a TV soirée than Entertainment Weekly? I snagged the only designer item in my closet and camped out for nearly two hours on the packed red carpet, which featured a parade of stars both random (Jaslene and Saleisha from Americas Next Top Model) and hotly anticipated (hello, casts of 30 Rock and Gossip Girl!). After the jump, my rundown of the night's festivities...
I was trying to think of something witty and suave to go along with this clip, but the best I could come up with was "We have lip lock, Captain" and "Space: The Frottage Frontier." (Look it up.) Both of which kinda suck. So I'm going with what PopWatch poobah Gary Susman suggested: "Chris Pine has his work cut out for him."
I'm sure you all know that the teaser for J.J. Abrams' new Star Trek movie unspooled before Cloverfield and is now available online right ovah heah. And while it is short, it's completely effective in stoking the kind of geek awe one needs in order to resuscitate this flagging franchise. After all, love him or hate him, the stoking is one of the things Abrams is best at. (Witness this other site, which offers "security cam" footage of those same workers building the Enterprise.)
But aside from the awesomeness of watching the construction of the ol' NCC-1701, this teaser did raise one big geek question for me: Why would anyone build a starship on Earth itself? Because that's what those welders are doing. I get that it's a cooler image, seeing the grimy faces of the workers as the sparks reflect off their safety goggles — as opposed to dudes floating around in space suits. But it just doesn't make any sense. If a vessel is never going to operate inside the gravity well of a planetary body, then why subject it to the stresses of that same gravity well during construction? And isn't it easier to maneuver the raw materials in a weightless atmosphere? One dude, all by himself, could slide a warp nacelle into position if he was in zero-g orbit. You'd need massive, massive machinery to do the same thing on Earth. Besides, according to Star Trek lore, Starfleet built the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards — in orbit around Mars — expressly for ship construction. Because Starfleet ain't stupid.
Writer-producer Roberto Orci attempts to explain away some of these issues, but I'm not even remotely convinced. What about you? Do you buy it? Or do you not particularly care?
Okay, I'm closing the geek hailing frequencies now. Carry on.
If Barack Obama (pictured, right) wins the presidency, he may have the most powerful woman in the pop-culture universe to thank. No, not Oprah; Seven-of-Nine of the Borg collective. On the heels of Obama's victory in the Iowa caucuses last week (and before his second-place finish in the New Hampshire primary last night), the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute reminds us that Obama owes his current high profile in part to Star Trek: Voyager's Jeri Ryan (left). Without her (and her apparent violation of Star Trek's Prime Directive, the law against meddling in the internal affairs of other civilizations), he might still be a little-known state senator toiling away in Springfield, Illinois.
In 2004, Jack Ryan, the actress' ex-husband, was the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Illinois. Then his divorce records became public, including allegations by Jeri that he'd pressured her to have public sex in swingers clubs in various cities. Ryan denied the allegations but dropped out of the race a few days later. The Republicans recruited former MSNBC host Alan Keyes to run in Ryan's place. Obama defeated him in a landslide, earning himself a U.S. Senate seat and a prominent public platform from which to launch his presidential campaign.
Which just goes to show: the Borg remain all-powerful. Resistance is futile.
If you wanna roll like James T. Kirk, these are the women you've gotta get into your intergalactic whip.
Okay, let me start again, in a manner that doesn't sounds so desperately Jamie Kennedy.
Here's a mostly complete gallery of all the women from classic Star Trek: you know, the ones that made the final frontier a slightly less lonely place.
And that's today's allotment of Geek Public Service.
Variety's report that Winona Ryder is joining the cast of J.J. Abrams' Star Trek: Muppet Babies as Spock's mom raises a number of questions:
1. The article says she is going "to play the Vulcan mother of a young Spock (Zachary Quinto)." But as even Trek newbies know, Spock is only half-Vulcan; his mom was a human, played in a guest spot on the original show by (in a witty bit of casting) Father Knows Best's Jane Wyatt. The conflict between logic and emotion is built into Spock's genes. Is Abrams really planning to mess with this key bit of Trek lore, or did the reporter get it wrong?
