This DVD cover for the unrated version of the film is all over the interwebs today, and it's just more of the same monster pinup crap that misrepresented the movie in the first place. If you want to see scantily-clad ladies undulating, go rent any number of other fine movies in the SF and horror genres. I highly recommend Pervirella or The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik Yak.

But if you want a smart, weird movie about what happens when BFF goes WTF, rent Jennifer's Body and ignore the cover. This is a great B-movie that uses monsters and demons to tell a story about how co-dependent and poisonous high school girl friendships can be. It's about how Megan Fox is a monster, not eye candy.

Poster image via Bloody Disgusting

If you somehow managed to exist within the American mediascape and miss the ads for Jennifer's Body, count yourself lucky. Nearly all of them featured Megan Fox (and her title-inspiring body) in a sexy pose, as if we were about to watch a teen sex comedy where boys slaver after the unapproachable cheerleader. Tease campaigns about the movie emphasized that there would be a sexy lesbian kiss between Fox and Amanda Seyfried, the film's nerdy, point-of-view character. In short, the ad campaigns were aimed at straight young men, who are the core audience for most movies starring Megan Fox.

But the problem is that Jennifer's Body is not an ejaculatory explosion movie like Transformers 2. It is a horror movie, which means its built-in audience is already predominantly female (stats show that horror movie-goers are often over 60 percent women). Megan Fox is also not the main character; and she's not the boy hero's plucky sidekick (there are no boy heroes in this movie). Instead, she's the toothy, gory, puke-soaked object of repulsion and disgust. In short, she is the monster.

And she's a very specific kind of monster, too. She embodies one of the scariest demons who haunts girls' dreams: The popular, pretty girl who pretends to be your friend while secretly trying to steal your boyfriend, your pride, and your life. Written and directed by women, Jennifer's Body is a film made in a women's genre about women's problems. It's a movie about why women want to stab Megan Fox in the tit with scissors.

Marketing Jennifer's Body like it was another version of The Hangover or American Pie, with sexy ladies and dick jokes, meant it was doomed to fail. Women saw posters that emphasized Megan Fox as slick sex object, and thought: I hate that chick - why would I want to see a movie about her? And men who saw the movie said: What the fuck? I thought this was going to be tits and lesbian kissing, and instead it's about dysfunctional teen girl relationships? Why do I want to see Amanda Seyfried talking about her feelings for 90 minutes?

Reviews of the film seem to bear this interpretation out. Women and Hollywood's Melissa Silverstein points to a quick survey that Screen Rant did of critical responses to the film:

There were many more reviews by men (77) than women (26). The majority of these were culled from the Rotten Tomatoes site . . . Here's the breakdown: Male movie reviewers: 39% liked it, 61% disliked it; Female movie reviewers: 54% liked it, 46% disliked it.

Director Karyn Kusama told MTV.com:

I don't know if selling the film as a straight horror film and selling it primarily to boys is really going to do any of us any favors, frankly.

And indeed it didn't. Marketing attracted primarily men to the movie (including male reviewers), and a majority disliked it. Fewer women saw it, but of those who did, a majority (including myself) liked it.

I think it's clear that misguided marketing was a huge factor in what destroyed Jennifer's Body. As I said, the movie isn't Criterion Collection material, but it's a damn good genre picture. It's better than most other horror movies out there, with an original premise and a smart, fresh take on a very old monster story. If the marketing droids at Fox had just been smart enough to realize that the movie was aimed at women - not unlike most horror movies - they might have had a cult hit on their hands.

Jennifer's Body is as simple as chocolate-spiked spit and as complicated as you want it to be. I like that in a movie.

Here's the simple part: Nice, nerdy Needy (the awesome Amanda Seyfried from Big Love) is BFFs with the bitchy hottie Jennifer (Megan Fox). They live in a small, Minnesota town where such an unlikely pairing is possible. There are so few kids in their town that two little girls who played in the sandbox together can stay friends as teens. But there's a problem. Jennifer is always pushing Needy around.

That's how the two wind up at a show for some lame indie rock band called Low Shoulder. A band whose lead singer Jennifer is scheming to hook up with. It turns out that Low Shoulder has a scheme, too: They want to sacrifice a virgin to Satan so that their band will achieve some success without having to do something "lame" like go on Letterman. Because they're in such a backwoods town, they assume Jennifer is a virgin. But as she says later, "I'm not even a backdoor virgin." Turns out when you sacrifice a non-virgin to Satan, it causes the sacrifice to go all undead demon on your ass.

And that's when things get sick. Jennifer has to drink blood to survive, and she's not satisfied just eating dumbass members of the football team. So she starts going after people Needy likes, including Needy's floppy-haired, cute boyfriend Chip. There's an amazing awkward/cute/horrifying scene where Chip and Needy are losing their virginity together, intercut with Jennifer sipping blood out of the ripped-open torso of another guy Needy has an unacknowledged crush on.

Once Needy figures out Jennifer is a demon, she sets out to stop her. Of course everything culminates in a Needy vs. Jennifer vs. Chip showdown at the prom, an event that is hellish for girls even if they don't have best frenemies who are monsters.

Sure it's a cliched structure; you've seen it a thousand times before. That's the way horror movies work, though. They offer up a generic story and the good parts, the original parts, come in the little tweaks and fucked-up details that offer you a glimpse of the real-life horrors that lurk beneath the CG fantasy. And that's why Jennifer's Body is so rewarding as a movie: Things get really complicated the more you think about how this movie overturns your expectations.

So now for the complicated part. Let's begin with how this flick breaks one of the cardinal rules of small-scale horror. Here you have a female monster menacing a female character. Usually female monsters - especially sexy ones like Jennifer - are out to get men. Female vampires chomp on men; Grendel's mom tries to smack down Beowulf; the Species chick murders guys who are boning her. There are exceptions, like the woman vs. woman fights in Aliens or Friday the 13th (the very first movie). But those movies are quite memorable because they fly in the face of our expectations.

Jennifer eats men, but she does it to get at Needy. She eats the men Needy loves. As director Karyn Kusama has said, Jennifer's Body is a movie about toxic friendships between women. By placing this story in the context of a monster movie, it also does something interesting. First, it acknowledges that women are horribly dangerous, which you already knew if you watched The Sarah Connor Chronicles. More importantly, it acknowledges that women are dangerous to other women. Not just in a mean girls way, but in an "I will rip your lungs out" way.

Although we've seen countless movies where men are dangerous to women, and to each other, you can probably count the number of stories that acknowledge female/female violence on one hand (please count all women-in-prison movies as one finger only). This is a topic we don't like to think about because it fundamentally undermines cultural stereotypes of women as bitchy but harmless. Here we see bitchiness treated the way male aggressiveness is treated in pretty much every single action movie you've ever seen. It's deadly, important, and potentially civilization-destroying.

At the same time, Jennifer's Body also plays with the pervasiveness of male/female violence in the real world. Jennifer returns to Needy's house after her proverbial ride in Low Shoulder's van looking like a rape victim, vacant-eyed and covered in blood. She vomits up a horrific stream of black, ferromagnetic fluid, then runs out the door. In that puddle of black goo, which Needy spends all night cleaning up, we see the first signs that this ain't no girly rape revenge movie.

When Jennifer is given superhuman power by a bunch of douchey guys, she doesn't go after the guys for vengeance. Hell, she's psyched to be a god. Instead she goes after the real source of all her agony: Her best friend, who manages to have a nice boyfriend and an interesting future as a "narrative nonfiction writer" despite being a total meganerd. She's not as pretty as Jennifer, and yet Jennifer suspects that Needy is somehow, sneakily, better than she is.

This is a movie about female wrath. And it's not the clean, sympathetic wrath we saw in Thelma and Louise; it's not the trampy blankness we wanked over in Species. It's ugly, wrong, powerful wrath. The kind that builds empires and destroys towns. And men are irrelevant to this wrath, in the same way Jennifer's life was irrelevant to the guys in Low Shoulder who murdered her.

There's something deeply subversive about a movie that says women are angry, but not at men. Women have enough power now that men are hardly the issue. Now, we've got something to work out among ourselves.

I'm not sure what people are expecting when they go to see a movie like Jennifer's Body, but based on early negative reviews I'm pretty sure it wasn't this. All I can assume is that they expected something really highbrow, based on the fact that it was penned by "I have a vocab" writer Diablo Cody. Or maybe they thought it would just be long scenes of Megan Fox's tits, which would also be a letdown, since there are no tits.

Actually, that's not true. When Needy stabs Jennifer in the chest with a box cutter, Jennifer screams, "My tit!" and Needy corrects her: "No, your heart."

Jennifer's Body is in many ways just a horror trashfest, but there's also a raw, gaping wound of truth in its heart. Anyone who can take their eyes off Megan Fox's tits and look at the rage in her face will see just that.

io9: What's new about this horror film, why did it stand out to you?

Karyn Kusama: The humor comes from Diablo's vision of the world and I felt like the horror came out of the relationship. Which I thought was a really interesting idea, the idea that this toxic friendship could be the emotional foundation of the horror. A lot of times I think we watch horror movies that by default have a female character. But this movie - it's interesting to see that the so-called monster Jennifer is female, as is the heroine.

I really liked this relationship between the two girls, it's something many people experience. Was this always the foundation of the movie?

It was always supposed to be a relationship rooted in the past, rooted in childhood. And the toxic element of it developed between them as a sort of emotional codependence and role playing in which Jennifer always played the Alpha female in control and Needy was always willing to be her tagalong or sidekick and was subservient to her. I think there have been comedies and teen movies that explore that idea. But in this case that relationship is sort of realized into something pretty dark.

