Talking to Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello, Abrams said,

The mood on set and in the writer's room is as good as the ratings are bad, which is to say, wonderful. Luckily, Fox has been insanely supportive, for which we are deeply grateful... [G]iven that we're on one of the hardest [nights] on television, we're just focusing on making the best show we possibly can. What else can we do?

Here's an idea of how Fox can be more supportive: Move the show to another night, already; the Thursday gambit is clearly not working.

J.J. Abrams on 'bad' ratings, good vibes, and the show's future [Entertainment Weekly]

Monday

What better way to start off the week than with a Syfy marathon of Stargate SG-1 running right now, from 8am all the way through to 3pm? Sure, there's that whole "work" thing, but come on. It's Stargate!

Otherwise, your television thrills are limited to an 8pm conflict between new episodes of House on Fox (A teenage girl can't distinguish between fact and fiction "after a wild night out." Am I the only one who feels like this could be either awesome or hideously embarrassing for all involved?) and Heroes on NBC, where Sylar is still trying to take control of Matt's body and Claire has to face off with her father's Sorority Girl Army. And, yes, I did accidentally make that sound more interesting than the actual show. Sorry, everyone.

Tuesday

For those calling in sick, I'd recommend skipping Syfy's Tru Calling marathon (8am through 3pm for those whose love of Dushku overpowers their bad-show gag reflex) and tuning into AMC, which goes dragon crazy with a 12:45 airing of Dragonheart (Dennis Quaid and a dragon voiced by Sean Connery!) followed by a 3pm re-run of Reign of Fire (You could stay tuned for a 5pm Batman Begins and 8pm Terminator 2: Judgment Day as well, if you were feeling particularly lazy).

If you'd rather get a delayed British take on the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, then James May On The Moon (BBC America at 8pm) takes Top Gear's Captain Slow and puts him in the driver's seat for an hour long look back at those heady days where men were men and the Moon seemed an obtainable destination.

Otherwise, click over to ABC for the second episode of V and see whether it still feels like FlashForward meets... Well, the old V, really (The official PR for the episode says "A seeker among the Visitors tracks Erica and Father Jack. Chad seeks redemption by investigating the aliens ahead of his next newscast while law enforcers press Erica for information concerning Dale M…").

Wednesday

Thank God for Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel at 9pm. Without their investigation into whether cars will automatically burst into flames after crashing (Surely we have empirical proof that the answer is no already?), I'd have to find some way to pretend that Glee (Fox at 9) was a scifi show just to have something to write about for today. I figured I could always claim that it was set in an alternate reality where people aren't creeped out by Will Schuester trying to rap.

Thursday
If it's Thursday, then it's time for all the shows to run up against each other again. Sure, you could pretend that the networks aren't showing anything and watch a double bill of Demolition Man and End of Days on AMC (Sly and Arnold! In two of their most underrated - for a reason - movies! It starts at 8pm, if you're tempted), after spending the day watching Syfy's Star Trek: Enterprise marathon (8am through 3pm, as ever), but come on. I know that you can't resist the big shows people are talking about.

On FlashForward (ABC, 8pm), Aaron discovers the truth about his daughter's death, Janis returns to work and Mark and Olivia's martial troubles bring everyone down yet again, man. Things are much more fun over in Mystic Falls where Vampire Diaries (the CW at 8pm) brings a mysterious new teacher, arguments over medallions and, according to the CW, "Damon finally reveals to Stefan the stunning reason he has returned to Mystic Falls." If I watched the show and/or cared, I couldn't wait!

9pm brings the real reason to wrestle over the remote; Fringe on Fox gives Olivia, Broyles and Peter a new reason to be suspicious of Massive Dynamic when the impossibly shady corporation turn out to be involved in a kidnapping case, but Supernatural (The CW) looks much more fun than even Walter Bishop could provide:

Super fan Becky uses Chuck's phone to trick Sam and Dean into attending a Supernatural fan convention, complete with fans dressed up as Sam and Dean. One of the activities is a live action role-playing game, but things quickly turn sour after a real ghost appears on the scene.

Seriously. How could anyone resist that?

Friday

Jericho fans! You have the Syfy marathon of the day (8am through 3pm, which I'm sure you already know by now) to keep you happy during the daylight hours; the rest of us will be watching the original The War Of The Worlds movie on AMC at 10:15am (And avoiding the following Star Trek: Nemesis at 12:15pm, a movie which can best be described by blogger Kevin Church here), instead.

Still, Friday evening starts the weekend off right with the double bill of Batman: The Brave and The Bold ("The Fate of Equinox!" Yes, the exclamation point is part of the title) and Star Wars: The Clone Wars (following last week's surprisingly brutal, "Are Jedi really advocating using flame throwers against living beings what the hell?" episode) on Cartoon Network, starting at 7:30pm (Clone Wars is at 8pm, if you have an aversion of Batman. And if you do, then I'm very, very sorry.)

If you're in the mood for MOR dramas teasing the supernatural, then CBS is the place to be tonight, with new episodes of both Ghost Whisperer (8pm, with Jennifer Love Hewitt "pulled into a murder mystery by a real estate power couple" - Yes, this is what people want to watch, apparently) and Medium (9pm, which at least includes a potentially amusing-for-the-wrong-reasons subplot about posting videos of someone on the internet and "getting into trouble") on offer.

The rest of us, we'll be considering Smallville on the CW at 8pm (It features the Wonder Twins! You know you want to), Stargate Universe on Syfy at 9pm (The crew of the Destiny get a message from their future selves from the past. Or something) and Sanctuary on the same channel at 10pm.

Saturday

If you're not looking forward to Syfy's Ice Twisters at 9pm ("A sci-fi novelist is summoned to help scientists after an experiment in weather manipulation goes awry and produces deadly tornadoes made of ice," apparently), then we'd suggest that AMC's double bill of trilogies is the best way to spend your day. Start with the Mad Max trilogy (Movies starting 1:30, 3:30 and 5:30pm) before a night of The Matrix trilogy (The three movies begin at 8pm, 11pm and 1am on Sunday, respectively). Otherwise, the only thing left is Discovery's Surviving 2012... which is about all the prophecies, and not, sadly, advice on making it through Roland Emmerich's latest.

Sunday

It's the best night of television this week! Who knew, right? Start things off right with Syfy's latest screening of Serenity at 6:30 before switching over midway through - Hopefully missing Alan Tudyk's least favorite scene ever in the process - to catch the premiere of AMC's brand new take on The Prisoner at 8pm. If Ian McKellan and Jim Caviezel can't bring Patrick McGoohan's classic paranoiafest back to life, I'm going to be very depressed.

Of course, the best way to finish the evening off is coming at midnight, with the latest episode of The Venture Bros on Cartoon Network. Can we all just admit that it's the smartest and funniest show on television already?

Both Fringe and FlashForward are seeing ratings in a worrying freefall right now; Meredith has already reported that Fringe was being considered a show in "trouble," but that was before the audience dropped a worrying 23% for this Thursday's episode (In its defense, many people may have been unaware that it was even on; a lot of schedules didn't list the episode, instead telling viewers that it was the seventh game of the World Series). Seeing a less dramatic drop, but still something that's started rumors of a lack of second season renewal, FlashForward slumped even further this week and, as TV By The Numbers showed, continued a speedy decline in the number of viewers each week towards the point of no return.

We already know that Thursday is a packed night of television, but is it so packed that it's going to kill shows we love (or, in the case of FlashForward, like enough to keep watching and hoping for the best)? Or will the success of the V premiere remind networks that Tuesday night is always an option?

I suppose if Fringe has to do a relatively mythology-free episode, at least it harnesses a little B-movie magic. Last night's episode has shades of The Incredible Melting Man, in which an astronaut returns from space and becomes a monster who needs to consume human flesh to survive. But Fringe took a gory concept and made it creepier with its radiation-sucking cosmonaut turning people to ash. That opening scene was a great little nugget of horror; even though we expect it, it's chilling when the woman comes home and her excitement melts into trepidation, then frightened disbelief as her husband crumbles to ash. When Fringe does monster of the week, it does a solid job.

Scream Queens: I get that this was supposed to evoke classic horror movies, but does it only have to be the women screaming? Men are perfectly capable of emitting a nice, high-pitched wail.

Russian Fringe Science: It makes sense that the Russians would have fringe science (and that it might be even more developed than American fringe science). I hope this isn't just a throwaway mention, and that this somehow comes into play in the coming interdimensional war. And it's interesting that Walter still uses the term "pinko." Is it just because of his 17-year timeout, or does this indicate something about Walter's politics.

Whither Nina Sharp? It's also interesting that, in a Broyles-centric episode, we see neither hide nor cybernetic arm hair of Nina Sharp. Little has been made of Broyles' relationship with Sharp since it was revealed in the season premiere, and now that Broyles is returning to the case that ruined his marriage, he doesn't ask Sharp to use Massive Dynamics' resources. Perhaps he's trying to maintain some illusion that Olivia is the only one in contact with Massive Dynamics', or maybe he only turns to Nina Sharp when he knows she can help with the problem at hand.

Man in Black: As the episode went on, it began to feel less like a standalone episode, and more like we're lining up potential players for the battle ahead. The CIA is less than thrilled that the Fringe Division is poking its nose into the case of the missing cosmonaut. Does the CIA have its own Fringe Science Division? Although, at the end of the episode, a man from the CIA informs Broyles that the cosmonaut was still alive and gave a pointed look at the night sky. I wonder how often the CIA deals with problems by shooting them into space.

Astrid Action: This was a Broyles-heavy episode, so most of our regular cast took a back seat to Lance Reddick. Still, when are we going to see Astrid in the field already?

Walter Moment of the Week: Walter still got to be Walter despite the focus on Broyles. He maligned Russians, played with Tinker Toys, and shared yet another embarrassing memory from Peter's childhood (involving doodles of genitalia no less). But the most truly Walter moment was when we fully realized that Walter thinks of licorice the way some people think of tea cookies and canapes.

Avatar

The latest TV spot shows one of Pandora's monsters taking down an AMP suit. [First Showing]

Star Trek:

Think we've seen the last of Christopher Pike? Maybe not. Bruce Greenwood says he's spoken to J.J. Abrams about Star Trek 2. And he says "J.J., one of the nicest guys on the planet, has indicated there will be a place in the project for me." At the same time, Greenwood cautions, "there are no guarantees." [Hill Country Times via TrekToday]

Kick-Ass

The movie about superheros in the real world gets a series of interlocking character posters. More at the link. [IGN]

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

An Italian magazine claimed that Daniel Radcliffe would channel his Equus performance and bare all for the penultimate film. Alas, the rumored "sensual" scene seems to be just that, a rumor. Radcliffe's representative says it's an utter fabrication. [Digital Spy]

The Hobbit

According to Ian McKellen, the movie draws not only from the novel The Hobbit, but also from other works by Tolkien. [MTV Movies Blog]

Lost

A Lostie took some fresh picture of Dharmaville looking less than fresh. The houses were intentionally dirtied and the playground's swingset haf been nearly demolished. But the rec room had a fresh coat of paint. [Dark UFO]

And someone snagged a photo of Ben Linus dressed as a teacher for the seventh episode "Dr. Linus." [Dark UFO]

Fringe

Olivia will meet the Observer in the episode "August." Anna Torv calls it "a really, really, beautiful, beautiful episode." William Bell and Walter Bishop will have a confrontation. John Noble, who plays Walter, says that he just filmed "a lovely scene" and that something very shocking will be revealed. And there's also the sense that of a breach, and that breaking the laws of nature comes with repercussions. The cast also had some things to say about the season that are more speculative than spoiler. Joshua Jackson believes that we'll see the alternate Walter and that Peter will discover he's from "over there" (although he doesn't know if Peter will return to the Fringe team or if he'll want to burn the whole universe down). Noble believes that when we meet the alternate Walter, he'll be thoroughly pissed off. And Torv hopes we'll see an alternate Olivia. [SCI FI Wire]

V

Anna gets her tourist visa — and a convenient photo op — in November 17th's episode "A Bright New Day." [VisitorSite]

Stargate Universe

Here's the official description for tonight's episode:

With the situation onboard the Destiny dire, General O'Neill and Home World Command orders Col. Young to execute a high risk plan concocted by the I.O.A. scientists which, in theory, could return the crew to earth. Col. Young tries to buy more time so that he can consult those on the ship whose lives are at stake. While using the communication stones, Camile Wray is approached by I.O.A. representative Dale Strom who suggests that she steer opinion on the ship in favor of the plan.

Eli and Chloe are allowed to use the communication stones to visit Earth and their loved ones for what may be the last time. Their homecoming is not what they expected and the two try to drink away their worries at a club (featuring Janelle Monáe), but are unable to ignore the looming fate of the Destiny that they have left behind.

[GateWorld]

Smallville

The Wonder Twins make their purple debut in stills from next week's episode, "Idol." [Operation Save Clark Kent]

Heroes

Sylar and Matt are getting in trouble in Monday's episode, "Shadowboxing." [The ODI]

Adrian Pasdar is alive for now, and we see him in the photos for "Brother's Keeper." [Spoiler TV]

On Carson Daly, Masi Oka said that the fourth season is his second favorite season (after Season One), saying it tells smaller, more character-oriented stories. [Multipleverses]

Sanctuary

In the show's post-apocalyptic episode, Helen Magnus wakes up on the floor of the Sanctuary with no memory of what happened. Her office is riddled with bullet holes and her lab appears to have been the site of a horrific battle. With no one else around, she foes to the roof to see that the entire city of New York has been decimated, filled with craters. She'll eventually encounter two heavily armed men, one of whom fires a stun gun at Magnus. She wakes in an abandoned warehouse, where the men hose her down until her skin is raw. She'll feel exhausted and defeated when a third man enters the room. The man will be older and scarred, but she'll recognize him as Will Zimmerman. But just as she starts to ask him questions, he cuts her off and accuses her of being an imposter. He explains that Helen Magnus died three years earlier. [Pop Culture Zoo]

Additional reporting by Josh Snyder and Charlie Jane Anders.

The Avengers:

More on Edward Norton's will-he-won't-he dance, with regards to returning as the Hulk. It doesn't sound like Norton's had any talks with Marvel, and he says he has no idea where they're at with this project. Nor is he terribly interested, unless Marvel comes to him with something especially fascinating. (But I'd be shocked if Marvel doesn't have Norton under contract for one or two more movies, in which case his interest, or lack thereof, would be irrelvevant.) [AICN]

Resident Evil 4:

Milla Jovovich Tweeted from the set of this film, and mentioned that the final shot of the film is a 3-D shot from high up, so they had to hoist a 3-D camera using a custom-made rig. And there's a scene where she lands a plane on a boat, and it looks like it's crashing — hundreds of neighbors called 911 to report a plane crash. And Alice and Claire fight the Executioner, an eight-foot-tall boxer toting a huge axe. They fight him in a prison shower, and every time he swings his axe, showers explode, so it's sort of raining. [ShockTillYouDrop]

Red Dawn:

The China-invades-America movie involves blowing up all of downtown Detroit, says Josh Hutcherson. And he describes his character, based on C. Thomas Howell's from the original: "In the story, I start out as not a geek, but sort of a tech guy. And by the end, I'm a total warrior, drinking blood from the animals and going crazy." [MTV]

Ghost Rider 2:

This movie will be darker and "more existential" than the first movie, but won't be a reboot, says writer David S. Goyer. Not that much is changing from his old screenplay, which is available online somewhere, but it'll be toned down to get a PG-13 rating. And it takes place eight years after the first film, when Ghost Rider is in a darker place. [MTV]

Doctor Who:

OMG new trailer for "The Waters Of Mars." So scary. [Oh No They Didn't]

And here are three whole minutes of the episode, of which about two minutes are new. Cannot. Wait. [Guardian]

And here are the episode descriptions for the (incredibly poorly) animated adventure "Dreamland":

Episode 1: Dry Springs, Nevada, 1958. The Doctor befriends a young waitress, Cassie, and her friend, Jimmy, at a diner. The Doctor activates an alien artefact and, after finding further signs of alien activity, the US Army intervenes and takes him and his new companions to the mysterious Area 51 in Roswell, where they find out about Operation Fallen Angel. Will Operation leader Colonel Stark succeed in making the curious trio forget what they have just seen?

Episode 2: Seeking refuge in the abandoned town of Solitude, Jimmy stumbles across a disconcerting discovery and the trio encounter Viperox royalty.

Episode 3: The Doctor cannot understand why the Alliance of Shades' mop-up team are more concerned with the whereabouts of a piece of space flight hardware than the hordes of Viperox pods hidden underground. Things start to fall into place when Jimmy's grandfather, Night Eagle, introduces the Doctor to Rivesh Mantilax.

Episode 4: Captured by the US Army, Rivesh is finally reunited with his wife, Saruba Velak. Meanwhile, the Doctor discovers the unsettling truth about his real identity.

Episode 5: The Doctor and Saruba have to confront the mysterious alien force in the vault housing her space ship if they are to save her husband and stop Lord Azlok from rousing his sleeping army.

Episode 6: As sunset falls, the Viperox drones start to attack the US Army base. Can the Doctor find a way to halt the seemingly unstoppable aliens in their tracks?

[BlogtorWho]

Fringe:

In tonight's Broyles-centric episode, Broyles will step on quite a few toes to solve the case that's personal to him. And there be cosmonauts and cover-ups, and we'll discover the CIA's extraterrestrial connection. [EW]

Also, turns out the Broyles in the alternate universe is a happily married man. [TV Guide]

Here are a few characters we'll meet in episode 2x13, from a casting call. [SpoilerTV]

[ALFRED] Mid 30's to early 40's male, blond hair and blue eyes, with a slight German accent. He's a young Aryan with a bad boys vibe. Guest Star

[NANA] Nana is 80 with a slight Eastern European accent. Really good Co-Star or possible Guest Star.

