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Hailing Frequencies #358
4.5.07

HELLO

And here's the three hundred and fifty-eighth edition of "Hailing Frequencies."

If you want to be notified when this newsletter is updated, email me to be put on my "notification" list.

You know, I thought that whole thing about defragging your computer was over. But, turns out, my Dell desktop at work was making noises like a dying giraffe, so I thought, "What the heck," and defragged it, and danged if it isn't better!

Thanks to everyone who said my "hatch" idea is okay. :-) I'm digging now!

NEW AT THE SITE THIS WEEK

Check out the new April '07 Desktop Calendar.

I have new recommendations at the Reading Cave.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA

Katee Sackhoff told the LA Times how difficult it was for her to deceive her fellow cast and crew members regarding Starbuck's apparent death (and return):

[David] Eick said: "This was by far the most difficult and complex secret to keep. It was no small feat."

At first, the producers wanted to deceive the whole "Battlestar Galactica" production, including the cast, into thinking that Sackhoff was really leaving. "They said, 'We're not telling anyone,' " she recounted. " 'We're not telling the entire crew. The entire cast. Some of the writers aren't even going to know.' I was like, 'You've got to be kidding me!' "

The cast found out Starbuck was "dying" while production was underway last year when they received the outline of the episode in which she blew up. "Everyone flipped out," Sackhoff said.

The animated Sackhoff found it difficult to lie to her fellow actors about what was going on. (Deceit doesn't seem to be her forte, generally speaking: In the first minute of this interview, Sackhoff admitted that she was hung over, because, she said, "I don't want you to think I'm stupid. I'd rather you think I'm, you know, a drunk.")

Eick soon realized that this part of the plan simply wouldn't work among the close group of friends in the "Battlestar Galactica" cast. "It wasn't fair to her," he said. "She was going to have to lie to literally everybody in the cast: 'Yeah, yeah, I know, it's awfully sad. I'm gonna miss you guys!' It got ridiculous at a certain point. She was a trooper; I think she would have done anything we asked her to. But she's not inhuman!"

So the cast was told that Sackhoff and Starbuck were there to stay, but anyone else deemed a potential leak was kept in the dark. Including Sackhoff's own father. "My dad has a big mouth, and I knew he would get on his e-mail list and tell everyone," she said.

BOOK CORNER

Richard Bowes' From the Files of the Time Rangers has a spotlight at SCI FI Wire and is a finalist for this year's Nebula Award. It's basically a frame story about "time travel and Golden Age pulp SF; about the cops who patrol the time lanes and the ancient gods acting with and against those cops; about Lady Olivia Wexford—an 18th-century English aristocrat who becomes the mistress of Dionysius—and the wealthy American political family that she and the gods try to destroy; about two kids who successively become the avatars of Pluto, god of Death; about the making of a president in a world not unlike our own; and [about] what happens when a world like ours becomes aware of the complex, ever-flowing Time Stream."

Cool.

EUREKA

Joe Morton told SCI FI Wire that cameras are rolling for season two, which will have a lot of "changes" and be very "exciting," and will feature more character interaction. For example, "Debrah and I did a series together many, many years ago, when she played my second chair in Equal Justice," Morton said. "In all this time, in terms of Eureka, I never really had any scenes with her. So we just did a really lovely scene, which, well, you'll see."

Season two premieres this July. For my take on this show, go here.

GHOST WHISPERER

Regarding the season finale, which airs May 11 8 PM, Jennifer Love Hewitt told SCI FI Wire: "You will finally understand in the end of the season why the dark side sort of has this defiant stare on this girl in particular....The thing that people will definitely understand is why there is such a personal attack on this one person. And for Melinda, she will understand why. And it will not be going away anytime soon. And so it's something that she's really going to have to sort of get comfortable in fighting over and over again."

CBS' Innertube premiered an original scripted online companion series to Ghost Whisperer, streaming free of charge at www.cbs.com/ghost. Slam Internet, Inc., produces (and Saturn sponsors) the tale of earthbound spirit Zach, who is learning how to live with the, er, living. The webisodes are refreshed every Friday.

Thursday's Ghost Whisperer clocked in at an impressive 6.2/12.

HARRY POTTER

Check out the official book cover for Scholastic's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, all 784 pages, flies to shelves July 21.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix opens July 13. The soundtrack to the film will be available July 1.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has a tentative opening date of November 21, 2008.

