Inception:

One blogger teases apart some of the clues in the newly released trailer. Joseph Gordon Levitt seems to be part of a security detail, watching as Lukas Haas is being taken away, and maybe Haas has info that can lead to whatever Ken Watanabe is up to. It seems like people's imaginations are reshaping cityscapes, and cities are also like mazes. But when your mind reshapes cities, sometimes gravity applies and sometimes it doesn't. There's a car explosion in a city, being witnessed by Haas through a window.

Also, it seems like the train racing down the city street is chasing a taxi, which has Tom Hardy in it. Ken Watanabe jumps out of bed with his gun, and there's medicine on his bedside table.

JGL and Haas have a man tied to a chair, and JGL says, "We've got to get out of here. Give him the kick!" JGL fights in a room where the walls and floor are shifting around, and masked men walk in on two men who are tied up, as prisoners. Also, Leonardo DiCaprio is holding something as he's drowned in that bathtub. [Eating Class, thanks Gerard!]

Paranormal Activity 2:

Micah Sloat talks about the inevitable sequel:

I can't say anything specific about it, but I can definitely tell you that Paramount and the producers are very aware of what happened with Blair Witch 2, and how you can't really take something that's unique like Blair Witch or Paranormal and then follow it up with just a typical, Hollywood horror film. It just doesn't work. I think you can expect Paranormal Activity 2 to be just as unique, or at least have a quality of uniqueness, just like the original did, in its own way and I think it's really going to be a great movie.

[MovieWeb]

Lost:

More mysterious spoilers: One of the original Losties from the start of season one will try to kill himself, but Jack will save him. (And I'm guessing this is in alternate universe-land. Just a guess, since OG castaways are in short supply in the regular timeline.) Also, someone "tall, dark and handsome" whom we've known a long time will die within the first four hours, in the season's first shocking death. [E! Online]

Sawyer begins the new season racked with guilt over the events of the previous season finale, and Josh Holloway says Sawyer needs a second chance to rectify some of his mistakes. The badass Sawyer will be back in 2010, but first he'll get some closure with Juliet in some "poignant" scenes that set up important developments later on. But Sawyer says his grief over Juliet makes it "not possible for him to be with Kate. Right now, he doesn't give a f—- about life…or anyone in it. He's destroyed inside. There's an undeniable love for Kate, but everything inside of him is fighting not to go there." Also, it sounds like Sun and Jin will be separated again this year. [TV Guide Magazine]

Some more details about the Sun/Jin episode. There's a crucial scene involving Sun, a beat-up Jin, Sayid, Keamy (who has a gunshot wound in his side), Omar (who has a GSW in his stomach), and Mikhail (who looks young, has both eyes, and speaks Korean). In the scene Mikhail surprises Sun and takes her hostage, and they come around the corner, and there's Keamy, already shot. Mikhail goes to check on Keamy, and Jin jumps him. Mikhail and Jin fight. Jin shoots at Mikhail three times, hitting him in the eye the third time. Also, the Sun/Jin episode includes scenes at Sydney Airport and a Korean bank. And a car will drive off a pier.

Meanwhile, scientists are chasing Sawyer down to the beach. And we'll see a new camp full of airplane stuff — and this turns out to be Claire's camp. We'll learn what Claire has been up to all this time, and it's pretty "wild." [The Transmission via SpoilersLost]

Some rumors/hints from inside sources. Supposedly a great deal of the season opener takes place on Flight 815, and we'll see Desmond on the plane. Plus we'll see the Statue from the plane, and Jack bumps into Kate on board the plane. Jack saves Charlie once again — and maybe this is the suicide that Jack prevents? We'll see Juliet die, but first she gets a final kiss. Jacob appears to Hurley, Jack and Sawyer fight again, and it's "pretty fucking crazy." [SpoilersLost]

Dollhouse:

The next episode, "Getting Closer," includes Bennett (Summer Glau), November/Mellie, Mr. Dominic AND Whiskey/Claire Saunders. And here's a description:

Topher races to reconstruct Echo's original personality and memories when Adelle realizes they are the key to averting a devastating future. Meanwhile, Echo and Bennett's shared past and the identity of the Rossum's Corpration's mysterious leader are revealed in the all-new "Getting Closer" episode of DOLLHOUSE airing Friday, Jan. 8

[Summer-Glau.net]

Doctor Who:

John Simm answers YOUR questions about his return as the Master. Not all that spoilery, though. [Pop Culture Zoo]

Batman: The Brave And The Bold:

A series of clips and some awesome pics from Friday's episode, "The Revenge Of The Reach," featuring Guy Gardner, the Challengers Of The Unknown, Blue Beetle and the Green Lantern Corps. Looks like a late Xmas present to those of us who loved the Rogers run on Blue Beetle. [Comic Book Resources]

Smallville:

A new mid-year teaser includes a few tantalizing glimpses. [OSCK]

Heroes:

Here's the official description for episode 4x15, "Close To You." A grim vision of the future? That never happens on this show!

H.R.G. EXPOSES SAMUEL'S GREATEST WEAKNESS IN AN EFFORT TO STOP HIM - LISA LACKEY, DAWN OLIVIERI AND ELISABETH ROHM GUEST STAR - H.R.G. (Jack Coleman) recruits Matt (Greg Grunberg) to help him take down Samuel (Robert Knepper), as they use his long-lost love, Vanessa (guest star Kate Vernon), to lure him to them, but Samuel has his own plans for Vanessa in the works. Meanwhile, Hiro (Masi Oka) and Ando (James Kyson Lee) go to extreme lengths to save Dr. Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy). Elsewhere, Peter's (Milo Ventimiglia) introduction of Emma (guest star Deanne Bray) to his mother (Cristine Rose) brings forth visions of a very grim future.

[HeroSite]

Additional reporting by Josh C. Snyder.

Monday

A surprisingly strong start to the week comes in the form of a couple of marathons. Discovery has a day of Mythbusters starting at 9am and finishing with a brand new episode, "Mini Myth Mayhem," at 9pm, while Syfy takes the Doctor Who route and runs with a Sarah Jane Adventures marathon from 10am through 3pm.

For those seeking more high-brow, independent movie thrills, IFC is showing 1995 Australian ecology alien movie Alien Visitor at 9:45pm. Here's the synopsis:

A beautiful alien is sent from the planet Epsilon to pass judgment on the shameful way in which humans have mishandled their planet. Set in a near future in which humanity has made great strides in cleaning up the Earth, it begins as a grandmother tells her granddaughters a story from the past. Her tale begins in the desert outback during the dark times when people were actively ruining their planet. The naked alien is placed upon the desert where she eventually meets a surveyor who quickly gives her some clothing. As the two travel across the land, the alien constantly admonishes him for his race's carelessness and greed. She informs him that other intelligent life forms consider humans hopeless failures. Using her ability to travel instantly to any of Earth's locales, she takes the bewildered surveyor on a whirlwind tour to prove her point.

(Also, pretty much entirely off-topic, but there's a two hour block of Community reruns on NBC at 8pm, for those who wonder where Chevy Chase is these days. It's not SF, but I recommend it nonetheless)

Tuesday

With the exception of ABC's Better Off Ted at 9:30pm - the first of two episodes this week - it's all about the movies today. You can go for camp horror thrills on AMC with Jack Nicholson werewolf movie Wolf (at midnight) and the two Ghostbusters movies at 11am and 1:30pm, respectively, or else some classic anime with Howl's Moving Castle on IFC at 6:50am. Set your TiVo.