[ELIZA] Mother of the groom in her 60's. She's warm and sympathetic. Really good Co-Star or possible Guest Star

A few new set pics show our heroes hanging out by a police car. [SpoilerTV]

And a couple sneak peeks:

The Box:

The early reviews for this Richard Kelly tripfest are out, and... they're not very positive, sadly. But there are spoilers! Apparently, the box with the mysterious money-making, stranger-killing button is somehow connected to Arthur (James Marsden)'s work with NASA's Mars mission. The couple traces the license plate of the limo carrying around the burnt-faced Frank Langella to NASA, and then one of Arthur's NASA colleagues kills wife. Children get kidnapped, zombie civil servants chase the couple around, and then there are hints that aliens are behind the whole thing. There are bleeding noses, and Norma (Cameron Diaz) hires a babysitter without checking her references. Oh, and Arthur and Norma aren't broke, like in the original version of the story — they're well off, but their kid's tuition is going up slightly. [Reuters]

The Men Who Stare At Goats:

Here's a new TV ad showcasing this whimsical psychic-soldier film:

Supernatural:

In the upcoming body-switching episode, Sam and Dean swap bodies with each other, and with a couple other characters. [EW]

I think we mentioned a while back that Lucifer would be trapping Castiel in an upcoming episode. Here are a couple behind-the-scenes pics. [LilMissX on TwitPic via Chicago Tribune]

And here are some pics from the last episode of the year, "Abandon All Hope," in which an all-star cast goes up against Lucifer. And Mark Shepherd's demon character, Crowley, has the Colt! [Chicago Tribune and SpoilerTV]

Caprica:

We already showed you some new TV spots for this BSG prequel, but here's a bit more footage... including our first look at James "Spike" Marsters as terrorist leader Barnabus Greeley. [CapricaTV]

Chuck:

Chuck meets Batman! At least, Dietrich Bader will guest star in the ninth episode of the season, "Chuck Vs. The Beard," directed by Zachary Levi. [EW]

FlashForward:

This week's episode is supposed to be a great improvement over recent outings, and we may actually learn the significance of the blue hand. [EW]

And in case you're not getting the message that tonight's episode is going to be good for a change, David S. Goyer tells MTV it may be the best thing he's ever worked on, including The Dark Knight. It's a gamechanger, and here's what happens:

Titled "The Gift," this week's episode focuses on Agents Al Gough (Lee Thompson Young) and Demetri Noh's (John Cho) continued investigation into the mysterious Blue Hand, which Goyer described as an organization "with a very specific purpose in mind." Over the course of their investigation, a shadowy figure by the name of Jeff Slingerland (Callum Keith Rennie of "Battlestar Galactica") is revealed as a new nemesis with connections to the Blue Hand.

In addition to the Blue Hand, the episode deals with Demetri's lack of a flashforward and his subsequently tenuous relationship with fiance Zoey (Gabrielle Union).

[MTV]

And a casting call for episode 13 makes it sound like we're going to Somalia:

[MALVEAUX] 40s, Male, Caucasian. A tough-looking mercenary working security on a dangerous job. A more muscular Jean Reno..

[KORFA] 9-11, Somalian, Male. A young Somali boy fighting with a friend over a toy. Dialogue in Somali..

[SpoilerTV]

True Blood:

Terry and Arlene will make a surprising discovery that brings them closer together — sounds like all their loving under the influence of Maryann's spell has left Arlene pregnant. [TV Guide]

Smallville:

Rumor control: There's no official word that the show is going to turn into a sequel called Metropolis. Michael Rosenbaum hung out with the writers recently, but there are no plans for Lex to come back — even though everyone wishes he would. Also, Perry White isn't reappearing any time soon. [EW]

Heroes:

Hiro will stay with the carnies at least through the Thanksgiving episode, which sees ballroom dancing with weird masks, and zzzzzzzzz. Oh sorry. Dozed off. Anyway. Hiro is with the carnies for a while. [TV Guide]

And here's the description for that episode, "Thanksgiving":

H.R.G. hosts an unconventional Thanksgiving dinner; the Petrelli family receives a surprise guest; Lydia searches for the truth.

[SpoilerTV]

Additional reporting by Mary Ratliff.

Doctor Who

Digital Spy has a ton of teasers from "The Waters of Mars." The first line of the episode is, "Hello mum. Susie says hello!" which apparently holds great significance. The exact date the Doctor lands on Mars is November 21, 2059. Captain Adelaide Brooke is the head of Bowie Base One, the first human colony on Mars, and the Doctor recognizes her as the pioneer of humanity's colonization of space. He calls her, "The woman with starlight in her soul."

This episode will show a lot of behavior from the Doctor that we haven't seen before. For one thing, as soon as the Doctor arrives, he realizes he needs to leave. He tells the folks at the base, "Whatever has started here, I can't see it to the end. I can't." But before he has a chance to leave the water plague starts. We get some references to two stories from season four and the recent Easter special. There's also a flashback that hasn't been previously mentioned. There's also the quote: "It's taken me all these years to realise *** **** ** **** *** **** - and they **** **** **."

Additionally, an Ood makes an appearance (and it's significant that it's an appearance), and it's also significant that the human body is 60% water. And, at the end of the episode, the Doctor says something incredibly shocking, both in its content and in the way he says it. Apparently, the Doctor's odd behavior will tie into David Tennant's eventual departure. [Digital Spy]

True Blood

Want to see Lafayette's vamp blood-fueled sex dreams about Eric? Actor Nelsan Ellis says we might get a scene or two in the new season. [Den of Geek]

The Host 2

We get another piece of monstrous concept art from The Host sequel. We'll also be seeing a video game tie-in, a first person shooter featuring mutant humanoids with superhuman abilities. [ShockTillYouDrop]

The Hobbit

Ian McKellan has read the script. He can't spill much about the content, but he does say that Guillermo del Toro's directing style is eerily similar to Peter Jackson's:

They were separated at birth. They're twins. They have the same attitude. Neither likes working in Hollywood. They're both fascinated by fantasy and violence on the screen, and gore, and things that frighten you. They like going into the psyche. They're both brilliant storytellers in very much the same way. And I think the script, because I have read it, plays very much to Guillermo's strengths, as I've seen them. I have seen his other movies, and people act very well in them. So I think it's all fine. And Peter will always be there.

[SCI FI Wire]

New Moon

We meet some more violent vampires in a featurette, introducing the Volturi. [via Cinema Blend]

Lost

Zuleikha Robinson, who plays Ilana, and Jeff Fahey, who plays Frank Lapidus, has been confirmed as series regulars for Season Six. [Lyly Ford]

While Boone is returning to Lost, he may not be getting quality time with his stepsister Shannon. Maggie Grace is the much-speculated-on holdout from the original cast, and hasn't signed on to return. Her rep says she's just filmed three movies back-to-back and just got back from filming last week. [E!]

The season's seventh episode will be called "Dr. Linus" and will naturally center around Ben. [Spoiler TV]

There is a new casting notice out for the eighth episode:

[SELENA] Any ethnicity, early 30s. A striking beauty who knows how to use it, mischievous, confident in tense situations. Ends up in bed with an attractive man, all by her own choosing. But after corporate negotiations, she finds the terms of the deal have changed and doesn't know who to trust to save her job...ONE DAY GUEST STAR

[Spoiler TV]

We already know that, despite being dead, Juliet will play an important role in the new season. Elizabeth Mitchell says that she's already shot some scenes with Sawyer and "It's one of those things where it appears to be one thing, and then it turns into something else." [LA Times]

The Lost crew was spotted at the Hawaii Medical Center East, which was playing the role of St. Sebastian Hospital in the timeline where Oceanic 815 lands safely. But the non-castaways are still running into one another as Jack was at the filming, along with Sayid and his girlfriend. Fans spotted another set of scenes filming at Papailoa Beach with Ben, Frank, Ilana, Miles, and Sun. In on scene, Frank was gathering wood and working in the sand, but in another he was carrying a gun. Then Ben was digging in the sand. Eventually, Ilana was holding Ben at gunpoint and marching him down the beach.

And below are photos from the Papailoa Beach filming. [Hawaii Blog]

Supernatural

There will be much lampooning of Grey's Anatomy in this week's "Changing Channels" episode. On the set of Seattle Mercy Hospital, Sam and Dean will run into Dr. Sexy, MD and the show's waifish lead Ellen Piccolo. The characters use the word "seriously" a lot and there will be some "seriously" melodramatic music. Plus, Dean will explain the "dead Denny" character (Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays dead Denny on Grey's, in addition to playing Sam and Dean's father) to an exasperated Sam, who will ask, "This show has ghosts? Why?!" [E!]

V

We seen some of these before, but here is the full set of marketing posters for V. [Spoiler TV]

Heroes

Now we know that Adrian Pasdar, who plays the deceased Nathan Petrelli, will be leaving the show, but how does he take his final bow? As Sylar, in a battle with Matt and Peter.

Yes, once again not really a death since Nathan was dead already, but it seems like there will finally be a battle between not only Sylar and Nathan and Sylar and Matt but Peter and Sylar (as Nathan). At the end of everything apparently Sylar takes over the body and that is the end of Nathan.

[The ODI]

There's a new promo for next week's episode, "Shadowboxing."

In the eleventh episode, aptly title "Thanksgiving," HRG hosts an unconventional Turkey Day dinner and the Petrellis receive a surprise guest. Meanwhile, Lydia searches for the truth. [Spoiler TV]

Fringe

We get a little more background on the Broyles-centric episode in a new featurette. A Russian cosmonaut brings something back from space that is turning people to ash. And it's all linked to an old case Broyles worked on. [via Spoiler TV]

We're going to learn more about the Observers in the upcoming episode "August." All of the observers are named after months, and the Observer we've come to know and hunt for is named "September." Walter is able to communicate with the Observers because of his experiences and the things they have done. John Noble, who plays Walter, believes the Observers were transporting a photo of Walter because he's their only contact, and the Observers aren't generally supposed to make contact with people. We'll also learn what the Observers' weakness is. And we're coming up on the Walter/William Bell meetup, and an upcoming episode will answer some of the questions from when Charlie died. Plus, Olivia will remember more about what William Bell said to her, especially about the supersoldier leader with the mark on his head. [Fancast]

We also get a couple of images of September from "August." [Spoiler TV]

Chuck

Yvonne Strahovski says that Sarah won't be happy about the new Intersect in Chuck's head. She always admired Chuck for his innocence and as Chuck becomes more of a superspy like her, she wants him to hold on to that more normal person that he once was. It's especially disheartening for her, since she was starting to feel that it was time for the two of them to run away and be normal. She also says we'll be seeing more action this season. [Chuck TV]

Stargate Universe

We're going clubbing in a clip from this week's episode, "Earth."

Smallville

There's some good buzz going for the two-part Justice League episode airing in January, and some folks are saying Michael Shanks as Hawkman could be Smallville's most entertaining DC Comics import. [Fancast]

FlashForward

Here is the UK promo for this week's episode, "The Gift." [Flashforward Blog]

And there's a fresh casting call for the fourteenth episode:

[AUDREY] 50s-60s, Caucasian. No-nonsense, pragmatic retired school administrator who cares very deeply about her family. Possesses a good sense of humor and has a grace about her. Thoughtful and measured in her actions, her manner is infused with an underlying warmth...GUEST STAR. WILL RECUR

[Spoiler TV]

Sanctuary

In this week's episode, "Pavor Nocturnus," Magnus wakes to find the Sanctuary mysteriously destroyed.

Additional reporting by Josh Snyder.

Star Trek 2:

It's been a few days since we've featured an almost koan-like vague utterance from one of the creators of this film, so here goes. J.J. Abrams says it would be a "challenge" to recast Khan Noonien Singh, but no more so than recasting Kirk, Spock and the others was. And he adds: "While I don't want to approach the second film as a remake of episodes we've seen in the past... nothing is off limits in terms of what we're discussing." So it won't be a straight-up remake of an original series episode, except that it might be. [MTV]

2012:

Roland Emmerich gives SciFi Wire a rundown on the monuments he destroys in this new movie. This time around, the White House gets pulverized when a tidal wave carries an aircraft carrier, the John F. Kennedy, into it. "I've got JFK kind of coming back to the White House, which I thought was ironic," says Emmerich, who's obviously a big Alanis Morrissette fan. Also, a big cruise ship, meant to evoke the Poseidon, rolls over. A big crack appears in the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The Basilica, in the Vatican, tips over and falls on people. Also, the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro collapses "because I'm against organized religion," says Emmerich. (He wanted to destroy an Islamic monument, but feared a backlash.) [Sci Fi Wire]

Let Me In:

Matt Reeves has started filming his American remake of this Swedish classic, and Overture Films says it'll pay homage to the original, but reinvent it. [ShockTillYouDrop]

Doctor Who:

Here's the official synopsis for "Waters Of Mars," coming up Nov. 15:

Mars, 2059. Bowie Base One. Last recorded message: "Don't drink the water. Don't even touch it. Not one drop."...

Lindsay Duncan stars as Adelaide – the Doctor's cleverest and most strong-minded companion yet.

She and The Doctor face terror on the Red Planet as they battle against a mysterious alien living within the terrarium of life on Mars' surface which infects its victims using a water compound it creates.

Neighbours, Flying Doctors and Casualty star Peter O'Brien also guest stars as Ed, Adelaide's second-in-command at the base.

[Blogtor Who]

Someone else who went to the screening says that the "deadly water" storyline is clumsily executed. (The phrase "Water always waits. Water always wins" is spoken.) But generally it's great stuff. The dilemma the Doctor faces in the episode paves the way for his ultimate demise, and there are hints that the events of "The Runaway Bride" and "Fires Of Pompeii" will be important to the Doctor's future. Also, Russell T. Davies confirmed that Donna's mom and the Master's wife (Lucy Saxon) will be back in the final episodes, which we pretty much knew already. [Unreality TV]

Steven Moffat answered questions at the Screenwriters' Festival. He's a big fan of Peter Cushing's TARDIS from the 1960s movies, so don't be surprised if there are touches of that in the new TARDIS layout. He says the 1996 TV movie proves that you can't get too grown up with the series, and it should remain a children's show. And he's writing six episodes of the season, plus Richard Curtis is writing one — leaving six mystery slots. And Matt Smith is playing the Doctor as a much older man who just appears younger, not unlike Peter Davison. Moffat's biggest challenge? Writing the final episode.

[Den Of Geek and Digital Spy]

And here's the first clip from the animated episode, "Dreamland." I cannot get used to the look of this animation... [BBC]

Lost:

Even though Juliet is definitely dead, she's a major player in the final season, days Damon Lindelof:

Juliet basically birthed season 6 by the actions that she takes in the final seconds of season 5. She is completely responsible for the end game of the show. So the character is going to be seen in a slightly different light this year. We gave her that action for a reason, and that's because she's so important to the fabric of the story.

[EW]

Is Ben the Final Cylon? Damon Lindelof says the final season's mood, and maybe some of the storylines, are summed up by Bob Dylan's song "Visions Of Johanna":

I have that song on my iPod, and when I hear it I think about the show," said Lindelof. "There are certain lyrical phrases in that song that are very well-suited to 'Lost.'"

[MTV]

V:

Here's another sneak peek from tonight's premiere episode, which I'm pretty sure we haven't shown you. [E! Online]

Supernatural:

OMG here's the official synopsis for episode 10, "Abandon All Hope," the episode two major characters won't survive:

SAM AND DEAN FACE OFF AGAINST LUCIFER - Sam (Jared Padalecki), Dean (Jensen Ackles) and Castiel (Misha Collins) track down the Colt and head off to find Lucifer (guest star Mark Pelligreno) to send him back to Hell. It's a hunters' reunion when the crew joins forces with Bobby (Jim Beaver), Ellen (guest star Samantha Ferris) and Jo (guest star Alona Tal) for what could be their last night on Earth.

[Devoted Fans Network via SpoilerTV]

Caprica:

Three new TV spots include some new footage. [Galactica Sitrep]

Fringe:

This week's episode is all about Broyles,and revisits a case from his past. We learn that he chose the Fringe Division over his marriage four years ago, and has lived to regret it. [E! Online]

FlashForward:

Here's the official description for episode nine, "Believe":

BRYCE BEGINS SEARCHING FOR THE WOMAN SEEN IN HIS FLASHFORWARD, AARON BECOMES CONCERNED OVER TRACY'S ODD BEHAVIOR, AND MARK TRIESTO TRACK DOWN THE PERSON WHO ALERTED OLIVIA ABOUT HIS DRINKING DURING HIS VISION

[SpoilerTV]

Smallville:

Here's the official description for "Pandora":

BACK TO THE FUTURE - Tess (Cassidy Freeman) kidnaps Lois (Erica Durance) to find out where Lois went after she disappeared for weeks. Lois's memory of the future depicts a Metropolis under Zod's (Callum Blue) rule and Clark (Tom Welling) powerless under the red sun, while Chloe (Allison Mack) forms a resistance group with Oliver (Justin Hartley). After learning of these future events, Clark makes an important decision about Zod.

[Kryptonsite]

Clark's black suit is just a bridge to his classic Superman costume, and once the Justice Society convinces him to embrace his human side, he can don more of the red and blue again. The season may even see him creating a costume with a bit more color, like Tobey Maguire in first Spider-Man movie. [TV Guide Magazine]

Here's another clip from Friday's new episode, featuring Tess and Zod.

Twilight:

Here's our first glimpse, from Eclipse, of Xavier Samuel as Riley, a baby vampire whom Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard) uses as a pawn in her revenge on Bella. [MTV]

Star Wars: Clone Wars:

Here's a new image from tomorrow night's all-new episode, in which:

Anakin, Ahsoka and Ki-Adi-Mundi lead a landing party to destroy a droid factory that Poggle the Lesser has rebuilt on Geonosis, but things go terribly awry when Separatist gunners shoot down the Republic ships. Despite heavy losses, Anakin and Ki-Adi-Mundi must rendezvous in time to destroy the enemy factory before it can begin production.

True Blood:

Even though Godric is dead, the show's creators are considering exploring his 1,000 year history with Eric through flashbacks. [E! Online]

Additional reporting by Josh C. Snyder.

Monday

If you didn't lose most of your Sunday to Syfy's V marathon, don't despair; they're continuing it today, from 8am through 7pm (And then again tomorrow, starting at 8am again). Jane Badler fanatics of the world, unite for one last time before Morena Baccarin takes over. Talking of remakes of beloved shows, AMC have a 15 minute Prisoner Preview at 2:45, teasing the reboot that premieres later this month (It re-runs throughout the week, if you miss it).

Of course, Monday wouldn't be Monday without Heroes; this week is the much-anticipated "Once Upon A Time In Texas" episode that sees Hiro try to save Charlie's life again, even though I thought we'd conclusively proven way back in the first season that he couldn't do that. Oh, Heroes, suddenly that House re-run on Fox at the same time seems that bit more interesting...

Tuesday

Having presumably primed yourself with the end of Syfy's V marathon, you'll be eagerly anticipating the premiere of ABC's brand new, now-with-extra-Scott-Wolf V, for the first of four weeks before a winter break. We reviewed it at Comic-Con and were pleasantly surprised by the "creepy and intriguing" update of the classic show. Here are the first eight minutes or so:

Meanwhile, AMC and FX are showing off their superhero movie chops: AMC has a doublebill of Batman and Batman Returns starting at 8, while FX shows the better-than-the-first-but-that's-not-necessarily-saying-much Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer at the same time.

Wednesday

Get your humpday started properly with AMC showing of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer movie at 9:45 in the morning, and then stick around for Reign of Fire - one of our favorite dragon war movies ever - at 3pm. In fact, when you add in more showings of Batman, Batman Returns and Batman Forever (at 8pm) and Batman Begins (at 10:30), you could pretty much just leave your television tuned to AMC all day.

But if you did that, you'd miss a new episode of Eastwick at 10pm on ABC. Considering I've never seen the show, I'll just quote the summary instead:

After Chad visits her one last time in a dream, a grieving Roxie resolves to fulfill his last wish — if she can figure out what it is. Hounded by Max, her replacement at the Gazette, about her kidnapping ordeal, Joanna grapples with her own lingering questions while dodging his and Kat, startled by a newfound ability, realizes that Bun's old friend Eleanor Rougement may have answers for both of them.