I really can't imagine anyone else playing that Alpha character - was Megan Fox always in mind?

She was an element to the movie very very early. Even before the producers came on.

She's pretty perfect for the role, how did you help her find her inner bitch for this character?

Well I'm sure all of us would love it if we could all find our inner bitchiness. She just relished the opportunity to have fun with that, she was very, very funny with that. But I really enjoyed working with her. She was very thoughtful, smart, very prepared. She brought a lot of humor to the role that I wouldn't have necessarily known she could do because that was something she hadn't done in Transformers.

There's been this new study out that says women watch more horror movies than men. Do you think that's accurate? What do you think about that?

I think actually women were probably always going to horror movies, we just weren't measuring it as religiously as we do now. I think it's a human condition to identify with being scared. There is something about the narrative of flight and survival that I think is very compelling for women. I find it very compelling. I don't watch all of the horror that's out there, because one, there's so much of it and two some of it is a little less emotionally engaging for me than others. I think there is something about watching women, well women and men, but often times young people fighting for their lives - it's a very compelling story. It's a way to deposit all of our anxieties about our own life. Particularly if those anxieties are more mundane but they feel like life and death. It's a way to articulate those anxieties in a safe place like a theater.

And this movie's focus on female relationships will probably bring out more female horror fans.

I feel like there have been plenty of horror movies where the main character is female. A lot of them that I really love. But this is one of those movies where the movie and the horror grows out of the female relationships. And I think that's pretty interesting.

And that relationship is pretty toxic. These two are friends but Jennifer, Megan, really goes after her friend. Can we talk about why you wanted this kind of a dynamic? Why is Jenny so angry with her best friend?

It's funny I was just talking about this with Megan the other day in another interview. And she had always approached this character as someone who was jealous of her best friend, Needy. Jealous of the attachments and the relationships that Needy has in her life. And that somehow there was some subconscious desire to take that away from her.

They dress very different as well. Small spoiler, at the formal Needy looks very 80s in a big pink dress with bad hair and make up while Jennifer has a lovely gown. Whose idea was this and why?

Diablo had always written that it was a really bad dress. By the time I was working with the costume designer I had shown her a lot of reference material, a lot of pretty terrible 80s prom dresses. The worse they got the better the look became. I always wanted her hair to be big and poofy and her makeup to be a little over-applied. I think our costume designer nailed it.

But why make them so different on the outside too?

I think the whole point with Needy was that she was an expression of some more 80s sensibility and that everyone else had been more attuned to the fashions of the times. Needy is a little more nostalgic in life, but also a little less tuned in to the relentless [fashion] magazine culture.

But Megan really was covered in blood half the time too. And the gore was pretty good.

There's a scene where she's literally scooping blood out of the carcass of one of our characters. I really wanted it to look as if she was at a fountain of youth and instead of drinking water, she was drinking blood. So I wanted it to look like she was slurping that blood and drinking it down. We could only get a couple of takes that were working because we had live rats in the scene at the same time which is a whole other absurd nightmare, especially rodents which are not highly trained animals. Meanwhile she's drinking this unholy combination of some kind of stand in for blood and corn syrup so she can ingest it. I felt like by the third take I was waiting for her to just puke into a pail. That scene was pretty painful for her because she was swallowing everything.

The side characters in this film really helped ground the movie in reality. Adam Brody was great and seriously disturbing in an off-putting way.

The great thing about Adam Brody he manages to keep things very charming and personable so it takes a while to really see the depth of his ambition and psychosis. There's a coldness to his single mindedness once he starts to reveal what his plan is and what he's done to Jennifer. So in an interesting way Jennifer gets to be the monster and he gets to be the villain.

When he looked towards the camera at the character Needy, it gave me chills.

It's funny because when we screened it and a lot of those looks generated really big laughs. And I wonder if that's just because people were nervously anticipating what's to come.

I'd bet it's also because they aren't used to seeing him that way either.

Yeah it's true, you have to get used to that the comedy is tied up with his very very bad intentions.

Jennifer's Body will be out in theaters this Friday.

Do You Know How Hard It Is To Make It As A Indie Band?

Jenny's Back

She's Eating Boys: They Make Her Really Pretty

Kiss And Make Up

Swimming

Zombieland:

A second "green band" trailer showcases the zany, madcap zombie-killing fun in this movie, out Oct. 2.

Jennifer's Body:

A new TV spot focusses on the relationship between Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried:

The Road:

A scathing review in the New York Post drops a few spoilers:

Mortensen, who shows his bare buttocks in two scenes and has an endless death scene, does his best with a largely one-dimensional role and Charlize Theron turns up in a few flashbacks as his late wife. Robert Duvall drops a few aphorisms in his two scenes as a 90-year-old wanderer and if you blink — or, more likely nod off — you'll miss Guy Pearce.

[NY Post]

Hancock 2:

Director Peter Berg tells us what to expect from this sequel:

We're looking at exploring their relationship prior to when we first met them and seeing a bit of what happened as a prequel. I think we danced around the concept of an origins and we settled on something that is very substantive. That will part of the sequel.

[MTV]

Lost:

More filming of scenes at Los Angeles airport — Ryan at Hawaii Weblog pieces together a few different sources to create a picture of the scene being filmed. Kate is at the airport, handcuffed in the custody of the Marshall. And then somehow she gets away from him and gets her handcuffs off. She runs down the stairs and says "Hey" to Hurley. And then she jumps the line at the taxi stand, causing Neil aka "Frogurt" to scream at her for stealing his cab. As her cab speeds away, the Marshall emerges from the terminal with a head injury. He runs up to airport personnel showing them Kate's picture and telling them to keep an eye open for her — then he sees the cab and runs after it. Meanwhile, Jack heads for the passport station, but changes his mind at the last minute and turns back. Also, Dr. Arzt was there, and rumor has it Claire (Emilie de Ravin) was on set as well. [Hawaii Weblog]

Here's a better look at the season six poster, showcasing all the old characters who will be coming back. [Doc Arzt]

Plus some new (ish) promo pics of Juliet and Hurley. [Lyly Ford]

Fringe:

The over-arching theme of season two is, "Your past is always about to catch up with you," Roberto Orci tells Sci Fi Magazine. And Leonard Nimoy will be in at least three episodes, but may do more. Nina Sharp will play a bigger role in season two, and we'll realize she knows a lot more about "the condition of the show" than we've been privy to so far.

Olivia will be having a crisis, and start questioning whether she should even be investigating these weird phenomena, after the terrible things she's discovered. The fact that Olivia may be developing superpowers is going to contribute to her ambivalence about which side she's on in the war. We'll also see more of Olivia's sister and niece. [Sci Fi Magazine via Fringe Television]

The studio sent out some screeners for the season two premiere, and they included a mysterious piece of paper which appeared to be a communication between two different parties: "TARGET TERMINATED IN FATAL CAR CRASH. MEETING PREVENTED. REQUEST EXTRACTION. NEGATIVE. MISSION FAILURE. MEETING OCCURRED. TARGET STILL ALIVE. REQUEST NEW ORDERS. INTEROGATE TARGET. THEN KILL HER." [Sci Fi Wire]

Orci also says we're going to see a crowd of Observers coming up in the seasons eighth episode:

You're gonna see more than one - this is an exclusive! You are going to see many Observers. [It's] going to tell you a lot about The Observers. You're going to find out their role in the world, what they're named after, and their connection to some of these characters.

And he says the fourth, eighth and 12th episodes will each provide more answers to die hard viewers. [TV Guide Magazine]

And a couple new promos:

FlashForward:

Here are some stills from episode 2, "White To Play," plus a few publicity shots of Simon and Olivia. [FlashForward.PL and FlashForward.PL]

And in that episode, Mark and Demetri head to Utah to track down a suspect who may be connected with the flashforwards. Meanwhile, Mark's wife Olivia runs into the man from her flashforward — the man that future Olivia was having an affair with. And Mark and Olivia's daughter, Charlie, is having difficulty coming to terms with her own flash-forward. [FlashForward.PL]

Also, Gabrielle Union plays Zoey, the fiancee of John Cho's character, Demetri. And she says we get to see her flashforward, and it's very life-affirming. [IESB]

Supernatural:

Here's the official description for episode 5x04, "The End" — and I'm guessing this is the one where we see the world of 2014 and Sarah Palin is president:

TWO DEAN WINCHESTERS? - Sam (Jared Padalecki) tells Dean (Jensen Ackles) he wants to rejoin Dean in the battle of the Apocalypse, but Dean tells Sam that they are better off apart. Later, Dean awakens five years in the future in an abandoned city and is attacked by humans who have been infected with a demonic virus that turns humans into Zombies. Zachariah (guest star Kurt Fuller) appears to Dean and explains that this is the world that exists as a result of Dean saying no to helping the angels fight Lucifer. Dean meets up with Future Dean, who tells him that the virus is the Devil's endgame for destroying mankind.

It's written by Ben "The Tick" Edlund, so you know it'll be weird. [SPNSite]

Smallville:

Promo pics from the second episode, "Metallo," show more of Clark's crazy black trenchcoat and Brian Austin Green's glowy chest thing. [OSCK]

And here's the official description of that episode:

After being struck by a truck, John Corben (guest star Brian Austin Green) wakes up alone in an abandoned apartment as a man-machine with a Kryptonite heart. Corben realizes he now has superhuman strength and sets out to exact revenge on the Red-Blue Blur, who he perceives to be an irresponsible vigilante. Against Clark's (Tom Welling) wishes, Lois (Erica Durance) involves herself in the Red-Blue Blur's investigation, and winds up getting kidnapped by Corben.