Wednesday

Unless you're looking for the 11pm AMC showing of Aliens, it's pretty much up to ABC's Eastwick at 10am to keep the flame of television alive with new episode "Magic Snow and Creepy Gene":

When the women make a pact never to reveal what they did to Jamie, they realize they must go their separate ways — and abandon their powers. A guilty Joanna tries to help Penny find closure; sparks fly between Kat and her hot new neighbor, single dad Colin, who has come to Eastwick with his young son Gene and a dark secret. Just as Kat and Joanna are moving on, things get complicated for Roxie when Darryl returns to Eastwick with the truth about his mysterious past.

Thursday

As if knowing that you're very unlikely to be watching television today, there's a scarcity of great programming available... Although, we have to admit, we love the perverseness of Syfy's Twilight Zone marathon, which starts at 8:30 in the morning today and runs until Saturday morning.

Friday

See in 2010 with as much David Tennant as you can stand: At midnight, BBC America starts a rerun of the entire Russell T. Davies Doctor Who run, leading up to Saturday's "The End of Time, Part Two." Yes, the whole thing, over what's pretty much two days. It's kind of awesome.

If you're not a Doctor Who fan, though, there's always another Mythbusters marathon on the Discovery Channel (9am through 3am Saturday).

Also, there are new episodes of Batman: The Brave and The Bold (7:30pm) and Star Wars: The Clone Wars (9pm, and it's a double bill of "Grievous Intrigue" and "The Deserter") on Cartoon Network. And there's an all-new Better Off Ted on ABC at 8:30pm (along with a rerun of the first episode of the new season at 9:30).

And if even that isn't enough, then AMC would like your attention: They're showing Voyage to The Bottom Of The Sea at 9am, Alien Resurrection at 11:30am, and all three Matrix movies starting at 2pm. Of course, there's also 24 solid hours of Twilight Zone on Syfy, as well...

Saturday

BBC America keeps running Doctor Who through to 8:30pm's US premiere of "The End of Time, Part Two," which'll hopefully be better than the first part.

BBC America also has the US premiere of Demons, the short-lived UK Dracula-related supernatural series. Otherwise, the day belongs to Syfy's horror movie marathon: 9am Venom, 11am Shallow Ground, 1pm Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, 3pm, Timber Falls, 5pm Flu Bird Horror , 7pm Splinter, 9pm The Midnight Meat Train, 11:00pm See No Evil, 1am Sunday Death Tunnel, 3am The Shaft.

Sunday

Syfy has another movie marathon today, with a focus on monsters. It starts at 9am with Boa Vs. Python, before continuing with 11am's Manticore, 1pm's Beowulf, 3pm's Savage Planet, 5pm's The Bone Eater, 7pm's Swamp Devil, 9pm's Sea Beast, and ending with Eye of The Beast at 11pm... which just so happens to be the time that The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen starts on AMC. It's almost like it was planned that way!

Avatar 2:

The planet that Pandora orbits is called Polyphemus, and it's the primary for a system of moons, says James Cameron. "We have some story ideas for how to branch out into other moons of Polyphemus and the Alpha Centauri A solar system." [L.A. Times]

The Wolfman:

The movie's much-vaunted CG is used mostly in the transformation scenes, to bridge the actor's real face and the makeup of the wolf face — the film isn't supposed to be super CG-heavy, because it's a tribute to the old Lon Chaney films. [Shock Till You Drop]

The Imaginarium Of Dr. Parnassus:

When Dr. Parnassus made his deal with the devil to hand over his daughter in exchange for immortality and perpetual youth, the daughter wasn't even born yet — now she's 16, and the devil has come to London to collect on the deal. But Tony (Heath Ledger et al.), who passes through Parnassus' mirror into a land of imagination where his soul faces moral challenges, has a sketchy past and hidden agenda of his own. [IGN]

Lost:

E! Online is continuing with their daily season six spoilers. Apparently, we'll meet a new big bad who makes Ben Linus look like an amateur, and here are some clues about him. He:

* Killed **h*.
* Killed ***o*.
* Is *** **o** *****e*.
* Wants to "g* ****."

People are interpreting this stuff to mean that "he" is the Smoke Monster and he "wants to go home." There is some disagreement over who "he" killed, though. (Don't forget, the Smoke Monster told Ben to obey Flocke.) Meanwhile, we'll see Desmond again early in the season, and it'll be in a surprising encounter with one of the Losties. [E! Online and E! Online]

And Sun, Jack and Locke were filming a scene on the beach where the Losties' camp was. But which Locke was this? [SpoilersLost]

Doctor Who:

We will find out "slightly" more about the Doctor's role in the Time War, says David Tennant, but "it won't be more explicit." And we'll see more familiar faces from the Doctor's past, including some surprises. [New Jersey Star-Ledger and MTV]

And fans are piecing together what we know to speculate a bit about how it all turns out. We know Donna survives, because we saw her filming a scene in her wedding dress. Wilf may be an exiled Time Lord, or something similar. Also, the mysterious woman speaking to Wilf could be Romana, or it could be a much older Rose Smith, who's lived a good long life with the "hand Doctor" in the alternate universe, and will now sacrifice herself heroically. [Sunny Tyler]

And here's a new trailer for part 2, different fromthe one which aired after Part 1. [Den Of Geek]

It sounds like we might get more introspective conversations between the Doctor and the Master in part 2, judging from this interview with Russell T. Davies:

I've always thought in a very strange way these two men love each other - not in a gay way, but they are similar and share a lot. There's more dialogue between them this time, more conversation. It's hard to bring them together for long in a scene because each of them will try to stop the other and they won't stand around talking too much. But I've worked hard this time. We learn more about their history, where they want to go. Both of them are heading for death, that's the important thing. The Doctor knows he's going to die, The Master is dying. He's been brought back to life but it hasn't worked, so both of them are trying to survive while heading to the Immortality Gate. Both in the same situation but at the same time enemies and total opposites.

Also, he hints once again that we shouldn't assume the Doctor regenerates in Saturday's episode. And it sounds like the Doctor references the events of "Waters Of Mars" one more time. [Digital Spy]

So the "Weeping Angels" from "Blink" are coming back in the new season. But how will they be portrayed? There may be a few hints in this new video about them, which the BBC just posted, narrated by Captain Jack Harkness. [via BlogtorWho]

Fringe:

Here are some promo pics from the unaired season one episode "Unearthed," which airs in January. [SpoilerTV]

And here are some pics from the next episode, "Edina City Limits". [SpoilerTV]

Chuck:

We've already seen Chuck play the guitar and fight kung-fu style, but we'll see him do other stuff, like drive vehicles. Anything a human body can do, Chuck can theoretically do now. [TV Talk Podcast]

Day Of The Triffids:

The characters in this new version don't kill the Triffids by pouring salt water on them, like in some earlier versions, says actor Dougray Scott. He plays the main character, who avoids blindness because his eyes were bandaged after an operation, and he hooks up with a radio journalist played by Joely Richardson. He adds:

The writer of our version has heavily updated the Wyndham concept, which was written at a time when people feared nuclear proliferation. There was that great fear of nuclear escape and his novel had a sort of cathartic response to that. Our production is doing a similar thing, only we've updated it to the genetic modification of plants created to replace oil in a world where oil has disappeared, which could be in the very near future.