2. Ryder is 36. Quinto is 30. This could be the weirdest piece of Oedipal casting since Angelina Jolie played Colin Farrell's mom in Alexander. Is that really what Abrams is going for, or will she play the mom of an even younger Spock in flashbacks?
3. Ryder's been pretty much MIA since her shoplifting debacle in 2002. Has she been on her own five-year mission? Is she back on Earth to stay? Will this role in a likely blockbuster help her get her career back on track? Or did you not even miss her? Weigh in on her casting below deck, in the comments section.
Sometime last week, the sock (that's right, a sock) worn by the cameraman whose foot Britney allegedly ran over was reportedly sold on eBay for more than $1,000. Disappointed you missed your chance to bid? No worries, as celebrity paraphernalia is never in short supply. This week, you can purchase the actual Mercedez-Benz convertible driven (and crashed) by Lindsay Lohan (pictured) for a mere $120,000. Behind the wheel of this dream ride, you'll see the world the way we imagine LiLo sees it, through cracked glass. Don't let your current anonymity put the anti-lock brakes on your budding celebrity: buy this car today, sit back, and set the cruise control for your own road trip of fame, misfortune, and frequent traffic-law citations.
Okay, I wouldn't break my bank account to buy Lindsay's car. But I'll admit, eBay has quite an addictive quality, and I find myself wondering if, perhaps, I really need a personalized Patrick Dempsey screen print pillowcase. Or considering where I'd display a $400 bust of Harrison Ford as the legendary Indiana Jones. Or deciding if I'd use a Fight Club bar of soap for practical or decorative purposes. My own fascination notwithstanding, I've never actually bought anything off eBay, but I'm wondering, what's your biggest entertainment-themed purchase? Do you look at your life-sized wax replica of Wayne Newton and think that maybe you should have saved your money for something a little more practical? Like food? Or rent? Or are you very happy with your decision to get that Star Trek Worf Starfleet wrist lamp?
Hey, Star Trek fans, did you know that Sulu was, in his youth, a burger-munching stoner, or that Scotty learned his grace-under-pressure from facing down a zombie onslaught? Okay, I know we shouldn't typecast actors based on their best known roles, but how are you going to watch John Cho as the young Sulu and Simon Pegg as the young Scotty, without being reminded of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and Shaun of the Dead? I'm glad J.J. Abrams is casting his forthcoming Star Trek: Muppet Babies with colorful performers who have some cult appeal (so far, Heroes' Zachary Quinto, as Li'l Spock, is the biggest name among the space cadets), but the announcement about Cho and Pegg — both talented performers, but hardly proven as dramatic actors — implies that Abrams is going for actors who've demonstrated quirkiness, rather than actors whose faces and past roles suggest they'll be able to convince us that their characters will someday grow into the seasoned space explorers we've known and loved for 40 years. (Look at James Doohan's Scotty and George Takei's Sulu, flanking William Shatner's Kirk in this photo, and then look at the pic of Cho and Pegg here, and tell me this casting isn't a stretch.) Anyone else share my skepticism, or are you confident that Mr. Lost and Alias knows what he's doing?
I'm just a geek. Yes, I'm only a geek. Come on over here and check the technique. Well, I was flipping the channels and I noticed something Two TV directors Used to have a fling As characters on Voyager. Just another day in the week, A peek into the life of a geek
See, Robert Duncan McNeill and Roxann Dawson were cast members on Star Trek: Voyager. They played smoochy-smoochy lovers. And, as so many Trek players have before them, they directed a few episodes of the series before it went off the air. Unlike many Trek players before them, each has parlayed that into a successful television directing career. McNeill has shot hours of Chuck, Las Vegas, and Samantha Who?, while Dawson has called the shots on episodes of Heroes, Lost, and Cold Case.
They've managed to breach the true final frontier: getting post-Trek work.
Yes, yes, you don't need me to tell you how cool it is that they keep casting actors from Star Trek: Original Flava on Heroes. Still: first Sulu, now Uhura. (Warning: some mild spoilers in this TV Guide story about the character Nichelle Nichols, pictured, will play on Heroes.) As my wife says, "Now, if they would just cast William Shatner, I could be happy and go to heaven." What say you, Bill? Surely walking around saying "Denny Crane!" all day has lost its novelty, yes? It's time for you to return to NBC and acquire some superpowers. All hailing frequencies are open, Captain.
