TVSquad

The marriage of the internet and television production continues to mature. The latest entry, launching this week, is Gemini Division. While it's too early to tell how the 50 episode saga is going to ultimately be received, it's still worth talking about. Gemini Division is another big step for the future of internet-based productions.

The show is being produced by NBC Universal Digital Studios, which, among other things, means a much larger budget. Something evident in the cast which includes the star of the show, Rosario Dawson. That's a pretty big name for what is ultimately another experiment in the medium. She's joined by Justin Hartley, Danny Woodburn, John Kapelos, Kevin Alejandro, Fransois Chau, and Elizabeth Bogush, among others. It's not exactly Ocean's 11, but those are all pretty recognizable actors.

I can't decide if this is good news or bad news. Moonlight star Alex O'Loughlin is staying at CBS.

Unless you've been in another galaxy for the past year, you know that the Aussie actor cultivated an enormous fan base with his role as vampire P.I. Mick St. John on CBS' Moonlight. The uproar caused by the cancellation of the show in May can still be heard, well, in another galaxy.

At the Television Critics Association press tour in July, CBS entertainment president Nina Tassler said the popularity of Moonlight was due in large part to O'Loughlin's fan base. So I can appreciate the fact that CBS wants to keep him around. But it's what they'll do with him that has me worried.

With Maggie Friedman (Dawson's Creek) behind it, I have to imagine that The Witches of Eastwick ABC pilot project just announced may feature a younger cast than the 1987 film on which it is being based. The announcement specifically states that it is a variation on the film as opposed to the controversial John Updike novel. The book has been blasted for being misogynistic, while the movie offered more in female empowerment.

This will be third time someone has made a go of adapting the film for television. I can't help but think think of this as a more serious Charmed. Will the male antagonist, played by Jack Nicholson in the film, remain throughout the series, or will he just be an early problem dealt with by the three witchy leads? Considering Friedman's resume also includes the horridly under-appreciated Jack and Bobby and the brilliant Once and Again, there are a lot of ways she could go with this.

(S01E01)Primeval already has a pretty rabid following across the pond where two series, or seasons as they say in the States, have already been completed. It looks like BBC America will be combining these two seasons into one thirteen episode long run. A third season has been greenlit and is set to premiere in January 2009 in the UK. Presumably, should this do well here, BBCA will pick it up shortly thereafter, to avoid an extensive gap.

I'd heard about this show, time travel and prehistoric creatures running rampant in and around London. It's one of those shows that developed such a buzz across the pond, that we heard about it stateside even before it got here. I think the only other show I can think of that did that was Billie Piper's The Secret Diary of a Call Girl. That's, of course, not counting Doctor Who and its derivatives as we've been aware of that property for years. Things start off at a gallop, literally, and keep moving pretty much for the full hour.

I wish I could tell you that those plans included a television mini-series or at least a small screen film, but alas series creator Kevin Falls has moved on. In fact, his new series featuring a womanizer trapped in a woman's body, is currently coming together for FOX, so at least he's sticking with the "different." He did, however, take some time out to chat it up with AICN about the bigger plans for Journeyman.

This was a show that was hugely under-appreciated by the mainstream, and almost dismissed out of the gate as a Quantum Leap derivative by many of the sci-fi crowd. The show was so much more. There was such a heart of tragedy at the core of protagonist Dan Vasser's abrupt rips through time. Unlike QL's Sam Beckett, Vasser is literally torn from his life no matter what he is doing, body and spirit, and hurtled through the timestream. Then add all that we learned about his first love Livia and there's just so much pain in the show, which makes for great dramatic television.

Let's face it, science fiction on television is always a challenge, and more often than not, these series fail to find a big enough audience to stick around. That's why the year after Lost hit it big on just minor sci-fi elements, we had three ratings flops at once with Invasion, Threshold and Surface. And all three were good, for different reasons. So my question is why did none of them make Sci Fi Wire's list of the top 10 sci fi shows canceled too soon? Because Sci-Fi Wire liked Eerie, Indiana better!

Seriously though, while there were some good elements in their list, and I absolutely agree with their number one choice, there were some real problems and omissions as well. Wonderfalls ranked way too high and Homeboys in Outer Space didn't even make the list? Outrageous! So I've taken it upon myself to make my own list of The Top 10 Sci Fi Short-Lived Sci-Fi Shows That Weren't Pulitzer Worthy But Went Great With Popcorn. And I intentionally didn't include any of the shows on their list, because I'm acting like a spoiled brat and I don't want to play with their toys.

Hell has officially frozen over. A DVD I expected never to exist finally has. The complete series of the television show Quark is being released on DVD this coming October. This lost icon from the 1977-78 season was created by Get Smart co-creator Buck Henry and lasted a grand total of eight episodes.

The show stars Richard Benjamin as the captain of a garbage-hauling spaceship who yearns to be given more important duties. The show is pretty much a satire of Star Trek and parodies the standard plot devices of sci-fi television and movies up to that time (such as the concept of "evil" parallel universes). Conrad Janis (of Mork and Mindy fame) is particularly funny as Otto Palindrome.

The show didn't last that long, but thanks to the Internet fan sites of the show have sprung up enough to likely garner the attention of some executive looking to make some easy money (note I didn't say a quick Buck. That would have been too easy). Had it been made today...well, it probably still would have been canceled (particularly if it was on Fox), but the DVD release would have happened much sooner.

The original '80s V miniseries is ingrained in my memory. In fact, when I was pregnant, I would get the inevitable question: do you want a boy or a girl? My pat answer was, "As long as it's not a lizard baby, we'll be happy."

If you watched V, you know my reference, and it was fun when the askers got it too.