For those looking for documentary-esque thrills, Mythbusters investigate liquid nitrogen myths in a new episode at 9pm on the Discovery Channel, and, after rocking a marathon of Destination Truth from 8am through 3pm (There's also a new episode on at 9), Syfy celebrates the power of brand loyalty by bringing in Warehouse 13's Eddie McClintock to help track down the "Ghost Of Buffalo Bill" on a brand new episode of Ghost Hunters at 8pm.

Thursday

As if the V marathons earlier in the week weren't enough, Syfy has a Threshold marathon starting at 8am and running until 3 in the afternoon. Remember Threshold?

Because it's Thursday, it's time to give your TiVos a workout. At 8pm, you can choose between a new episode of FlashForward on ABC -

Mark, Demetri, Gough and MI6 agent Fiona Banks investigate a Blue Hand club and its possible connection to some recent suicides. Meanwhile, Aaron receives a surprise visit from a former army buddy of his late daughter's, Demetri comes clean with Zoey about his lack of a flashforward, and Nicole helps Bryce uncover the mystery of his flashforward while volunteering at the hospital.

- or a new Vampire Diaries on the CW:

On his birthday, Stefan is surprised by a visit from Lexi, one of his oldest friends. Still upset by the events at the Halloween haunted house, Elena does her best to stay away from Stefan, but Lexi gives her some unsolicited relationship advice. Elena and Jenna are surprised by a change in Jeremy's behavior. At Damon's insistence, Caroline tries to get his medallion back from Bonnie. Finally, Damon's offer to help Sheriff Forbes has sudden and tragic results.

Similarly, 9pm brings a choice between Fringe on Fox -

The Fringe Division takes on a puzzling investigation where victims are inexplicably disintegrating into ash. The shadowy case casts light on Special Agent Phillip Broyles' past and leads the team to the possibility of foreign Fringe Science. Emotions run high as the alarming events stack up and revealing personal details emerge about the leader of the Fringe Division.

- and what looks like a very fun episode of Supernatural on the CW:

The Trickster throws Sam and Dean into an alternate universe where they are characters in different television series, including a sexy medical show, a Japanese game show, a forensics show and a sitcom. The brothers realize the only way to get out of this world is to play along and become the characters in the shows. However, Castiel appears and warns them this universe is dangerous and they must get out before they become trapped.

(My suggestion: Watch FlashForward and Fringe live, TiVo Supernatural and try to pretend Vampire Diaries doesn't exist. Sorry, Kevin Williamson.)

Friday

Today's Syfy marathon? The third season of Doctor Who. Again, it starts at 8am: Set your TiVo to relive the awesomeness that is Martha Jones. Otherwise, you'll be left with nothing to watch until Smallville on the CW at 8 (Jor-El meets Chloe, Clark realizes that a younger version of his dad is on Earth and Zod keeps disappointing in the villain stakes).

That's followed by the Syfy double bill of Stargate Universe at 9 (Wherein Richard Dean Anderson guests with a crazy plan about how to bring the accidental crew of the Destiny home. Spoiler: It's only the sixth episode: It's not going to work), and Sanctuary at 10 (Magnus wakes up with no idea where she is, or why everything around her has been destroyed. I know how she feels).

If you're feeling like you're missing old friends, though, you could always tune in to White Collar on USA at 9, which counts Fringe's dear departed Charlie and The Middleman's Natalie Morales amongst its cast this week. Plus, of course, Matt Bomer, whom everyone keeps telling me is the new David Tennant in dreaminess quotant.

Saturday

Syfy seems to have forgotten that Halloween was the week before, with three horror movies: Open Graves (starring a pre-Dollhouse Eliza Dushku), in which American students abroad find a deadly boardgame, the remake of The Amityville Horror, and From Within, which apparently has something to do with a Christian questioning her faith when people around her get gruesomely slaughtered.

Thankfully, the movie that follows those three, Snakehead Terror features both snake-headed mutant pirhanas and Bruce Boxeleitner, so things seem to getting back to normal in the end. (Open Graves starts at 4, and each following movie comes two hours later).

Sunday

Worried about the truth behind Roland Emmerich's new destructo movie? Then don't watch 2012: Startling New Secrets on Syfy, which sounds as if it treads the fine line between Destination Truth-esque knowing parody and tacky sensationalism. Which, come to think of it, sounds pretty like the 2012 movie itself, actually... Instead, finish off your weekend with "Return To Malice," the latest, and no doubt entirely awesome, episode of The Venture Bros. on Cartoon Network at midnight. Let's face it: Brock would be disappointed if you didn't.

Thor

Bad news for Brian Blessed fans: Anthony Hopkins is in negotiations to play Odin, Thor's father and the ruler of Asgard. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Avatar

We posted an international version of the official trailer the other night, but here is the high quality version:

The official Avatar website has launched with a set of high quality images. A few we've seen before, but most are new:

Mad Max: Fury Road

We told you earlier that Charlize Theron was being considered as the lead for the latest Mad Max movie. She'll be co-starring with Jean-Luc Picard's clone, Tom Hardy. [Cinema Blend]

New Moon

Tonight, MTV will air its special Ulalume: Howling at New Moon, which will include a new clip from New Moon. Naturally, MTV already has said clip and shared a few screen grabs from the clip. [MTV Movies Blog]

Doctor Who

The Tenth Doctor flees monsters with Super Soaker hands in the latest clip from Waters of Mars:

True Blood

Fans of the Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries have wondered whether the werewolf Alcide Herveaux would appear next season, and Alan Ball has finally answered them. Alcide will appear, probably by the third episode, although he hasn't been cast yet. Alcide will already come into the searies with a love interest, a very bad woman named Debbie Pelt. We won't be seeing a Sookie-Bill wedding this season, but, while the couple will have some rough patches, their connection won't disappear. As for Eric, he lost some hair last season and this season he'll lose his clothes. We'll see Eric nearly naked in the season premiere. Everyone else is exploring their identities this season. We already know Sam is seeking out his biological family, but we'll also see Sookie closer to understanding why she has supernatural abilities and Jason doesn't. Plus, Jessica will explore her vampirism and experiences a dangerous identity crisis. [E!]

Powers

Brian Bendis has an update on the live action adaptation of his comic about police detectives in a superpowered world:

"We're making a cop show with superhero elements to it, not a superhero show with other elements to it," he continued. "It's a cop show-a dark one, hopefully in the same vein as 'The Shield'-and it really seems to be shaping up that way. Fingers crossed for the green light!"

He also says that it will be akin to Dexter in terms of faithfulness to the source material (which is to say, there will be some deviations), but that the first arc will involve Christian Walker and Deena Pilgrim solving the murder of Retro Girl. And the first arc will also set up all the mysteries Walker and the other officers will be solving in the series. [MTV]

Lost

The new promo teaser is up, and, as promised, it contains no new footage. [via Lyly Ford]

Looks like Juliet is indeed dead. Damon Lindelof said the decision to kill her was "brutal," but she did go up with the hydrogen bomb. Of course, on Lost, dead doesn't necessarily mean gone, and we'll see Juliet in a few episodes this season. [NY Mag]

The producers are looking to cast the possibly recurring role of Kendall, a beautiful and intellectual woman in her mid-30s with a sharp wit. She gets caught committing corporate espionage and has to lie her way out. [EW]

Fringe

We get a glimpse of the Observer in the promo for the return of Fringe on November 5th (if the World Series doesn't go to Game Seven). [Fringe Television]

Stargate Universe

Water levels are low on the Destiny in tonight's episode, "Water."

V

With just a few days before the Vs arrive, ABC releases a new promo:

The Sarah Jane Adventures

We're going ghost hunting in these images from "The Eternity Trap." [The Doctor Who Image Archive]

And in the 11th and 12th episodes, the two-part serial "The Gift," the crew will face off against the green Slitheen once more. Once the Slitheen have been foiled, however, the Blathereen, rivals of the Slitheen, will appear on the scene to declare piece between the planets. They offer Sarah Jane a civilization-changing gift, one that quickly runs amok. Soon Sarah Jane will be battling for her own son, Luke. Clyde, Rani, and K9 become trapped in a school under siege, London is facing yet another alien threat, and there will be a final showdown in the attic, one that could end someone's life. [Blogtor Who]

Airlock Alpha says inside sources at NBC claim that the writers for Heroes are being told to prepare themselves for the series finale this May, giving them a chance to wrap up all their storylines before then.

"There isn't much happening with this show in terms of audience, and giving it a 'final chapter' feel is something the network is considering to help allow the show to go out with a bang," said the source, who asked not to be identified."

In much sadder news, J.J. Abrams' Fringe is being marked as "in trouble" by TV Guide. The show's ratings have taken a dive in its second season, and many fear it won't get a full second season. If you need your weekly Walter fix, now's the time to start proselytizing — get all your friends to watch!

Thor:

Here's a new casting call, which gives another hint about where the bulk of this film takes place:

[ISABEL ALVAREZ] 50's/60's A sweet small town gal who has lived her whole life in the same little town where she grew up. She's faced plenty of ups and downs in her many years but has everything she's ever wanted or needed in the small slice of Americana, family, friends and the best little restaurant in town

Avatar:

A new pic shows Sully looking at a cool display. [IGN]

Lost:

The show is going to offer us an answer to one of the show's "oldest and most confounding" mysteries, and it's going to be an answer none of us expected to get. [EW]

The show's focus will remain on the characters rather than the mythology, says Damon Lindelof, and season six will explore their relationships (including romantic ones) — just not in the way you expect. And yes, we'll get an answer to the mystery of the numbers, but it may not satisfy us. Also, we may be reading too much into the hieroglyphics on the new poster which seem to say "Who is the leader?" [E! Online]

But talking to USA Today, Lindelof hints that nothing in the show's posters is accidental. Also, the mystery of why Walt was so special, and why the Others wanted to study him, will be addressed in the final season, and will attain a new significance — even if Walt himself doesn't come back. There's still a chance that Cynthia Watros may come back as Libby, but it's up to Watros. Also, Frank Lapidus has been promoted to "series regular" this season. (Yay!) We won't have to wait until the very final episode to start getting the big answers. [USA Today]

Someone sneaked around the show's filming locations, and they found a bunch of new stuff. Out in the jungle near where Claire gave birth, there's a crude lean-to with animal skins on it. At the beach camp, there are those lean-tos made of airplane wreckage and sticks that we showed you a while back. And there's that crude grave we showed you as well. Otherville is looking run-down and destroyed. The Flame has been fixed up and has an updated Dharma logo on it. And there's a new pic of the back of the Temple. [SpoilersLost]

A supposed inside source says Locke is a "man about town" on the island, reconnecting with a bunch of the original Losties, including a gun-toting Claire... and he finds time to get stabbed by a genuine Iraqi. [SpoilersLost]

The Box:

Did you realize this Richard Kelly Twilight Zone-esque movie is coming out a week from Friday? I feel like we've barely heard about it. But fear not, there are TV spots airing on network TV, and here they are:

And a new poster. [ShockTillYouDrop]

Dollhouse:

Eliza Dushku Twittered about the ongoing filming:

We're shooting way outside LA in an underground bunker w/ methane meters, exit plans (one way in & out w/ a 100+ crew!), firearms. G.I.Jane.

Could this be a return to the post-apocalyptic universe of "Epitaph One"? Fingers crossed! [Twitter]

Fringe:

Seems like the show will keep playing with the tension of everybody getting clues that Peter is from an alternate universe, but Peter being unaware, for the rest of the season. [EW]

Leonard Nimoy has one more appearance on the show that he's already filmed — but he hints that he may not come back at all after that. The producers want him to come back, to deepen the "alternate universe" mythology, but he's waiting for them to come up with a story arc, and he'll see if it's compelling. [MTV]

Sarah Jane Adventures:

Here are some more pics from the wedding episode, in which the Doctor shows the kids the TARDIS. [BlogtorWho]

Doctor Who:

Another interview about the animated story "Dreamland," this time with the animator. [BlogtorWho]

Supernatural:

Sam and Dean swap bodies in episode 5x12. (I want to mail Kripke a copy of that Quantum And Woody TPB, but it's probably too late for a shout-out.) [EW]

And here are some pics from the upcoming episode "The Real Ghostbusters". [SpoilerTV]

And a casting call for episode 5x12, "Swap Meat":

[GARY] 17 years old (would prefer 18 and overs), puny, gawky, bespectacled, smart and geek (think "McLovin" from "Superbad"), he's a naive, amateur Satanist who works at a fast food joint and longs to break free from his wealthy, stifling parents. He's granted one of his wishes, and starts to live the life he's always wanted. Please denote age next to your suggestions. GUEST STAR

[NORA] 16 years old (would prefer 18 and over), she is a cute, smart, alternative girl (in the vein of Thora Birch in "American Beauty") who is a naive, conflicted high school student, she's an amateur Satanist, she's not really interested in hurting anyone; she's mostly going along with Gary and Trevor's plot because she has a crush on Gary. Nora's follower-type nature is squelched when she becomes possessed by a dark force. Please denote age next to your suggestions sptv050769. Please submit all ethnicities. GUEST STAR

[SpoilerTV]

V:

Here are a couple of new promos, teaching how you can join the "Peace Ambassador" program:

Also, episodes three and four will be called "A Bright New Day" and "It's Only The Beginning." [VisitorSite]

FlashForward:

Here's a new awesome promo for tonight's episode, featuring Dominic Monaghan:

Paula Newsome (Women's Murder Club) will be joining this show as a doctor, for an arc starting in early 2010 — speculation is, she plays an Ob-GYN. [EW]

Smallville:

Kelly Souders talks about the Lois/Clark relationship:

They both have a few issues, so things never go as smoothly as you think. But what's great about the relationship, because it's sort of more adult, mature relationship, is it actually brings their issues up to the forefront, and makes them start dealing with them instead of being the younger versions of themselves, where they might not have been that conscious of it.

And in episode 9, "Pandora," we go to the future and deal with the fallout from Lois' sex dream, and there is some Lois skin. That episode plays like a finale, and we'll see an alternate ending for everyone in the cast. Also, in the next few episodes, Clark may contemplate wearing glasses. Chloe will have an unexpected love interest, and on a related note, she'll meet a superhero who's not all he's cracked up to be. (Booster Gold? That's my guess.) [EW]

Also, not only will the Martian Manhunter be back, but so will Zatanna. And — this feels like a spoiler at this point — the producers are still talking about Clark eventually turning into Superman. [MTV]

And here are a ton of promotional photos of the upcoming episode "Kandor," on top of the handful we showed you yesterday. [SpoilerTV]

Heroes:

Greg Grunberg Twittered a picture of himself wearing "scary" makeup for an upcoming scene — and it looked sort of zombie-ish. (The pic is down now, alas.) [Twitter]

Also, there are five clips from next Monday's episode, "Once Upon A Time In Texas," but I can't find them in an embeddable format. If you really care, they're here: [TV.Com]

And here is the synopsis for the following episode, "Shadowboxing":

Claire investigates the sorority attacks, which may have a link to Noah. Elsewhere, Peter finds his job performance improved after gaining a new ability, which also provides a means to help Emma, and Sylar escalates his assault on Matt.

[TV Guide]

Chuck:

Here's a casting call for episode 3x10, "Chuck Vs. The Tic Tac":

[COLONEL JAMES KELLER] (55) but needs to be able to play younger in flashbacks. Military man for life, yet relatable and casual despite his rank. GUEST STAR. All ethnicities

[SpoilerTV]

Additional reporting by Josh C. Snyder and Mary Ratliff

Star Trek:

Zoe Saldana says she can't wait to take off her shirt again, although she presumably doesn't know if that's happening in the new movie. She also hints that filming may take place next year after all, despite all those delay reports. [E! Online]

So what's the new one about? J.J. Abrams offers some vague ideas:

The second one has an obligation to go deeper and maintain the fun and adventure in the sense of optimism and scale that [Gene] Roddenberry created. But I do think it has to evolve and not become some polemic over-the-top, on-the-nose allegory. It needs to be something that is not just about the characters meeting each other and having their first adventure; it needs to be about having their most meaningful one.

But he says it definitely won't be called Star Trek 2.[MTV]

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows:

There's an insanely detailed description of Bill Weasley's wedding scene, at the link. [HP4U]

Doctor Who:

The Eleventh Doctor lands in a graveyard and has a jolly chat with his new companion Amy, in some new set pics. Theories suggest this is for a two parter starring Sam Davies, a child actor, playing Elliott. And there are a couple of Youtube videos of the filming as well. Photos by the amazing Scooty, more at the link. [Gallifrey Base and BlogtorWho]

And the writer of the next animated adventure, "Dreamland," talks about the creation of an American companion for the Doctor, Cassie Rice. [BlogtorWho]

Sarah Jane Adventures:

Digital Spy has more details about this week's long-awaited two-parter, guest-starring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. Tennant doesn't show up until the end of part one, and his first words are, "Stop this wedding!" Sarah Jane's relationship with businessman Peter Dalton moves quite quickly, although there is liberal use of cue cards saying "One Week Later." The Trickster appears to behind the whole business, and when the Doctor shows up, he's quickly parted from Sarah Jane as well as his TARDIS. He's got the kids to help out, though, and one of them receives a massive electrical shock. The Doctor says "Allons-Y" and "I'm so sorry." And he's referred to as "the man of ice and fire," and told "the gate is waiting for you." At the end, Sarah Jane tells the Doctor (I think) that nobody will ever forget him. One more pic at the link. [Digital Spy]

The Prisoner:

A big batch of new stills from the AMC miniseries remake. Fingers massively crossed! [UGO]

Fringe:

A bunch of pics from the Nov. 12 episode "Of Human Action." The gang investigates a kidnapping that rapidly turns into a hostage situation in New York, and discovers an unknowable force has "mind-blowing consequences." And they go to Nina Sharp for help. [Fox]

And here's a casting call for a character we'll be meeting in episode 2x12:

[CDC FIELD HEAD ARNOLD MCFADDEN ] Male. Open Ethnicitys. This authoritative man in his mid 40s is brought in to help prevent a potential bio-terrorism event...GUEST STAR

[SpoilerTV]

Supernatural:

I'm pretty sure this is a new clip from Thursday's episode, featuring a super-aged Dean. [TrekMovie]

And here's the synopsis for the ninth episode, which I would be dreading if it wasn't written by Eric Kripke himself:

IT'S A SUPERNATURAL CONVENTION! Super fan Becky (guest star Emily Perkins) uses Chuck's (guest star Chuck Benedict) phone to trick Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) into attending a Supernatural fan convention, complete with fans dressed up as Sam and Dean. One of the activities is a live action role playing game, but things quickly turn sour after a real ghost appears on the scene.

[SPNSite]

Smallville:

We'll be meeting a new villain in episode 9x12. Could this be Amanda Waller?