[KryptonSite]

And a press release for season nine:

After the events of last season, Clark takes on the mantle of protector of Metropolis, trading in his familiar red-and-blue for black-and-gray, sticking to the city's shadows and rooftops to become a solitary sentry simply known as "the Blur." While Clark wrestles with his identity, feeling forced to choose between his Kryptonian heritage and human past, he'll encounter even more powerful enemies and allies from across the DC Universe. This season will feature new and past nemeses, including Metallo (Brian Austin Green, "Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles"), the man with the Kryptonite heart; Roulette, a sexy mastermind; the return of Toyman; and the always-treacherous Zod (Callum Blue) as a young Major and leader of an invading alien army, who befriends fellow Kryptonian Clark just as his venomous side is beginning to emerge. This season will also feature an appearance by DC Comics' first all-star team of superheroes, the Justice Society of America, in an episode penned by renowned comic book writer Geoff Johns, who returns to the show after writing last year's fan favorite episode, "Legion."...

The season nine premiere takes place three weeks after Clark and Doomsday's epic battle. Obsessed with becoming the hero the world needs, Clark is now literally leaving his mark on Metropolis – having fully embraced his Kryptonian side in order to finish training with his father Jor-El, Clark has started wearing the iconic "S"-shield on his chest, and spreads the symbol around the city in an effort to give its people hope.

Whereas Clark is working alone, Chloe feels driven to reunite the disbanded Justice League. Her biggest challenge is Oliver Queen, who'd rather lose himself in underground fight clubs and drunken one-night stands. Oliver's friends will hatch a plan to bring him back from the edge. Reconnecting with the hero inside of him, Oliver will return with a renewed purpose, even searching out an apprentice in Mia Dearden, DC comics' teenaged sidekick "Speedy."

Clark and Oliver will find themselves caught up in a love triangle with Lois, as both men's passions begin to burn brightly for her. Returning from her trip through time, Lois starts experiencing nightmarish visions of the future. Could they come true? If so, one not-so-troubling image is playing itself over and over in her head – Lois and Clark locked in a romantic, erotic embrace. Meanwhile, Clark continues to be conflicted over his own feelings for Lois. As the sparks fly, Lois and Clark's relationship will deepen, leading to their first true kiss, and possibly something more.

Meanwhile, Clark and Chloe's relationship is starting to become strained. No longer content just being Clark's sidekick, Chloe uses Watchtower's powerful computers to spin her own web of influence and intrigue, manipulating people like chess pieces in the name of the greater good. But when Chloe begins to believe the ends justify the means, it sends her on a collision course with her friend and ally Clark.

When it comes to master manipulators, Tess Mercer has emerged as the rightful heir to Lex Luthor's legacy. Always inscrutable, Tess has her hands full this season with an army of Kryptonians, newly arrived from the lost city of Kandor and led by the infamous Zod. However, this incarnation of Zod is younger than the one we remember – he has yet to grow into the power-mad psychopathic dictator, General Zod. Season nine's Zod may only be a Major, but he's already a cunning strategist and charismatic leader who knows how to inspire his troops. But behind his magnetism and those piercing eyes, Zod is still very dangerous. When Zod and Clark eventually meet, Clark recognizes that if he can befriend his fellow Kryptonian, he might be able to influence Zod away from becoming an evil, twisted tyrant. While it's true this Major Zod has certain vulnerabilities, it may only take a handful of betrayals to turn him into Clark's deadly arch-nemesis.

[SpoilerTV]

Stargate Universe:

Robert Carlyle talks his character, Dr. Nicholas Rush, and explains why he found Rush such a compelling character to play. [Wired via SciFiScoop]

And in another interview, the show's cast talks about their fascination with science fiction and their feelings about stepping into an established universe. (Including some clips). [SyFy via Stargate-SG1-Solutions]

A new review of the pilot includes a fairly detailed synopsis:

General O'Neil (Richard Dean Anderson) and Dr. Rush recruit Eli Wallace to join the Stargate program when he solves an Ancient mathematical equation that was embedded in an online video game. They embark to the newly established Icarus base via the U.S.S. George Hammond (as Commanded by Amanda Tapping's Col. Carter), the latest in the Daedalus class ships. Wallace is given a crash course on the Stargate with some help from video recording by Michael Shank's Dr. Daniel Jackson! The ship arrives several light years from Earth at a planet with unique elemental properties needed to activate the gate (dismissing the theory that Icarus base was on the moon, sorry folks) and Wallace and Dr. Rush prepare to initiate the 9th Chevron. The base comes under attack from unknown forces (it is implied that the attackers are the Lucian Alliance, villains established late in the SG-1 series). The gate is activated and the base was to be evacuated back to Earth, but at the last moment Rush and Wallace figure out how to use the 9th Chevron (through some trial and error) and the evacuation happens just in the nick of time! The survivors find themselves onboard the Ancient Ship known as the Destiny, which was charged with traveling to the far reaches of the Universe. The ship was following another ship that traveled ahead to create and seed Stargates to new worlds for exploration. Using the Ancient Communication stones (established in SG-1) Dr. Rush is able to communicate back to Earth to let them know of the current situation. The more pressing problem is that the Destiny is falling apart and is in need of repair. Supplies are low and there is no way to change the ship's course. Now Rush and the crew are along for the ride into worlds unknown. In order to fix the air purification system, a team is dispatched through the gate to search for limestone. But time is short as the ship will jump back into Faster Than Light Travel after a certain amount of time.

[Comics Online]

So just how sexy will this new cast be? Behold a bevy of promo pics, most of which I'm pretty sure are new. [SpoilerTV]

True Blood:

Eric will keep trying to get under Sookie's skin in season three, says Alan Ball. And here's what else to expect next year:

We'll meet the Vampire King of Mississippi, Russell Edgington. And we'll encounter werewolves for the first time in the flesh; we've heard about them, but we'll meet them. I'm very excited about the character of Debbie Pelt. She's bad news... Debbie Pelt is the ex-girlfriend of a guy who's helping Sookie try to find Bill, and she is just hard ass, white trash bitch on wheels. She's so much fun. But there are other great characters, too. Everybody is struggling with identity in season three – What am I? Who am I? What is my life? Is it what I want it to be? How do I make it what I want it to be? What are my real values? And some people are like, "Am I human? I always thought I was, but maybe I was wrong." In one particular case, its like, "Yes, honey, you were wrong."

[TV Squad]

Eastwick:

Here's the official synopsis for episode two, "Reaping And Sewing":

As Eastwick prepares for its annual fall HarvestFest, Joanna, Kat and Roxie's lives continue to take a turn for the strange. Distracted by distressing psychic visions of her new neighbor, Jamie, Roxie struggles to protect Mia from harassment by her ex-boyfriend, Gus (Christian Alexander). As Kat gains the courage to end her own toxic relationship - her marriage to Raymond — he's back in their home to recuperate from being struck by lightning. And while Joanna worries that Will's romantic attentions are only due to her hypnotic power, she and Penny embark on a perilous mission to uncover Darryl Van Horne's true identity. Joanna finds Milton Philmont (Martin Mull), a retired Gazette reporter who years ago wrote about the death of a man named Sebastian Hart - a man who looks uncannily like a young Darryl Van Horne. Armed with an old photo of Hart with three beautiful women, she and Penny seek answers from the eccentric and reclusive Eleanor Rougement (Cybil Shepherd)

[SpoilerTV]

And here are some pics from that episode. [Eastwick Fans]

And here's a sneak peek from the pilot:

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown.

Jennifer Check (Jennifer's Body)
Nature of Her Hunger: Demonic Possession — the result of a "virgin" sacrifice gone wrong.
Preferred Food Group: Boys, although she might make an exception for Amanda Seyfried.

Cal Thompson's ex-girlfriends (Peeps by Scott Westerfeld)
Nature of Their Hunger: Parasitic Infection, passed along through sexual activity.
Preferred Food Group: Whatever crosses their paths.

Lyekka (Lexx)
Nature of Her Hunger: Innate. She may look humanoid, but she's really a carnivorous plant.
Preferred Food Group: Pretty much anything and everything (including whole crews and countries at once), though she keeps her gums off the Lexx crew, out of affection for Stan.

The (Mostly Female) Carnivorous Dinosaurs of Jurassic Park (Jurassic Park)
Nature of Their Hunger: Innate. If you're going to keep Raptors and Tyrannosauri around, you have to expect a few casualties.
Preferred Food Group: Meat in general.

Heidi Barrie and Rhonda Kelley (Buffy the Vampire Slayer "The Pack")
Nature of Their Hunger: Hyena Possession, though they weren't very nice to begin with.
Preferred Food Group: High school principals.

Jodi Melville (Smallville, "Craving")
Nature of Her Hunger: Meteor-rock radiation, combined with an intense desire to be thin.
Preferred Food Group: Anything with fat on it.

Bilquis, The Queen of Sheba (American Gods by Neil Gaiman)
Nature of Her Hunger: Sacrificial. She devours men during the sex act to maintain her fertility goddess power.
Preferred Food Group: Men, though her preferred orifice for intake is not her mouth.

Zenelle (Madman)
Nature of Her Hunger: Mantis-like. Females of her species devour their mates.
Preferred Food Group: Men she's bedded, with the exception of one of the Mutant Street Beatniks, with whom she's fallen in love.

The Women of Eureka (Eureka, "Maneater")
Nature of Their Hunger: Chemical. An ancient spore turns the dial up on Carter and Dr. Stone's pheromones, and if what happened to the wolf whose lady friend got a whiff of his pheromones is any indication, the women of Eureka literally want to eat them up.
Preferred Food Group: Carter and Stone, though they never actually manage to sink their teeth into them.