[California Chronicle]

Additional reporting by Mary Ratliff.

Get The Nostalgia While The Nostalgia Getting's Good
The failure of Jennifer's Body at the box office punctured the myth of Megan Fox, but in doing so left Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen's epic success even more inexplicable. You mean that everyone who went to see that genuinely wanted to see giant robots fighting for the right to appear in a story that made sense instead of Megan Fox's ass? Really? (To be fair, maybe it was John Tuturro's ass they couldn't resist.) Of course not; they wanted to relive memories of their childhood/the first Transformers movie/the Go-Bots by proxy. Same reason that Star Trek was such a hit, and the dismal Terminator Salvation made money at all. The problem with this for movie studios is that there's only a limited number of things to be nostalgic about, and they're burning through them quickly (Next year's Tron Legacy and The A-Team show that we're already up to the mid-'80s); when there're already plans to reboot Battlestar Galactica as a movie franchise months after its conclusion as a (rebooted) television show and restarting the Fantastic Four movies from scratch just a few years after the failure of Rise Of The Silver Surfer, you can tell that there's nervousness. With good reason; the lawsuit over the rights to Superman show that nostalgia could get more expensive for filmmakers in years to come. Maybe one day, Disney's $4 Billion buyout of Marvel Entertainment's IP will look like a bargain.

Find A Voice With Something To Say, Then Let It Speak
2009 was a year of extremes when it came to the creation of movies and television that didn't (entirely) rely on IP graverobbing. On the one hand, it was the year when the phrase "production hiatus" became widely known as code for "The Powers That Be don't like what's being done and are about to 'fix' it" as the trains seemed to come off the usually-smoother-running TV production track more often, and more publicly, than usual (See: Dollhouse, FlashForward and V, which has had two such hiatuses, and "coincidentally" switched showrunners twice, as well). On the other, it was the year when smaller movies like District 9 and Moon garnered critical acclaim - and, in the case of D9, a pretty amazing box office haul - for being individual, unusual and something other than generic production line blockbusters. Avatar, too, is being hailed for being the singular vision of James Cameron and, maybe most importantly, that being a good thing. Maybe this was the year that started a renaissance in an appreciation for the auteur theory after all?

On Television, Burying The Lede Will Kill You
We've said this more than once recently, but the fact that Dollhouse's second season was promoted to critics with its lackluster first episode may have damaged the show's chances irreparably. You can't blame the promotions people, because it makes sense to sell something based on the product itself; the "blame" lies with those making the show, who thought that they had the time and space to ramp up the season slowly, reiterating the central concept of the series with episodes that (sadly) repeated the rhythm of the first season. As the creative teams behind V (Put on hiatus after its first four episodes, and before we'd even seen a complete lizard reveal and/or any rodent eating) and the upcoming Day One (Restructured from a full season to a four episode mini-series to test the waters for a regular show) can attest to, there's no time for a slow build on network television anymore. Both Fringe and FlashForward sped up their timetables to try and meet demand for near-instant gratification, and both are still dogged with rumors of cancellation. Remember, television people: Put your best foot forward immediately.

Goodbyes Should Always Be Brief
Yes, yes: We loved Russell T Davies' run on Doctor Who as much as anyone, but the year of special episodes seemed weighed down by a sense of its own self-importance that reached epic proportions during this weekend's "The End of Time, Part One" (On the plus side, Now we know that Barack Obama will save the world with his economic announcement or something. Not that that'll seem horribly dated, oh, anytime after February 2009). Battlestar Galactica, too, approached epic levels of pomp and pretension during its final days. It's not that we would rather have rushed either show offstage unfinished, but there's something to be said for brevity and not getting too wrapped up in your own ego. Lost, consider yourself on notice.

Just Because You Can Doesn't Mean You Should
One word: Watchmen. Yes, we get it; we have the technology to make Doctor Manhattan look like he exists in a particularly shiny version of reality. But, months after all the hype, hoopla and multiple versions on DVD, it's still worth asking: Did Watchmen gain anything from the transition from comic to movie? Besides Zack Snyder's bank account, did anything? Sometimes it's okay to leave the original alone.

As we've discussed before, there are really two Russell T. Davieses. There's the clever, twisted screenwriter who gave us Doctor Who episodes like "Midnight" and "Turn Left," and the Torchwood miniseries "Children Of Earth." And then there's the crazy bombastic throw-everything-at-the-wall-twice storyteller who gave us "Journey's End" and other idiotic extravaganzas.

Actually, I've generally liked RTD's Christmas specials, because they let him tell a larger-than-life story without getting too bogged down in mythos and nonsense. But this time around, bogged down is exactly what we were.

But first of all, the nice moments. I think that somewhere in the alimentary canal of this misshapen beast, there was a story about male friendship lurking around. The Doctor has two male friends in this story: Wilfred Mott, who's an "old soldier" and the grandfather of the Doctor's former companion Donna. And the Master, who used to be the Doctor's best friend and is now his arch frenemy. In the RTD era, the Doctor's main relationships have always been with women, except for Captain Jack, with whom he's had a sort of flirty-but-wary relationship. So it was nice to see the Doctor having more real conversations with other men, without anything overtly sexual to them.

The cafe scene between the Doctor and Wilf, in particular, was marvelous. I could have used another five minutes of those two just sitting and talking, and acting like real people. They're not quite equals — Wilf insists on calling the Doctor "sir," and the Doctor condescends to Wilf a fair bit — but the Doctor seems to be able to open up to Wilf in a way he can't to any of his younger companions. It's really great stuff.

And likewise, the Doctor and the Master get one great scene together, where the Doctor realizes the drumming in the Master's head is "real" because he can hear it too when their heads press together. But more than that, they get to talk for a moment about what they used to have when they were Time Lords together, and what they've lost.

Much of the rest of the story, though, is a bit of a muddle. The Doctor arrives in the far future, where the Ood are dreaming about events in the early 21st century that could rip a new arsehole in the the space/time continuum, and somehow every moment the Doctor hangs around in the far future, it's getting later in the early 21st century. So he runs and jumps back in time, only to arrive... too late. The Master has been resurrected, but it went wrong and now he eats disgustingly and chews with his mouth open. Not to mention all of the crazay roaring — see the video above.

But let's ask an expert. What did you think of John Simm's performance, Saul Tigh? Did you like it?

(A side note: what is it with Time Lords and gross mouth action all of a sudden? We have the Master's mastication on screen for far too long. And apparently the phrase "Timothy Dalton spittle" has been a trending topic on Twitter.)

So the resurrected Master is a total mess — but luckily, someone drops a handy "take over the world" technology into his lap, all tied up with a pretty bow. Because it is Christmas, after all. My favorite bit with Joshua Naismith was when he says "I'm not an idiot," a mere ten minutes after Timothy Dalton's "narrator" voice has called him an idiot. If the narrator says you're an idiot, then you're an idiot. Sorry. Anyway, somehow Naismith spotted a tiny blur on a security camera at a women's prison, and deduced that this means the Master is back from the dead, and he can fix their mysterious bit of alien tech. But first, he's in bondage, yay:

Oh, and I didn't even get into the weird bits about the "Books Of Saxon" and the formula and the anti-formula and the sassy cactus people and the idea that a bit of technology designed to heal an entire world would let you program it with just one genetic template. It's all a bit flimsy, and even less thought out than Davies' other giant brainsplats.

