Sci-Fi Storm

The new Doctor now has his new companion. Karen Gillan, who appeared as the soothsayer in the Doctor Who episode “The Fires Of Pompeii”, will now become Matt Smith’s first companion. The BBC also has a bit more about the 21 year old actress.

Mike Ausiello at Entertainment Weekly reports that Joss Whedon is considering adding Summer Glau to Dollhouse, now that Glau’s series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is canceled. Don’t expect her to be an active, though – Whedon wants to do something different with her, and Glau “would like to play a normal girl before I die of extreme old age.'”

Tucked away in a BBC article about David Tennant appearing in two episodes of Elisabeth Sladen’s Who spinoff The Sarah Jane Adventures (the third series should air in September) is a blurb from a spokeswoman confirming that “a script is in development” for a feature film treatment. No details beyond that, including who the Doctor will be. Tennant has three more specials yet to be seen, with the next, “Waters Of Mars”, airing in November, After which he will be replaced by Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer may return to the big screen – but without Joss Whedon, or any of the characters from the TV series. Directory of the original movie Fran Rubel Kuzui and her Kuzui Enterprises label fully retained ownership to the concept, purchased from Whedon with his original script (which she reworked into the movie). This isn’t an unusual situation, where relative newcomers sell the rights to their creations to get them made. Joss was later able to create the TV series in his original vision, with Kuzai retaining executive producer credit. This time the plan is to reboot the franchise again, with no connections to the TV series.

Despite its promising $13.3m take from Thursday, Terminator Salvation failed to reach the $70m total mark for the weekend (reaching only $67.2m), beaten to the punch by family film Night At The Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian, which did reach $70m.

The 1986 movie SpaceCamp is one of those fun little movies. Hardly a masterpiece of factual information, hard science, or acting, it was simply a fun kid adventure movie, like 1985s The Goonies. And it has a young Joachim Phoenix (credited as “Leaf” while he was mimicking his siblings more nature-related names), and a robot named Max…what more could you want? Unfortunately it was doomed before release…

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The venerable British series UFO created by Gerry Anderson (Thunderbirds, Space: 1999) appears to be getting the big screen treatment. ITV Global will team with the Robert Evans Co. to produce the update – no word on whether Gerry Anderson is involved. Whereas the original was set in 1980, the new version will be set in 2020 (following the roughly 10 years into the future of the original). UFO follows the super-secret Supreme Headquarters Alien Defense Organization (SHADO), based underneath a film studio as well as a moonbase, which defends against mysterious aliens that try to get past their defenses to Earth to abduct humans. Will they bring back the metallic miniskirts and purple wigs too?

To coincide with the upcoming release of Terminator Salvation in movie theaters, a new bridge between the computer/console game and the movie is taking the form of an online Machinima series. This 6 episode series follows the character of Blair Williams over the two-year gap between game and movie. Director McG was heavily involved with the production as well. Read More to catch the trailer (in HD) and the preview of the first episode. Update: Each episode will be available for download on iTunes.

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Despite the big push Fox gave to Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles this season, the ratings didn’t go the way Fox wanted, and has canceled the expensive show. The article also explains why that happened, but Dollhouse was picked up.

Looks like bubble fortunes have been on the good side this season. NBC has renewed Chuck with a 13 episode order, despite its shrinking schedule room in the fall. AS typical this season, budget concessions were necessary, but hopefully we won’t see the effects (and will see perhaps a backend order after it returns).