Paula Gray, Doris Kearns and the Other Women of Dudley, Arkansas (The X-Files "Our Town")
Nature of Their Hunger: Cannibalism in an attempt to gain immortality.
Preferred Food Group: Anyone not in the cannibalism club. But they don't screen for diseases, and a good bit of the town ends up with Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease.

Frau Totenkinder (Fables)
Nature of Her Hunger: Sacrificial. She eats children to increase her magical power.
Preferred Food Group: Children, including her own infants.

Jillian Boone (Fringe, "Midnight")
Nature of Her Hunger: Bacterial. She's been infected with a sort of vampiric syphilis as part of an elaborate blackmail ploy.
Preferred Food Group: Spinal Fluid

The Women of Moodley (Doghouse)
Nature of Their Hunger: Infection by an Airborne Toxin.
Preferred Food Group: Men.

Giganta (DC Comics)
Nature of Her Hunger: Murderous. When you're giant, it's a handy way to dispose of people.
Preferred Food Group: Ryan Choi, The Atom, though just she ends up puking him up later.

Maryann Forrester (True Blood)
Nature of Her Hunger: Epicurean. She happens to know the perfect recipe for human (and shifter) hearts (and makes Tara an unwitting accomplice to her cannibalism), though she also needs a humanoid sacrifice for her god.
Preferred Food Group: She has a particular affinity for supernatural beings, though nothing undead.

Janet Weiss and Columbia (The Rocky Horror Picture Show)
Nature of Their Hunger: Unwitting. When you're invited to a dinner party, you generally eat what's placed in front of you.
Preferred Food Group: Meat Loaf — as in the person, not the stuff that's baked with tomato sauce.

Lizzie (My Favorite Martian)
Nature of Her Hunger: Monstrous. Thanks to a gumball that transforms humanoids into other creatures, Lizzie (who is normally shaped like Darryl Hannah) turns into a carnivorous alien beast.
Preferred Food Group: Bad guys.

Giggerota the Wicked (Lexx)
Nature of Her Hunger: Epicurean — in her words, she "likes to eat."
Preferred Food Group: Pretty much anything, although she finds brains too salty.

Audrey II (Little Shop of Horrors)
Nature of Her Hunger: Innate. She's a mean, green mother from outer space.
Preferred Food Group: Anything human.

Helen Sherman (Torchwood, "Countrycide")
Nature of Her Hunger: Epicurean. She and the other villagers happen to enjoy human flesh.
Preferred Food Group: Travelers.

Miss French (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Teacher's Pet")
Nature of Her Hunger: Mantis-Like. Actually, she is a giant praying mantis.
Preferred Food Group: Male virgins, no matter how much they boast about their supposed "experience."

Every Female Zombie Ever
Nature of Their Hunger: Innate. Fish gotta swim, zombies gotta chomp.
Preferred Food Group: Any living human, but there's sometimes a special emphasis on brains.

Inception:

Someone who claims to have read the whole screenplay for Christopher Nolan's "architecture of the mind" thriller posted a review online — and several salt mines worth of grains of salt are probably indicated. The synopsis is vastly different from the other dribs and drabs we've learned so far, and sounds a bit outlandish to boot. At the same time, you just never know — and I remember dismissing a spot-on accurate summary of The Dark Knight as a fake months before the movie came out.

In any case, the lucky (or lying) reviewer says that far from being about stepping into people's dreams for espionage purposes, as we've reported previously, Inception is actually about using the mind to travel to any point in space. A man named Jacob Hastley has recently become paraplegic, and he considers killing himself — but instead he discovers a connection between the human mind and space. Since both space and the mind's capacity are infinite (they are?), you can create a doorway from your mind into any point in space.

So Jacob discovers a "thought algorithm" that lets him travel to any point in the universe, without actually traveling. He visits other solar systems, and even other galaxies, and it's groovy. Then he discovers that other people already know how to do this mind-traveling thing, and they're 150 percent smarter than average humans because they use more of their brain capacity. These other travelers are aware of Jacob's travels, and Jacob has to find the truth behind the origins of the universe (hence "Inception") before the other travelers catch up to him.

The supporting cast includes Lisa, a genius and Jacob's ex-wife who dumped him after he was injured, but who shows up again right after his first trip. Plus Kansas, a dog whisperer who connects in an unearthly way with her animals, Tark, a 37-year-old man who seems to have a wisdom beyond his years, and Isabell, a blind woman who will stop at nothing to see again. So... what do you think? Do we call in TrekMovie's Senator Vreenak?

Update: Apparently it was an April Fool's prank. Oh well. [Script Shadow, thanks Ryan!]

Batman 3:

Have we already mentioned a dozen times before that Aaron Eckhart says Harvey Dent died at the end of The Dark Knight? Here's one more for luck. [MTV]

Surrogates:

Just how badly do you want to see some kick-ass robot-fighting new footage from Surrogates? Badly enough to sit through a music video by the band Breaking Benjamin? If so, then here ya go. The song is pretty dreadful, but the scenes from the movie make it look pretty darn amazing. [Thanks Mike!]

Jennifer's Body:

Director Karen Kusama explains what appealed to her about this movie's script:

I really, really loved the fact that it had this subverted fairytale kind of structure where in the end it's Needy who has to save Chip, save herself and deal with Jennifer. That she really has to become an adult over the course of the movie and that was powerful to me. I know the movie plays like a crazy, fun genre film, but I hope that there's something a little bit emotionally richer.

A tragedy befalls the town, and the townsfolk find a song to unify them in their grief. And there's a great moment where we see Jennifer cupping blood out of a torn-open torso. [ShockTillYouDrop]

Supernatural:

Tired of Sam and Dean ripping each other to pieces? Then there's good news. Eric Kripke says season five is about "building Sam and Dean back up in a way that makes them older, sadder, wiser, and, ultimately, stronger. It's funny, we've been feeling in many ways that this is the most optimistic season of Supernatural we've ever done. Because even though the exterior circumstances are a massive cluster f–k, internally, the boys aren't tearing each other apart every episode. It's more like, ‘Hey, maybe we'll lose, but, dammit, let's go down swinging.'" [EW]

Fringe:

The question with Charlie isn't so much whether he's going, but when. (And I think this means in which episode he'll leave, and it's not some kind of hint that Charlie will be time-traveling.) [EW]

Another combined Bones/Fringe promo:

FlashForward:

A new clip from the pilot, in which people start to realize those blackouts weren't just blackouts. Plus a few promos I don't think we've shown you before.

House:

House has "steamy goings-on" with she-who-shall-not-be-named in the season premiere, but Huddy is far from over — House and Cuddy have an intense attraction, but it's as much intellectual and spiritual as sexual. Also, when House, Wilson and Cuddy go on a business trip in episode seven, Lucas tags along. [EW]

Warehouse 13:

A sneak peek from next Tuesday's episode, where Myka has to save her dad (Michael Hogan!) from a sinister artifact.

Heroes:

Ready to pick at that scab again? Here are a bevy of photos from the two-part season premiere, "Orientation" and "Jump, Push, Fall." (I guess "orientation" refers to Claire going to college as well as, possibly, her much-discussed lesbian-until-graduation-ness. Must resist the temptation to make a joke about matriculation.) [Herosite]

Smallville:

Tom Welling explains that going into season nine, Clark has lost faith in his old view of the human race:

Well, in the past Clark has always been the reluctant hero. Everyone is telling him what he has to do and he doesn't want to do it. With the events of Jimmy's death [in May's season finale], along with the eight seasons building up, he realizes that his view on humanity has been wrong. And he goes to Jor-El and says, ‘I messed up, what do I do now?' Jor-El takes him in, and Clark starts his training. His training ultimately is what will prepare him to be who we all know he's going to be in the future. So it's him spending time at the Fortress of Solitude downloading all this information. At the same time, information is given to him that the fate of the world depends on Lois Lane's survival. So Clark has to struggle between his destiny and his humanity. Especially in the first few episodes it gets in the way of the training, because he just can't help but deal with humans and help people, when all Jor-El wants him to do is shut everyone off, forget about them, rise above them and be the hero he needs to be.

And Clark wears the "S" symbol on his chest, the sign of the House of El, as a means of establishing a "call sign" for himself. He's no longer the red-blue blur, just the Blur. In episode two, through a contrivedcomplicated set of circumstances caused by "interesting lighting", Lois gets a good look at the symbol on Clark's chest, but doesn't see his face. Clark has an opportunity to step forward and show her his face, but chooses not to. And here's a new pic. [TV Guide Magazine via OSCK]

Chuck:

Angie Harmon wants Captain Awesome dead because he's a superspy now. Or something. [EW]

Eastwick:

I don't think we've featured this sneak peek and promo from the "Desperate Housewitches" show:

And it's not much of a spoiler to say this show is "cheesy and dull" according to E! Online. The devil is a douche instead of debonair. Sara Rue is wasted in the background, at least in the pilot. [E! Online]

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown.