And what was with the Obama obsession? Are people in the U.K. really obsessed with our president? If Obama actually did give a speech about the economy on Christmas, I think about three people would watch it in the United States. Was this meant to be a sneaky message about how the awesome politicians you adore always turn out to be evil megalomaniacs, or something else? It was a bit jarring, in any case. Plus, since when are real-world politicians in charge in the Who universe? We saw the U.S. president die in "The Sound Of Drums" and it was some random guy. Plus, we've seen at least four fictional U.K. prime ministers, including Harold Saxon and the Slitheen acting P.M. But Obama is president now?

So yeah, mostly it was silly in a bad way, and seemed to have been padded out with lots of scenes of the Master chewing in our faces and grunting endlessly about how people eat too much at Christmas. I can't imagine how that would have gone over for people watching it right after their Christmas dinners. Is RTD trying to make us ill? Most of all — and this is the shocker — it was a bit boring. There was lots of talking, interspersed with lots of shouting, but RTD mostly seemed to be concerned with shoving all of his plot devices into place for part two, using brute force for the most part.

Oh, and before anyone else says it: Sure, Doctor Who is a children's show — in the same way Star Wars is a movie for kids. Like Star Wars (and, I'd argue, much of Star Trek), Doctor Who is designed to appeal to kids with smart, engaging storylines, while also pulling in adults and appealing to the adult viewers who grew up watching. If everyone over the age of 18 agrees never to criticize the Star Wars prequels again, I will happily stop expecting Doctor Who to contain a modicum of sense. Okay? Great.

Want a second opinion? Here's Doctor Who skeptic Charlie Stross:

I mean, WTF? We are deep in the grip of attention-deficit plotting here, veering wildly between disjointed lectures, Ancient Prophesies (always a bad sign), and bad dreams foreshadowing the return of respawning enemies. Our narrative viewpoint is all over the road, round the bend, and driving with one foot floored on the accelerator while guzzling a bottle of Bucky. I headcrashed painfully during the seamless chase (on foot) from a scrapyard to a shipyard (paging Continuity, Continuity to the white courtesy phone): but the coup de grace was the re-invention of The Master as a bizarre cross between Sauron, a Bond villain (of the more psychotic variety) and I. R. Baboon in the Disease Fiesta episode of I Am Weasel. (Which is not on YouTube, and the Cartoon Network ain't running repeats right now. Why is I Am Weasel not on YouTube? Bring me my Cow and my Chicken! Now!!)

Ahem. There is also the small matter of fifteen minutes of infodump in a forty-two minute slot, narrated by Timothy Dalton as, er, [SPOILER], and a spavined nag of a pantomime horse of a plot (that sagged in the middle) to consider. SPANK.

That said, I did find the episode's ending fairly hilarious, with everyone on Earth turning into the Master. John Simm is so much better when he's getting to be fun and triumphant, rather than grunting about pork chops.

And I'm not made of stone — of course I'm excited for the return of the Time Lords, despite Timothy Dalton using my TV screen as a spitoon. I'm wondering exactly how the Master destroying the human race brings the Time Lords back, though. I guess all of the future stuff that humanity is supposed to do no longer happens as a result, including the Mars base thing but also including all of humanity's wars against the Daleks. So maybe there's a domino thingy. Anyway, I'm intrigued and hoping for something a bit more awesome and less shouty.

Even though this first clip from next week's episode does fill me with a bit of dread:

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar!

Writing for the British Daily Telegraph, Davies says,

It shouldn't have worked. The things we once loved are gone. We've changed and grown and moved on, and the memory only cheats. Except for this time. Doctor Who broke all the rules – everyone said it would never work (yes, even me) but everyone was wrong. When it blazed back into life on March 26 2005, an entire generation remembered. "Oh yes, we love this," they said, as though coming out of a fog. And a whole new generation said: "Wow!", as though accusing us: why have you kept this secret all this time?

Of course, we couldn't have been confident, before transmission. We worked on that first series, in the depths of BBC Wales, worrying that children's heads were now full of Harry Potter and Star Wars, so they'd have neither the time nor the inclination for an old, Sixties Time Lord. But I think fear helped me. I was so convinced we'd never reach a second series that I poured my heart and soul into the first 13 episodes, in case they were the only ones ever to exist. The one-off 1996 television movie with Paul McGann had single-handedly fuelled a fan-industry of novels and comics for a decade, so I had to pack enough into my 13 stories to keep the fans busy until… well, forever. Because I honestly thought that if 2005 failed, the BBC would never bring the show back again. It was all or nothing.

He also teases an unexpected end for his and David Tennant's two-part finale:

The Master, played by John Simm, is back – dying and deadly, and harbouring his most outrageous scheme yet; Wilfred Mott (Bernard Cribbins) is being plagued by strange dreams and mysterious visitations; his granddaughter Donna (Catherine Tate) dares not remember her travels with the Doctor, or she'll die on the spot; and a mysterious Woman in White, played by the legendary Claire Bloom, brings ominous warnings of death and destruction to come. What a Christmas! Though whether there's a regeneration on its way, or whether we've got some final tricks up our sleeves, you'll just have to wait and see.

No regeneration? Whaaaaat? That's the entire reason we're tuning in*!

(* This is not true. But we'll still be disappointed if we don't get one.)

Doctor Who airs 6pm on BBC One in the UK today, and 9pm on BBC America tomorrow.

'Doctor Who's given me the time of my life' - Russell T Davies on leaving Doctor Who [Telegraph.co.uk]

Big Daddy from Kotaku
Alien from azhrialilu
Tentacle alien from Swishrelic
The Light Knight from batsax
Batman by birdsigh
Cthulhu by demona_hw
Dalek by UT Events
Dalek by Afraid Of Ducks
Master Chief from sleepi_tama
Jabba from Godlesswanderer
Optimus Prime from dalangalma
Snobot from frauclouds
Robot from gremlindog
Space Invader from gremlindog
TARDIS from MommaHeva
Temple of Doom from Geektopia
Totoro from Super Punch
Darth Vader from greycap
An alternate universe where we're all snowmen from VoIP

Inception:

Here's a giant concrete building in Alberta that 40 construction workers and carpenters spent three months building for the filming of this Christopher Nolan mindfreak saga.[Calgary Herald]

Lost:

Here's a new fairy-tale-themed trailer. (Still with no new footage.)