Two big casting announcements today, for those who haven't heard already. Carla Gugino will join300 director Zack Snyder's adaptation of the beloved Watchmen comic-book series as Silk Spectre Sally Jupiter. And Anton Yelchin is expected to report for duty as Enterprise navigator Pavel Chekov in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek prequel.
Both seem like pretty good calls from where I'm standing. Gugino's been a bit underused lately — I prefer to pretend that her appallingly dumb Entourage role never happened — and Yelchin could use a career boost as well, given that his other projects include Alpha Dog and, er, Finding t.A.T.u. But enough about me; what do you think of these choices?
On Thursday, Paramount stole the day — and possibly the entire four-day Comic-Con show — with their drool-worthy, standing-room-only, two-hour presentations. Here's what we learned...
The fans like them some Iron Man. And Paramount like them some Black Sabbath, based on the three or so times they cued the band's song "Iron Man" (if only Beavis & Butthead figured in somehow). Superskinny director Jon Favreau — who told EW he's lost 80 pounds ("I just ate less") — introduced his trailer, which featured Robert Downey Jr. effortlessly nailing the role of Tony Stark, the cocky billionaire who dons a metallic suit after a near-mortal injury. Biggest nerdgasm: Watching I-Man fly the sky in his Mark III suit with jet propulsion capabilities... in his freakin' hands!
Steven Spielberg led a taped on-set message from the Indiana Jones cast on-set and in costume: Harrison Ford, Ray Winstone, and Shia LaBeouf inexplicably, though perhaps tellingly, wearing biker gear. The big announcement: Karen Allen (pictured, with Spielberg, on the Indy IV set) will reprise her role of the whiskey-swilling Marion Ravenwood from 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark. This almost makes up for the absence of Temple of Doom's Short Round. Almost.
Paramount cruelly dangled a carrot in front of us — the logo for Sweeney Todd — only to pull a bait and switch by showing us this poster (but, to be fair, a cool poster).
Okay, we take back what we said about Tight Lips Abrams. He did confirm the long-standing rumor that in his upcoming Star Trek, Heroes' Sylar, Zachary Quinto, will play Spock. As will Leonard Nimoy. That's right, people: Two Spocks for the price of one movie. Quinto stars as the Vulcan in his younger years, Nimoy as the elder Spock. When asked why he'd revisit the pointy-eared smarty-pants of his past, Nimoy said: "The answer is, it was logical."
I'm not trying to belittle the human-rights activism of Star Trek: Original Flavor's Walter Koenig, or scoff at the likelihood that tyranny in Burma will cease now that Ensign Chekov has exposed it. Rather, I just wanted to snicker at this groaningly awful Reuters headline.
That's all. You may now return to your regular schedules, uninterrupted by the unfortunate collision of Third World hot spots, bad puns, and retired Enterprise crew members.
Call it a hunch, but I'm betting that a few of you aren't in fanboy heaven after flipping through today's "Sci-Fi 25" photo gallery, counting down EW's picks for the best science-fiction movies and TV shows of the past quarter century. (I imagine fans of Babylon 5, Farscape, and Dark City are especially miffed. Also, anyone who prefers Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop to his Total Recall and Starship Troopers. But I digress...) Anyway, if there's anything you feel was criminally overlooked, let us know below, and if we get enough interesting responses, we'll create a gallery of our readers' own Sci-Fi 25.
I'll get you started: My sci-fi tastes often run to the culty/spoofy corner of the universe. So I'm glad Galaxy Quest made the list, but I'd have loved to see The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension ("No matter where you go... there you are."), Repo Man (not just the best movie ever made about a guy driving around with decomposing radioactive alien corpses in his trunk, but also the best movie Emilio Estevez ever made, including Breakfast Club), and especially The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Yeah, the movie (pictured) was only OK, but the TV and radio versions were terrific, and the pop-cultural impact of the Douglas Adams novels is enormous (Where would Radiohead have been without them?).
Let's make this week's Confessional a feel-good one, shall we?