Jennifer's Body

A new TV spot shows a little bit of the murder that gets this demonic party started:

[via ShockTillYouDrop]

Lost

Honolulu International Airport was dressed up as LAX for Lost filming, with Matthew Fox (Jack), Evangeline Lilly (Kate), Josh Holloway (Sawyer), and Naveen Andrews (Sayid) expected on set. Visitors spotted the Oceanic Airlines logo as well as Daniel Roebuck, who played the late (exploded) Dr. Leslie Arzt, leading some to speculate that we will see another timeline showing the safe landing of Oceanic Flight 815. [Hawaii Blog]

Another set report comes from the site of the now-demolished Swan Station, and appears to be set after Juliet detonated the bomb. Jack, Kate, Miles, and Jin were all on set, and Sawyer was visibly upset over Juliet's actions. He runs toward the hole, which is now filled with metal from the site. The set reporter also saw stunt doubles climb out of the hole using vines. They also saw Hurley and Sayid on set, but not filming, and Sayid's Dharma uniform was still covered in blood. [KryptonSite]

At Seattle's Bumbershoot festival, a panel of writers and producers claimed that, while the creative team does have a roadmap for mysteries that have to be explained, not every single detail will be made clear. They also said we'll be seeing Charlie and possibly the flight attendant Cindy as well, that season six will have a significant spiritual bent, and that the final shot of the show is already planned. [Pop Distillery]

Starting in the fourth episode of the sixth season, Lost will feature a recurring character, a teenage boy who has dealt with a horrible family accident and has been put in charge of something important, something that weighs heavily on him. He's also described as "wise beyond his years." Could this be the younger version of a character we've already met? An older version of Aaron? [Dark UFO]

Fringe

Photos from the second episode "Night of Desirable Objects" suggest that Charlie is still with us after the season premiere:

[Spoiler TV]

At Dragon*Con, Leonard Nimoy reiterated that he will appear in multiple episodes this season, including one that will air next month set around the alternate universe. [Trek Web]

Supernatural

In the images for the season's third episode "Free to be You and Me," Dean and Castiel pose as FBI agents, and we get our first look at Mark Pellegrino as Lucifer. Evidently, it was Casual Friday in Hell:

[J-Squared]

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Here are four clips from the computer-animated food fest:

[via CinemaBlend]

True Blood

HBO has put together a teaser trailer for Sunday's season finale:

[via Spoiler TV]

Heroes

The new promo pledges our heroes (and presumably the writers) will be "back at their best:"

[NBC]

The Box

Here's the French poster for Richard Kelly's adaptation of Richard Matheson's short story, "Button, Button:"

[ShockTillYouDrop]

Pandorum

The Brazilian one-sheet for Pandorum features what appears to be a countdown clock:

[ShockTillYouDrop]

New Moon

The latest still shows Edward in a bedroom with Bella, although it's not clear if he's the real Edward, or just a figment of her imagination:

[MTV Movies Blog]

Smallville

In the sixth episode, "Crossfire," Lois and Clark kiss, which is the first time that their attraction is mutually acknowledged without any external forces or time alterations. This episode sets up Lois's departure in the seventh episode "Kandor" and her return in the eighth episode "Idol." Also, there will be an ominous revelation about Lois's futuristic time flashes. [KryptonSite]

And here are a few more images from the season opener, "Savior:"

[KryptonSite]

FlashForward

Below is a UK promo, slightly different from the promos airing in the US:

[via FlashForward.pl]

Eastwick

ABC describes the characters in a press release for the pilot. Roxie is an extroverted artist, Kat an overworked wife and mother, and Joanna a wallflower local reporter, and the three didn't get along for many years because of their preconceived notions about one another. But a strange encounter in the park prompts them to bond over martinis and wish for change in their lives. This unlocks a power within each of them and brings the wealthy, mysterious Darryl Van Horne into town, who will help them discover their powers. We'll also meet Penny, Joanna's co-worker and best friend, Bun, the fun and kooky head of the Eastwick Historical Society (who may have the key to Darryl's true identity), and Mia, Roxie's teenaged daughter. Certain men in Eastwick, including Joanna's crush Will and Kat's layabout husband Raymond become unintentional targets of the women's powers. [Spoiler TV]

The titles of the first four episodes will be "Pilot," "Reaping and Sewing," "Madams and Madames," and "Fleas and Casserole." [Eastwick-Fans.net]

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown and Charlie Jane Anders.

Jennifer's Body is out October 17th.

September 4th
Gamer
...this one, which Annalee loved. Even if you've not seen the movie, you'll have seen the trailers enough to be familiar with the idea behind it: In the not-too-distant future, mad scientist Michael C. Hall has invented a way to remote control people, which allows gamers to live out their fantasies in reality... which makes us wonder if Bruce Willis' Surrogates should be a little worried about this coming out first. Gerard Butler makes with the explodo, and if you liked the Crank movies - made by the same people - consider this right up your inevitably aflame, full of over the top action, alley.

September 9th
9
For those who won't be spending Wednesday in a Beatles Rock Band-induced musical coma, consider Shane Acker's CG-animated post-apocalyptic movie (with voices from Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly and Jennifer Connelly, amongst others) that tries to make "stitchpunk" into a real genre. Existential angst meets the Island of Misfit Toys, as creatures made up of the remnants of a destroyed society try to discover the truth behind their origins. As you might expect, Tim Burton is executive producer on this one.

September 18th
Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs
AKA the film that Meredith is trying to convince me I must see as soon as possible. Adapted from the 1982 classic children's book by the writers of television's How I Met Your Mother, the CG-animated Cloudy lets the voices of Bill Hader, Neil Patrick Harris (of course), Andy Samberg and more explore why science can be trouble when it means that foodstuffs replace raindrops.

Jennifer's Body
You know all about this one by now: Juno's Diablo Cody writes a horror movie in which everyone's worst fears about Megan Fox come true - as long as your worst fears involve her turning into a literally-maneating she-demon dispatching various unfortunate boys in high school. Director Karyn Kusama directed the bigscreen version of Aeon Flux, so maybe this is a chance for her to earn back some movie karma.

Pandorum
Spacemen Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster wake up without their memories and adrift in space in director Christian Alvart (who also co-wrote the movie with Travis Milloy)'s mysterious space horror. What has happened to the crew, and what does it have to do with the future of the human race? And, more importantly, how excited should we be about Resident Evil director Paul W.S. Anderson being attached as producer for the movie?

September 21st
The Age Of Stupid
A "crowd-funded" movie about the dangers of climate change? This drama-documentary-animation hybrid offers up Pete Postlethwaite as a man in the year 2055, looking back at "archival footage" (ie, documentary material) from our time and wondering why more wasn't done to stop the environmental damage that humanity was causing. Animators on the project include Gorillaz' Passion Pictures, and music comes from Radiohead, amongst others.

September 25th
The Invention of Lying
Ricky Gervais continues his attempt to break into movies (And the less said about Ghost Town, the better) with this movie set on an alternate Earth where Gervais' character invents the entire concept of lying in order to win the heart - or, at least, the body - of Jennifer Garner's character Jennifer. As long as it stays away from a sentimental ending, we've got high hopes for this... but maybe that's just because we're swayed by Tina Fey being amongst the cast.

Surrogates
Bruce Willis rues Gamer in this adaptation of the Top Shelf comic wherein humanity have retreated to better living through robotics, only for someone - or something - to abruptly put an end to that happy shared delusion. Go for Bruce's wig, stay for the fact that, if it's anything like the original, it'll end up being a taut and exciting thriller that doesn't go for the easy answers.

With September already underway, we're a little late in providing this guide, but try not to hold it too far against us. We've split everything up month-by-month, to help you fill your calendar without too much worry - Just click on the links below.

September
October
November
December

Pandorum:

Here are a couple of new TV spots for this space-horror epic:

Jennifer's Body:

A new behind-the-scenes featurette takes you behind the sexy horror of the horrific sexiness.

And Entertainment Tonight actually featured a clip of the Amanda Seyfried/Megan Fox kiss, plus Megan Fox talking about her character:

Surrogates:

More details on the footage that director Jonathan Mostow showed reporters: Bruce Willis and other surrogate cops are chasing a suspect in a helicopter, and the suspect is on a motorcycle. The suspect weaves in and out of Boston traffic, then abandons his motorcycle. He takes out some cops with his pulse gun, then shoots at the helicopter. Willis disconnects from his surrogate just before the blast hits, waking up in his apartment. Then he reconnects to his robotic surrogate and continues the chase, following the suspect into the surrogate-phobic reservation, showing how badass his robot body can be, jumping over shit and taking lots of damage.

And Mostow says Willis has "existential ennui" because the only crime that's left — crimes against people's robot surrogates — is a property crime rather than murder or whatever. (So why don't criminals just break into your house and stab your real body while you're controlling your robot body?) This makes Willis feel his job as a cop is meaningless, and he can't connect with his wife. Once Willis has to operate as his real self, he realizes just how hollow his robot-body-driven life was. [IGN]

9:

Star Elijah Wood was on Conan O'Brien the other night, and he talked about the numerology of this movie as well as Comic Con:


There's also this somewhat weird disturbing clip from his children's TV appearance, which has nothing to do with this movie, but it's too weird not to share:

Also, Wood and director Shane Acker talked to Sci Fi Wire, and explained a bit more about the film — we start out seeing through 9's eyes, and he knows as little about this world as we do. We follow him on his journey of discovery, and he convinces the other ragdolls to try and figure out more about who they are and what the machines are. They can't physically fight the machines because they're too fragile. So gathering knowledge is the only way they can win. Also, 7 (Jennifer Connelly) is a fiercly independent warrior who pushes everyone else away. She's a maverick. [Sci Fi Wire]

And here are a couple new featurettes, from what appears to be the film's official Youtube channel:

Gamer:

So we talked to Amber Valletta yesterday about being a sex-puppet in this sex-and-violence games movie. Apparently, the guy who controls her is sort of a disgusting slug, and he licks his lips in every single scene he's in. The two of them never appear together, though, because he's controlling her remotely. [UGO]

Dark Shadows:

One of the biggest challenges with this film is to recapture the weird tone of the original, says director Tim Burton, who certainly seems to think Johnny Depp will star in it, judging from the way he namedrops Depp. [MTV]

[Rec] 2:

Some new images from this sick-building-syndrome movie. More at the link. [Aullidos via ShockTillYouDrop]

Twilight:

The third movie, Eclipse, will feature Jasper doing a lot of fighting, says Jackson Rathbone. And there'll be some Civil War scenes giving his character's origin. [MTV]

Doctor Who:

A couple of tidbits from the forums over at Gallifrey Base. For one thing, IMDB is now claiming that Bruno Langley, who played Adam back in season one, will appear in David Tennant's final episode. Is Adam coming back to cause trouble again? Or is this another instance of the Doctor traveling back into his own past, like the thing where the tenth Doctor drops in on Rose before she's met the ninth Doctor? Oh, and there's a rumor — and I emphasize rumor — that a 1960s companion will turn up. But forum posters don't think it'll be Carole Ann Ford, because she's turning up in a Big Finish audio production, and those usually avoid using elements that are turning up on the TV show. [Gallifrey Base]

FlashForward:

Here's a new promo, featuring a confession of future infidelity:

Lost:

David H. Lawrence XVII, who played the puppetmaster guy on Heroes, Twittered that he landed a role in the final season of Lost. [The ODI]

Supernatural:

I don't think we've shown you this hilarious trailer, featuring some subliminal messages, before.

