Sci-Fi Storm

Russell T. Davies, who successfully brought Doctor Who back to TV, was named an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE), one of the highest honors accorded to British and Commonwealth citizens. This doesn’t make him a Sir though – Knighthoods are part of a higher level in the Order.

Up on our YouTube Channel is a short preview for the upcoming half-season finale of Battlestar Galactica, “Revelations”. Need to review what happened in the last episode, “The Hub”? We’ve got the “What the frak?” recap for that as well.

In an interview for Military.com, Terrence Howard, who played Lt. Col. James Rhodes in Iron Man, said that he’d begin filming for Iron Man 2 next March, with the film being released in April 2010. Jon Favreau thinks otherwise, deeming it “unrealistic”. “Neither [star Robert Downey Jr.] nor I were consulted about this and we are both concerned about how realistic the date is in light of the fact that we have no script, story or even writers hired yet.”

William Shatner, who like a lot of actors it seems avoids watching himself in his roles, recently caught himself on TV during a sleepless night recovering from hip surgery. He saw the original Star Trek episode “A Piece Of The Action”, in which Kirk and Spock beam down to a planet that modeled itself after the Chicago gang wars of the 1920s. What did he think? “You know, that’s rather good.”

Looks like the Dune remake being produced by Kevin Misher and directed by Peter Berg now has a writer. Josh Zetumer will pen the screenplay. Zetumer appears to be a bit of a newcomer – he’s got two in-production writing credits – Villain and The Infiltrator, which I can find very little information on.

Could Saruman appear in the upcoming Hobbit movies? Christopher Lee is hoping so. He understands that to fill out two movies, the material will need to be expanded – and he has a wealth of knowledge about Middle Earth and the Istari (Wizards). “I’d be interested in seeing how that transition from good to evil occurred and, yes, of course I would return to the role if I was asked.” Saruman does not appear in the book, but both he and Radagast the Brown would be around at the time.

After a bit of scientific amputation, astronomers have again reevaluated the shape of the Milky Way based on data from the Spitzer Space Telescope, and reduced the number of spiral arms from four to two. Back in 2005 Spitzer revealed that the Milky Way was in fact a barred spiral, as opposed to a “perfect” spiral as previously thought.

It’s been a particularly bad couple of weeks for crew of the Enterprise. Star Trek producer Robert H. Justman, who worked on the original series as well as Star Trek: The Next Generation (and was instrumental in getting Patrick Stewart cast) passed away Wednesday due to complications of Parkinson’s Disease. He was 81. I’ll leave off the transporter jokes that are being done to death, but I like this quote from his son: “There seems to be a big ‘Star Trek’ convention and everyone is going,” Jonathan Justman said. “Everyone is getting beamed up.”