Last weekend, I found myself debating with friends whether their friend, who'd just bought a Ferrari the same model year and color as Magnum, P.I.'s, was crazy. Now because the buyer is only a friend of a friend, I'll just say this about the motivation for the purchase: Magnum meant a lot to him when he was growing up. (The verdict, in case you're wondering: still sane.)
From there, we segued into a discussion about a DVD I'd recently reviewed,How William Shatner Changed the World. It's a Shat-hosted documentary (which you may have seen on the Discovery Channel), that explains how Star Trek literally inspired some of today's greatest technological advances. For instance, the inventor of the cell phone, peeved that he could never get from his patio to the kitchen phone in time to answer it, got the idea one night while watching Captain Kirk flip open his communicator. Another noteworthy fan, NASA's chief propulsion engineer, recounts how a Trek ep marked the first time he heard the words "ion propulsion" and thus shaped his career. To me, that's TV at its best — when it sparks an enthusiasm or fascination that adds to your life.
Let's beam down to the planet of Irresponsible Speculation for a short spell, shall we? IGN.com claims to know who's on Paramount's shortlist to play the leads in the forthcoming Star Trek XI, a prequel set during the young Kirk and Spock's days at Starfleet Academy. According to IGN, Matt Damon (as long rumored) is the top choice to step into William Shatner's boots to play Kirk, while the producers would like to see Adrien Brody in Leonard Nimoy's role as the young Spock, and Gary Sinise (pictured, left) as Dr. McCoy, originally played by DeForest Kelley (at right). Also, IGN says, the filmmakers want Lost's Daniel Dae Kim to play Sulu and James McAvoy (The Last King of Scotland) to play Scotty.
Just so you know, EW reporters say Paramount is denying these casting rumors. Still, now that the studio has finally made an official announcement that Lost guru J.J. Abrams will be directing the film as well as writing and producing it, why not weigh in on casting? My two cents: Damon is too old to play a cadet Kirk (in fact, he's older than Shatner was when he started playing the already-seasoned captain in the 1960s TV series). And McAvoy seems too young to play Scotty; if Paramount must have a Scottish actor, why not Ewan McGregor? (Remember, Scotty and McCoy clearly had a few years on Kirk.) I think the rest of the rumored choices, however, are great. How 'bout y'all? Who would you cast in Star Trek: Muppet Babies?
Even the most diehard fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation -- and, yes, you non-fans can just skip ahead now -- recognize that the first season of the superlative sci-fi show was all too often... well... let's just go with soul-crushingly awful, shall we? But what I hadn't realized was that those episodes are also a profoundly rich source of gut-busting comedy. Said realization came via a friend and fellow Trekkie who sent me a link to a monthly series of reviews of ST: TNG Season 1 episodes that recently started over on AOL's TV Squad, reviews written by none other than Wesley Crusher (pictured) himself, Wil Wheaton. And. They're. Hilarious.
I knew Wheaton had his own blog of some considerable Web esteem (the archives go alllll the way back to 2001!), but I was not prepared for quite the level of geeked out, snarky-smart, slightly ribald brilliance Wheaton unleashes in these reviews. Here's just one (rather tame) excerpt from a review of "Justice," set on a libidinous, Edenic planet called Rubicun III, populated by a species called the Edo:
Before the Edo leaders will tell Riker how many people they can bring down from the Enterprise, they suggest that they "play at love." Rivan, the woman, suggests that Worf play at love with her (Aside: if my memory serves me correctly, Michael Dorn and Brenda Bakke, who played Rivan, spent a little time, uh, playing, together during the production of this episode), while Liator looks at Riker, jams his true desires deep into the closet, and asks Troi if she'll play with him. Just before Sexual Harassment Panda shows up, Wesley Crusher says, "Dude, this is bulls--t. Either hook me up with some fine Edo ass, or let me get away from you creepy middle-aged swingers and find it on my own." Okay, maybe that's not what he says, but it's certainly what a certain actor who played Wesley Crusher was thinking at the time.
It's a little early on a Monday for what my colleague Scott Brown so winningly refers to as a "geekgasm." Then again, I know a lot of you are (like me) still nursing Battlestar Galactica hangovers, so let's dole out a little hair of the sci-fi dog, shall we? Will a Heroes-Lost cocktail do the trick?
