Sci-Fi Storm

ABC has announced that Lost will move to Tuesday nights at 9PM, with its final season premiere on February 2nd. NBC has also revealed that Chuck will finally return on Sunday, January 10th, with a double episode starting at 9PM, and then will air on its normal night on Mondays the next night at 8PM.

I remember being told that there were in fact three pilots for the original Star Trek – “The Cage”, with Jeffery Hunter, and “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, that we are all familiar with. But I never really heard what the missing third pilot was. Apparently it has been found, and will be included in the upcoming Blu-ray release of Season 3, due out on December 15th. Apparently this third pilot was merely an alternate version of “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, with a different opening and music, and edited differently. This more than likely is the actual pilot, which was later re-edited into an episode (interestingly, the third aired episode) which was then called a “pilot” as well. Read More for some clips – the video is not great (the film was 40 years old after all) and the audio level is unstable…

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Two hopeful announcements at least…the sequel to Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog appears to be moving along, with Nathan Fillion saying a title has been chosen and now co-writer Zack Whedon saying that they will be able to get seriously underway after production wrap for Dollhouse – and it looks like everyone is on board. On the other side of the Atlantic, Russell T. Davies says that despite the recession hitting British TV, he believes that more Torchwood would likely get under way in January.

Fox has canceled Dollhouse. It isn’t totally unexpected – the second season was actually a surprise to most – and Joss Whedon is setting up a proper, big finale as they are currently in production of episode 11 of 13. Fox currently plans to air all episodes, which will pick up again in December. Update: Joss has commented on it…

Chicago Tribune columnist Maureen Ryan, while giving a positive review of the series premiere of V, took a side shot at Stargate Universe, calling it “a boring, poorly plotted, lamentably sexist mess.” This prompted a response right in the comments section from SGU producer Brad Wright (search for his name), calling the comment “petty”. This even prompted a rebuttal by Ryan.

So when the world ends in 2012, is there more story to tell? Apparently so. Roland Emmerich has plans in the works for a TV series called 2013, which will follow survivors who attempt to rebuild. Maybe he learned his lesson from Stargate and wants to make sure he owns the franchise…but other than Stargate, Movie-to-TV sequels have not done well…Logan’s Run pops up in my head first…

V premiered last night to great ratings – 14.3 million viewers and a 5.2 share of the desirable 18-49 group, although it wasn’t the most viewed (NCIS had 20.2 million, but only a 4.3 share in the same demo). However, the New York Times was not thrilled, calling it “slapdash and formulaic” and where some things only make sense on “Planet Television”. I do think that there are valid points – it seemed like they wanted to set up all the situations for the entire series just in the first episode – so in order to save time they just went from “Spaceships suddenly showed up and disrupted the world” to “The Visitors are awesome!” Yes, time passed but that really gets lost. And the problem is that other than one plot element (which I don’t want to spoil), it pretty much is the old V done over – no surprises. However, things may still not be quite stable with the production: Showrunner Scott Peters is being replaced by Scott Rosenbaum (Chuck), although Peters will stay as an executive producer (at least in name). It was enjoyable laughing at the original being shown on Syfy though…Read More.

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David Tennant, best known as the current Doctor in Doctor Who and is ending his run this year, will appear in a U.S. pilot called Rex Is Not Your Lawyer as the title character. It is described as a “legal comedy” hour-long pilot which has been in development for a couple years and recently got a greenlight and was in search of a lead actor until now. Of course, this is only a pilot, so there is no telling if it will see the light of day…

BBC America will show the next special Doctor Who episode, The Waters Of Mars, on December 19th at 9pm ET. This appears to be over a month after the U.K. premiere of November 15th. Word is that the remaining two unnamed Tennant specials may air as a two-parter around the holidays.

It appears the trio of a vampire, a ghost, and a werewolf who share a flat may move across the pond…Syfy has ordered its own version of the show. The original 6-episode series originally aired on BBC Three and later BBC One, and recently aired in the U.S. on BBC America. Syfy president Dave Howe said they will not “slavishly replicate the British version,” so expect a very different cast, and perhaps a different direction.