Knitters! Check it out!

HEROES

NBC has posted some new, spoiler-y clips for Heroes episodes on MySpace.com and NBC.com.

NBC is adding an online game to NBC.com for Heroes, in which former Mossad operative Hana asks fans to help her defeat Linderman. The game (and some others for non-sci-fi shows) starts April 23.

Heroes returns for the rest of the season starting April 23.

LOOKS LIKE SCI-FI BUT ISN'T

...comes courtesy again of Pianokeyboardorg:

The football-field sized holes were observed by Mars Odyssey's Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) and have been dubbed the seven sisters --Dena, Chloe, Wendy, Annie, Abbey, Nikki and Jeanne--after loved ones of the researchers who found them. The potential caves were spotted near a massive Martian volcano, Arisa Mons. Their openings range from about 330 to 820 feet wide, and one of them, Dena, is thought to extend nearly 430 feet beneath the planet's surface.

LOST

EW has an analysis of last night's episode.

LOST ROOM

Christopher Leone and Laura Harkcom have done a little publicity at SCI FI Wire for The Lost Room on DVD. "Rewatching it, I think you notice little details," Leone said..."If the show did pique your interest, the DVD only fuels that." The DVD includes the entire uncut miniseries, and featurette "Inside the Lost Room."

The miniseries aired last December and stars Peter Krause as Detective Joe Miller, an ordinary guy who finds himself caught up in a life-and-death hunt for a series of powerful everyday objects when his daughter is transported to an another dimension.

MISC...

• A recent poll found Serenity at the top of the list of best-ever sci-fi movies, and Star Wars coming in only second.
• Lauren Shuler Donne (The X-Men), will next produce The Metal Men for Warner Bros. with Eric Champnella scripting, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
• Eddie Murphy's Starship Dave, about little aliens who "fly" a spaceship that looks like a guy, has added Judah Friedlander to the cast.
• Walden Media, Fox 2000 and the Jim Henson Co. are bringing Edward Gorey's The Doubtful Guest to the big screen.
• Rhythm & Hues Studios will do the visual effects for The Incredible Hulk from Marvel Studios, which is scheduled to start production in June in Toronto.
• Under the helm of Garth Ancier, President BBC Worldwide America, who took over BBC's U.S. businesses a month ago, BBC America is introducing a new restructured schedule for 2007 with programming blocks that include "Supernatural Saturday," with Jekyll, Torchwood, Life on Mars, Hex and Doctor Who.
• A cool rumor that has no support as yet comes from TheOneRing.net. Peter Jackson is maybe going to do a live-action movie of the Powerpuff Girls for 2008.
• Fox has announced that Mark Wahlberg has snagged the lead in M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, planned for theatres June 13, 2008. That just happens to be a Friday the 13th. What a tvist!
• Check out the updated official Website for the third Shrek movie.
• Remember the ABC sitcom I told you is in development based on those commercial cavemen guys? Well, Nick Kroll, Bill English, and Kaitlin Doubleday will play the not-so-merry Neanderthals, according to Variety.
• IGN has a review of the movie Meet the Robinsons: "Somewhere between ironic postmodernism, contemporary self-reference and classic convention, Meet the Robinsons offers a solidly engaging tale about family values. As satire, homage or just throwback entertainment, this combination of Back to the Future and The Incredibles is one of the better animated films produced in recent months."

NOT SCI-FI AT ALL

Twenty-nine percent of U.S. households (31 million homes) are without any kind of internet access and have no intention of getting it during the next 12 months, according to Parks Associates' National Technology Scan. The study found the biggest reason for not subscribing was lack of interest in anything on the net, followed by uncertainty of how to use it.

And while I'm completedly off-topic, do you think I should treat myself to the perfect shirt?

PIRATES

Check out the new Disney Website for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which opens May 25.

Thank the LA Times for this one:

Snorting a speedball of cocaine and dear old dad may be the stuff of rock 'n' roll legend but apparently it's not the sort of tale told to children at the Happiest Place on Earth.

Keith Richards' macabre remark about snorting a mixture of cocaine and the cremated remains of his deceased father may have amused music fans with its ghoulish sensibilities, but it caused a moment of alarm inside Walt Disney Studios, home to the movie marketing team behind the upcoming "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End."