Regarding everyone's favorite Monday-night adventure, TV Guide is expected to report that Star Trek's George Takei has been cast as Hiro's father. The erstwhile Mr. Sulu will travel to the U.S., intent on abducting Hiro (played by Masi Oka, pictured) and bringing him back to Japan -- a rather challenging task, considering junior's teleportation skillz. (Thanks to TV Tattle for the link.)
The rumor coming off the Lost set is about 140 times more sensitive, though, so for those of you who like to avoid spoilers, let's discuss it after the jump.
Whether Father Knows Best fills you with a cocoa-toasty nostalgic glow or strikes you as hopelessly retrograde, you have to give Jane Wyatt credit for creating the archetype of the TV Mom. (Yes, I know, Wyatt, who died Friday of natural causes at age 96, had a distinguished film career as well, including key roles in such classics as Lost Horizon and Gentlemen's Agreement, but Margaret Anderson is the first and last role for which she'll be remembered.) Influencing generations of sitcom moms, from June Cleaver to Clair Huxtable to Marge Simpson, Wyatt's Margaret was endlessly patient, immaculately put together, and ineffably wise -- smarter, even than the Father who supposedly always Knew Best. Even in her other famous role, as Spock's human mom in the original Star Trek series and movies, she was wiser than her Vulcan husband and computer-brained son. It's no wonder she was sometimes billed as "Miss Jane Wyatt." As TV's matriarch, she deserved an extra honorific, a title of respect.
There have been a lot of news reports recently about the 40th anniversary this week of an NBC series that transcended its period fashions and general kitschiness to become a global pop culture phenomenon that inspired audiences with its message of harmony and friendship. I'm speaking, of course, of The Monkees (What, you thought I was talking about Star Trek? Oops, my bad.), which launched on Sept. 12, 1966. It would run for two seasons and 58 episodes.
At this late date, it hardly seems necessary to rescue the made-for-TV pop quartet from their sitcom's admittedly crass origins as a knockoff of the Beatles' films A Hard Day's Night and Help. Their songs still sound remarkably fresh (listen to the brand new Deluxe Edition of their debut disc, The Monkees, which contains the show's theme song, hits like ''Last Train to Clarksville,'' and loads of bonus tracks and rarities). They had their pick of tunes from some of pop's best composers, including Neil Diamond, Harry Nilsson, and Gerry Goffin and Carole King. The TV series, with its musical montages, seems today to be a clear precursor to MTV, and it led to a feature film, Head (co-written and co-produced by a then-struggling actor named Jack Nicholson), that's so mind-blowing and visionary (and yes, silly) that you may still have to be stoned to appreciate it fully. (Um, not that I would know, or anything.) They gave early career boosts to Nicholson, Neil Young (who was a session guitarist for them), and Jimi Hendrix (who opened for them on tour in 1967), and they're probably the only band who's been covered by both the Sex Pistols and Run-DMC.
I urge everyone to remain calm and remember, I am only the messenger: As rumored, the original 79 episodes of Star Trek — a sci fi Pentateuch for many — will return to syndication on Sept. 16. With... CGI revisions. EVERYBODY SIT DOWN, PLEASE. Thank you.
My guess is, even purists will be curious, if not delighted. The team (headed by 18-year Trek design vet Michael Okuda, no mere hired gun) says it took a WWGRD approach, imagining how Gene Roddenberry would've approached the show's design and effects if he'd had access to contemporary technologies. Apparently, we'll see starbases teeming with people, shimmeringly "realistic" alien landscapes with moving clouds and glittering water surfaces. Also, some old goofs will be fixed, giving the storied imdb.com "Goofs" department a serious workout. Me, I'm just hoping the revisionists find a way to reconcile Shatner's current toupee with his original hair. I'm a stickler for follicular particulars, as well as silly-sounding sentences. (As well as alliteration.)
Most intriguing/distressing of all, the tidied-up, digi-pimped Trek will also feature a rerecorded version of that famous musical theme. Apparently, a new singer will be doing the famous wail. Please, please let this not be that "new singer."