Beyond lizard babies, lovable aliens who went on to play Freddie Kreuger (Robert Englund) and heroines imported from The Greatest American Hero (Faye Grant) -- I swear, I remember all of this; I didn't even look it up! -- V was so unique and addicting that if you haven't seen it, I suggest getting that DVD release tout de suite.

Many on this site, both reviewers and commenters, have complained for many years now on the way that Sci Fi Channel handles the airing of their original programs. The main complaint has been that viewers have had to wait nearly six months, or more, between the time part one of the season ended in the summer and part two began at the end of January. Most recently these complaints have been addressed about Stargate Atlantis.

Well, those complaints may have finally been heard by the programming wonks over at Sci Fi because Atlantis looks to be continuing its season through the fall. After completing the first half of its run on September 26th, with a break for Labor Day, Atlantis will return to the schedule on Friday, October 10th at its new time of 9:00 PM. The week before, it will be preempted by the two-hour series premiere of Sanctuary, which will move into the 10:00 PM slot in back of Atlantis.

Atlantis will continue to run through October, with a preemption on Halloween night due to the Ghost Hunters Live event. Whether or not the remaining ten episodes of the series will wind up in 2008 or continue into 2009, when the last half of Battlestar Galactica airs, has yet to be addressed.

It's coming. The table is set, the players are on the field, the sails are raised, and the pretty maids are all in a row. Of course, I speak of the 2008-09 television schedule. In just a few short weeks viewers will be able to dine on a number of favorite and new dishes that are being served by the networks as well as the increasing number of cable channels who are delving into original programming.

While other fall seasons have come and gone with nary a whimper, this season may be different. Due to the prolonged Writers Strike many shows ended their seasons quite early. Programs like Life, Private Practice, Pushing Daisies, and Heroes haven't aired original episodes since the end of 2007. Heck, there hasn't been a new episode of The Shield since June of last year! So, the beginning of the 2008-09 season will be a second chance for some of these shows, particularly the ones that premiered last season, to show their worth to fans and the networks.

One of the highlights of the Sci Fi / EW party at Comic-Con was being able to talk to and shake the hand of Joss Whedon. It's no secret that I'm a fan of his work, and with the incredible presence of Dr. Horrible and Dollhouse at this year's Comic-Con, it's no mystery why he was at the 'Con.

Unfortunately for me, I had no idea he was going to be heading down that red carpet, so in hindsight I of course have a ton of questions I would have liked to have thought of at the time. Since my time was limited with everyone anyway, I kept it relevant to what was going on at the 'Con as best I could.

I've got more to add later about the discussion regarding the digital medium, but that will be a different post down the road. As for Joss, he's very easy to talk to and my transcription doesn't really show how good-natured the conversation was. At one point Eliza Dushku stepped in to say hello to us -- you don't see that every day.

The official trailer for the Battlestar Galactica prequel Caprica has been out for a few weeks now. If you haven't seen it yet, it gives a fairly vague outline of what the show will be about. In the trailer you will see snippets of Joseph Adama (Esai Morales), Daniel Graystone (Eric Stoltz), a radical bomber on a subway, an early version of a Cylon, and some near full-frontal nudity.

So far, the reviews have been mixed on the content of the trailer. While there have many calls of "I can't wait" and "looking forward to it," others think that it will fall far behind the quality of the current BSG. For example, one commenter over at iFilm said the show should stand par with standard network or cable dramas but it could fail in the science fiction area. Another commenter stated that the trailer didn't look high tech enough. A third asked, "No dogfight?" Many others are upset because BSG hasn't even finished yet.

(S01E08) Well, first off I have to give props to the make-up and effects departments. In some prior episodes there have been some pretty awkwardly awful effects scenes ("Eater" when her arm is bitten), but throughout this episode, the make-up on Doug Jones (the Hellboy movies) was just astounding. It's interesting to me that at the NBC website and everywhere I can look, Jones is the only principal listed for this show.

I'll grant that his performance as patriarch Grady was a show-stopper, but John Pyper-Ferguson as his brother and Molly Hagan as his wife are just as integral to the effectiveness of the story and the emotional power that the character back-story provides. In fact, Doug Jones got third billing in the show credits themselves. I guess they just know where the strength of the show lie. And Jones is a proven master at playing the bizarre and/or downright creepy under heavy make-up, as he ultimately does here. With roles like the Silver Surfer (Fantastic Four), Abe Sabien (Hellboy) and El Fauno/The Pale Man (Pan's Labyrinth), Jones is absolutely brilliant at bringing these characters to life.

Do not adjust your web browser. You are now entering the Retro Squad, where we are reviewing past episodes of classic TV shows.

For the most part The X-Files was an intense character study of two FBI agents struggling with their beliefs in the supernatural, in America and in each other. Sometimes, however, it was just a show about cool monsters. Here are some of my favorites.

Eugene Tooms ("Squeeze," "Tooms")
Tooms was so cool and creepy he had to be brought back for another appearance. What I liked best about Tooms was that he was one of the few monsters that looked totally human but was pure monster. Whether he was eating livers or squeezing through an air vent, Tooms was the first threat on the show to make me believe that monsters might actually exist.

I was really excited about the prospect of Life on Mars coming to ABC television. I speak in the past tense because everything that has happened since that initial announcement has me doubting that ABC's Americanized Life on Mars will ever make it out of the first season. It may not even air six episodes.

There have been production changes, the first pilot was trashed, they've inserted new characters, they've remade the mythology of the show (with the approval of the British creators), and now more news. The character of Annie Norris on Life on Mars will be played by Gretchen Mol. Yes, the beautiful, sexy and very blond Gretchen Mol. (Okay, she can dye her hair.)

I have the ultimate respect for Ms. Mol. She was excellent in 3:10 to Yuma (a really amazing Western that should have gotten some Oscar consideration). I just think she's the wrong choice for the role of Annie.