"When [a senior Disney publicist] forwarded the [Richards] story to me ... I thought, 'How are we going to spin this?' " Dennis Rice, Disney's senior vice president for publicity, said during a presentation to the media of the studio's upcoming films Wednesday morning.

As a result of Richards' remark, which was later discounted by his representatives as just a joke, it is likely that the rocker's appearances on the red carpet in support of the film will be curtailed.

"Keith won't be doing a lot of publicity for this movie," Rice added.

Rumors continue that if the third Pirates movie rakes it in the way the first two have, there will be a fourth and fifth film. Nothing official either way.

RANDOM DIALOG QUIZ

Can you name the movie? "I'm sorry I called you a meatloaf, Jack!"

Highlight to read the answer: An American Werewolf in London.

SPIDER-MAN

In a surprise turnaround, Tobey Maguire says he might make a Spidey 4 after all. Maguire told SCI FI Wire, "It all depends on if there's a story worth telling. I feel very proud of the three movies that we've made. I feel like the stories all deserve to be told, and, you know, if they come up with a good movie, and the whole team wants to get back together, and we feel like we can make a good movie that's worth making, then I'm up for it."

Kirsten Dunst, who's also been saying a fourth movie isn't going to happen, has changed her tune as well: "I think if we venture into a fourth, it will be some time from now and in a new way. Because I don't think Sam can do that: continuing on this same course. I think he needs to venture as an artist and do other things; otherwise, none of us will have anything good to bring to the fourth. So I think we all need to venture out a little bit, and then maybe we'll come back together one day and do another one."

Was someone offered more money?

Here's the track listing for Spider-Man 3: Music From And Inspired By:
1. Snow Patrol — "Signal Fire"
2. The Killers — "Move Away" (The Killers RULE!)
3. Yeah Yeah Yeahs — "Sealings"
4. Wolfmother — "Pleased To Meet You"
5. The Walkmen — "Red River"
6. Black Mountain — "Stay Free"
7. The Flaming Lips — "The Supreme Being Teaches Spider-Man How To Be In Love"
8. Simon Dawes — "Scared Of Myself"
9. Chubby Checker — "The Twist"
10. Rogue Wave — "Sightlines"
11. Coconut Records — "Summer Day"
12. Jet — "Falling Star"
13. Sounds Under Radio — "Portrait of A Summer Thief"
14. Wyos — "A Letter To St. Jude"

The City of New York and Columbia Pictures will have a "Spider-Man Week" April 30 - May 6 with events all through the five boroughs and involving such New York landmarks as the Central Park and Bronx zoos, the American Museum of Natural History and the Apollo Theater. The week ends, of course, in the world premiere of Spider-Man 3 at the Tribeca Film Festival in Queens.

Spider-Man 3 will be released in IMAX and regular theatres worldwide May 4.

STAR TREK

Wil Wheaton has posted to his blog (where he is living his own exile!)

I'm writing a story for the second volume of Star Trek: The Manga.

Pretty cool, huh?

If you're unfamiliar with the first volume of Star Trek: The Manga, TokyoPop and Memory Alpha have all sorts of exciting details for you, some of which look like this:

Like that television classic, these new journeys venture into the terrain of social politics, personal reflection...and bare-knuckled brawls between the dashing Captain Kirk and the galaxy’s most cunning alien species. Vulcan science officer Spock's unflappable logic, Doctor “Bones” McCoy’s flare for drama, chief engineer Scott's perpetual struggle to keep the warp engines online, and the never before told origin story of one of the Star Trek universe’s most popular adversaries, all come at you in a fresh, new style.

This came my way about a month ago, when Luis Reyes, the editor in charge of the project, wrote to me that he'd heard I was into this sort of thing, and that I "may be interested in contributing.

(Cool beans, dude! Click the link for more.)

After many failed attempts, James Doohan's ashes are to be blasted off into space from a New Mexico launch site on the 28th of April. I'm forcing myself not to make any bad jokes here.

SUPERNATURAL

Exec. Prod. John Shiban talks with SCI FI Wire about some surprising secrets to be revealed on CW's Supernatural:

"All Hell Breaks Loose," Shiban said. "Those things were done on purpose. At the top of the year we said, 'As we hit our mythology periodically, let's drop this piece of information. Let's let this out or let's let that out, which will set up our ending.' And I'm very pleased with how it played. I think people are not frustrated. They're not feeling we're stringing them along, which I think is good. The sense I get is that they're excited and they want to know more and they're going to get more."