One of these things is going to happen early in the final season: Sayid kills Jack, or Sayid dies. (I'm guessing it's Sayid dies, but only in one of the two timelines, meaning we still get alternate-universe Sayid.) [E! Online]

Josh Holloway hints we'll see Sawyer try and track down his daughter Clementine, in the universe where Sawyer's off the island. "That's something I would like to see. Even if they don't meet, his intention to meet her would be important to me. To see him off the island with her name and address on a piece of paper." [TV Guide Magazine]

Doctor Who:

Here are some pics from the scene you've already seen, featuring June Whitfield grabbing the Doctor's butt. [BlogtorWho]

Repo Men:

Here's a new still and a new poster from this artiforg-repo movie. [IGN]

Battle: Los Angeles:

We already featured a slew of set pics from this movie, but here's a pic of Aaron Eckhart in his uniform. [Jonathan Hoff on Flickr via Slashfilm]

Swamp Thing:

Producer Joel Silver says he's hoping to make this film soon — in 3-D — but don't hold your breath for Wonder Woman. [MTV]

Lobo:

This is another movie that Silver is hoping to get done soon — but rumored director Guy Ritchie says it's definitely not a done deal that he's directing it. [MTV]

Nightmare On Elm St.:

Is this movie in trouble, or just being fastidious? A second round of reshoots is happening, including a funeral scene that required extras to portray mourners. [Cinemablend]

Dollhouse:

Wondering who's back in the third-to-last and second-to-last episodes? Just about everybody, judging from these new pics. [SpoilerTV]

Chuck:

Here are a few clips from the season opener, "Chuck Vs. The Pink Slip". [Yvonne Strahovski Fansite]

Here are summaries of the first three episodes:

Chuck Vs. The Pink Slip/Chuck Vs. The Three Words: Chuck flunks out of spy school and loses Sarah; Morgan tries to help Chuck get over Sarah; Chuck tries to talk to Sarah about their relationship.

Chuck Versus the Angel of Death: Chuck must protect a visiting dictator from an assassination threat; Awesome is excited about the idea of being a spy

[MSN TV]

And here are some new cast interviews and snippets:

Heroes:

Here's the official synopsis for the Jan. 11 episode, "Close To You":

H.R.G. exposes Samuel's biggest weakness in an attempt to take him down; Ando and Hiro try to save Dr. Suresh.

[AOL TV]

Sold Out: Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince Toys or DVD
Instead: Homemade Butter Beer

Can't find the right Harry Potter DVD or wand? Quick - brew up some of your own Butter Beer. There are over 10 Recipes right here. Plus it's cheap and people will think you care more because you made it with your hands.

Not Out Yet: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs DVD
Instead: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs The Book

Judi Barrett and Ron Barrett's childrens' book is a classic tale. If you wanted to give the DVD, only to find it won't be out until January, give the book instead. It's inexpensive and a wonderful hardback children's book any light-hearted person would enjoy, kids or no kids.

Sold Out: Star Wars Clone Wars Toys
Instead: Knit Your Own Leia Wig

I'm not sure how fast you can knit, but just try to start the project and you're in the clear. Heck maybe it can be "a project the both of you work on." The pattern is available at Etsy.
But if knitting is too complicated, try these Star Wars papercraft models. Nothing sweeter than waking up Christmas morning to a house filled with Star Wars decorations.

Not Out Yet: Jennifer's Body DVD
Instead: Jennifer's Body Earrings

Any monster movie fan will love you for these jewelry nods to the horror flick. It's like secret cosplay - only the "cool kids" will get the reference. And they are a cute and inventive alternative to the DVD, which fans will most likely purchase themselves. Worst case scenario, you can pick up the Jennifer's Body soundtrack which has tracks by Screeching Weasel, and of course, the film's warbling emo ballad: Low Shoulder's "Through The Trees."

Earrings available at ETSY soundtrack available at Amazon.

Not Available: David Tennant
Instead: The Original Doctor Who Scarf

What better way to remind or console a David Tennant Doctor Who fan than with a homemade reminder that there have been plenty of other Doctors who have regenerated over the years, and that this fan pain too will pass? This Doctor Who Scarf Website has just about every pattern around, and breaks down exactly how long/thick each scarf stripe should be.

Canceled: SGU Christmas Day Marathon
Instead: BSG Series DVD Set or Netflix Subscription With Instant Watch

Planning on spending Christmas Day snuggled up with some SGU only to find out it's canceled? Purchase the entire Battlestar Galactica series instead. It's been out long enough that you can get a pretty sweet deal on the internet or at a local store, or simply buy a Netflix instant watch membership. Not only is instant watch full of films, but is has all of the Lost seasons ready for instant viewing. It's something you can buy online and watch immediately on a computer or video game console.

Sold Out: Latest New Scifi Novel
Instead: Go Classic

You cannot go wrong with buying classic literature if the trendy new novels are sold out, or if you aren't sure which new books are good. Check out used book stores to see if they are carrying any of the classics. And here's a tip: If the dust jacket looks too beaten up, just take it off and gift the original cover with a bow. You can always give them the cover later.

In fact, it's almost better to go used and get a ton of paperbacks for the person who has always wanted to read Ursula K. Le Guin, so they can read her serial work one after the other. Still, if you want a crisp new gift try an older story compilation like, The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard. Here's a list of our nerdy book recommendations.

Chances are, you've come across lots of SF stories where a disabled person regains the ability to walk in some fantastical way. Usually it's a guy, and his ability to stand up on his two legs is portrayed as a reclaiming of his virility and power. Often times, the disabled hero regains full mobility along the way towards becoming super-powered — or as part of a package of superpowers.

Oftentimes, the regained mobility comes from some kind of fancy assistive technology. And yet, these stories always draw a really sharp distinction between the wheelchair (which is also assistive technology) and this other tech, which is better or more natural. Or more rugged and manly, perhaps. (Both Jake Sully and John Locke defiantly say something along the lines of, "Don't tell me what I can't do.")

So here are 20 characters from science fiction who regained the ability to walk:

Star Trek gives us Captain Christopher Pike, who's stuck in a wheelchair and unable to express himself other than by flashing a light "Yes" or "No." (As Evan Dorkin tweeted yesterday, "Nice 23rd cent tech there, btw. Beep. Boop. Stupid Star Trek.") Captain Pike's mind is still alive in there, but nobody's figured out a way for him to use Morse code, or translate his brain activity into speech. So Spock takes matters into his own hands, risking his own career and Captain Kirk's command to help Captain Pike return to Talos IV, the planet of the obscene craniums. There, Captain Pike can live in a kind of dreamworld for the amusement of the sterile Talosians, but at least he'll be perfectly healthy.

Doctor Who has had lots of wheelchair-bound characters, including the evil Davros and the vicious Collector. But the first character to rock a wheelchair in Who was actually one of the good guys — Dortmun, one of the leaders of the anti-Dalek resistance in "Dalek Invasion Of Earth." Dortmun is confined to a wheelchair due to one of his many failed attempts to devise an anti-Dalek explosive. And not coincidentally, he's a terrible leader whose super-explosives never do what they're supposed to. But then Dortmun finally redeems himself, confronting the Daleks and buying time for the others to escape — by climbing out of his wheelchair and standing to face the Daleks at last. His redeeming act of heroism is clearly linked to his abandonment of the chair. (Skip to about 2:30 in the video.)

Batman gets his spine broken in the Knightfall crossover, by the supervillain Bane. Throughout the extremely long Knightquest storyline that follows, Bruce Wayne walks with a cane or travels in a wheelchair. He searches for Tim Drake's parents, despite the warnings of a spinal surgeon that he's only making his spine damage worse and more incurable. Luckily, his new girlfriend, the altruistic Dr. Shondra Kinsolving, turns out to have magical healing powers, and she heals Batman, giving herself irreparable brain damage in the process. There's a lot of lightning involved, okay? We're all so glad to see Bruce smack around the blond imposter, we don't really care how Bats got his back back. I actually bought the novelization of Knightfall for $1.00 because I was curious to see if Denny O'Neil would make Batman's recovery make any sense whatsoever. Here's how O'Neil writes it:

"Shondra, we've got to get away from that window," Bruce said. "I can't move, so you'll have to —"

"Don't worry," Shondra whispered. "You'll be fine."