Smallville:

Here's a screencap from a new season nine sneak peek, featuring the Superman logo. Bigger version at the link. [The ODI]

Someone named LilMissX twittered a couple of promo photos of Chloe from the new season. [TwitPic via SpoilerTV]

And here's a sneak peek from the season opener, featuring Brian Austin Green making us all wish Sarah Connor was still being Chronicled.

Stargate Universe:

The season will end with an episode called "Subversion," followed by a two-parter called "Incursion." And that two-parter ends with "big-time cliffhanger," according to writer/producer Joseph Mallozzi, who calls it the "biggest HOLY #%&@! ending I have ever written." Because "Incursion" has been expanded from one hour to two, one other episode will get held over to season two — which means probably nobody much dies in that cliffhanger, or else they're able to rework the held-over episode somehow. [Gateworld]

Chuck:

Smallville's Kristin Kreuk will appear in multiple episodes as Hannah, a publishing industry veteran who meets Chuck on a flight to Paris. She loses her job and winds up working at the Buy More. And both Chuck and Morgan will have feelings for her. [EW]

Heroes:

So we already knew there would be more time travel this year, and now here are more details. Hayden Panettiere donned her old cheerleader outfit for some scenes that probably take place back during season one. And meanwhile, Hiro and Sylar filmed a confrontation in Odessa, TX that's probably set during the same era. Sylar throws Hiro up against a bus, and Hiro screams "Stoppp! I am dying!" And Sylar points his finger at Hiro's head. And here are some pics of both scenes — more at the link. [The ODI]

Also, Greg Grunberg says the thing where his Head-Sylar kidnaps his baby will all make sense. And he explains more of Matt's arc this season:

What's cool is that my powers evolve, and I start this year so regretting what I did last year that I have absolutely cut it cold turkey. I refuse to use my powers, and Sylar wants me to, so he's constantly on my shoulder going, 'Use your powers, you p-ssy.' It's great. It's really cool.

[Sci Fi Wire]

Creator Tim Kring says the upcoming "Redemption" arc could serve as the end of the show's story, but it doesn't have to.

We've never really posited an ending… [because] it's never been one long serialized story. Each volume has a beginning, middle and end. So we try to wrap things up pretty neatly each time and string a cliffhanger over the break to reward the loyal viewers.

[EW]

Eureka:

Here are some pics from episode 3x18, "What Goes Around." [SpoilerTV]

True Blood:

There's a plan in place for Evan Rachel Wood to return as Sophie the Vampire Queen next season. [EW]

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown.

Jennifer's Body:

Apparently when Megan Fox's character says she "goes both ways," she actually means it — she gets to kiss Amanda Seyfried in the movie, and Fox says it was a fun bit to film. [MTV]

And here are some pics that I think are new, including both Megan and Amanda covered with blood and stuff. [MTV]

Surrogates:

In this movie about a future where nobody leaves the house, and instead mentally connects to physically perfect cyber-avatars (who then start dying and triggering their owners' deaths) the structure of a detective story allows Bruce Willis' detective character to serve as a "surrogate" for the audience's curiosity. And the movie version of the story isn't as "luddite" as the comic — although it does comment on the dehumanizing effect of technology. [Sci Fi Wire]

New Moon:

Edi Gathegi, who plays Laurent, says he actually gets to wear shoes in the second movie, unlike the first. And he never gets to sparkle in the sun like a proper vampire. His character dies off in the second movie, just like in the books. [MTV]

Also, in the movie, the Volturi have specially crafted blood-red contact lenses to give their eyes a spooky look. They're thousands of years old, but look young and zippy. The most lethal of them maybe Jane (Dakota Fanning) who enjoys inflicting torture on her victims. And here are a couple pics I don't think we've shown you before. [People]

Doctor Who:

More details about what those Daleks are up to in World War II. Spectator Alun.Vega thinks the gist of the story so far is that a Professor (Bill Paterson) working for Winston Churchill has developed the Daleks as a weapon, but is a bit hazy on where he got the idea from. Churchill doesn't care as long as they destroy the Nazis. Leading to this bit of dialogue:

Churchill: Death to our enemies. Death to the Third Reich!
Doctor: Yes, yes, and death to everyone else too.

And as the Doctor tells the Daleks that he's the Doctor and they're the Daleks, he's partly trying to remind himself of who he is. Churchill and the Professor aren't taking the new Doctor seriously due to his extreme youth. The Professor does hit it off with new companion Amy Pond, and they bond over her Scottish background: "Are you from the islands?" he asks. But the happy relationship between Winston and the Daleks doesn't last, judging from this snatch of overheard dialogue:

CHURCHILL: "You are my ironsides!"
DALEK: "We are the Daleks."
PROFESSOR: "I created you!"
DALEK: "No, we created you."

As someone once said, "in the morning, I'll be sober. And you'll still be a mutant." [Gallifrey Base]

Lost:

So whether or not Juliet's bomb succeeded in resetting the timeline, we'll definitely see the continuation of the Faux Locke cliffhanger from the previous season. The show was filming a scene on the beach where we see a closeup of Locke's dead body. And then Faux Locke and Richard Alpert (shouldn't that be Ben?) descend from the temple. All of the Others point their guns at Faux Locke, suspicious for obvious reasons. Richard steps up to confront Faux Locke, who proceeds to beat the stuffing out of him in a really intense sequence. Then Faux Locke stands over Richard's battered body and wags his finger at the assembled Others, saying "I'm really disappointed in all of you." [Hawaii Weblog]

And here are some not-very-revealing set pics. More at the link. [The ODI]

Also, it sounds like they're setting up an airplane set at the studios. [The ODI]

Caprica:

Welsh actor Peter Wingfield (who played the immortal Methos in the Highlander TV series and the last two movies) announced on his website that he's joining this show as Gara Singh, director of the Global Defense Department — which makes him the boss of Jordan Duram, the GDD agent played by Brian Markinson. [Peter Wingfield via Battlestar_Blog]

Fringe:

Lance Reddick says we'll learn more about Broyles' background, and the reasons for his divorce, but it won't be through flashbacks. And he tells us what to expect in season two generally:

Olivia's reemergence back into this universe will be shocking. The developments with Charlie will be mind blowing. You'll find out just how deep my relationship with Nina goes.

[Hollywood the Write Way via Sci Fi Scoop]

And here's a new promo that also includes Bones:

Episode 2x08 will introduce us to Harry, who appears to be just a normal DMV employee, but has darker intentions. [SpoilerTV]

And here's a thrilling teaser:

And another one. [Fringe Television]

Supernatural:

The description for episode 5x02, "Good God, Y'All," sounds like the greatest thing ever:

Castiel (Misha Collins) tells Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) that he is going to search for God, who will be able to defeat Lucifer. Bobby's (Jim Beaver) old hunter friend, Rufus (guest star Steven Williams), is panicked about demons attacking his town, and begs Bobby for help. Sam and Dean arrive at the town and realize there is a spell over the townspeople, making them hallucinate that they are demons and causing them to kill one another. Phil Sgriccia directed the episode written by Sera Gamble

[Examiner]

And speaking of amazing-sounding episodes written by Sera Gamble, here's a casting call for "The Curious Case Of Dean Winchester," episode 5x07 (a Benjamin Button episode??):

[PATRICK] 30-40, charismatic, extremely likeable and charming, with a devil-may-care attitude and a twinkle in his eye. He is a well-dressed, expert card shark and poker player, with a wicked sense of humor and an unnerving ability to read people. A slick con man and thief who enjoys toying with everyone around him. However, he also is capable of genuine empathy for certain players, and he's deeply committed to Lia, the love of his life...GUEST STAR (15)

[OLDER DEAN WINCHESTER] Between 70-80 years old, he is Dean (JENSEN ACKLES) aged into an old man. He hasn't lost any of his verve, or edge, just his speed...GUEST STAR (20)

[LIA] 20s, she is a BEAUTIFUL, troubled woman in cahoots with her boyfriend, Patrick. Empathetic, but also eventually lonely....GUEST STAR (15)

[SpoilerTV]

And here's a promo I think we haven't featured before:

Dollhouse:

Want Dollhouse for dummies? Here it is:

Stargate Universe:

Pitch us this new spin-off, actor David Blue:

[It's about] scientists brought in to figure out this mythical ninth chevron address, ... a nine-digit phone number, and nobody knows where it goes. And through a course of events, [he] ends up having to pick up and go, and the right people who are supposed to go on this mission to explore don't necessarily end up going.