[ANDREA POTTER] 35 – 55 yrs old. A heavyset, imposing and ruthless African American woman. She has sinister plans for the citizens of Metropolis…Do not limit your suggestions to heavyset. This role is established in Episode #912 but is a RECURRING GUEST STAR role.

[SpoilerTV]

Producer Kelly Souders warns: "You will see more people than you can imagine die in the first 12 [episodes]. Luckily it's Smallville, so not all of them stick." He says some of these deaths may take place in the future, and we also may see some people snuff it in some of Lois' visions. [TV Guide]

Geoff Johns twittered that his episode featuring the Justice Society is actually "an insane DCU infused two-part epic. Part I is 'Society' and Part II is 'Legends.'" And yes, it features Stargirl, Dr. Fate and Hawkman. [Twitter via SpoilerTV]

Heroes:

Another episode, another flashback. Here's a casting call for episode 4x15, one of the truncated season's final episodes:

[20 YEAR OLD SAMUEL] 20 Male. Caucasian. A passionate rock & roller in love with his childhood sweetheart. Dangerous and charming. We are casting the young version of the actor Robert Knepper…Please see attached photo. Actor will not have lines but will be featured and paid.

[SpoilerTV]

And the episode before that, 4x14, will be called "Let It Bleed." [The ODI]

Stargate Universe:

Here's a clip from Friday's new episode, "Water," that I don't think we've shown you yet.

And here are some stills from the episode. [SpoilerTV]

Additional reporting by Mary Ratliff.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Reznor will be mixing William Bell's on screen dialogue with his 07 track "Zero-Sum," voiced by Leonard Nimoy, naturally. Reznor became involved when Fringe used a clip of his song in a previous promo, and was reached out to, to see if he would be interesting in collaborating even more. But the real question here is, will Reznor make a cameo on Fringe? I'd like to see him as an observer or a before-the-title "freak of the week." Series exec producer Jeff Pinkner told EW:

"If he wants to come act on the show, that's not tit for tat — that's an open invitation, and we made that known to him," says Pinkner. Any ideas on what he may play? "Well, his head would probably end up exploding," deadpans Pinkner. "There'd be some uncomfortable biology in there one way or another."

Here's a sneak peek of Reznor's official promo and the entire thing will air Thursday during the American League Championship Series.

Inception:

Michael Caine spills the beans about what part he plays in Christopher Nolan's first post-The Dark Knight` project:

I play a professor who's teaching a guy science. It's Leonardo diCaprio. He's going off to do a science project and he speaks to me before he goes.

But it sounds like he's only in the film for a few brief moments.[Empire Online]

Venom:

Spider-Man 4 director Sam Raimi, not surprisingly, has no clue whether this spin-off will take place in the same "universe" as his movies. (The same universe as in the same continuity — I'm fairly sure the laws of physics will apply, more or less, in both films.) [MTV]

Star Trek 2:

Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman give another vague interview. This time around, they hint that there will be more exposure for characters other than Kirk and Spock in movie #2:

Kurtzman: For sure. In a sequel, you have even more of that burden, because the first movie is about introducing characters, but the second movie is about digging deeper into them. So you've got to make sure your story is giving everyone a moment… More than a moment. An arc.

Orci: We've always thought of the bridge crew as a family, so it's not just, "What are we gonna find for them?" It's part of the DNA of doing Star Trek right, I think - to make sure all the characters represent a significant part of the family.

[IGN via TrekWeb]

The Road:

Here's the final poster for this apocalptic funfest. [Cinemablend]

2012:

This new Adam Lambert music video seems to include some scenes from what must be the end of this movie, showing John Cusack and company emerging from storage containers unharmed. [Cinemablend]

Twilight:

Jackson Rathbone says Jasper Cullen's Civil War flashbacks in Eclipse don't take up quite as much time as they do in the book, but it's nice to see Jasper when he was still a bad dude. Also, as in the book, Jasper's the only one who knows how to combat the vampire army being raised by Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard). [MTV]

Also, director Chris Weitz says New Moon will follow the book's storyline, so we won't see that much of Edward. (Nooo!):

We didn't want to shoehorn him into the story. I did alter the visuals of the story in the sense that in the book, Kristen [Stewart]'s character has aural hallucinations — she hears his voice — and we've built in a very beautiful subtle effect so that we see him as well. But those are brief, if impactful, moments. A lot of the film is sustained by her loss and Taylor [Lautner]'s character bringing her back to life.

[IGN]

Lost:

Emilie de Ravin will be in every episode of season six, and we'll find out what happened to her. And we'll be seeing a different version of Claire — one that's more Rousseau-ish. As for the real Rousseau, we won't be seeing her in the final season — the producers asked Mira Furlan to return for the final season, but she turned them down due to a prior commitment. [EW]

Also, episode six is called "Sundown" and probably revolves around Sun and/or Jin. The show seems to be copying season one's pattern of character-centric episodes, but probably that will change with episode seven — unless we're really getting a Charlie-centric outing. [SpoilersLost]

Fringe:

We may not have seen the last of Charlie, since his duplicate in the alternate world is still running around. The show got rid of him because the producers wanted to get out of the FBI offices and more underground. And by the same token, we may not be seeing that much of new FBI character Special Agent Jessup (Meghan Markle) in the upcoming episodes — she's available if the show wants her, but she may not turn up that often, by the sound of things. We'll be getting to know our core characters more. Also, we may meet Olivia's evil stepfather this season. [EW]

Supernatural:

You won't have to wait much longer for the big showdown. Sam and Dean fight Lucifer in episode 10, and two characters die! [EW]

FlashForward:

Three sneak peeks from tonight's episode, "Gimme Some Truth":

Stargate Universe:

Just how angry is Sgt. Ronald Greer? Let Jamil Walker Smith explain:

And here's a sneak peek from Friday's new episode, "Light."

Sanctuary:

And a clip from tomorrow night's new episode, "Eulogy." Put those two episode titles together, you've got a Funkadelic song title.

Smallville:

In the episode called "Disciple," Steve Bacic will play The Dark Archer (bwa ha ha ha) who's Green Arrow's mentor and teaches him everything there is to know about archery. And darkness. Fans are speculating this is the same character as Merlyn The Archer from the comics. Also, Emilie Ullerup will play Cat Grant, and she appears in episode six, "Crossfire," the episode that also introduces Speedy. [ComicBookMovie and ComicBookMovie]

Heroes:

Here's the official description of episode 4x08, "Shadowboxing":

Claire is determined to get to the bottom of the attacks; H.R.G. realizes he may be the source of Claire's troubles; Peter's new ability is the perfect fit for his job; Sylar's battle at gaining full control of Matt's body escalates.

[SpoilerTV]

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown.

Iron Man 2:

The central relationship in this film is still Pepper and Tony, despite all the new stars joining the cast, director Jon Favreau tells MTV. But a lot of new stuff is added to the mix:

We introduce Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow and she has a dual identity, so that ends up affecting both the superhero side of things and the personal side of things-as I think all good superhero plotlines do... Then we have Don Cheadle. We've upped Rhodey's significance in the film and now I think the cat's out of the bag about War Machine, so he's in that suit," he said. "How does he become War Machine? What's his relationship to Iron Man?

Video at the link. [MTV via ComicBookResources]

As you might already have known, Stan Lee's cameo in this film will be as Larry King, who approaches Tony Stark and asks when he'll be on the show. Stan wore the suspenders and heavy glasses for the role. [Collider]

Predators:

Derek Mears, who recently played Jason Voorhees, will be in this film, probably as a Predator. [ShockTillYouDrop]

Priest:

Karl Urban describes this film as a "post-apocalyptic scifi vampire Western." [Collider]

The Fourth Kind:

A few new TV spots for this Milla Jovovic spooky-alien-owl thriller. [SciFiScoop]

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan:

Latino Review has a ton of pics and spoilers from this direct-to-DVD movie. The special effects are better than anything in the actual series, and we see the destruction of Caprica in much greater detail than before. There's also a ton of nudity and raunchiness, which will presumably be toned down in the televised version.

We follow two Cavils: the Cavil in the fleet, who is trying to complete the work of destroying th e human race so the Final Five will finally love the Cylons more than the humans, and the Cavil on Caprica, who starts to have second thoughts about whether the genocide against humans was really a good idea. It turns out a lot of the fleet's dilemmas in the first season were caused by Fleet Cavil. There are also multiple Sixes, including one raven-haired "floozy" who shares Cavil's bed.

Meanwhile, there are also two Simons: the Simon in the fleet is a human sympathizer, who's married to an engineer who works with Tyrol, and he tries to forestall the death of the human race. The Simon on Caprica, meanwhile, tries to sabotage Anders' resistance group, even as the Caprica Cavil starts to sympathize with these people. Also, Leoben tries to tell the other Cylons that Starbuck has a great destiny that may affect the Cylons in huge ways.

We also get more insight into Boomer, who actually realizes she's a Cylon sleeper agent earlier than we thought — Cavill gives her a trigger (a wooden elephant, I guess) that activates her programming. But even as she's carrying out Cavill's sabotage instructions, she's also trying to help the humans. And she's only really happy when she's living her human life.

All in all, Cavil starts to wonder if the Cylons' attempts at finishing off the human race are failing because the Cylons subconsciously want them to fail — all except Fleet Cavil, who's steadfast in his vendetta. More pics at the link. Warning: One of those pics is mildly NSFW, due to a very blurry naked woman in the background. [Latino Review via ComicBookMovie]

Doctor Who:

Another set report: Matt Smith, dressed in the tattered remains of David Tennant's costume, filmed a scene where the old TARDIS prop materialized, with tons of smoke pouring out of it, and Smith ran out, shouting that he had to get away. [GallifreyBase]

Lost:

Episode 6x05 will be called "Lighthouse." [Spoilers-Lost]

According to an Egyptologist, the hieroglyphics in the new season-six poster say "Who Is The Leader?" or "Who Is The Guide?" [Popular Mechanics]

Carlton Cuse twittered that they were doing a beautiful crane shot (probably in episode five) and at one point, Matthew Fox does some fine and subtle acting under the tropical night skies. [SpoilersLost]

And a bit more about episode five, which sounds like it's a Jack-centric outing. They were filming a scene at night in front of what looks like a concert hall, and Jack had a big scene — but I can't make out who's in the scene with him. Maybe Ben? Most of the set report is about how the tipsters tried to talk to Matthew Fox and he blew them off. But a familiar vehicle is present. More pics at the link. [Spencer-Stacy via Lyly Ford]

Also, sources claim we'll see Cindy again in the opening episode, as two characters open something of Hurley's. One of them has a connection to the Yellow Submarine. [SpoilersLost]

V:

The second episode will be called "There Is No More Normal Anymore." And here are a couple more TV spots. [VisitorSite]

Fringe:

In the Nov. 5 episode, "Earthling," someone (or something) is turning people to ash. And here are some pics from the episode. [Fox]

In an upcoming episode, we'll learn a lot more about the Observer, says actor Michael Cerveris:

We're going to learn about just how many there are and a lot more about what we're supposed to do and what we're not supposed to do.

[Slice Of SciFi]

Supernatural:

Some more pics of Sam and Dean in their scrubs, from the upcoming channel-surfing episode "Changing Channels." [Ten Gossip]

Episode 11 will be called "Sam, Interrupted," and will introduce two new characters, whom the show is casting:

[MARTIN CREASER] A weathered man in his late 40s-mid 50s, this twitchy, anxious ball of nerves is a former hunter who has ended up in a psych ward, where strange happenings are afoot...ANY ETHNICITY/GUEST STAR

[DR. ERICA FLETCHER] A beautiful, smart, credible psychiatrist in her 30s with a sweetly sympathetic manner who seems to understand Dean's conflict and pains...ANY ETHNICITY - GUEST STAR

[SpoilerTV]

Stargate Universe:

Here are a ton of pics from episode five, "Light." Including some supernova nookie. [SpoilerTV]

True Blood:

Season two's theme was about religion and the things it makes you do. Season three will be about embracing your identity. Sookie will start to discover why she has these strange powers — in the books, she finds out she has fairy blood, but in the TV show, it may be different. In any case, Sookie is part of another race, and if it does turn out to be fairies, they'll be fierce and primal, not like Tinkerbell. Sookie and Eric will get together at some point, but not necessarily in season three. We'll meet some shapeshifters who may be Sam's biological family, and they may be sketchy weirdos. [TV Guide]

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown.

The Hollywood Reporter's James Hibbard has a theory that Thursdays are just too full of programs aimed at the same audience to give Fringe a fair chance in its new timeslot:

[W]hen you look at what's on the night, you have two of the coolest soaps ("Grey's Anatomy" and "Vampire Diaries"). You have the two arguably hippest crime procedurals — "Fringe" and CBS' "The Mentalist." You have two of the most fashionable comedies, NBC's "The Office" and "30 Rock." And you have the most geek-friendly freshman drama, "FlashForward." Also crowding things is "Survivor," a highly rated show fans tend to watch the night it airs lest they're spoiled the next day. This doesn't read like a single-night's lineup, it's like a list of Entertainment Weekly cover stories. Very contemporary, wholly or semi-serialized, blog-friendly shows. And there's only so many titles a viewer will watch in a single night.

Hibbard argues that this has mix of programming is arguably the reason behind Fringe's fall in ratings this season:

The idea to put "Fringe" here was sound: "Grey's" and "CSI" and "The Office" are slipping. There's an opportunity to put a new sheriff in town. This move wasn't Fox devaluing "Fringe," this is Fox showing faith in "Fringe." But then ABC and The CW and CBS put their new cool shows on Thursday too.

Thursday isn't the only night this is happening; Friday sees Stargate Universe air at the same time as Dollhouse, with the younger-skewing, but still geek-friendly Star Wars: The Clone Wars showing on Cartoon Network. So what's the answer? Moving shows around, timeslot-wise? Investing in more DVRs or watching them online? Or dropping shows because nobody can watch everything...?

Did Fox blunder moving 'Fringe' to overstuffed Thursdays? [THR Live Feed]

Dream Machine: If I've learned anything from watching Fringe, it's that you should never, ever join a clinical trial. Earlier this season, it was those soldiers and their neurotoxin treatment that made them explode, and this week it was the guy who wants to hijack your dreams.

Our mystery of the week kicks off when a former sleepwalker suddenly thinks one of his co-workers is a demon straight out of Angel, and starts bashing his brain in. To add insult to crazy, the demon-seeing fellow soon dies of exhaustion. And later on, a restaurant chef walks through her kitchen at work, but instead of seeing tasty cow meat on the grill, she sees human hands and flips out, convinced her co-workers are cannibals. Much stabbing ensued.

Turns out both of these lucid dreamers received treatment for sleep disorders from a Dr. Nayak. Nayak implanted a chip in the brains of these once-disturbed sleepers (second note: if you do participate in a trial, never let them put a chip in your head). The chip was supposed to act as a sort of glandular pacemaker to regulate the thalamus, but Nayak actually used it to transmit their dreams to his brain. No dreams means no rest, hence the exhaustion deaths. But he can also trigger the dream state while they're awake, causing all those freaky hallucinations. But why steal dreams? According to Walter, it's a lot like being on LSD, but also highly addictive.

As much as a dream-stealing machine sounds like something out of a child's fairy tale, we actually get some cool visuals out of it and some classically villainous mad science. I'll take this over scorpion children any day.

Promise Me, No Students: Can we just dump Agent Jessup and adopt Agent Kashner instead? It's nice to see someone enter the lab who isn't as stoic as Astrid or Olivia (I mean, eventually someone had to vomit at the autopsy table). And he's so utterly unprepared for Walter that it's kind of adorable. Dude, he's not just some crazy old man. He's a mad scientist.

No More Nightmares: Every time Peter utters a single word about his childhood, I'm sure it's chock full of significance. Here, he tells Olivia about the nightmares he had as a child, and that Walter — in one of his rare moments of parental involvement — kept him from remembering the nightmares. I was almost disappointed that we learned the reason for this so quickly. Peter has nightmares about being snatched from his room by a man who both is and is not his father — that being the Walter of our universe.

Word Jumble: Olivia's bowling guru is still in the picture, and I guess we'll have to stick with him until we learn whether he holds the secrets of the universe. Bowling Guru has Olivia do an exercise where she obtains a seemingly random set of letters and then rearrange them into a coherent phrase — the phrase she needs to hear. I'm seriously looking for a copy of The Secret in that bowling alley. Anyway, Olivia cries when she realizes her letters form the phrase "You're gonna be fine." Sure, until that other universe comes crashing down on your head.

Astrid Watch: Did Walter just call her Asterisk again? Ouch.

Walter Moment of the Week: Definitely drugging Agent Kashner. No contest.

But it does seem odd after his heartfelt apology to hallucinogen-loving guinea pig Rebecca last week. In fact, between this and the Asterisk comment, it feels like Walter is regressing a tad.

Futurama

Reporters saw a three-minute clip animatic from the resurrected series. The action continues directly from the ending of Beyond the Wild Green Yonder when the Planet Express ship jumped through a wormhole to escape Zapp Brannigan:

Well, after a brief introduction by the Hypno Toad, we return to the action, finding out the worm hole is actually the Panama Canal of space-time ruptures. It has left them over Earth, with Brannigan hot on their heels howling his victory yodel. From there, the two ships crash, right in front of the Professor's building. Somehow, Fry and the Prof do survive.

As for the rest of the crew, including Kif, you'll have to wait until late Spring, 2010.

But creator David X. Cohen notes that with all those magical technologies we have in the 31st Century, any characters who die probably won't stay dead long. [Newsarama]

Lost

The poster for the final season has been revealed, showing us the characters we can expect to see this season:

TV Guide identifies the characters as follows:

Faraday, Boone, Miles, Michael, Ana Lucia, Charlotte, Shannon, Desmond, Eko, Kate, Jack, Sawyer, Locke, Ben, Sayid, a young blond woman resembling Libby or Penny, Sun, Jin, Claire, Hurley, Juliet, Charlie, Frank, Richard, Bernard and Rose.

The assessment on Libby might not be accurate, however, since Jorge Garcia has said we won't be seeing Libby in the final season. [TV Guide]

As for Penny, actress Sonya Walger isn't even sure if she's in the final season. [TV Guide]

We've got more reports from filming. The crew is back filming at Diamond Head Studio, and Jacob is one of the characters expected to appear. Back in the timeline where Flight 815 landed safely, we will meet Detective Rasmussen, a woman in her thirties. Rasmussen will be at the hospital where Claire is delivering her baby, talking to Kate.