Her hand slipped over his, and her fingers tightened slightly. He felt as though she were touching every cell of his body at once — soothing, quieting, healing. The world went away, then, ebbed away from him, and he was left alone with Shondra's touch in a place where there was no pain and terror.

And that's it. The next time we see Bruce in the novelization, he's "shirtless, barefoot, moving as easily and gracefully as he ever had in his life," with the sun on his shoulders.

The X-Men's leader, Professor X, is in a wheelchair — except for all the occasions in which he's been able to get out of it. At one point, Professor X gets the Starjammers' physician, Sikorsky, to clone him a new body with no disabilities. At another point, the mysterious Xorn "heals" Professor X using his special powers over metal — until it turns out that Xorn is really Magneto, and he's just been dicking Professor X around.

Gallilee by Clive Barker features a first-person narrator, Maddox, who's been in a wheelchair for 150 years, ever since he was maimed in an accident. An apocalyptic vision causes Maddox to realize time is running out, causing him to write down his family history — and then he has a spiritual epiphany, which in turn causes him to realize he can walk once more.

The Animorphs freak out after their identities are discovered by the evil Yeerks — and they decide to recruit some more kids to join their team, in case the original members all get captured. So they decided to recruit disabled kids to be the new group of Auxillary Animorphs, because they figured the Yeerks wouldn't have bothered to infest a disabled kid. (So the Animorphs could skip the three-day screening period for new recruits.) And they figure the morphing powers would cure any disabilities. The leader of the Auxillary Animorphs, James, is paralyzed, until he becomes and Animorph and regains full mobility.

The Doom Patrol features its own version of Professor X, the disabled scientist Niles Caulder. And just as Grant Morrison got Professor X out of his wheelchair, Morrison did the same for Niles in the early 1990s. In one issue, Robotman rushes to tell Niles that somebody's shot Joshua. Niles Caulder says (from off panel) "Cliff, Cliff, Cliff. Isn't it obvious?" And as you turn the page, you discover that Niles is standing up, and revealing that he's the one who shot Joshua. It turns out that nanotechnology cured Niles, although later he winds up as just a severed head — and finally, he's back in the wheelchair, with a complete body again.

The Talents by Anne McCaffey includes a character named Peter Reidinger, whose spine is damaged after a wall falls on him, paralyzing him for life. Until Peter realizes he's actually a powerful telekinetic, and he teaches himself to walk by moving his own limbs telekinetically.

Star Wars: Commenter db4dbms points out that Darth Vader is basically a torso inside a robotic exoskeleton, since Anakin had his arms and legs chopped off.

Robot Wars Book 5: Final Battle by Sigmund Brouwer features Tyce, a 14-year-old whose damaged spine has been hooked up to a device that lets him control robots. Tyce thinks about having an operation that would restore his ability to walk (at the cost of his ability to control robots). But then his toes start to wiggle all on their own, after he kills the first woman president of the United States (by accident, I think.)

Green Lantern John Stewart left the Lantern Corps after his wife got killed, and winds up joining the Darkstars, who have much less cool uniforms. Unfortunately, John gets badly injured defending the planet Rann, and becomes disabled. Until Hal Jordan, in his identity as Assclown — I mean, Parallax — heals John Stewart on his way to reignite the sun and save everyone.

Dark Angel gives us Logan Cale, a steely eyed cyber-journalist who's secretly known as Eyes Only. After Logan is injured in an accident, he's paralyzed from the waist down, and hires a live-in physical therapist named Bling. (Who, I'm just guessing, teaches Logan the healing power of giant medallions?) And then Logan meets a guy named Phil, who has an exoskeleton and agrees to give Logan one. The exoskeleton allows Logan to walk, and say goodbye to Bling!

Xenocide by Orson Scott Card shows Miro, who's been disabled and unable to speak normally, discarding his old body and creating a new one by teleporting Outside. The new body is intact, and allows Miro to do all the things he could do before his accident. (Thanks, TVTropes!)

The X-Files episode "All Souls" features a wheelchair-bound girl, who's able to walk out of her house miraculously. Then she's found dead, in a "praying position" with her eyes burned out — and the same thing may be coming for two other similar girls, unless Scully can work out the whole faith-vs-science thing pronto.

M.A.N.T.I.S., Sam Raimi's short-lived superhero series, features a scientist who's confined to a wheelchair — until he puts on his exoskeleton and becomes the crime-fighting dynamo M.A.N.T.I.S.!

Alpha Flight features Roger Bochs, a double amputee, who can "phase" into giant robot armor, allowing him to walk around and do superhero stuff. Later on, a healer gives him actual fleshy legs. But then it turns out that the healer harvested the legs from corpses, and the graft fails.

The Cure by F. Alexander Brejcha is unusual, in that it's a story about a disabled person being cured, written by an actual disabled person. Brejcha writes, in an author's note, that he's paraplegic, while his main character is quadraplegic. Not surprisingly, it deals a lot more with the main character's insecurity and adjustment problems after nanotech restores his mobility.

Dr. Strangelove regains the ability to walk, thanks to the awesomeness of setting off a doomsday device that ravages the globe.

Lost's John Locke is confined to a wheelchair for four years after his con-man bio-dad tosses him out a window. Locke will never walk again... until he goes to the Island, where he's suddenly healed, and becomes the awesome, rugged outdoorsman he always dreamed of being. In one episode, "The Man Behind The Curtain," Ben taunts Locke that the "old" Locke was so ineffectual, he got kicked off a Walkabout "because you couldn't walk." Locke's regained ambulatory status is linked to his virility and is proof that the Island has chosen him as a special person. Ben, meanwhile, is stuck in his wheelchair for a long time, because he's evil and the Island doesn't like him as much. (Although Ben, too, gets to walk eventually, thanks to Locke's presence.)

The Rampaging Hulk features Geoffrey Crawford, a former teacher of Bruce Banner's, who's suffering from a degenerative nerve disease that has him confined to a wheelchair. Bruce visits his old mentor, seeking a cure for his Hulk-itis, and Dr. Crawford has a complicated plan, involving mapping Bruce's DNA and using a teleporter to separate him from his Gamma radiation — but it's actually a scheme to steal Bruce's powers, so Crawford can Hulk out and escape from his wheelchair. Crawford becomes the monstrous Ravage, and puts the beatdown on the Hulk. Including the great sound effect, "Snap!". Also, in Incredible Hulk, Bruce Banner suffers from ALS, but then Reed Richards miraculously cures him. Then Banner turns to the reader, breaking the fourth wall, and explains there's no cure for ALS in real life and you should donate to research charities. Also, in an episode of The Incredible Hulk TV show, Banner is paralyzed from the waist down, until he Hulks out, which soon heals him.

Heroes' Arthur Petrelli is a rare example of an evil person who overcomes disability, thanks to the power of evil. I've blotted out the events of season three from my mind, but as near as I can tell, Mama Petrelli poisons Papa Petrelli, but he survives — except that he's totally paralyzed and unable to move. Until he absorbs the healing power from Adam/Kensei and becomes an unstoppable evil-eyebrow machine. Also on Heroes, Daphne has cerebral palsy and is unable to walk... until her mutant ability kicks in and makes her the fastest runner in the world, because irony.