You end up with a group of people who weren't supposed to be there, ... counting on each other, who aren't necessarily the ones with the skill sets for survival ... on the far side of the universe, trying to figure out how to survive. How to not die. How to not kill each other. And genuinely having to deal and cope.

[Sci Fi Wire]

Heroes:

James Kyson Lee says Hiro and Ando start off the new season in Japan:

Ando is starting a new business with Hiro, which will thrust us into really unusual adventures. Also, Ando this season is going to be interlinked with somebody very unexpected, which is going to be a nice surprise for the audience.

[Winnipeg Sun via SpoilerTV]

And here's the description of the two-hour season opener:

"VOLUME FIVE: REDEMPTION" MAKES A SPECIAL TWO-HOUR DEBUT WITH THE INTRODUCTION OF A MYSTERIOUS CARNIVAL CLAN WHOSE INTENTIONS ARE UNKNOWN, WHILE FAMILIAR FACES ADJUST TO NEW STAGES OF THEIR LIVES THAT WILL CHALLENGE THEIR PERCEPTIONS OF THE WORLD AND THEIR ABILITIES. ROBERT KNEPPER JOINS THE CAST. RAY PARK, ZELJKO IVANEK, MADELINE ZIMA, AND DAWN OLIVIERI GUEST STAR — Claire (Hayden Panettiere) struggles with adjusting to her new life in college when a mysterious death thrusts her into the spotlight once again. Elsewhere, Hiro (Masi Oka) and Ando (James Kyson Lee) continue their noble quest to help people by promoting their abilities. Angela (Cristine Rose) fears Nathan (Adrian Pasdar) will soon discover his true identity; while Matt (Greg Grunberg) is haunted by an unexpected visitor seeking something he has lost. Tracy Strauss (Ali Larter) and H.R.G. (Jack Coleman) join forces, looking for the key to unlock the motive behind a horrific crime. Meanwhile, Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) uses his abilities for good, but he is soon called upon to aid an old friend. While the heroes adjust to their new surroundings, a mysterious carnival clan, led by ringleader Samuel (Robert Knepper), sets their sights on familiar faces.

[SpoilerTV]

So we already mentioned that Hiro's doomed love Charlie will be back. And it turns out her diner coworker Lynette (Sally Chaplin) will be in three episodes too — and there will be at least one scene which we saw back in season one, but we'll see it again from a different vantage point. [The ODI]

Chuck:

Season three, episode four, "Chuck Vs. Operation Awesome," will feature an old Thai woman who speaks both Thai and English. (And I'm betting there'll be some joke where people think she doesn't understand English, but then she does?) [SpoilerTV]

True Blood:

Sam makes the "ultimate sacrifice" in the season finale. And the bit about Eric dying is a joke — probably. [EW]

FlashForward:

Here's a promo that was blasting off a massive screen in Times Square. Not sure if there's any new footage there.

Plus a couple of other new promos:

One of the visions of the future involves a wife seeing a glimpse of her future lover — a man her husband walks past unknowing in a hospital corridor. In addition to the FBI agents played by Joseph Fiennes and John Cho, there's their boss, Stanford Wedick (Courtney B. Vance). And Fiennes' wife (Sonya Walger) is a surgeon. She saves a series regular who was injured in an attack that resulted from the FBI investigation.

We will get quick answers to some questions early on, and it's not the sort of show where you'll be lost if you don't watch every episode. But devoted fans will be rewarded with more easter eggs and stuff. All of the questions raised in the pilot will be answered by the end of the season. The show is planned for five seasons but could go longer and shorter. Not only do the producers know how it ends, they also know how the penultimate season ends. [USA Today]

Sonya Walger describes her character:

Olivia is a strong, complicated woman who's a working mother. She's a trauma surgeon and a loving wife. She's devoted to her work and trying to make time for her kid. Olivia's plate is full long before the flash forward happens I think.

[IGN]

And here are a ton of pics from the first episode, some of which we may have shown you before. [SpoilerTV]

Warehouse 13:

A couple of tiny pics showing Michael Hogan (Saul Tigh) and his wife Susan Hogan, playing Myka's parents in the upcoming episode "Nevermore." Myka's dad Warren Bering gets a mysterious object in the mail. And I guess maybe we'll find out more about why Myka's parents insisted on including "And Sons" in the name of their bookstore, despite having no sons. [Chicago Tribune via Battlestar Blog]

Eureka:

Here are descriptions of a couple upcoming episodes:

Episode 3.17 - Have an Ice Day. Tess hopes her first day in charge of Global will be uneventful; the arrival of an Arctic ice core brings a new Ice Age to Eureka.

Episode 3.18 - What Goes Around, Comes Around. Zoe prepares to leave for college; Tess receives a job offer in Australia; a magnetic disturbance hovers above Eureka.

[SpoilerTV]

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown.

Inception:

We've already shown you some set photos of Leonardo DiCaprio looking troubled on the set of this Christopher Nolan thriller, but in this new batch of photos, he's in a scuffle with a mysterious opponent, in an African or Middle Eastern setting. And apparently DiCaprio is on a crash diet to lose tons of weight to film one action scene in which he has to be severely emaciated. (Shades of Christian Bale in The Machinist.) More pics at the link. [Radar Online]

Iron Man 2:

Stuntman Garrett Warren stands in for Mickey Rourke, and he describes how the "double whips" (one in each hand) will look in the finished product:

I don't know if I'm at liberty to say what the whips will look like, but they're going to be these super whips that have an awful lot of power. They can cut through cars, they can do an awful lot of damage. And when the movie comes out, you'll see that he doesn't do just whip-cracks and grabbing people. He lays waste to an awful lot of vehicles and street pieces and other things.... At one point, Whiplash had to get hit by a car, and Mickey did the lead up to the stunt, and I did the stunt where the car came in and hit me and took me to the fence.

And he says the Whiplash armor is uncomfortable because there's one big metal piece, and also that Whiplash is shirtless (the whole time, by the sound of things) with his whole body covered in metal rods. [Movieline via Cinemablend]

2012:

How do you say "disaster porn" in Japanese? Find out with this new Japanese trailer, which also includes some new footage.

Jennifer's Body:

The Spanish poster for this slut-horror film features Megan Fox looking slutty, and possibly horrifying. [Audillos]

Dollhouse:

We already showed you some pics from the season opener, in which a pre-programmed Echo marries Jamie Bamber's character. But now Fox has released more pics from the episode, showing Bamber and Eliza Dushku getting a little more intense. [Fox]

And it sounds as though Echo and Victor will trade places, in episode two, judging from the episode descriptions Fox gave the Chicago Tribune:

Episode 1, "Vows": Picking up a few months after the Season 1 finale, Echo (Eliza Dushku) is the new bride of a charismatic businessman (guest star Jamie Bamber), who is tied to an old FBI case that Paul (Tahmoh Penikett) was unable to close. Meanwhile, Dr. Saunders struggles with her discovery that she is a Doll and targets Topher. Written and directed by Joss Whedon.

Episode 2, "Belle Chose": "Michael Hogan guest stars as a client of the Dollhouse who comes to Adelle (Olivia Williams) for help with a psychotic family member. Topher (Fran Kranz) accidentally crosses Echo and Victor's (Enver Gjokaj) imprints while there[sic] are on different assignments."

Also, Fox says Miracle Laurie (Mellie/November) will be back in season two — which is not something I had heard before. Did I miss that being announced? [Chicago Tribune]

Lost:

Here's a casting call for a new character who will be in episodes two and three of the new season, Paul:

Male, 30s to 60s, any ethnicity. Overworked, harried from a long day and many hours, faced with a highly adrenalized situation that forces him to remain calm and tests his ability to keep his wits about him - a test he fails as panic wins out.

[SpoilersLost]

Fringe:

Peter has no significant scenes with Olivia in the season opener, but he does get some quality time with Olivia's sister, as well as the new character Agent Jessup. [TV Guide]

V:

How is Elizabeth Mitchell's new character on this show, Erica, similar to her Lost character Juliet? Allow her to explain:

What I'm enjoying about Erica, which is one of the same things I love about Juliet, is that she, every day of her life, believes if she is not fully on, not fully functioning, she is going to let people down and the world will come to an end. She actively puts herself in the line of fire. I think it takes a special kind of person to do that, and that, combined with Erica being a mother, is very interesting to me.

And she says originally Juilet wasn't supposed to be back this season on Lost at all — until the producers changed their minds for some reason. [Boston Herald]

And here's a new character we'll be meeting in episode three:

[HENRY MARLOW] Male. Late 30s. Open Ethnicity. Scruffy but fit. Brilliant. Has a good sense of humor and an adventurous spirit. He's British.

[SpoilerTV]

Supernatural:

There are no plans for either of the Winchester boys ever to have a meaningful relationship with a member of the opposite sex. [EW]

Another thing there are no plans for? A return by Genevieve Cortese, playing New Ruby. (Which people are taking to mean Ruby is gone for good as well.) [E! Online]

Smallville:

if you're a Clark-Lois shipper, you should watch to the very last second of the first episode, to catch something exciting. And apparently when Lois returns from the future, she thinks she has amnesia, and keeps catching flashes of something — but it's actually something more sinister haunting her, which comes to a head in episode nine, "Pandora." And it gives Clark a clue as to how he can defeat Zod.