TV Guide catches up with multitasker J.J. Abrams, peppering him with questions about Season 3 of Lost and his upcoming Star Trek movie. The writer-producer-director is tight-lipped about whether it's true that Star Trek XI will reboot the film franchise with a story about Kirk and Spock's days at the Starfleet Academy, but he did offer a mild spoiler about Lost, so skip the rest of this post if you don't want to know.
Abrams' spoiler relates to everyone's favorite doomsday button-pusher: ''Desmond will definitely be back,'' Abrams says. ''He's not dead.'' That's unfortunate news if you're PopWatch reader Charlie, who would like to see Henry Ian Cusick star in the forthcoming Michael Hutchence biopic instead of remaining stranded in the hatch. But it's good news for Lost fans, so let's celebrate: kick back, crank up the Mama Cass tunes, and inject yourself with serum, brother.
TV's The Insider suggests that Matt Damon may play the young James T. Kirk in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek prequel, and that Damon's casting has William Shatner's approval. Now, I think Damon would make a fine young Kirk, though not young enough if the intent is (as rumored) to make a movie about Kirk, Spock, and McCoy's days at Starfleet Academy. In fact, I'm hard-pressed to think of any late teens/early 20s actors I'd rush to cast in those roles. (Though Adam Brody certainly has the geek credentials to play Spock.) But I will say this: The Office's Rainn Wilson has got to play a Klingon.
Who else would you beam aboard Star Trek: Muppet Babies?
We're being invaded, Captain, by an onslaught of Star Trek fan films. PopWatch first wrote about this phenomenon in December, after Wired magazine profiled the Trekkies behind the "New Voyages" series, but now, the New York Times, which is so worried about this fandom menace that it put the story on yesterday's front page, has alerted us to several more fan groups making their own five-year missions. (See here, here, here, and here.) The article inspires a number of questions (besides ''Is it a slow news day or is this the tip of an iceberg?''). Will we see fan-generated eps of Battlestar Galactica and other sci-fi faves too? Or other short-lived shows like Arrested Development? Finally, are these Star Trek shows, like those Superman and Batman fan films a few years back, a Web novelty, or are they creating an alternate canon with real merit?
The following news tidbit has given me a strange, tingly sensation. It's mostly a case of good tinglies, but there's also a little bit of weird-apprehensive tinglies, but I think the latter tinglies are starting to go away as I process the information. Yeah, okay, I'll just get on with it:
I'd always assumed Star Trek fans reproduced asexually, like tribbles, but apparently they find love the way the rest of us do: on the Internet. If you like candlelit dinners, moonlight strolls, and debating whether or not Farscape was a better show than Babylon 5, then Trek Passions is the personals site for you. Jim Tracy, publisher of Online Dating Magazine, discussed the site last week on MSNBC's The Situation, where host Tucker Carlson snickered at the prospect of Trekkers finding romance online. (Like his orange bowtie is such a chick magnet.) Still, it's not clear whether Trek Passions accommodates alternative lifestyles, like, say, Klingons who want to date Romulans. Guess that's really the final frontier.
Anybody buying the InDemand TV feed of Howard Stern's first day on the air at Sirius Satellite Radio may be disappointed; they'll see no porn stars, naked or clothed, but they may see the back of my head. I was one of about two dozen reporters present this morning as Stern celebrated what his new network calls ''the biggest day in radio since the first day of radio.'' The centerpiece of this morning's show was an on-air press conference held in his large but suddenly cramped new studio, with TV cameras aiming over reporters' shoulders at the King of All Media as he received his courtiers.
Outside Stern's studio, on the 36th floor of a midtown Manhattan skyscraper, reporters milled about all morning in the lobby, where a pair of chefs were cooking custom-order omelettes for the press. (Normally, you don't want to get between reporters and free food, but most of them were female TV entertainment news correspondents, women who apparently eat nothing but celery, so I was able to get a plate of eggs without too much difficulty.) We ate as we watched a live closed-circuit feed of the show. So far, despite Stern's newfound freedom from FCC indecency rules, not too raunchy. Until, that is, a pre-taped audio comedy sketch purportedly depicting David Letterman enjoying various masochistic sex acts with members of the Sirius staff, in graphic detail. Gee, Howard, what did Dave ever do to you? And to think, terrestrial radio listeners who are now stuck with David Lee Roth or Adam Carolla are missing this.
Trekkies couldn't get UPN or Spike to save Star Trek: Enterprise, even after they ponied up production money, but a group of Trek fanatics is now trying to revive the original 1966-69 series by making the ultimate fan films. Wired has a terrific story about a the group of amateurs filming new episodes of the classic Trek. They're led by Jack Marshall (who created the largely Jar-Jar free Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Edit), and they're working with some professionals with real Trek credits, including Chekov himself, Walter Koenig. (Like he's got so many better things to do.) You can see the fruits of their labor at newvoyages.com. As Spock would say: fascinating.
The Boston Globe has made a list of the top 50 sci-fi shows of all time. Top five are Star Trek: Original Flavor, the new Battlestar Galactica (left), Star Trek: The Next Generation, The X-Files, and Babylon 5. Kinda hard to argue with these, though if you go further down the list, you'll ask yourself nagging questions like, ''Do Stargate SG-1 and Sliders really belong in the top 10?'' and ''Are Lost and Buffy the Vampire Slayer really sci-fi?'' Have at it, fanboys.
B. Happy Days creator Garry Marshall is turning the sitcom into a musical.
C. Omarosa (left) has a connection to the BTK serial killer case.
OK, maybe B. isn't weird, just sort of appalling. We've seen so many movies and so many pop stars' catalogues turned into musicals lately that a musical based on a sitcom was probably inevitable. With C., I'm willing to assume that Omarosa was simply displaying the business acumen and concern for others' well-being that have made her famous.
No, I gotta go with A., just for its willful misreading of the obvious. It's unfair for Ladowsky to single out Star Trek for its failure to depict healthy and lasting adult sexual relationships, not when, oh, every adventure tale in American literature has the same problem. (Clearly, Ladowsky has never read any Leslie Fiedler.) By Ladowsky's logic, The Dukes of Hazzard should have just as much appeal to pedophiles as Star Trek. (Bo and Luke went through strings of lovelies without settling down, too.) As for Ladowsky's conclusion, which attempts to link Star Trek to Michael Jackson (''It is unclear whether he watches Star Trek or just looks as if he does.''), well that's just gratuitous and mean.
I'm as rabid a Trekker as the next guy (unless the next guy is one of my EW officemates), and I've been known to trot out my Scotty imitation (''We kinna goo inny faster, Captain!'') at inopportune moments (admit it, so have you). But there were some things that even I didn't know about James Doohan, who died today at age 85:
- His middle name was Montgomery, which, of course, was USS Enterprise engineer Scott's first name.
- He fathered a child at age 79, joining Saul Bellow and Tony Randall in the it's-never-too-late club.
- He parodied his Star Trek character in a recurring role as a grumpy engineer on UPN's notorious '90s sitcom Homeboys in Outer Space.
- He received an honorary doctorate from the Milwaukee School of Engineering in 1993. ''I was awfully good in math,'' he explained.
So raise your glass of Saurian brandy, and toast him here. For somewhere, I am certain, James Doohan is beaming.
Home
Like many a recovering Star Wars fan, I await the premiere this Friday of Star Wars: The Clone Wars with a mix of excitement and dread. Excitement for the opportunity to see a new vision of George Lucas's beloved universe brought to the screen. Dread that, if without meaningful character development or a coherent plot (did you see any hint of a story in those trailers?), director Dave Filoni's pixelfest could be as much fun as watching another person play a videogame. 
Is reboot-mania getting out of hand? There's a forthcoming straight-to-cable Scooby-Doo live action movie, featuring young unknowns and none of the actors in the two Sarah Michelle Gellar/Freddie Prinze big-screen releases, about how the Mystery Machine gang got together in the first place. Granted, this should answer some longstanding burning questions (How old are these kids supposed to be? What do they do for money? Why aren't people who spend all their time debunking the paranormal more freaked out by the fact that their dog can talk?), but it makes me wonder: how much backstory do we really need on our favorite characters?