Additional reporting by Josh C. Snyder. Thanks also to Danny Sichel.

Over a million viewers tuned into the American premiere of "The Waters of Mars," giving BBC America its highest ever primetime rating. Richard De Croce, Senior Vice President Programming for the network, said:

The final specials starring David Tennant have opened the door for new audiences to this iconic series while taking longtime fans on an incredible journey. Tennant's remaining two specials, The End of Time, Part One and Part Two, are the most anticipated episodes in the history of the series – which is why we're airing them just a day after their UK premiere.

They're also releasing new behind the scenes videos to tease even more viewers into tuning in:


"The End of Time, Part 1" airs Saturday at 9pm.

X-Men: First Class:

This movie is "basically about the formation of the X-Men. How they began and the relationship between a young Xavier and a young Magneto," says Bryan Singer. And it means you may never get to see the planned Magneto origin movie. "This story would probably utilize some of the Magneto story because it deals with a young Magneto, so it might supersede that because this would explore that relationship between a young energetic professor and a disenfranchised victim of the Holocaust." And he says he's still working on a big-screen Battlestar Galactica movie, but he hasn't found a writer yet. [Heat Vision Blog]

Inception:

Here's a new poster for this Christopher Nolan epic. [MTV]

And apparently a new trailer is appearing in front of Sherlock Holmes, and there are some early descriptions. You hear a voiceover: "What's the most resilient form of parasite? An idea. An idea has the power to build a city… to change the world, and re-write all the rules." And then lots of weird imagery zips past, like a city block folding upwards into an L shape, and a train racing down a street and smashing into cars, and people fighting in mid-air, and a motorcycle racing a car. Then the voiceover turns into Leonardo DiCaprio holding a gun and saying "That's why I have to steal it." ("It" meaning the aforementioned world-changing idea.) And there's lots of people fighting and water imagery. [Slashfilm]

Despicable Me:

Here's a new poster for this animated supervillain epic. [Cinemablend]

Toy Story 3:

Here's some "color script" art, designed to show off how the colors in the film are supposed to look, most of it from the film's flashback sequences. [Slashfilm]

Doctor Who:

Virgin Media has posted a "Viewmaster" type slide show of the first 20 minutes or so of "The End Of Time Part 1." The pictures are mostly old, but the spoilers are pretty intense. As the story begins, everyone on Earth is having nightmares, but only Wilf can remember what they're about — and he realizes he needs the Doctor's help. Meanwhile, the Doctor visits the Ood and they say that they, too, are having nightmares — about the Master.

The Master's widow, Lucy Saxon, gets brought to visit the new governor of her prison, only to find out he's an imposter, one of her ex-husband's acolytes. Using that fateful ring, they resurrect the Master, but he comes back damaged and more insane than ever. He roams a junkyard, scaring the residents. The Doctor, meanwhile, rushes to Earth and uses his super-power of smell to "sniff" out the Master. (No, really. He smells him.) They talk, and the Doctor insists he just wants to help, but the Master is too deranged. And finally he runs away.

Wilf enlists the aid of a bunch of senior citizens, called the Silver Curtain, to track the Doctor down. They talk, and the Doctor realizes that Wilf must be special, since he keeps connecting with the Doctor. The Doctor tells Wilf to tell him anything he knows, and Wilf mentions Donna brought home a strange book by Joseph Naismith. They decide to track this Naismith down, in the TARDIS.

But Naismith, with his paramilitary army, have already captured the Master, who's in bondage. It turns out that Naismith has something called the Immortality Gate, which can heal whole worlds, and he wants the Master to fix it. The Doctor appears in Naismith's basement, and meets two members of the Vinvocci species, Rossiter and Addams, who brought the Immortality Gate there. The Doctor runs upstairs, just in time to see the Master step into the Gate. And then everyone cries out, shouting that the Master is in their heads... [Virgin Media]

The Master actually "takes over the world again," says John Simm. [Planet Gallifrey]

Lost:

So yesterday we showed you some pics of a fight scene between Jin and Mikhail, and now here's a bit of video, courtesy of the same eyewitness, Darin the Pharmacist. [TV Overmind]

Also, apparently the fact that Maggie Grace won't be in the early episodes of season six (despite the alternate timeline where Flight 815 lands safely) will be explained. Not only does the plane land safely, but the repercussions from the nuke going off mean that both Shannon and Boone are very different people than the ones we know. Their backstory will be significantly altered. And also, Sawyer kisses either Kate or Juliet within the first four hours of the season. [E! Online]

And here are a couple new teasers. [Slashfilm]

Supernatural:

Sam and Dean will die and go to heaven. [E! Online]

FlashForward:

Confused? Don't be. Or do, if you prefer. But if you don't like being confused, then ABC is there for you.

Chuck:

There may be a secret passage leading out of the media room at the Buy More. And Chuck will make out with Kristen Kreuk's character, like a couple of teenagers. [E! Online]

Carina returns in episode 3x02 and it's awesome. Also in that episode, Casey gets to go undercover as someone other than a waiter, with amusing results. Episode 3x03 is a combined Devon/Casey episode, which gives insights into both their pasts. And we meet Shaw in episode 3x04. Also, Kreuk's introduction is "more organic" than fans may have feared. [ChuckTV]

Heroes:

Sally Champlin, who plays Lynette, Tweeted that she has a scene opposite George Takei in episode 4x15, "Pass/Fail." [SpoilerTV]

And here's a new promo for the next two episodes:

Additional reporting by Josh C. Snyder.

It's not just that most of your regular shows are on holiday break this week; the rest of programming is also affected by marathons and special programming that you'd probably be better off avoiding.

Monday, for example? There's really not much to be looked for at all. Fasten your grump-belts: You're going to run into a lot of that this week.

Tuesday

It's not SF, but Dirty Jobs is at least weird enough to occasionally seem like urban fantasy, right? For those who don't believe me, Discovery is running a marathon of the show from 12pm through 12am to convince you otherwise. For fans of Robin Williams' later work, AMC has Jumanji at 1:45pm.

(Edit: There's also a new episode of Better Off Ted on ABC at 9pm, which I highly recommend and would've earlier if I hadn't accidentally thought it was a rerun. Sorry!)

Wednesday

We're still a couple of days before the holiday itself, but that doesn't mean anything to a time lord, which explains why BBC America has two Doctor Who Christmas Specials already: "The Christmas Invasion" (David Tennant's first episode) at 12pm, and "The Runaway Bride" (Catherine Tate's first episode!) an hour later.

Thursday

Dear Syfy, I know it gets a lot of viewers, but a Ghost Hunters marathon for Christmas Eve? Unless they're looking for the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, I'm not a big fan (8am through 5am the following morning). Just watch BBC America's rerun of Doctor Who's "The Next Doctor" (5pm) instead.

Friday

Dear Syfy, Twilight Zone from 8am, then some trashy movies (Monster Ark at 9:30am, Copperhead at 11:30, Ghost Town at 1:30pm and Stephen King's Desperation - sadly, not a film about the desperation of a horror writer with a face like a shaved lion - at 3:30) before Serenity at 6:30, Total Recall at 9pm and Star Trek: The Next Generation from 11:30 through until 4:30am on Saturday? You're forgiven for that Ghost Hunters thing.

And for those who'd rather watch something with a little more (admittedly dubious) educational value, Discovery has a Mythbusters marathon from 12pm until 6am the next day.