TOP MOVIES TODAY FROM THE NUMBERS

1 Blades of Glory.............................$38,300,502 (is this any good, guys?)
2 Meet the Robinsons.......................$29,507,438
3 300...........................................$182,194,337
4 Shooter.......................................$29,092,332
5 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...........$40,025,178
6 Wild Hogs....................................$136,945,513
7 Premonition................................$40,363,41519
8 The Hills Have Eyes II.....................$16,870,822
9 The Last Mimzy.............................$16,734,000
10 Reign Over Me............................$14,104,344

Weekend Box Office Estimates: March 30-April 1, 2007
Blades of Glory (Paramount/Dreamworks) $33.0 million - opening weekend
Meet the Robinsons (Buena Vista) $25.1 million - opening weekend
300 (Warner Bros.) $11.2 million - 4 wk total $179.7m
TMNT (Warner Bros.) $9.2 million - 2 wk total $38.4m
Wild Hogs (Buena Vista) $8.4 million - 5 wk total $135.4m
Shooter (Paramount) $8.0 million - 2 wk total $27.2m
Premonition (Sony) $5.1 million - 3 wk total $39.3m
The Last Mimzy (New Line) $4.0 million - 2 wk total $16.2m
The Hills Have Eyes 2 (Fox Atomic) $3.9 million - 2 wk total $15.8m
Reign Over Me (Sony) $3.7 million - 2 wk total $13.3m
Source: Box Office Mojo

TOP BOOKS SCI-FI/FANTASY @ Amazon, 4.5.07

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling
2. White Night: A Novel of The Dresden Files, by Jim Butcher
3. 300, by Frank Miller
4. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1), by Jim Butcher (my review)
5. The Children of Hurin: Deluxe Edition, Christopher Tolkien (from his dad's notes)
6. For a Few Demons More, by Kim Harrison
7. Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2), by Jim Butcher
8. Claimed By Shadow, by Karen Chance
9. Danse Macabre (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 14), by Laurell K. Hamilton
10. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4), by Jim Butcher

TOP DVDs SCI-FI/FANTASY @ Amazon, 4.5.07

1. Twin Peaks - The Second Season
2. Children of Men (Widescreen Edition) (read my review)
3. Peter Pan (Two-Disc Platinum Edition)
4. Pan's Labyrinth (Two-Disc Special Edition)
5. Eragon (Two-Disc Special Edition)
6. The Little Mermaid (Two-Disc Special Edition)
7. Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
8. Lost - The Complete Second Season
9. Firefly - The Complete Series
10. Stargate Atlantis - The Complete Second Season (read my review)

TOP SCI FI NETWORK SHOWS - Nielsen Galaxy Report, 3.5 - 3.11.07

Heroes 8.5
Lost 7.6
Medium 5.8
Jericho 5.3
Ghost Whisperer 4.5
Smallville 1.6
Supernatural 1.3

TOP SCI FI SYNDICATED SHOWS - Nielsen Galaxy Report, 3.12 - 3.18.07

Alias 1.9
Smallville 1.6
Stargate SG-1 1.4
Stargate Atlantis 1.3
Star Trek 1.3
Farscape 0.5
The Outer Limits 0.4

INSANE TREK TRIVIA

This Week's Question: According to many biographies of Star Trek's cast and crew, what sci-fi show blatantly ripped-off Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek pitch to the TV studios?

Send your answer to julia.houston@gmail.com. All correctly answering trivia maniacs will have their names mentioned in the next letter. The first winner gets to make a request, anything they like -- within reason -- for the next "Hailing Frequencies" Issue. Please let me know if you don't want me to post your email address if you win.

Last Week's Question: What race has all "been the dog"?

Answer: The Q.

First winner
Patty

Second winner
Michael

CAPTION CONTEST

Send in your best caption for the picture below. The best (as in, my favorite) entry will appear in next week's issue.

[Insert caption here.]

Last week's topic: Determinism vs. free will as referenced on Lost. Discuss.

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No replies. (Pppplbt!)

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Next week's topic: So which is the better movie, folks, Star Wars or Serenity?

Send me something if you've got something to say.  It can be about anything that's on your mind!

HAILING FREQUENCIES CLOSED

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Julia Houston