As for Clark, he doesn't exactly go dark — he just has to grapple with the responsibilities he's taken on, and figure out how he can still have a life. And his relationship wtih Chloe will keep suffering, because he's busy and she's upset over her lost love. Meanwhile, Ollie will get a "very sympathetic sidekick" who may be familiar to comics fans. And finally, someone from the future is trying to kill Clark — not one of our regular castmembers, but someone closer to home. [E! Online]

True Blood:

In the final episodes of the season, you'll see an interesting division between the characters — in particular, keep an eye on those characters for whom the supernatural events are "not quite as super," because those people are different from the other characters. And those differences will be explored in the following seasons. [TV Guide]

We won't learn what Sookie's new power is this season. As for who saves Sam from Maryann, rumor has it he takes refuge with Eric and Pam at Fangtasia in Shreveport. And Maryann finally gets vanquished by a "group effort." And apparently vampire queen Sophie is hooked up with Sookie's cousin Hadley Hale. [E! Online]

Warehouse 13:

Here are some pics from episode 11, "Nevermore". [SpoilerTV]

Heroes:

Even though Tracy is believed to be dead and is also going around being a serial killer, she's also working in politics again. Says Tim Kring:

Tracy goes back to her old life working on the Hill, only to discover that she's no longer driven by the same shallow rewards. She wants to make a difference in peoples' lives.

She can't make a difference by being a serial killer? [EW]

We've mentioned that Matt Parkman has Sylar in his brain thanks to that botched mind meld at the end of season three, but apparently there will be lots of scenes of Matt seeing a "ghost" Sylar that nobody else can see. And Matt yells "Shut up!" at his imaginary Sylar, and everyone else thinks he's nuts. And as we mentioned, Sylar kidnaps Matt's son to get his body back.

Also, at some point, Sylar is running from the cops (having gotten his body back?) and winds up at the carnival, where they shelter him. He does some menial work, but then gets into a pissing match with Edgar (Ray Park) who throws knives at him using super-speed. So Sylar has to whip out his own abilities. [IGN]

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown.

The graphic novel doesn't exactly adapt the movie, but instead works around it; we see some events in the movie from the perspective of Jennifer's victims, although we also get a prologue and epilogue from Jennifer's perspective herself. It's an interesting take on the tie-in format, and offers up a lot of potential for adding something to the movie - but, ultimately, it remains an additional part to the movie, as opposed to something that stands alone (It also seems to reveal the ending - or, at least, an ending - to the movie, which seems somewhat counter-intuitive, considering that the movie isn't released for another month. Maybe it should come with a note to skip the last chapter until you've seen the movie).

Storywise, what's on offer is a catalog of male teen neuroses and inability to see women as anything other than... well, "other" - Each narrator objectifies Jennifer, and sees her as something that would either solve some problem or magically improve their life in some ill-defined way, and the interest of the book is as much in the different ways in which each character does that (Will she cure the jock's shrunken testicle problem? Does she "understand" the introverted emo kid because she listens to the same music?) as it is in the dark comedy of high school politics that it wants to be. The problem is, the book objectifies Jennifer just as much as any of the characters; the few Jennifer-narrated sequences aside - and even then, she comes across as little more than a generic evil demon cliche - Jennifer is only in this book as a killing machine or an thing to lust over. She isn't given any depth or attention at all, and neither are any of the book's other female characters; it's really only all about the boys.

What the book becomes, then, is this odd thing where we're shown that objectifying women is wrong, but that women are also not really anything other than lust objects, killers, or plot devices of some shape or form. That's not entirely helped by the art, which goes between Frank Cho's cheesecake cover and Jim Mahfood's gloriously cartoony take in the first chapter (See top image for an example). The mix of artists and art styles helps reinforce the episodic nature of Rick Spears' writing, but not enough; Mahfood is the most extreme example of variety, and I ended up wishing we'd had more artists that took similar chances.

Despite all of this, though, there's something engaging about the book. Spears' take on the characters allows you to feel movie scriptwriter Diablo Cody's touch, but also harkens back to Kevin Williamson's work on Scream, or the movie The Faculty, and even with all the problems surrounding the book's confused sexual politics, there's something winning about not only the victims' inner turmoil, but also seeing them get dispatched in their individual manners. More than anything, though, the book achieves its main purpose without breaking a sweat - By being so confused, and leaving Jennifer (and Needy, her best friend, who plays an important role in the book later on) so vague and incomplete, it leaves me wanting to see the movie, in order to find out if there's more to this story than meets the eye. I'm just trying to work out if I should feel cheated about that or not.

Jennifer's Body is out on September 18th.

Doctor Who

A poster at Gallifrey Base claims to have gotten a good look inside the new TARDIS set, which we'll see in 2010. Supposedly, the interior of the TARDIS will have two different levels, joined by a spiral staircase, and we'll be seeing a console room, a lab area, a sitting room, a long corridor, and "numerous other little nooks and crannies." The set is designed to be modular, so that pieces of the set can be moved around and double as other parts of the ship, when we visit other rooms inside the TARDIS.

The console room itself is a shaped like a hexagon attached to a square rather than being circular, the color theme is mostly silver and gold, and the coral finish has been replaced with marble. The roundels decorating the walls are now inverted hemispheres, and while they appear throughout the set, they do not appear on every wall. The roundels have different color schemes for each room: gold in the console room, silver, gray, and blue in the lab, and brown in the sitting room.

You should, of course, take this with several truckloads of grains of salt. [Gallifrey Base, Thanks Bluehinter!]

Iron Man 2

As we've mentioned, Sam Rockwell's character, Justin Hammer, is actually a fan of Tony Stark, but doesn't get the attention he craves from Tony. But Rockwell tells Comic Book Resources that Hammer is also "in cahoots with a couple of people," and "kind of a shyster." And when Hammer feels deprived of Tony's attention, "that's where I think it starts to go wrong for Justin a little bit." He also says that Hammer is more insecure and ambitious than Tony Stark, which may be his downfall. [Comic Book Resources]

Zombieland

In the international trailer, we get a few more of Columbus's rules for surviving the zombie apocalypse and some hints of Jesse Eisenberg/Emma Stone romance:

The Lovely Bones

A new image shows another surreal image from Heaven as Susie Salmon looks out at a figure in the gazebo where she goes to watch the living world:

[MTV Movies Blog]

The Hobbit

Supposedly, the role of Bilbo Baggins has been cast, though just who will play the fur-footed protagonist hasn't been revealed. Some fans speculate it might be Martin Freeman, who played Tim in the UK version of The Office. [Cinema Blend]

Astro Boy

The final poster for Astro Boy has been released:

[CinemaBlend]

Gamer:

Gerard Butler explains the philosophy behind this living-video-game movie: Gamer is "a comment on science, technology, medicine and entertainment. ... How far away are we from people actually saying, 'We can create that. We can create a mini-war every day on our TVs and use people that are useless to us.'" And there's a scene where his character, Kable, confronts his nemesis (played by Terry Crews) stepping out of an elevator — and Kable pounces on him. [USA Today]

Paul:

Jason Batemen explains his character, federal agent Lorenzo Zoil:

He is the government agent that is sent to go out and grab Paul the alien and drag him back to Area 51. He's a very humorless and expressionless government agent, very similar to either Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive or even Men in Black and also Yaphet Kotto in Midnight Run. I've got a couple of ne'er-do-well deputies, Joe Lo Truglio and Bill Hader. It's just really, really fun. It's a road movie. These guys, Simon, Nick and Paul, are in a motor home, and I'm in a late-model black Crown Victoria in hot pursuit.

And he says they did one take of a scene where Zoil says his full name and suddenly realizes that his own name is a joke on "Lorenzo's Oil," and one take where he doesn't. [Sci Fi Wire]

Eclipse

Some blurry set photos have surfaced of Bryce Dallas Howard as Victoria seducing Xavier Samuel's Riley:

[Lainey Gossip]

Supernatural

The fifth episode, which will feature Paris Hilton, was known on audition and draft scripts as "Celebrity Skin," but has been officially titled "Fallen Idol." [Spoiler TV]

True Blood

A still from Sunday's episode shows Bill hanging by the pool with Evan Rachel Wood's character, Queen Sophie. But what's up with the sunglasses?

[True Blood Net]

Chuck

New Malibu-based set photos from the first two episodes of the season indicate that Zachary Levi does, eventually, lose the beard:

[Chuck TV]

Smallville

In the seventh episode "Crossfire," Clark accompanies Lois when she auditions to host a television show on WGBS, "Good Morning, Metropolis." The show's producer recognizes the chemistry between Lois and Clark, and decides he won't hire one without the other. As a bit for the show, Lois and Clark are each set up on dates with other people, with Lois talking into an earbud in Clark's ear on his date and vice versa. Although Lois teases Clark that his admission that he grew up on a farm will earn him either a country mouse or a cougar for a date, he actually ends up dining with a stunning blonde, who leaves Lois shocked and jealous. Lois is intent on making Clark just as jealous during her date, but apparently ends up tipsy as Clark at some point whispers in her ear "The last thing you need is a drink, Lois." At the end of Lois' date, Clark tells her date he's a lucky man, which pleases Lois.

At some point during the episode, Tess is in Zod's mansion, and Zod tells one of his people that if Tess won't reveal who the Blur is, he should kill her. Also, Oliver will meet Mia "Speedy" Dearden, who wears an awful lot of red and yellow. She also happens to be a hooker with a nasty tattooed pimp named Rick, and Oliver tells her he wants to help her. And when she takes Oliver out in his Lamborghini, he jokingly calls her "Speedy." Oliver will also briefly meet up with Lois and the Ace of Clubs. [KryptonSite]

Better Off Ted

In the sixth episode "What Lies Beneath," Veridian Dynamics decides to genetically match up employees with their perfect romantic partners, figuring that they will produce children that will cost the company less money. Ted is matched up with the beautiful and charming Danielle, and though he is initially resistant to Veridian's plan, he finds himself falling for her. