Sci-Fi Storm

I just learned this morning that the entire production team that runs the STARTREK.COM web site has been eliminated during a restructuring of CBS Interactive. No word on what will happen to the site itself – I fear it will simply turn in to a corporate advertisement for the franchise and lose all of its value as a tool.

Actor Paul McGillion (Stargate: Atlantis) may have lost out on the role of Scotty, but apparently he still got a role in the upcoming Star Trek movie. It’s apparently a small role, which the producers found for him after being impressed with his audition.

I sat on this news for a while as I know he wanted to keep it relatively quiet (as if my readership is more than just a blip), but its out in the wild now. Author Terry Pratchett, best known for his Discworld series of books, announced on Tuesday that he has been diagnosed with a rare form of early
onset Alzheimer’s Disease. He does state, “I am not dead,” and does not want people to treat him as such. He expects to meet all current obligations and hopefully all future obligations as well.

As feared, NBC has failed to renew the freshman time traveller Journeyman before the deadline passed Tuesday and its poorest ratings on Monday. The show did manage to complete the 13-episode order however and the remaining two episodes will be shown on schedule. Still awaiting its fate with NBC is Bionic Woman.

Piers Wenger, who produced the award winning telefilm Housewife, 49 and the upcoming Ballet Shoes, has been announced as the new executive producer of Doctor Who, taking the reins from Russell T. Davies, who is stepping down. Wenger will take over with the 5th series (set for 2010), and will also become Head of Drama for BBC Wales (which produces Who and its spinoffs) when Julie Gardner steps down in January 2009. Although Wenger’s list of credits is not very long, he was the Head of Development for Grenada Drama until earlier this year when he left to help create production company Mammoth Screen.

Book 12 of the late Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, A Memory of Light, will be finished. Tor Books has announced the selection of Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn) by Jordan’s wife and editor, Harriet Popham Rigney, to complete the book. Jordan left plenty of notes and audio recordings with which to build the remainder of the novel.

N.E. Lilly writes “Jane Espenson concludes her blog tour at SpaceWesterns.com where speaks about her experiences with Star Trek, Firefly, and Battlestar Galactica.

Jane Espenson’s blog tour took her through the blogosphere from mid-October to early-December — taking her to sites ranging from Firefly Talk, to the USA Today Pop Candy blog — to promote her latest anthology of essays about Joss Whedon’s Firefly/Serenity ‘verse: Serenity Found from BenBella Books.

Jane Espenson is a Hugo Award‑winning screen‑writer who has worked on several science fiction television series including Star Trek: Deep Space 9, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, and Battlestar Galactica, among others. She has also edited two anthologies of essays ? Finding Serenity and Serenity Found ? about Joss Whedon?s ?verse as seen in the television series Firefly and the major motion picture Serenity.

Interview with Jane Espenson at SpaceWesterns.com: http://www.spacewesterns.com/articles/37/

Jane Espenson Blog Tour: http://www.janeespenson.com/archives/00000444.php“

Bruce Allan writes in to inform us of a new letter writing campaign in the hopes of bringing back Star Trek: Enterprise. “New Enterprise Site & Forum On Line Now!

This site is for discussing the last Trek TV series (Star Trek Enterprise), which ran on the now defunct UPN,it is also Campaign Central for An Enterprise return to TV, with new episodes, while it is uncertain of how many fans are out there, the home page, which opened on June 22nd 2007, has had over 18,000 hits in just a few months, the forum was opened to the public on Nov 8th 2007.” Read More for the rest of the announcement, and visit the forums here.

(continue reading…)

Serenity will be back – but not on video or film. Instead, it will appear as a Dark Horse comic book. It will start with a three-issue series called Serenity: Better Days, which looks back at the crew’s early years, and is due out this coming March. Also, Dark Horse will release a couple lunchbox designs.

I’m sending this from an airport on my way back home. I should be able to catch up on the news in the next couple of days after I recover… 🙂 Save me some time by submitting any interesting news stories…