Maybe you shouldn't watch the whole thing.

Saturday

Awake post-festive revelry and wondering if there are old SF B-movies to stave off sleep? AMC has you covered, with a triple-bill of The War Of The Worlds (3:30am), The Day The World Ended (5:30am) and Earth Vs. The Spider (7:15am).

Alternately, Syfy has a horrorfest happening, starting with Stay Alive at 9am, Rest Stop at 10:30, The Descent at 12:30, Autopsy at 2:30, then the first three Saw movies (4:30, 6pm and 9pm, respectively) to scare you out of any post-Christmas Day bluster.

Of course, anyone who isn't watching Doctor Who: The End Of Time part one on BBC America at 9pm should consider themselves (a) not in America, (b) someone who may have watced it online the night before, but we won't talk about that or (c) not our friends. Sorry, it's just the way it is (For those concerned: It's an unedited version, at 1hr and 15mins, including commercials).

Sunday

Catch up with the first four episodes of weird, quasi-animation Outer Space Astronauts on Syfy at 9:30am and then just throw away the remote; the same channel has In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale at 11:30am, followed by Beyond Sherwood Forest (Monsters! Robin Hood! Together!) at 2pm and Dragon Wars at 4, before Men In Black II (at 6pm) and Nic Cage's "What if Indiana Jones was happening today and shit?" National Treasure at 8. What better way to end the week than with Cage, after all?

The Observer's Johnny Davis offered up a profile of the actor this weekend, ahead of Friday/Saturday's "The End of Time, Part 1," and gave a glimpse into Tennant's mindset as he approaches the end of his tenure as Time Lord:

For four years I've always been going back to Cardiff at some point in the near future, so when I leave it will be like leaving campus. I don't mean to get things out of proportion, but I was keenly watching George Bush leaving the White House, and the thought of how his life is going to change… I'm not saying his life is like mine. I'm not the leader of the Free World, I'm really not… Oh, that's not really worked out very well for me, has it? It's just the thought that you hand over… and it stops. Maybe I'll be whisked up into something equally all-consuming.

As far as how the fans will take it, he's a lot more self-depreciating:

You know what will happen? Everyone will go: 'Oh, it'll never be the same.' And then two weeks in [to the new series] they'll go: 'Matt Smith: he's brilliant.' That's what happened when I was a kid, when Tom Baker left... That's just how it works.

"The End of Time" begins on BBC One in the UK on December 25th, and on BBC America on December 26th.
It just feels scary… all the time [Guardian.co.uk]

Iron Man 2:

Tony Stark shows off some more of his new gadgets, and works with another helper robot, in a couple of stills I don't think we've shown you before. [Shockya]

Lost:

Here are some more promo pics, of Frank, Richard and Ilana. Meanwhile, the show was filming some scenes involving Locke on the beach with Charles Widmore... and why are there sonic pylons surrounding him? (Also, is that Widmore from when he was booted off the Island, or present-day Widmore?) And finally, one lucky fan, Darin, witnessed the filming of some scenes involving Jin, Sayid, Keamy, Omar and Mikhail, including a rehearsal of a sequence involving gunplay. More pics at the link. [Lyly Ford and SpoilersLost and Hawaii Weblog]

And some new promos make some grand promises about what we'll get in the show's last 18 hours. [Lyly Ford]

Doctor Who:

The star of "The End Of Time Part 1" is really Bernard Cribbins, who starts out the episode seeking solace from the bad dreams that are haunting the whole world, then finds himself at the center of events that threaten the fabric of time itself. The Doctor hints there may be more to Wilf than meets the eye.

Meanwhile, the Master is totally batshit insane and hilarious and terrifying, and he doesn't really seem to have a plan for most of the episode — until it kicks in towards the episode's end, and we discover how terrifying a Time Lord can be if he's not on your side. The identity of that female hand that picked up the Master's ring is nobody you've expected. And the story uses some artful flashbacks to fill in the gaps. [Total Scifi Online]

Says David Tennant:

The forces gathering are quite unlike anything we've seen before. They're on a whole new scale. We've managed to keep a few surprises, even if people think they know what's coming.

And it's official: Timothy Dalton is playing "a senior Time Lord in an extraterrestrial dressing gown." Also, one of Tennant's last scenes involved being 30 feet up on some kind of flying rig. [Daily Mail]

The episode ends with a "doozy" of a cliffhanger, involving a huge plot twist. The episode is amazing, but there are some awfully convenient plot devices introduced a few times, to get the Doctor out of some nasty situations. And some new aliens are a bit naff, although they set up a great line from Wilf. [SFX]

It doesn't sound like Martha Jones is going to appear in "The End Of Time," but Freema Agyeman does insist, "Martha's not done!" [Digital Spy]

And we already showed you a few pics of the Master in bondage, but here are some more... [BlogtorWho]

Twilight: Eclipse:

Bryce Dallas Howard explains her take on the vampire Victoria:

Victoria is a wonderful character. ... It's awfully juicy to play a villain. To play someone that's just evil; Victoria is evil. And I think with "Eclipse," it ends with quite a huge battle, a big spectacle, and it's very scary. It's a very, very scary book and very terrifying set of circumstances, and I think the Cullens are in jeopardy in a way that they never really have been before. It was a really, really exciting world to be a part of, because it was so scary and the stakes were so high.

[MTV]

True Blood:

Lindsay Pulsipher (The Beast) will play Crystal, a young woman who has an "electric" connection with Jason. [EW]

Caprica:

Ryan Robbins describes his character, Diego, as a badass and a militant on the side of the monotheists. And it sounds like he's the character who gets to mack on Lacy. [Up And Comers via Battlestar Blog]

Also, Smallville/V actor Ryan Kennedy (Cosmic Boy) is joining Caprica, but no word on whom he's playing yet. [KSiteNetwork]

Chuck:

Here's your first glimpse of Angie Harmon as Sydney, a spy for The Ring tasked with taking out Awesome. Full version at the link. [ and EW]

And here's a new sneak peek at episode 3x01, "Chuck Vs. The Pink Slip":

FlashForward:

Here's another character we'll meet in episode 18, from a casting call:

[ROSS] 25-35 yrs, any ethnicity. Very intense. Has gone over the edge and puts himself in a life threatening position. GUEST STAR

[SpoilerTV]

Supernatural:

Episode 5x17 will be called "Your Time Is Gonna Come." [SpoilerTV]

Smallville:

Episode 9x16 will be called "Escape." [KryptonSite]

And here's a couple new promos:

Heroes:

This show returns with a special two-hour episode, "Upon This Rock; Let It Bleed." Here's the synopsis:

As Claire (Hayden Panettiere) becomes immersed into the world of the Carnival, she becomes increasingly suspicious of Samuel's (Robert Knepper) motives. Hiro (Masi Oka) is on a mission to rescue one of his own, but has difficulty communicating his intentions to Ando (James Kyson Lee). Samuel has his sight set on Emma (guest star Deanne Bray) and her ability to complete his master plan. Meanwhile, Sylar (Zachary Quinto) returns to the Carnival in search of answers and Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) continues to struggle with the loss of his brother. Elsewhere, H.R.G. (Jack Coleman) sets his plan in motion to take down the carnival.

[SpoilerTV]

Additional reporting by Mary Ratliff.