Sayid was captured by the temple Others after the events of the season finale. They healed his wounds, but they also tortured him. There is a fight, after which the other castaways get into the temple. Richard smooths things over between the groups, and everyone is relieved to find that Sayid is still alive. Jacob and the long-haired Asian man will be in this scene as well. The set reporter believes that the scenes with the pirates at the temple will be in the opening episode. [Dark UFO]

Doctor Who:

According to his agent, ten-year-old Sam Davies will appear in a two-episode story, playing the "guest lead" role of Elliott. [Regan Rimmer via GallifreyBase]

Also, there are new set reports and set pics — it appears that they were filming the end of Matt Smith's first story — he's wearing his new costume at last, and he runs into the TARDIS, which is the new, brighter version, in the same garden spot where the David Tennant TARDIS was parked earlier. And Amy follows him in, and the light flashes as if the old girl was dematerializing. And meanwhile, superstar photographer Alun_Vega got a pic of the old Tennant TARDIS laying on its back, with the doors blown outwards as if there'd been a huge explosion. He also photographed a weird contraption, which may be an inflatable lighting rig, or a sinister alien device. Hard to say. More pics at the second link. [Gallifrey Base and Alun_Vega on Flickr]

Supernatural

We've told you about the November 5th episode "Changing Channels," where Sam and Dean live out parodies of various TV shows. Here's the official synopsis:

"Changing Channels," airs Nov. 5: "When Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) find themselves living their lives on what appear to be TV shows, it makes for a whole new style of reality television and they wonder if the Trickster (guest star Richard Speight, Jr.) is to blame. From a sitcom to a soapy hospital drama to a Japanese game show to a crime procedural, each new experience they encounter is more bizarre than the next, and they want out. But is the Trickster really the mastermind behind the madness?

[Spoiler TV]

Stargate Universe

Want a closer, better-lit look inside the Destiny? Here are a handful of pictures of the set. [Spoiler TV]

Fringe

In the November 5th episode "Earthling," the team will investigate people who mysteriously disintegrate into ash. We'll also learn more about Agent Broyles' past, and we'll get hints of foreign fringe science.

In the November 12th episode "Of Human Action," a kidnapping in New York escalates into a hostage situation, and when the authorities close in on the suspects, an unknowable force has "mind-blowing consequences." The team will discover a link between the kidnapping and Massice Dynamic.

And we finally get our Observer episode on November 19th with "August." In addition to another strange case, the Fringe Division will have to contend with Walter's bottomless appetite for milkshakes. [Fringe Spoilers]

Heroes

It looks like we're in for sorority pajama hijinks in episode seven, "Strange Attractors." [Pizquita]

We will see young Samuel and young Joseph in the thirteenth episode. Samuel has a flair for danger and gets teased by Joseph. Joseph is, however, calming and good-natured as he looks after his brother. [Spoiler TV]

FlashForward

A few more episode titles have been revealed: 1.09 "Believe," 1.10 "A561984," 1.11 "Buddha in the Ruins." [Spoiler TV]

The Sarah Jane Adventures

Here is the official description for "The Eternity Trap," the seventh and eighth episodes of the season:

A haunted house, with mysterious whispers and secrets in the shadows attracts Sarah Jane's attention in the first of a new, two-part adventure, written by Phil Ford and directed by Alice Troughton.

When Professor Rivers and the gang investigate an old legend, a monstrous creature appears in the night as the terrifying grasp of Erasmus Darkening reaches out from centuries past.

Sarah Jane and the gang discover the secrets of Erasmus Darkening, in the second and concluding part of The Eternity Trap, but are they too late? As ghosts from the past rise up, and the quest to find the missing children reaches a climax, it seems that nothing can stop the ancient alchemist's rise to victory.

[Blogtor Who]

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown and Charlie Jane Anders.

Help me out please! Which episodes should I watch first? Which episodes are absolutely skippable? What do I need to know before plunging into the Andromeda-verse?

Monday:

House</em -
On FOX at 8 PM Foreman's preparing to explain the death of a dictator to the review board, while King Midas incarnate is realizing just how cursed he is when his son falls under House's care ... or, Foreman's care, as the team remains his for now.

Heroes -
Lydia's alarmed on NBC at 8 PM, when Samuel tries to extend his brood. Peter makes a connection with a reluctant Emma over some swooshy lights, and Sylar tries to remember who he used to be. Also, Gretchen reveals her hidden agenda to Claire, and we get the lesbian kiss many people have been watching this season for. But then what will we watch it for after that?

Big Bang Theory -
Immigration is coming for Raj unless he gets a new job, so Sheldon hires him. When did Sheldon start a business? Also, Howard really doesn't get the concept of third wheel with Leonard and Penny on CBS at 8:30 PM.

Movies:

Global warming attacks the planet and Dennis Quaid must save ... as many as he can in The Day After Tomorrow on FX at 5:30 PM. Psyche yourself up for 2012 with a reminder of Emmerich's appetite for destruction.

Tuesday:

Ghost Lab -
The brothers examine the evidence of ghosts in Arizona, including a full body photograph of an apparition, on Discovery Channel at 10 PM.

STARZ: INSIDE ZOMBIEMANIA -
Move over vamps — zombies have risen to take over. Richard Roeper hosts a look at Zombies through the film lens of history on Starz at 10 PM. The piece takes look at zombies and their starring roles in films being with 1932's White Zombie and up to 28 Days Later. Writer/director/zombie aficionado George A. Romero and the author of Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, Max Brooks, are featured along with others influential in the zombie movement.

Movies:

After zombies on Starz, at 11 PM watch a plague infect residents in Quarantine.

Wednesday:

Ghost Hunters -
TAPS heads north of the border on Syfy at 9 PM to investigate Canada's Fort Henry, the nation's most haunted locale.

Destination Truth -
The team enjoys a Turkish dance troupe on Syfy at 10 PM.

Eastwick -
Joanna's ex-fiance (wait, what?!) surprises her before her date with Will tonight on ABC at 10 PM. Meanwhile, Roxie starts investigating her killer roommate, and Kat turns to a divorce attorney — finally.

Movies:

Joshua Jackson is a photographer who's haunted by mysterious images of a woman who supposedly died in a car crash in Tokyo, in Shutter, on HBO at 5:30 PM.

Thursday:

FlashForward -
Remember Bryce? The suicidal doctor? On ABC at 8 PM, he thinks a flash is the key to a patient's recovery but Olivia's skeptical (and with her trouble with flashes, who wouldn't be?). Demetri and Mark's flashes are dividing them and Nicole (the creepy kid's babysitter) shares her flash: murder. Wait, wasn't she trying to atone for the future previously?

Vampire Diaries -
Stefan's on a truth kick and reveals to Elena his family's history, and how his rivalry with Damon got started. Damon, meanwhile is trying to take control of Vicki's life, causing, well, some problems obviously. And the sheriff and mayor try to keep every safe-ish on CW at 8 PM.

Supernatural -
The boys are traveling again, this time to see an 11-year-old boy whose beliefs all come true. Too bad his conjurings also include the monsters of lore. Cas thinks this child's a threat and wants him... taken out, on CW at 9 PM.

Fringe -
On FOX at 9 PM the team started decoding dreams when people are being turned into monsters via what sounds like a backdoor in their brains. And Broyles meets with Nina Sharp — whoa, is more lip-locking action in store?

Movies:

On Cinemax at 5:45 PM is the Edward Norton-version of Incredible Hulk, featuring two spectacular cameos by Lou Ferrigno.

Friday:

Batman: The Brave and the Bold -
The Dark Knight returns to Cartoon Network at 7:30 PM, to fight the metal man Shrapnel, with OMAC by his side.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars -
On Cartoon Network at 8 PM, Padmé is investigating a Separatist conspiracy, when the Jedi Council asks for her help.

Ghost Whisperer -
Melinda heads to the morgue when she's haunted by the ghost of a surgeon who's stuck reliving a failed operation on CBS at 8 PM.

Smallville -
The Blur is becoming an outlaw, and who knows how he'll react when Jor-El gives him the power to hear people's thoughts. Elsewhere, the Toyman is crashing a Queen Industries party to get to Oliver and force him to admit he killed Lex on CW at 8 PM.

Stargate Universe -
On Syfy at 9 PM, the ship's power reserves dip to a critical level, and the crew is ordered to use the power for essential services only — but we've seen how well they obey orders already. Plus, Rush announces they won't survive past a few days, so that should help with the whole "morale" thing.

Sanctuary -
The Cabal attacks sanctuaries around the world, using Ashley in support of their cause. Tesla an Henry try to defuse the the onslaught, without killing Ashley of course, on Syfy at 10 PM.

Movies:

Gene Hackman stars as a man fending off death in the ocean in The Poseidon Adventure on FMC at 6 PM.

Saturday:

In lieu of their usual Saturday night movie, Syfy is doing a Saw mini-marathon. The puzzle begins at 4:30 PM and covers the first three movies.

Sunday:

Super Hero Squad Show -
A bratty little kid gets control of the world with the help of a sparkly magic tiara. Time for the squad to think like kids if they want to save the world, on the Cartoon Network at 7 PM

Venture Brothers -
The Bros. are back, and Captain Sunshine is joining them. Plus, is Brock seriously gone for good?!? Find out on Cartoon Network at 11:30 PM.

Movies:

Wolvesbayne is a new movie about a werewolf hero who takes on a vampire cult, on Syfy at 9 PM.

[Rec] 2:

Javier Botet returns as Medeiros, who's possessed and the object of a manhunt by a priest and a S.W.A.T. team. The priest needs Medeiros' blood so he can synthesize an antidote for the virus that allows demons to possess people's bodies. As with the first movie, Botet only shows up at the end of the film. The sequel has more explanations than the first movie, and is more action-oriented and commercial, says Botet. [Shock Till You Drop]

Green Hornet:

Apparently the new "it" band The Anvil just filmed a cameo where they play in a rock club and then, literally, explode. [L.A. Times via Cinemablend]

Lost:

More details on episode four, "The Substitute," from an anonymous source. (Grain of salt definitely indicated.) Apparently this is the episode where we deal with Faux Locke and Jacob's murder. And in the episode — according to source — Sun insists they should give someone a proper burial, Frank makes a comment about the "weirdest funeral ever," and Ben makes a touching speech. Someone reveals that he/she know a lot more about the island than Ben does, and the identity of Jacob's child is revealed. Also, a drunk Sawyer reunites with a familiar face, and an old friend meets someone unexpected off the island — possibly the Ben/Locke scene at the school that people witnessed the filming of? [SpoilersLost]

Some new set pics include a bit of airplane, a hole in the ground, and a weird structure. More at the link. [SpoilersLost]

Dollhouse:

Enver Gjokaj, aka this show's new MVP, says he's very clear that Victor and Sierra really do get wiped in between assignments — it's only Echo who remembers stuff. But Victor and Sierra have a love/attraction that can't be wiped. And upcoming episodes will explore Victor's backstory and we'll discover that he's actually "a very broken character." We'll realize that both Victor and Sierra were very "damaged characters." [L.A. Times]

Caprica:

Some set pics from a Syfy set visit, mostly showing the nice interior furnishings... but that one Cylon pic is fucking cool. [SpoilerTV]

Doctor Who:

More details about the upcoming animated storyline, "Dreamland." The Wire's Clarke Peters will play a Native American named Night Eagle. (Oh.) Peters says his character gets caught up in an alien invasion in New Mexico: "He's an old man, but a hell of an archer." And as you might have known, Georgia Moffett (the Doctor's daughter from last year) plays a new character, companion Cassie Rice. And David Warner also guest stars. [Telegraph]

Fringe:

A couple of photographers captured some snaps of the recent filming, including a stint at UBC involving an altercation, a fedora, and a group of children in orange outfits. More pics at both links. [My Little Insanity and BlueTeeth on Flickr, via Fringe Watch]

Supernatural:

A goofy sneak peek and a new promo from this week's episode:

Romo Lampkin/Manservant Neville himself, Mark Sheppard, will guest star in the last episode of 2009, "Abandon All Hope..." He plays a pivotal crossroads demon named Crowley. This episode, written by Ben Edlund, will be epic and leave you on the edge of your seat until the show returns in early 2010. (The show takes Oct. 22 off, but otherwise has new episodes every week, through Thanksgiving.) [Chicago Tribune]

And here's the synopsis for next week's episode, "The Curious Case Of Dean Winchester," written by Sera Gamble:

OLD MAN DEAN! - Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) discover a witch (guest star Hal Ozsan) is running a high-stakes poker game where the currency is life years vs. money. Bobby (Jim Beaver) sees the game as a chance to get out of the wheelchair and bets 25 years, but loses. As Bobby begins to age rapidly, Dean steps in to save him but also ends up turning into an old man, leaving Sam holding the bag for their survival.

[SpoilerTV]

Chuck:

Episode 3x07 will be called "Chuck Vs. The Mask," written by Phil Klemmer with Michael Schultz directing. [ChuckTV.net]

FlashForward:

A couple of sneak peeks from this week's episode, "Black Swan":

And here's the official description for episode six, "Scary Monsters And Super Creeps":

Mark, Demetri and Wedeck try to connect Janis' attack with a separate attack made on them; Olivia confronts Mark about his flashforward; Demetri and Gough track down a clue from Mark's flash; Dylan goes missing from the hospital

[SpoilerTV]

Smallville:

Those rumors that Laura Vandevoort would turn up in episode 9x07, "Kandor," aren't true. And here's the description for the Speedy episode, 9x06, "Crossfire":

OLIVER TAKES DC COMICS' CHARACTER SPEEDY UNDER HIS WING - Oliver tries to help a young street girl, Mia AKA Speedy (guest star Elise Gatien), get out of her dangerous life by offering to train her, but Mia double crosses him. Lois asks Clark to help her land a job as an on-air television host, but the two are shocked when the station wants to hire them as a team.

[KryptonSite]

Stargate Universe:

The lost-in-space show had a press day in Vancouver last week, and Collider was kind enough to post the whole thing on Youtube. [Collider]

Even though this show is such a departure from the past 15 seasons of Stargate shows, in one respect it represents a return to tradition: co-creator Robert C. Cooper says that the Stargate had become marginalized somewhat in Stargate Atlantis, and in this show it's central once again. It's the "device that allows us to tell stories. It's very much a central icon to this show." [Den Of Geek]

True Blood:

Someone you hate isn't long for this world, according to Alan Ball:

"Somebody is going to bite the dust and it's going to be really good to see them get what they deserve," Ball says.The only clue the Blood boss would reveal is that "it's a person we'll be happy to see go."

[TV Guide via True-Blood.net]

The Great Cryo-Caper: Agent Broyles nails it with the absurd Fringe quote of the night: "Why are shapeshifting soldiers from another universe stealing frozen heads?" Why not? It's weird, it's slightly gruesome, and it gives them an excuse to show dozens of disembodied heads rolling all over the ground.

Oh, but it has something to do with the plot, too. These universe-jumping warriors are looking for a certain head, but they don't know where it is or what it looks like. One of the soldiers just keeps shaving off small bits of hair, frowning, and then tossing the head over his shoulder like it's a piece of overripe fruit. A pity we don't get to see anyone stumble across this pile of unwanted heads; it would the perfect intro to a ratings-grubbing episode of Law & Order.

The last heist didn't quite go as planned, though, and the frowning supersoldier was forced to kill one of his shapeshifting compatriots, leaving behind a corpse that bleeds mercury and one of those contraptions that let's them steal another person's form.

Flatworm Smoothie: Sometimes I suspect the Fringe writers are constantly working on an empty stomach, what with all the talk of flan and apple fritters. Olivia gets a less tasty treat in the form of Walter's world-famous flatworm smoothie (patent pending). Apparently, in addition to being every kid's favorite animal to chop to bits (how I loved to create two-headed planaria), flatforms have the ability to obtain the memories of other flatworms through ingestion. Walter thinks he can job Olivia's memory by having her swallow the sliced and diced wormies, while Peter thinks that's a load of worm-flavored crap. Olivia, of course, downs the entire glass before Walter can mention that he was going to mix the vile stuff with strawberries. Oh, Olivia, I know you must always prove you're tough and game for anything, but this impulsiveness is going to get you killed — and probably get the whole universe killed with you.

The Blending of Peter and Bell: Nina Sharp reminds us that two objects can't occupy the same space, but Peter and William Bell are certainly coming close, at least in Olivia's mind. First, when she looks at Peter, she has flashbacks to seeing Bell in the alternate universe. Then, when she's just coming out of her massive flashback seizure, she hears Peter's voice layered over Bell's voice. And both Bell and Peter ring similar bells, which serve as bookends to the seizure. I'm probably jumping the gun here, but is it possible that Peter and William Bell are the same person? After all, they're both geniuses, both have worked with Walter, and both have real affinity for Olivia. Could Peter have traveled back in time, assumed the name William Bell, and worked to prevent the "final storm."

Step Through the Plot Hole, Please: Okay, so now that the Fringe team has a dead shapeshifter on their hands, they can see that shapeshifter bodies contain boatloads of mercury. And that dead nurse they thought was the shapeshifter back in episode one? No mercury. Go team! But, why everyone doesn't immediately suspect Charlie, who supposedly shot and killed the nurse, of being the shapeshifter is beyond me. Walter might have an excuse since he's apparently high all the time, but what about our trained FBI agents and uber-perceptive Peter. Gah. Instead, they have to rely on Massive Dynamic to fix the broken shapeshifting device and reconstruct data on the last recorded shape.

Olivia and Peter Geek Out: Part of me adores the impressed look Peter gives Olivia when she reveals her knowledge of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He's got a very non-sexual, sibling-ish crush on her. But part of me is bemused; is he still surprised when she raises her geek flag?

Hallucinogenic Experiments are Sexy: Walter actually gets some action this episode, and it's all thanks to his wacky unethical experiments. He meets up with Rebecca Kidner, the woman he once fed hallucinogenic drugs so she could identify people from other universes (who apparently have a certain glowing aura about them). Far from being upset about the things Walter did to her mind and body, she's grateful and more than a little turned on. When Walter tells her (rather unconvincingly) that he couldn't recommend subjecting her to more hallucinogenic drugs, she immediately and happily volunteers to be his guinea pig again. She even remembers where he keeps his salvia. How sweet.

Will'em and Livvy, Together at Last: Rebecca's psychedlic experience is interrupted by Olivia's flashback seizure. Apparently, the flatworms have kicked in and Olivia is remembering her visit to the alternate universe and her encounter with William Bell. It's a bit of an info dump, but a manageable one, and some of the revelations are a little cryptic:

-William and Olivia have cutesy nicknames for each other, or at least they did when she was a child.
-People who travel from our universe to the other universe often die in the process.
-The people in the other universe have dealt with this by creating hybrids that are part human, part machine. They are called the "First Wave."
-The supersoldiers are looking for their leader, who will have a mark that looks sort of like an omega hidden on his body.
-Bell believes a war is coming, which he describes as the "final storm."
-When Bell and Walter predicted the coming war, they tried to create an individual who could defend the gates between worlds. Out of all of the children Bell and Walter experimented on, Olivia was by far the strongest.
-Momentum can be deferred when traveling from one universe to the other, but it's only put off until your return. That's why Olivia came crashing out of her car windshield in the season premiere — because she'd been pulled out of a moving car and into the other universe.

Peter Glows: Walter is becoming more focused, but he may want to lay off the pot. After all, he should realize that once he triggered Rebecca's ability to recognize people from the other universe, that she would be able to see that Peter is from the other universe. She almost spills the beans to Peter, but catches herself at the last minute. Still, it's another step toward Peter figuring out what's up. Then again, maybe Walter is — consciously or unconsciously — just sabotaging himself.

