SciFi Stream

The power behind the SciFi Channel and the USA Network may soon get an opportunity to put that talent to the test. Bonnie Hammer, who has made a name for herself as head of the two strongest genre cable channels over the years, could be in charge of a new production division that would focus solely on producing original programming for both NBC Universal’s SciFi Channel and USA Network. The Los Angeles Times is reporting that Universal Media Studios could be looking at a split, putting the studio that feeds broadcast channels like NBC and other networks in one division, and Hammer with her cable work in another. That would be a big split for Universal Media Studios, which right now produces 13 broadcast television shows including “House” and seven cable shows that include “Battlestar Galactica.” …

Very often, when an actor plays a role in a television series as critically acclaimed as “Battlestar Galactica,” they find it difficult to find equally great or better roles once the series ends. Katee Sackhoff, who plays the pivotal role of Kara “Starbuck” Thrace in the series, is facing such a dilemma. She is concerned about finding parts as challenging and powerful once “Galactica’s” fourth and final season ends. “It’s extremely difficult,” Sackhoff said in an interview with SciFi Wire. “It’s a definite worry. People ask me if I’m worried about being pigeonholed in science-fiction, and definitely not. That’s not a fear of mine at all.” Sackhoff, who has most recently been seen as Sarah Corvus on “Bionic Woman” and as a doomed woman in the recent straight-to-DVD “White Noise …

It’s kind of spectacular when worlds collide, and when Ronald D. Moore and Joss Whedon met up during the writers’ strike, they did more than just dump a few hundred-thousand pencils. Whedon’s confessed love for “Battlestar Galactica” has yielded its first offspring. Tahmoh Penikett, best known as Capt. Karl C. “Helo” Agathon to BSG fans, has been cast in Joss Whedon’s upcoming series, “Dollhouse.” Casting news is starting to leak out about the much-awaited series created by Whedon and Eliza Dushku. Penikett will play Paul Smith, an FBI field agent who’s been chasing the urban myth of the Dollhouse and becomes a twisted romantic foil for Echo (Eliza Dushku). Others cast in the show all qualify as candidates for tongue twisters, but if “Dollhouse” doesn’t get “FOXed” over the …

The following contains MAJOR SPOILERS for “Fragments,” the twelfth episode of the second season of BBC’s “Torchwood.” You can’t get a more dramatic opening than this: the team tracks down a series of explosive devices with only seconds left to go … and each one detonates right in their faces forcing the teams life to flash before their eyes. The thrill of “Fragments” is seeing how each of the Torchwood players came to work for the alien-catching organization in some of the most surprising and unexpected ways. And at the center of it all are Jack’s (John Barrowman) efforts to rebuild Torchwood in the honor of his Doctor with the end goal of protecting the people of Earth and arming the human race against the future. Move over “Lost”  this is how flashbacks should be done. What Worked …

Once upon a time, Simon White felt there was something missing in his life, and decided to fill it with one of Britain’s top pop icons: “Doctor Who.” The Wiltshire, England man became obsessed with the series, collecting a huge Dalek, a pair of Cybermen, a model of K-9 the robotic dog, and he even spent two years building his own version of the Tardis. The thing is that White later decided that it was religion that was missing from his life, and there wasn’t enough room for both God and The Doctor, so the 900-year-old Timelord has to go. White is selling his “Doctor Who” collection on the Internet, and is hoping to pick up £7,000, or nearly $14,000 for the whole lot so that he can make room in his house for a Bible. And White is serious, telling the Wiltshire Times that “Doctor Who” …

Except perhaps for religion, most would agree that politics and the environment are the top global topics everyone likes to debate about. Well, Joe Morton (aka Henry Deacon) hopes that “Eureka’s” upcoming third season will have his character involved in more political and environmental issues. He told reporters that he would like Henry to “get involved in something political. Last year, I sort of ended up being carted off to prison. So I think there’s a change again for him this year in terms of coming out of prison and where he is and getting over Kim and sort of starting a new life.” Morton would love to see Henry involved in politics, economy and “if he could find a way to use science to help people to make a better living, have a better life, etc. and got involved in the world globally.” …

TrekMovie has previously reported that Paramount originally planned on putting out the first full trailer for Star Trek this summer (most likely with one of the May releases of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull or Iron Man). The change of the Trek release date to next May put that plan into [...]

This week in Science Friday, we bring you a new Cassini Watch with intriguing results from the March 12th Enceladus flyby, ask the question, "Where’s all the anti-matter?", consider taking a final trip to the Moon, debate AI ethics, and present a very special Gadget of the Week: The Aptera! Intrigued? Read on!

The following contains MAJOR SPOILERS for “Traveler,” the fourteenth episode of the seventh season of The CW’s “Smallville.” It’s girl power to the rescue as Lana, Chloe and Kara of Krypton all team up to save Clark from the clutches of an elusive billionaire. After a mid-season lull, “Smallville’s” many plot threads are finally starting to come together for a mythology-filled conclusion, with a clandestine cabal, a series of grisly murders and a hell of a lot of political manipulation  yes, bad-Lionel (John Glover) is back. Since his incarceration at the end of the third season, Lionel has gone through a remarkable transformation as a saint, savior and eventually the Oracle of Jor-El. Now it seems though that all of that was part of a larger endgame (how very Arvin Sloane) and that all …

This week we see the end of “Jericho” (again). We were treated to a good season of almost non-stop action. The story moved along at a break-neck pace, and one has to wonder if the series was better because of the short season. In the United Kingdom, the standard for television has been short seasons, called “series” instead of “seasons” over there. The short season has always been enough to tell a story, keeping the storytelling tight and focused, and then finishing with a clean ending. The U.S. model is quite different. Our seasons are are commissioned with a 13-episode order, and if the show does well is expanded to include another nine to 13 more episodes. Having that many hours to fill leads to the infamous filler episode. In my opinion, that was the biggest problem with “Battlestar …