EW.com's resident Flash guru, Mark S. Luckie, just presented 
New York City's Bowery Hotel was the place to be last night, especially for TV stars who needed a break after a rigorous few days spent promoting their new and renewed series at their respective networks' upfront presentations. And who better to host a TV soirée than Entertainment Weekly? I snagged the only designer item in my closet and camped out for nearly two hours on the packed red carpet, which featured a parade of stars both random (Jaslene and Saleisha from Americas Next Top Model) and hotly anticipated (hello, casts of 30 Rock and Gossip Girl!). After the jump, my rundown of the night's festivities...
I'm sure you all know that the teaser for J.J. Abrams' new Star Trek movie unspooled before Cloverfield and is now available online 
If Barack Obama (pictured, right) wins the presidency, he may have the most powerful woman in the pop-culture universe to thank. No, not Oprah; Seven-of-Nine of the Borg collective. On the heels of Obama's victory in the Iowa caucuses last week (and before his second-place finish in the New Hampshire primary last night), the 
If you wanna roll like James T. Kirk, these are the women you've gotta get into your intergalactic whip.
Sometime last week, the sock (that's right, a sock) worn by the cameraman whose foot Britney allegedly ran over was reportedly sold on eBay for more than $1,000. Disappointed you missed your chance to bid? No worries, as celebrity paraphernalia is never in short supply. This week, you can purchase the actual 
Hey, Star Trek fans, did you know that Sulu was, in his youth, a burger-munching stoner, or that Scotty learned his grace-under-pressure from facing down a zombie onslaught? Okay, I know we shouldn't typecast actors based on their best known roles, but how are you going to watch John Cho as the young Sulu and Simon Pegg as the young Scotty, without being reminded of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and Shaun of the Dead? I'm glad J.J. Abrams is casting his forthcoming Star Trek: Muppet Babies with colorful performers who have some cult appeal (so far, Heroes' Zachary Quinto, as Li'l Spock, is the biggest name among the space cadets), but the 
Sing along with me, folks, to the tune of 
Yes, yes, you don't need me to tell you how cool it is that they keep casting actors from Star Trek: Original Flava on Heroes. Still: first Sulu, now Uhura. (Warning: some mild spoilers in 
Two big casting announcements today, for those who haven't heard already. Carla Gugino 
On Thursday, Paramount stole the day — and possibly the entire four-day Comic-Con show — with their drool-worthy, standing-room-only, two-hour presentations. Here's what we learned...
I'm not trying to belittle the human-rights activism of Star Trek: Original Flavor's 
Call it a hunch, but I'm betting that a few of you aren't in fanboy heaven after flipping through today's 
Let's make this week's Confessional a feel-good one, shall we?
Let's beam down to the planet of Irresponsible Speculation for a short spell, shall we? 
Even the most diehard fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation -- and, yes, you non-fans can just skip ahead now -- recognize that the first season of the superlative sci-fi show was all too often... well... let's just go with soul-crushingly awful, shall we? But what I hadn't realized was that those episodes are also a profoundly rich source of gut-busting comedy. Said realization came via a friend and fellow Trekkie who sent me a link to a monthly series of reviews of ST: TNG Season 1 episodes that recently started over on AOL's TV Squad, reviews written by none other than Wesley Crusher (pictured) himself, Wil Wheaton. And. They're. 
It's a little early on a Monday for what my colleague Scott Brown so winningly refers to as a "geekgasm." Then again, I know a lot of you are (like me) still nursing 
Whether Father Knows Best fills you with a cocoa-toasty nostalgic glow or strikes you as hopelessly retrograde, you have to give 
There have been a lot of news reports recently about the 40th anniversary this week of an NBC series that transcended its period fashions and general kitschiness to become a global pop culture phenomenon that inspired audiences with its message of harmony and friendship. I'm speaking, of course, of The Monkees (What, you thought I was talking about Star Trek? Oops, my bad.), which launched on Sept. 12, 1966. It would run for two seasons and 58 episodes.
I urge everyone to remain calm and remember, I am only the messenger: As 
TV's 
Anybody buying the InDemand TV feed of Howard Stern's first day on the air at 
The Boston Globe has made a list of 
What's weirder?
I'm as rabid a Trekker as the next guy (unless the next guy is one of my EW officemates), and I've been known to trot out my Scotty imitation (''We kinna goo inny faster, Captain!'') at inopportune moments (admit it, so have you). But there were some things that even I didn't know about 