Snow Globe Apocalypse: On Bell's orders, Olivia visits Nina Sharp to tell her about the final storm. Nina essentially reiterates what ZFT told us last season: that there will be a final conflict between the two universes, and only one universe will survive. After all, two objects cannot occupy the same space. She illustrates this by smashing two snow globes together. Then Olivia thinks, Hey, don't those snow globes look an awful lot like omegas? and she suspects Nina of being the shapeshifter. No, Olivia, it will be hidden on the leader, not held out in front of them.

Farewell, Fake Charlie: But soon reason (or more accurately technology) prevails and Fake Charlie is outed as the shapeshifter. After a battle of the supersoldiers, Olivia wins out and shoots Fake Charlie dead. Poor Kirk Acevedo. You will be missed.

The Head of the First Wave: Meanwhile, the other shapeshifter has found the head he was looking for. He shaves off a little hair to reveal the omega-ish symbol of the First Wave's leader, and then attaches it to a fresh new body.

Astrid Watch: Just a little Astrid this week, though she gets a nice joke with the "Walter Bishop Deli" line. And I did like it when Walter said he wasn't sure she wasn't a figment of his imagination, even if he meant it strictly in the scientific sense, because sometimes it does seem like Walter treats her like his imaginary friend.

Walter Moment of the Week: This week we learned that Walter smokes a little pot each night before bed and keeps a stash of salvia in his drawer. But the best moment had to be when he asked Peter if he could ride home with Rebecca (and hit him up for bus fare), only to turn around like a giddy kid about to have a playdate:

But at least we got a moment of self-awareness, too, as Walter apologized to Rebecca for the things he did in his wild and reckless scientific youth. And, he may not have gotten her into bed, but at least he's rewarded for his impulsive car ride with a kiss.

Avatar

Producer Jon Landau says that the character Jake Sully begins as a more vulnerable and sensitive character, and gradual becomes the sort of person who can lead a nation into battle. He also says that we won't see any Na'Vi or Avatar sex, just romance. [IGN]

Thor

The casting call has been put out for Marcy Lewis:

(20) Is a college student. Aloof, jaded beyond her years, she thought her internship with scientist Kate Spelling would be an easy 6 college credits. However, she's been stuck for months in this small New Mexico town and relegated to a wide range of unglamorous activities. Kate has been particularly hard on Marcy, making it her personal project to see that Marcy lives up to her potential. Marcy deals with her situation both by using subtle irony and by being an overt wiseass.

[Spoiler TV]

Doctor Who

Yesterday, we told you about the sonic screwdriver explodey scene, and the latest news is about what takes place before that. The TARDIS crashes into a garden, destroys a garden shed, and skids to its resting place. At some point, the smoke comes pouring out of the TARDIS, and Amy is dragging the Doctor away, crying "Come on!" (she still in her policewoman outfit and he in David Tennant's suit). He keeps trying to escape her grasp, screams "I must save her!"

Oh, and that TARDIS? If you peer through the brush, you can see it (Update: I mistook this for the Series Five TARDIS, but it's the Series Four):

[Planet Gallifrey]

And there's more! Here is a shot of the Doctor saying something to Amy, and Amy grabbing him by the tie and dragging him into a black car:

Planet Gallifrey says the dialogue goes something like this:

Doctor: (...), I hate (...). As much as I would like to say goodbye, (...) .... I'm sorry.
Amy: NO!
Doctor: No—no—Amy—no, what are you doing?!

Another line of dialogue heard on set:

Twenty minutes till the world ends and do you know who I am?

In another scene, the Doctor and Amy are running toward a white screen and the Doctor turns to someone in hospital overalls. Set reporters heard something about a coma and staring at a dog.

[Planet Gallifrey]

Commenter bluehinter adds a bit more:

Back in Llandaff, a scene was shot with The Doctor, Amy, and Rory where they look up at the sky (presumably at the CGI "spaceship" that other people were filmed watching earlier) then a dog barks, and Matt goes towards the beer garden, and begins talking down to something on the ground (presumably the dog, or something else to be CGIed in later).

He says "Hello, Prisoner X" and then we hear something about a "Level 20 planet scanning the earth" and "6 billion people."

He also says the February episode written by Richard Curtis will feature Van Gogh.

The Lovely Bones

Peter Jackson's post-death drama gets a moody pair of posters:

[Movie Web]

New Moon

Death Cab for Cutie is contributing a mopey track to the Twilight sequel, and premieres a few shots from the movie in their new video:

[via Cinematical]

Lost

Apparently, the first episode of the new season is going to be so laden with twists and turns that the producers have convinced ABC not to show a single frame before it airs. That's right: no clips in the promos, no teaser images, nada. They want you good and surprised. [Watch with Kristin]

There are, however, spoilers from the fourth episode. We'll learn about a connection between the Smoke Monster and the Man In Black. The fake Locke will convince an old friend to join up with him. Ben will lie to Illana about what happened inside the temple, while someone will try to convince Sun to visit the temple, claiming that Jin is there. Jacob is dead, and someone whose name has five letters will collect his ashes. Franks wants to see if his plane on the other island will still work. [DarkUFO]

Also, we now know the identity of Jacob's rumored offspring: Illana. [SpoilersLost]

Supernatural

During the episode when Sam and Dean fight Lucifer, two fan favorites meet their ends. [Watch with Kristin]

Fringe

We're headed to a small town in episode eleven. The producers are soliciting identical twins to play Tommy, a good kid who wants to see the outside world. We'll also meet Tommy's mother Rose who has a strong moral sense, and the avuncular Sheriff Velchik, an "In Town Elder." [Spoiler TV]

Better Off Ted

In the tenth episode, we learn that even execs get screwed by Veridian Dynamics. Arthur Wells, the company's brash and blunt former CEO, finds out that the company plans to vote him off the board. So he enlists Veronica to help him dig up secrets the company would rather the public not know about. Initially, Arthur and Veronica don't like each other, but they eventual bond over their shared history; after all, they both chose the company over personal relationships. We'll also meet Phil and Lem's nemesis, an obnoxious fellow scientist named Ritchie, a pretty employee named Susan, and Donald, a nervous fellow who works the Veridian swag booth. [Spoiler TV]

Smallville

Lois and Clark will be a "full blown couple" this season. [Watch with Kristin]

Zombie pics from tonight's plague episode "Rabid," including brain-hungry Lois:

[Spoiler TV]

It's unconfirmed, but IMDB is listing Emilie Ullerup as hard-drinking, hard-flirting Daily Planet gossip columnist Cat Grant in the upcoming episode "Crossfire." [Kryptonsite]

House

Cuddy and House will, in fact, hook up this season, but not before the tenth episode. And unlike last time, it won't be a hallucination. [Watch with Kristin]

Heroes

It's not set in stone, but Mohinder may get the axe sometime this season or next season (assuming the show lasts that long). [Watch with Kristin]

It looks like even when the lesbian kiss has passed, we'll still have girl-girl hazing on the table. Here's the official description for the October 26th episode, "Strange Attractors:"

THE HEROES ATTEMPT TO RESCUE THEMSELVES AND OTHERS WITHOUT THE USE OF THEIR POWERS- Matt (Greg Grunberg) goes to extreme measures to extinguish Sylar (Zachary Quinto), who continues to torment him. Elsewhere, HRG. (Jack Coleman) calls in a favor from Tracy (Ali Larter) to save a troubled young boy whose misfortunes resemble her own. While Claire (Hayden Panettiere) and Gretchen (guest star Madeline Zima) are being hazed by their new sorority sisters, they realize pledging might not be their biggest problem.

[Spoiler TV]

Sanctuary

Looks like we're in for a chase scene in tonight's season premiere:

Human Target

The fifth episode of the series is called "Rewind." Christopher Chance will be guarding someone on a plane when the plane catches fire. One person on the plane is hiding a secret. Also, Guerrero will get help from a contact named Sergei. [Target419]

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown and Charlie Jane Anders.

Doctor Who:

Where to start? Today's set reports are almost too much to contain in one summary! First of all, it seems as though the "bachelorette party" thing was wrong — Amy Pond really is a policewoman, unfeasibly short skirt and all. There are some photos of her with her hair in a severe updo. And fans witnessed a scene where Amy tries to drag the Doctor to a black rover (not a police car.) The Doctor says there are just 20 minutes until the end of the world, and don't you know who I am? He also makes a comment about how you people are always trying to lock him up. In another take of the same scene, the Doctor stops and looks at something, and Amy shouts "Nooo!" and grabs him by the tie and drags him physically to the car. (And there's quite a striking pic of the tie-grabbing below.)

According to a call sheet, there's a man named Barney in the coma ward, and Dr. Ramsden bends over him and asks if he can hear her. Also, the guy in the hospital scrubs (played by Arthur Darvill) is named Rory, and according to the call sheet, the Doctor notices that Rory is taking pictures of the dog man. (And the dog is wearing a towel as a cape in one shot, oddly enough.) Also the dog gets a turn in front of the green screen (video by Mugimoe):

There is a phone booth (a red one, not the TARDIS) which explodes. And we get to see the Leadworth fire brigade swing into action. And there are little weird touches of Leadworth everywhere, including postcards and fake street names. The Beeb has really gone to town this time around — I'm wondering if Leadworth is a fictional town for a reason?

Amy runs through the front gate of a grand house, but the Doctor jumps over a flowerbed. Then later, he jumps out into that same flowerbed and runs away.

And then — and here's the really demented bit — the Doctor gives a speech about how he'll defend the human race once again, while Rory and Amy stare at something in the sky. The Doctor raises his sonic screwdriver up in the air, to do something heroic and dramatic — and then the sonic screwdriver explodes in a ton of sparks! The Doctor looks at the burnt-out screwdriver, looking distinctly perturbed.

Photos by Mugim0e, Alun_Vega, Thai Footsoldier, and others. You guys rule! [Gallifrey Base]

Lost:

We mentioned yesterday that Suzanne Krull, who played Hurley's fake fortune teller Lynne Karnoff, would be back this season. And now she's Tweeted that she has a scene with Terry O'Quinn (Locke). [SpoilersLost]

The Imaginarium Of Dr. Parnassus:

A new trailer came out yesterday, and though it's pretty similar to the psychedelic international trailer we ran a while back, it does have some new snippets:

Gentlemen Broncos:

Some new stills show Jemaine Clement in a bookstore, and teaching a dynamic, exciting writing class. [Fox Searchlight]

Daybreakers:

Ethan Hawke plays Edward, a "human sympathizer" who was turned into a vampire agianst his will by his his younger brother Frankie (Michael Dorman.) Now Edward hunts for a synthetic blood substitute, a "Tru Blood" if you will. Frankie, meanwhile, is a soldier in the vampire army, happily hunting down the remaining humans. And then Edward encounters a group of human survivors led by Claudia Karvan, and this sparks him to search for a rumored cure for vampirism — one which Edward's boss (Sam Neil) wants no part of, because it might reduce the demand for blood, and that's bad for business. As the vampires have become more powerful, they've built covered sidewalks and customized their vehicles for daytime commutes. There are also mutant vampires, Subsiders, who live in the subways and wear latex outfits. One Subsider attacks Edward in his home, and we see he was still wearing his wedding ring when he transformed. [Horror Squad]

Supernatural:

Episode eight of the season will show us what it would be like if Sam and Dean were trapped inside an episode of Grey's Anatomy. (This is the same episode that plays like a sitcom, complete with laugh track. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think this show may actually be getting too metatextual. But I'm sure it'll rule in practice.) [EW]

Fringe:

The shape-shifting Charlie impersonator gets a bit desperate this week, because his new body is breaking down, and the Fringe gang is closing in. And of course, Olivia starts remembering more of her William Bell encounter. And finally, Olivia-Peter shippers will be thrilled by a scene where they discuss classic scifi movies, and in particular Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. [EW]

When we get more of the William Bell-Olivia meeting, Bell gives Olivia the name of the enemy, as well as very specific marching orders. [TV Guide]

Chuck:

Bryce Larkin may or may not be returning from the dead, but we'll probably see more of him in flashback sequences, says actor Matt Bonner. [ChuckTV]

"Stone Cold" Steve Austin guest stars in episode 3x05, "Chuck vs. First Class," playing Hugo Panzer, a master of close-quarters combat. And that's the episode that features Kristin Kreuk as a woman Chuck meets on an airplane to Paris, who winds up working at the Buy More. [ChuckTV]

In episode 8, "Chuck Vs. The Nose," Chuck has to impersonate Frankie, a sharpshooting chameleon and the worst kind of assassin. Chuck has some trouble convincing the Goodfellas-esque Matt and Scotty, two thugs, but finally wins them over. [ChuckTV]

Heroes:

NBC is really pushing this coming Monday's episode as the honest-to-gosh turning point for the series — they've sent out screeners, and want to make sure you see these clips, including Sylar's comeback and the famous Lesbian Kiss:

Also in Monday's episode, Peter falls for his deaf coworker, partly thanks to her amazing synesthesia powers. And the two of them even play a piano duet together, with the swooshy lights and stuff. But Peter must put his love on hold when an old friend (HRG, I'm guessing) shows up in need of his nursing skillz. [EW]

In Monday's episode, Claire thinks Gretchen is stalking her, but really there's a third party — another girl, who also has her eye on Claire — who is stirring things up. And even though they kiss, Claire doesn't really like Gretchen that way. [E! Online]

As you've probably gathered from the clips, a police detective questions an amnesiac Sylar, who has no clue why he has bullet holes in his shirt, or who he is. [TV Guide]

So now that Sylar has amnesia, what do we do with him? How about letting the Circus ringmaster, aka Fake Keith Richards, baptise him, in episode six, "Tabula Rasa"? And if that doesn't sell you on the episode, how about Hiro doing magic tricks in pajamas? Sold! Here are a ton of promo pics. [HeroSite]

And assuming the show is still on the air by then, here's what we'll see in the Nov. 2 episode, "Once Upon A Time In Texas":

HIRO GETS A SECOND CHANCE TO SAVE THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE – JAYMA MAYS RETURNS AS CHARLIE – When Hiro (Masi Oka) travels three years into the past, he has a second chance to save Charlie (guest star Jayma Mays) from the hands of Sylar (Zachary Quinto). However, Samuel's (Robert Knepper) presence serves to complicate Hiro's mission even further. Elsewhere, H.R.G.'s (Jack Coleman) past with his Primatech partner (guest star Elizabeth Rohm) is revealed.

[SpoilerTV]

Star Wars: The Clone Wars:

Here's what happens in Friday's new episode:

After outwitting his Jedi foes and escaping with the Holocron, bounty hunter Cad Bane sets into motion the next stage of his nefarious assignment: to find Force-sensitive younglings and take them to Mustafar for Sith training. But Bane is merely the instrument of evil, a deadly distraction to occupy the Jedi while the true source continues to plot from the shadows. While he has been glimpsed in previous episodes – and in his seemingly benevolent double-role as Supreme Chancellor of the Republic – Darth Sidious emerges in "Children of the Force" as a direct threat to the galaxy's future.

And here's a new clip from the episode:

And here's a new photo of Sidious himself. [Lucasfilm]

Smallville:

Oliver Queen will meet the evil version of himself, called (bwaaaa ha ha)... The Dark Archer. In episode 10 of this season. And seriously, this show needs Ambush Bug or Booster Gold and Blue Beetle to do a commentary track on every episode. [EW]

In tomorrow night's episode, when Clark gets the power of (bwaaaa haa ha!) thought-hearing, he hears all of the schmoopy things Lois has been thinking about him. And Clark reads Lois' mind and realizes she has a love of giant cars — and she's been dying to go to the Monster Truck Rally. So he takes her there, on their first official date. And fans will find her date-night ensemble "really funny," promises Erica Durance. But a threat to Oliver Queen's life will force Clark to put their date on hold. [TV Guide Magazine via SpoilerTV]

FlashForward:

Dominic Monaghan will finally turn up — briefly — in next week's episode. [EW]

And a casting call for episode 11 gives a few hints about upcoming plot lines:

[CASSIE] 30s-50s, open to all ethnicities. Earthy, off-beat, sharply intelligent. Witty, cuts straight through the bullshit. Involved in a revealing conversation with high stakes for a major player. Guest star.

[AGENT GALLOWAY] Female, 30s, open to all ethnicities. An FBI agent, she interacts with an arrogant expert, giving it right back to him when he condescends to her. Could recur

[GIANCARLO] 30's Italian, attractive. A professional photographer and solid family man who comes to recent renown. Gets caught up in his own hype and loses sight of his values. 3 scenes

[AGENT] Male, 50s, open to all ethnicities. Veteran FBI Agent whose light banter with a co-worker suddenly turns serious upon the discovery of some disturbing news sptv050769. 1 scene

[JONNY] Early 20's, Caucasian, boisterous and fun-loving to a fault. Gets in trouble for being careless and irresponsible. His saving grace is an underlying sweetness. 3 scenes.

[LIARNA KASSEL] Female, open age and ethnicities. NPR news reporter heard over the radio reporting standard daily news. Voice only, not photographed.

[DARNELL] Teenager. African-American. Good kid, future NBA superstar, wrestles with his conscience when he's asked to throw a championship game.

[SpoilerTV]

Nimoy revealed little about his upcoming Fringe appearance, except to say that we will learn a great deal about Bell's relationship with Agent Olivia Dunham and what Bell's motives are (or at least what he claims his motives are). He did open up, though, when asked about his thoughts on the current state of science fiction in television and film:

Well, I'm concerned about the positioning of story in terms of importance. When I see a lot of explosions, a lot of chases, I'm not terribly impressed. I think there are three terribly important elements that must be given position — priority position — in science fiction as well as in any other kind of drama: the first is story, the second is story, and the third is story. Story, story, story, story, story. If the story is compelling and interesting, I think all the rest will find its place. We have great technology in our industry and that technology can be overused at the expense of story, and that's a problem for me. But when the story is in place, I think the special effects can find their proper place. I think Fringe uses the technology brilliantly, but in the service of excellent storytelling.

He did later go on to say that, while special effects can be a slippery slope, he is impressed at how they actually bolster storytelling:

It's safe to say that what an audience is seeing today on screen in a television episode is far more complex than what we were doing while we were, for example, making the original Star Trek series in the sixties. We were very, very heavy on pages and pages of dialogue and very little special effects. But because the technology has advanced so greatly, it's possible to do some very complex and very exciting and very useful technical stuff on the shows these days. So we don't have to rely quite so much on the story being told by the actors speaking. On the other hand, there's the danger — as I mentioned earlier — in going to far with the special effects at the expense of story. But if the story is well done, if the story's in place strongly, the special effects can be very useful to the actors, far more so than they were years ago when we were making the original Star Trek series.

But when asked which shows he thought balanced storytelling and effects well, he replied (a bit single-mindedly): "Fringe. Fringe. Fringe."

Star Trek:

Writer Roberto Orci answered fan questions on the Don Murphy message boards. Among other things: He and cowriter Alex Kurtzman won't let Scotty become a one-note joke. And he likes the Borg a lot, but also says you have to admire the Klingons' style. But the movie's script is "still a twinkle in our eye." Quick, let's start a rumor that the script is finished and it features Scotty become a Borg! [TrekWeb]

Thor:

A Swedish news site is reporting that Skellan Skarsgard has joined this movie's cast in an unspecified role. At one point, his son Alexander was rumored to be up for the movie's lead. We already know Brian Blessed is Odin — so could this be another Norse god? [Ystads Allehanda via Cinematical]

New Moon:

The New Moon Illustrated Companion book is out, including some big spoilers. At the birthday party, Edward explains the history of the Volturi to Bella, her hand gets wounded, and he faces off with Jasper. The film has a big challenge showing Bella's depression after Edward leaves, so it conveys the passage of time by (no kidding) having Bella sit in her chair, and a camera circles around her while the seasons change outside her window. And Bella's clothes are linked to Edward's, color-wise, to show that she's devoted to him. And after Edward leaves, she stops taking care of her appearance. [Twilight Groupie]

The Vampire's Assistant:

John C. Reilly plays Larten Crespley, the ringmaster. And he says Crespley keeps mortals at arms' length because they grow old and die, while he stays young forever. But he's involved with Salma Hayek's character. [ShockTillYouDrop]

Lost:

More Locke-Helen developments — the show was filming a scene where Locke drove up to Helen's house in a blue Chevy van in a wheelchair ramp. And an observer gathered that there was about to be an unpleasant scene between the two former lovers. [Hawaii Weblog]

Rumor has it that Jacob has a child — and it's one of these people: Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Juliet, Hurley, Locke, Michael, Ben, Bram, Desmond, Caesar, Ilana, Ben, Richard Alpert, or Sayid. Note: This is a rumor, it is something you read on the Internet with no source cited. On the other hand, so was the identity of the man in the coffin, until it turned out to be true. So, grain of salt and all that. [SpoilersLost]

Doctor Who:

Eyewitnesses at yesterday's filming suggest that the reason for Amy's ridiculous police costume is because she's taking part in a "hen night," or bachelorette party, in which everyone dresses up. And there are some set videos, in which the Eleventh Doctor squats down at one point and says something disparaging about humanity — they're at the link. [Paul Mount]

Fringe:

What's coming up on this show? Let Lance Reddick explain:

We've got a real page-turner of an episode coming up that's all about the Observers. And there's a whole episode about Broyles revisiting a case, a killer, that's the one that got away for Broyles. That episode introduces my ex-wife (Karen Holness) and talks about why we got divorced, and what my relationship with Fringe Division was in the past, versus what it is now.

[E! Online]

FlashForward:

In episode six, we'll meet a big tough guy who has no lines, but he'll speak in future episodes, according to a casting call. [SpoilerTV]

Supernatural:

In an upcoming episode, Sam and Dean go to a Supernatural fan convention. [E! Online]

Stargate Universe:

Here are some pics from Friday's episode, "Air Part 2". [SpoilerTV]

Chuck:

The title of episode 3x08 is "Chuck Vs. The Nose," according to writer Ali Adler on Twitter. [SpoilerTV]

Heroes:

Sure, Claire's roommate Gretchen seems to be getting kind of stalkery — and it gets more intense this coming week when the sorority girls come calling. But there's more to Gretchen than meets the eye, and the Greek system may actually be evil. [E! Online]

Monday:

House -
James Earl Jones plays an African dictator charged with crimes against humanity, who's checked into the hospital. Meanwhile, Wilson is still dealing with the crazy-addict-without-an-outlet House on FOX at 8 PM.

Heroes -
On NBC at 8 PM, Hiro tries to forget his own problems by helping strangers in trouble. Angela tiptoes with Nathan around his past and Tracey makes a splash in an effort to get her job back.

Big Bang Theory -
Furthering complicating your DVRing, on CBS at 9:30 PM Sheldon tries to Pavlov's Dog Penny, but using chocolate, instead of ... dog food or whatever. The other single boys try to pick up women at a Goth nightclub, and let's hope that Leonard and Penny actually have better sex soon.

Movies:

Please join me in reliving your childhood, and watch Halloweentown on Disney at 8 PM. Debbie Reynolds lives in a town where Halloween is a way of life. All Hallow's Eve is now threatened and she and her grandchildren must save the day in typical Disney fashion.

Tuesday:

The Universe -
Space based weapons and battles! Tonight on History Channel at 9 PM Universe covers the possibility of such awesome epicness — what it could look like, how it'd work, and and just how destructive it would truly be. Let's hope they cover lasers and death stars.

Ghost Lab -
Discovery Channel has their own paranormal/ghost hunting team now and this new show at 10 PM sends their team to Louisiana to investigate the haunting claims of Shreveport Municipal auditorium an Myrtles Plantation. Basically, this team uses tech and science to explain strange phenomena.

Movies:

Jurassic Park, where dinosaurs are the inhabitants and humans are the dessert, is on Cinemax at 5:45 PM.

Wednesday:

MythBusters -
The boys are back in town on Discovery at 9 PM, with bullets and socks. Tonight, they solve the question: which will hit the ground first, a falling bullet or a fired one? And they also try to determine if you can literally knock someone's socks off.

Ghost Hunters -
Tonight on Syfy at 9 PM the team investigates the USS Salem for bumps... and, oh yeah, ghosts.

Destination Truth -
The destination gang travels to Chile to probe about a possible UFO sighting on Syfy at 10 PM.

Eastwick -
Roxie's haunted by a ghost, and that creepy ant lady from the pilot, Bun, is awake from her coma. She knows more about Darryl than we're privy to yet, but now she's obsessed with a curious symbol (is it the same one as on Roxie's murdering neighbor?) and Kat is refusing a divorce lawyer ... and maybe even a divorce? And of course our trusty investigator Joanna is digging away on ABC at 10 PM.

Movies:

Milla Jovovich and female empowerment may be the only reasons Oxygen is showing the zombie/corporate greed-fueled epic Resident Evil: Apocalypse at 8 PM. But there are many, many reasons to check it out.

Thursday:

FlashForward -
That creepy German prisoner we've seen in previews is finally showing up, when Mark and Janis travel to Germany to ask him for some "important information" about the blackout. Demetri, with his newfound knowledge of his death day, is all abuzz over some more terrible news, and Aaron (Mark's AA buddy for those of you having trouble keeping up already) turns to Mark for help exhuming his daughter's body, or at least where it should be. The show's already large ensemble gets bigger, on ABC at 8 PM.

Vampire Diaries -
Stefan is carefully revealing bits and pieces about his past to Elena, who goes on to hear some strange and scary things about the Salvatore fam. Psychic Bonnie seeks out her grandmother for help discerning an learning more about her ... ability, on CW at 8 PM.

Supernatural -
The Paris Hilton episode is here! Rejoice in her self-satirizing willingness to be exploited on television. Or just revel in her terrible acting and incredible stung-casting as a celebrity-impersonating demon (or ghost?). Tonight on the CW at 9 PM, the citizens of a small town are dropping at the hands of dead icons, like ... Abraham Lincoln? And James Dean's car?

Fringe -
On FOX at 9 PM, Olivia and the Scooby gang are hunting down shape-shifters, and Walter is busy making a cocktail for Liv to help her remember what Spock told her in the other dimension.

Movies:

An army of vamps has a blood orgy in Alaska, in the graphic-novel adaptation 30 Days of Night on Encore at 8 PM.

Friday:

Star Wars: The Clone Wars -
Cad Bane's new mission, on Cartoon Network at 8 PM, is to kidnap kids who are force-sensitive and bring them to Mustafar for Sith training.

Ghost Whisperer -
Eli's father has a heart attack that leads him to a reunion with his dead mother. Turns out she had a secret before her death, and it must've been a whopper because she hasn't crossed over yet. The secret's out on CBS at 8 PM.

Smallville -
Lois is infected by a zombie plague that Zod has cursed upon the city. The cure is in the blood of a Kryptonian, but Clark can't get involved without revelaing his identity to Zod, on the CW at 8 PM.

Dollhouse -
On FOX at 9 PM, Echo is a free-wheeling coed and Victor is a psychotic nephew. So needless to say, they have a tiff while imprinted.

Stargate Universe -
On Syfy at 9 PM a search team combs a desert planet for a vital mineral necessary for restoring life support aboard the Destiny. But it turns out their window of opportunity is closing fast. Also, Chloe reachies out to her mother, using the communication stones.

Sanctuary -
Afterward, on Syfy at 10 PM, the season premiere gives us Magnus as she's searching for Ashley, putting her and her allies at odds with con-artist Kate Freelander: a woman with ties to the Cabal, who divulges secrets almost immediately.

Movies:

The sequel that should really only exist inside a sealed-off virtual world, The Matrix Reloaded, is on MTV at 7 PM. Have yourself a chocolate-cake orgasm, with the sequel that proved trilogies aren't such a great idea.

Saturday:

Movies:

The venerable Brittany Murphy stars in Megafault on Syfy at 9 PM. More importantly, Green Arrow himself, Justin Hartley co-stars. When an earthquake threatens to split the world, a seismologist and a miner get involved. What're they gonna do? Stitch it back together? Sure, why not.

Sunday:

Movies:

Did you know they made a Butterfly Effect 3? It's appropriately called The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations and is on Syfy at 7 PM. Basically, time-traveling boy accidentally unleashes a serial killer while trying to solve the mystery of his girlfriend's death.

Iron Man 2:

Entertainment Weekly posted a new set pic from this superhero sequel, showing Tony Stark in the famous Randy's Donut's scene (with Nick Fury, not pictured.) More set pics from upcoming movies at the link. [EW]

Predators:

More casting news! ComingSoon.net reports that The Shield star Walton Goggins has joined the cast, playing one of those tough guys who get zapped to the Predators' homeworld. [ComingSoon]

Green Hornet:

Some more set pics give us a better look at the Hornet's weird-looking gun — is it a gas gun? A laser? Something else? More pics at the second link. [People And Daily Mail]

New Moon:

Our first look at Tinsel Korey As Emily, who's like a second mother to the wolf pack. A scratched-up second mother, by the look of things. [Dread Central]

Doctor Who:

Heroic set reporter Alun.Vega was Twittering from the filming, just as we were wrapping up this edition of morning spoilers. Apparently Matt Smith was on set, wearing David Tennant's suit — which was much the worse for wear, with lots of rips, as if Tennant had been caught in an explosion. And it appears that Amy, his new companion, is a police officer when he meets her. They filmed in the fake 1990s village of Leadworth, complete with a fake garden set up around a "White House." (But not THE White House.) And Amy says something to the Doctor about "twelve years of therapy." Amy and the Doctor run to an ice cream truck. (Possibly due to weird post-regeneration food cravings?)

Also, there's a fire truck parked near the White House, and lots of extras stand stock still, as if frozen, holding their mobile phones as if they were in the middle of taking a picture of something. More pics at the second link. [Alun_Vega on Twitter and Flickr]

Lost:

This island-castaway show filmed two different scenes involving Locke on Saturday. One seemed to involve the deserted back offices of Hawaii Telecom, and Locke's old box-company nemesis, Randy Nations (Billy Ray Gannon) was reported to be on set. (So in the alternate reality where Oceanic 815 didn't crash, Locke is presumably back at his old job.) But then a second scene took place at a high school, and involved Locke and Ben — plus a ton of extras playing high school students and a girls' basketball team. Since episode four is called "The Substitute," there's some speculation that either Locke or Ben is a substitute teacher — although maybe that name also refers to Locke's doppelganger? And finally, Katey Segal, who played Locke's lost love Helen, is also in Hawaii — so maybe the Locke who landed safely in L.A. had a reunion with Helen. [Hawaii Weblog]

Another set report involved a scene where Sun, Frank, Ilana and Ben are walking along with Locke's dead body — apparently a continuation of the season finale, coming right after the events at the Four-Toed Statue. They walked back by the remains of the castaways' camp, including Mr. Eko's church. And there are set pics, in which you can't really see anything much, at the link. [Lyly Ford]

Also, we've been wondering when we'd see Matthew Fox and company filming some scenes where they're still wearing their Dhama jumpsuits, following on from the events of the previous season finale. And now one eyewitness has spotted a jumpsuited Fox, plus Evangeline Lilly, filming a scene with John Hawkes, who's joined the cast as corporate spokesperson Lennon, plus the long lost flight attendant Cindy, played by Kimberly Joseph. There were also a ton of extras in ragged clothes. They were filming a set at the Temple. Also around later on were Daniel Dae Kim and Jorge Garcia. [Hawaii Weblog]

Producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof say they've found a way, in the final season, to bring back the sense of learning more surprising stuff about these characters all the time that they had in the first season. This new device will lead to some emotionally intense moments of discovery. And don't hold your breath for tons of extra Dharma Initiative stuff this season. They also imply Richard Alpert will be getting a fairly involved flashback sequence. [Sci Fi Now via SpoilersLost]

Caprica:

A new promo includes a few seconds of precious footage of episodes after the pilot... including a slugfest between Graystone and Adama. [Battlestar Blog]

Sarah Jane Adventures:

Here are the official descriptions for parts 1 &2 of the second story, "The Mad Woman In The Attic":

Part 1: Rani investigates strange rumours about a demon living in a funfair at the seaside. What she finds there, however, is far more alarming than that and she makes a decision that affects not only her future, but also the futures of all those she cares about... Far in the future, in 2059, an old Rani remembers the day when her whole life went wrong. As her younger self investigates mysterious disappearances at an abandoned funfair, she sets into motion a chain of events which unleash the terrible powers of the alien Eve.

Part 2: Alien Eve's powers grow out of control, with everyone caught in her sinister and endless games. As the echoes of an ancient war threaten the modern world, the danger extends all the way to the year 2059. If Rani fails to change her own destiny, then everyone is doomed.

And here are some promo pics from the first story, "Prisoner Of The Judoon". [BlogtorWho]

Dollhouse:

Here's a new interview with Enver Gjokaj and Dichen Lachman. [BuddyTV]

In episode 4, "Belonging," we witness how Sierra wound up in the Dollhouse firsthand. And Sierra has some intimate moments with Victor. Also, Boyd is worried about Echo. [Fox]

Supernatural:

Our first pic of Paris Hilton in Thursday's episode looks... like Paris Hilton. With a weird knife. Full version at the link. [Chicago Tribune]

And here are a couple of clips from the episode:

And according to a casting call, we'll be meeting another new demon in episode 10:

[CROWLY] 40's or 50's male Demon - he is bit more urbane and sophisticated than what we've seen up to this point. He wears a suit, drinks fine wines, still pretty cruel and decadent, though. Please submit all ethnicities. RECURRING GUEST STAR

[SpoilerTV]

FlashForward:

Here's a sneak peek from Thursday's new episode.

Someone's flying to Japan in episode nine apparently — at least, we'll meet a bilingual Japanese flight attendant, according to a casting call. [SpoilerTV]

Also, in episode five, Mark finds himself on the defensive in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, while Olivia receives an anonymous message. And Janis wonders how her vision of the future will affect her relationship. [SpoilerTV]

Heroes:

Claire vamps it up and Sylar gets dissheveled and then joins the circus, in new promo pics from episode 5, "Hysterical Blindness." [SpoilerTV]

Fringe:

Can Olivia handle the truth? We'll find out on Thursday.

Smallville:

Here's the official description for episode 5, "Roulette":

DC COMICS CHARACTER ROULETTE SHOWS OLIVER HER CARDS - Oliver (Justin Hartley) is drugged and kidnapped by a woman named Victoria AKA Roulette (guest star Steph Song), who tells Oliver that he's involved in a dangerous game and must fight for his life. After Victoria shows up dead and Oliver is arrested by the police, he turns to Chloe (Allison Mack) for help. Meanwhile, Lois (Erica Durance) berates Clark (Tom Welling) for not telling her about Oliver's suicide attempt.

[Kryptonsite]

Initially, it looked like we were getting another stand-alone episode this week, involving a police officer who mysteriously crystallizes and explodes upon touching a nondescript briefcase, taking out the briefcase and everyone around him. While Walter and Astrid are putting Humpty Dumpty back together again, they discover that the exploded cop was injecting himself with something that likely turned him into a bomb. When Peter realizes the cop must have been injecting the serum as far back as his tour in Iraq, he heads off to Baghdad with a physically and cognitively unstable Olivia in tow.

We're probably meant to assume that, because this serum (known as "Tin Man") came to Iraq and happens to make people explode in very public places, Iraqi scientists were actively trying to turn people in human bombs. But no, no. The Iraqi scientist who created it had pretty unambiguously benevolent motives. He was trying to counteract the effects of a neurotoxin several of the soldiers were exposed to, and it just happened to make most of them explode. Bummer. And, if anyone is going around making soldiers explode, it's the psychotic colonel who was attached to the Tin Man project.

By using the serum to blow up a watermelon (prompting the ever put-upon Astrid to ban fruit from the lab), Walter is able to determine that a certain frequency is triggering the explosions, and by emitting a counter-frequency, the explosion can be prevented. Sure enough, the team manages to locate another former soldier injected with Tin Man headed for another nondescript briefcase; the explosion is averted and the colonel is apprehended. Everyone lives happily ever after.

Ah, but then comes the big reveal. This was about so much more than exploding watermelons and jaunts abroad. It was about the briefcases. The briefcases belong to none other than the Observer, or apparently multiple Observers, who pass their surveillance back and forth via courier.

The Observer(s): So now we know there are multiple Observers, and that they're passing information amongst themselves. No great surprise there, as we've seen the Observer talking on the phone to someone before. But is their purpose really to destroy us, as the colonel seems to suggest? And is that our Observer getting the briefcase full of pictures of Walter? And is that actually our Walter, or could it be the Walter from the other universe?

Olivia's Guru: Kevin Corrigan, as Olivia's bowling alley guru, is trying to convince us he's the world's most boring cognitive therapist, trying to restore Olivia to her former self by making her score kiddie bowling and tie her shoes. When she's fed up with his Mr. Miyagi schtick, she pulls her gun on him. She's shocked she managed to walk without her cane, but I'm more concerned with her mental health, especially since she had vomit-inducing flashbacks earlier in the episode and it looks like next week the floodgates are going to tumble open.

A Little Bit of Astrid: She's still cleaning up Walter's messes, but it's nice to see Astrid say something to Walter and have him actually hear what she's saying. When Walter is predictably resistant to Peter finding them a new place to live, it's Astrid who very gently nudges him in the right direction. Plus, Walter even managed to acknowledge that he never shows any interest in Astrid's life beyond her cleaning and culinary abilities. Maybe now we can finally see her in the field?

Walter Moment of the Week: There are so many to choose from here. Aside from the thing with the watermelon, we learned that Walter had Peter assemble a Playboy jigsaw puzzle when he was ten as a sort of misguided anatomy lesson. But the best moment comes when Walter asks Peter to be a little more considerate of Gene:

The idea of traveling between alternate realities is a common theme in speculative fiction. Multiverse stories are a logical extension of allohistory, and a close relative of that other grand old convention, time travel. The idea is often explained as inspired by the Many-Worlds Interpretation first formulated by Hugh Everett in 1957, but its use in literature and storytelling has been long with us. Jorge Luis Borges used the theme in his 1941 story "The Garden of Forking Paths". There are earlier examples in Margaret Cavendish's The Blazing World of 1666 (recently revisited by Alan Moore) and in one of the stories in the One Thousand and One Nights. Ancient multiverses can be found in the Hindu cosmology and the nine worlds of the Norse mythos were around long before Jack Kirby.

Right from the start, Banks' Transition has superficial similarities to Michael Moorcock, especially the Jerry Cornelius stories. Both books feature amoral agents with shifting loyalties, flitting between versions of Earth. They party down in exotic locales, averting or causing global calamity — like rock stars trashing an infinity of hotel suites. Victorian airships and super-assassins abound. The theory goes that all of Moorcock's fiction is one big multiverse, from the Sword and Sorcery worlds of Elric of Melniboné or Corum Jhaelen Irsei to the decadent Dancers at the End of Time. All the various characters in these works are aspects or avatars of a stock cast of meta-players often compared to the Commedia dell'Arte theater tradition with its tricksters, oafs, and backstabbers. Jerry Cornelius is a 20th Century face of the slightly mis-named Eternal Champion. He's an anarchist secret-agent, a super-slick antihero whirling in a blaze of intoxicants and ready fuck anything that fucking moves. David Bowie as Doctor Who, turned up to fuckin' twelve! While quite entertaining, it should be no surprise that these quintessential examples of SF's New Wave movement can be a wee bit disorienting. Product of the times.

For a speculative fiction ride of sex, drugs, and rock&roll that's less experimental (ahem, easier to read), I prefer Mick Farren, singer of the proto-punk band The Deviants, White Panther Party member, and Elvis scholar. Out of print, but well worth the hunt, are his multiverse romps in The DNA Cowboys Trilogy and Necrom, some truly weird fun shit. The dimension-tripping demon Yancey Slide from those adventures also turns up in the more recent Kindling and Conflagration He also wrote the Victor Renquist novels, a series of vampire novels that aren't totally lame. 2002's Underland has the CIA, vampires, and Nazis duking it out with flying saucers in the Hollow Earth beneath Antarctica. Yeah. Hell, just track down anything you can by Mick Farren.

Along with Moorcock, two other Monsters of Multiverse Literature ( or "Mul-Lit") are The Amber Chronicles by Roger Zelazny and the series that inspired that, World of Tiers by Philip José Farmer. They have much more of a fantasy feel than the above, especially because of an overuse of courtly language in the former and centaurs and other classic monsters in the latter. You'll also find plenty of complex machinations by powerful groups or families (Zelazny is notorious for Daddy Issues) and decadent, lusty adventure (more of Farmer's bag in trade, but evident in both). I enjoyed both of these series as a teen, but to be honest that was a long time ago and my impressions are murky at best. I recall the fiveTiers with more fondness, but that might be due to the risqué covers by Boris Vallejo. I can assert with some authority that the reader should stop after the first five Amber books, do not read the second series, do not collect the recent stuff written by John Gregory Betancourt. Sadly, Amber suffers from a terminal case of Herberts' Syndrome.

The quirky standalone Roadmarks by Zelazny could be considered a multiverse book. In it, the space-time continuum is an actual highway accessible to a few. The protagonist tools around the centuries in a dusty old pickup running guns to the Persians at Marathon. Occassionally he passes Hitler, his VW bug parked at the side of the road looking for the weed-choked off road to where he won WWII. I'm going to try and fit in some Amber andTiers, maybe revisit Riverworld too, just for old time's sake.

Now that I'm thoroughly soaked in nostalgia, allow me to wax rhetorical on multiverse comic books I always liked. Yes, they're old, I'm old; get used to it, and get off my urine-covered stoop.

The capes-and-tights set is plagued with multiverses, and they're always having Ultimate Critical Infinity Wars — boooring. A refreshing change from all that was the " Zenith" strip in2000 AD (1987-1992). This was young Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell's contribution to the British superhero deconstruction attack of the 1980s. It had battles between multiple Earths, hippie/fascist versions of the same superheroes, the Lloigor from the Cthulhu Mythos, and a hero who was a real asshole. Yeowell's brushy B & W artwork was a sweet counterpoint to the usual 4-color superhero look, too.

For graphical goodies of a more science fictional bent, you cant go wrong with the ligne claire and spacey psychedlia of Jean Giraud better known as Moebius, co-creator of Métal Hurlant magazine. The Airtight Garage is a series of artificial pocket universes built into the asteroid Flower 51. They are the playgrounds/battlefields for the likes of Lady Malvina, Major Gubert, the crew of the spaceship Ciguri, and Jerry Cornelius. Hey, whaaa? Yep, Moorcock allowed other artists, writers, and musicians the use of the character in a sort of Open Source deal. For a while Marvel had a problem with that and the character was renamed Lewis Carnelian for a while. Weird. There are songs about Jerry by Blue Öyster Cult and Hawkwind, but I digress. Moebius returned to the Airtight Garage in '96 with Man from the Ciguri from Dark Horse. All lots of fun.

Bryan Talbot's The Adventures of Luther Arkwright is also often compared to Moorcock, and in many ways improves upon him. Frankly, when you want to read about sexy psychic spies fighting transdimensional evil, it's hard to top the Arkwright stories. I love Talbot's vision of alternate Britains, like the one where Cromwell's Revolution still rages on and the Puritans terrorize the skies from massive airships. The complex plot jumps around jarringly in the original series, before finally coalescing, as you begin to see the multiverse as Luther does. There is also an audio version with the voices of David Tennant and Paul Darrow, I've never heard it — but wow, fangasm. The later 1999 sequel, Heart of Empire from Dark Horse again, follows the story of Luther's daughter in a much more linear fashion, with absolutely gorgeous art and much of that retro-Victorian futurism the kids like.

I have a particular fondness for the idiosyncratic doodles of doom by of Matt Howarth. His anarchic city-world of Bugtown is the home of indestructible assassins, rockstars, giant sharks, and nuclear goddesses; all of whom flit through the most surreal and impossible alternate universes imaginable. The series Those Annoying Post Brothers and Savage Henry are just packed full of crazy. Many experimental underground musicians make regular appearances in Howarth's work. There are adventures featuring Conrad Schnitzler, The Residents, and Micheal Moorcock collaborators, Hawkwind. Geez, that guy gets his beard into everything. Howarth also draws great aliens that look really alien, like cacti crossed with really uncomfortable furniture. Look for the very funny SF Konny & Czu strips.

"So Grey", I hear you say, " how about something less reminiscent of your college-dorm lava-lamp days? Something more, y'know [describes a circle in the air] for the kids?"

Well, the most well known Young Adult books with multiverse themes would probably be Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. Chris Roberson should be getting a lot more attention for his time-space tripping adventures of the Bonaventure-Carmody family in novels likeHere, There & Everywhere, Paragea, and End of the Century. Oh and big surprise, Roberson has worked with Michael Moorcock often.

For something different, try Changing Planes by Ursula K. LeGuin. This is a collection of bright and witty capriccios about a woman who discovers how to shift to alternate worlds by being bored and dyspeptic in airport waiting rooms. As usual, LeGuin makes many wry observations about society and class. There's one story about a civilization of flightless avian people and their transcontinentaln migrations...the ending is beautiful. I could mention Dark Tower series by Stephen King or Charles Stross' The Merchant Princes but I'm just not into them, so I won't. Philip K. Dick's doesn't make the cut either: that's really only a duoverse.

I really loved Neal Stephenson's Anathem and it's all about the multiverse, but does it really belong with these other stories? Well of course it does! If for no other reason than it's completely different from the Michael Moorcock imitators. Yes, all the action takes place in one cosmos — going to another world is a one-way trip and requires a big honkin' generation starship. There is the mystery of Fraa Jaad, who appears to be able to move at will between the slightest possibilities. I noticed something odd, even though Stephenson beats us about the head and neck with tons of higher mathematics and metaphysics, he's awfully vague about the actual mechanism for traveling from one reality to another. This is probably the smartest move. Some writers do a lot of handwaving about Quantum and dress it up in blinky lights and an Einstein-Rosen bridge. But usually, it just boils down to closing your eyes and clicking your heels three times. How very apt for a thought experiment.

Multiverse stories are becoming more prevalent on TV these days. That kid from Stand by Me fought Nazi cavemen from Dimension X or whatever in Sliders. The color coded Charlie Jade looked interesting, but I haven't watched it yet. Lost has used the Many Worlds Interpretation, but they will try just about anything these days.

I see Leonard Nimoy is going back and forth in alternate worlds a lot these days (in Fringe and the Star Trek movie.) Glad to see that sort of thing again.

Somebody asked me recently if multiverses were the Next Big Thing in Speculative Fiction? I like the multiverse concept and would like to see different takes on it, that aren't all about decadent ubermensch and their interdimensional power struggles.

And honestly, we don't need Next Big Things. Trendy conventions in writing are a symptom of a lack of originality. Speculative fiction itself should be a glorious sprawling multiverse exploring all manner of settings and styles. Right now, too many of the worlds in the new book section are getting too recognizable, I'm looking at you Contemporary Urban Fantasy! And you with the top hat and goggles, we've talked before about this, you need to seek help.

So yeah, this trip down multiverse lane has been fun — but I think it points out a flaw in sub-genre stories. Why do they all start running together? Why so many Shadowy Conspirancies, Power Hungry Libertarian Scensters and Moral Relatavisim in a majority of these alternate reality adventures. The Multiverse must have more possibilities than that.

Special thanks to Alan Beatts and Chris Braak for their helpful ideas.
Top image from Heart of Empire by Bryan Talbot, 1999.

Commenter Grey_Area is known on many worlds as Chris Hsiang. He brachiates through the endlessly forking branches of possibility frightening all the turtledoves.

Oh, and there will be some spoilers for recent TV episodes here — most notably Fringe.

This is mostly a list of people whose characters died or departed forever, but then they went on to play a totally different character. This doesn't include people whose characters died and then came back to life, which is a totally different trope. (And I'm not including actors who played more than one minor character in a show, or a minor character followed later by a major character.)

Garret Dillahunt on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

This amazingly versatile actor plays Cromartie, a Terminator sent from the future to kill John Connor. And after a season and a half of cat and mouse games, Cromartie finally gets blowed up good. But then his body gets repurposed and used as a UI for the childlike AI known as John Henry. (You could also say the same for Brian Austin Green, but that's slightly different — he came back as the exact same character, Derek Reese. It was just a different timeline where Derek hadn't died (yet.))

Sheryl Lee on Twin Peaks.

Laura Palmer dies (as you may have heard), but then actor Sheryl Lee shows up as Laura's nearly identical cousin Maddy. Good thing they wouldn't kill off the same actor twice... right?

Ali Larter on Heroes.

Larter plays the troubled webcam girl Niki, who's also the psychotic killer Jessica sometimes. But then Niki/Jessica dies... but it turns out Larter has an identical sister named Tracy. (And another one named Barbara, but apparently we'll never actually meet her.) And there's a mad scientist guy involved, who decided to give one sister weird water powers, and the other sister weird "psycho mirror" powers, because hello, mad scientist!

Doctor Carson Beckett on Stargate Atlantis

This jolly Scottish doctor is great at cooking up retroviruses and coming up with last-minute saves... but after he died at the end of the third season, fans were outraged. Good thing he was able to come back as his own clone. Also notable: Elizabeth Weir dies, but comes back as a machine intelligence (although I'm not sure if Torri Higginson ever played the mecha-Weir.)

Kirk Acevedo on Fringe .

This is the somewhat spoilery one: Acevedo's character, Charlie, dies at the end of the first episode of season two. But he's been replaced by an evil (or at least morally suspect) shapeshifter from an alternate world — where, presumably, there may also be another Charlie Francis running around. So we could eventually see Acevedo playing a third character. (And then a fourth, when the shapeshifter impersonates alt-Charlie?)

Amy Acker on Angel.

We were heartbroken when Fred died, but then chilled and shocked when she was reborn as the psychotic demon god Illyria. And then we learned to love her new persona almost (well maybe half) as much as her original one.

Terry O'Quinn on Lost.

Locke appears — emphasis on appears — to be stone dead, although maybe he's alive in another timeline? In any case, after Locke died, someone (or some thing) impersonated him, allowing O'Quinn to stretch his acting muscles and play Locke as, well, kind of a dick.

Denise Crosby on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Oh. The pain. Tasha Yar dies, but then Crosby later reappears as Tasha Yar's daughter (from an alternate timeline) with a Romulan. You see, Picard sent alt-Tasha back in time to the Enterprise-C so it could be destroyed by Romulans and the timeline could be repaired, but alt-Tasha didn't die, and so she shacked up with the Romulans, and... oh, whatever. It's Crosby with pointy ears. Look!

Steve Bacic on Andromeda.

He plays Gaheris Rhade, who betrays Dylan Hunt and is killed in the show's pilot episode — although Gaheris reappears several times in flashbacks and one alternate history episode later. And then in later seasons, Bacic takes on a new character Telemachus Rhade, who's the descendant of Gaheris. (Thanks to Xicer for the heads up!)

Lalla Ward on Doctor Who.

Okay, so Ward's character, Princess Astra, didn't actually die — but she did get written out of the show forever. And then the Doctor's Time Lady companion, Romana suddenly decided to regenerate, and randomly chose to refashion herself into the guise of Princess Astra. You could also mention Anthony Ainley, who played Tremas in "Keeper Of Traken." Tremas died — but then his body got taken over, and he became the new incarnation of the Master — but Tremas was always just intended to be a new host body for the Master.

Katee Sackhoff on Battlestar Galactica.

This is another edge case — Starbuck definitely died, because there was a body. But did she come back to life? Is Sackhoff playing a different character in the final season of BSG? Your theory is at least as valid as mine, because I haven't a clue. Like the video says, "You Will Know The Truth."

Thanks to Alexis Brown, Meredith Woerner, Sam J. Miller, Paul McEnery, Sean Passmore, Katrina James, Rus McLaughlin, Kathleen Warnock, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, S.J. Edewards, David Daw, Debcha, Barclay Sylvester, Karen Meisner, Brooklyn Erica, and "Dillahunt News" on Twitter (is that actually Garret Dillahunt, or a fan?), plus anyone else who helped out.

Superman:

For the umpteenth time, James McTeigue, rumored director of the next Superman film, said that while he's had "some discussions" with Warner Bros., the movie isn't happening any time soon. But as always, McTeigue was happy to talk about what his approach would be if he did take on Big Blue:

Superman is probably ripe for a bit of a change up. I think society has changed around the core idea of what Superman was... And I'm not saying you do the ubiquitous dark Superman, I'm not saying that… I'm just saying that I think there are some things that you could excise from the Superman mythology that people would get into it, if you took the world that he was in and changed that a bit, and maybe even project that into the future a bit. I think you don't really have to play into the origin story anymore. I think there's a whole bunch of things you could do to make that film more alive and exciting again.

So it sounds like McTeigue is backpedaling slightly from the idea he floated a while back, of a darker Superman. But more importantly, it sounds like he wants to put Clark Kent a few years into the future — which might allow for a more science-fictional take on our favorite visitor from space. Color us intrigued. [FirstShowing]

Avatar 2:

If Avatar does well enough, we're bound to get a second helping — and producer Jon Landau offers one suggestion for what the next movie will be about: the first movie only explores the surface of the planet Pandora. "The interior remains to be seen." So there could be some Na'Vi spelunking and subterranean exploration. [Slashfilm]

Paul:

Jane Lynch, who's my new favorite actor thanks to Glee, says she's in one scene of this Simon Pegg film — she's the proprietor of the Ailey-Inn, an alien-themed restaurant that caters to nerds who are drawn to the vicinity of Area 51. (So, just like the alien-themed restaurant in Roswell.) Pegg and Nick Frost show up in the diner, reading their "cartoon books." Adds Lynch:

There's some trail in Nevada that's supposedly [where aliens have landed], and they're on the trail. [My character] owns the Ailey-Inn and she's way into it. She's profiting financially from [all these alien-hunting tourists], so she's their good friend.

[MTV]

Resident Evil: Afterlife:

The fourth Resident movie just started production officially, and the official press release offers just a snippet of new plot info, courtesy of producer Paul W.S. Anderson: "Alice's battle with The Umbrella Corporation isn't finished. Last time we saw Alice, she let them know she was coming after them. It's time to settle the score." [Bloody Disgusting]

Lost:

Another new character we'll be meeting is Detective Rasmussen, who makes a visit to the hospital where Kate brings the pregnant Claire. There's speculation that Rasmussen is investigating Kate, who's still a fugitive in this alternate timeline. [SpoilersLost]

A visitor to Hawaii, Jenni Ranee, posted some pics of this show's set, which include a glimpse of some returning characters: Frank Lapidus, Ethan, and Aaron's nanny. Notice the trailer for "Admitting Nurse" and "OB Nurse" for the hospital scene (as well as one for "Detective Rasmussen," see above.) Also, most of the camp set has been struck, but the ramshackle structure where the castaways kept their Dharma food is still kind of intact — could there be a reason it's been preserved? [JenniRanee on Flickr, via SpoilersLost]

Supernatural:

In episode eight, we'll get to learn what this show would look like as a sitcom. "Laugh track and all." [EW]

Fringe:

Is Walter going back into an institution? The show is seeking an actor to play this role in the tenth episode of the season:

[DOCTOR WEST] In his OR her 40s. He or she is intelligent and is the Director/Doctor in charge of a large mental institution. Guest Star. OPEN TO ALL RACES AND ETHNICITIES.

[SpoilerTV]

FlashForward:

John Cho will need to spend some time playing Sulu in the next Star Trek movie, so does that mean his TV character Demetri is doomed to die? (After all, Demetri didn't see any vision of the future.) Cho says he doesn't know, and in any case the producers of both projects will work it out somehow. (And presumably, the same dilemma applies to Zachary Quinto, unless the inevitable undertakes Heroes first.) [Sci Fi Wire]

Stargate Universe:

Producer John G. Lenic talks about watching Robert Carlyle film an intense scene from early in the series:

[Carlyle] walks into a room, puts his iPod in a docking station, it starts playing. He goes over the side of the bed, looks at a picture, and starts crying. There was about six of us behind the monitors at that moment and we were all in tears. All had watery eyes and it was like, "Holy crap. What an amazing sensation to feel that."

[Gateworld]

Actor Brian J. Smith says his character, Lt. Matt Scott, goes through a lot in the episode "Life," and it's a "real heart-breaker." And the episode "Faith" takes place in a "breathtaking" location. [Joseph Mallozzi's Weblog]

Heroes:

The title of the 11th episode of this season will be "Thanksgiving." [The ODI]

Justice League: Crisis On Two Earths:

Here's a sneak peek at the next DC animated movie, which includes a glimpse of... Justice League Detroit? [MTV]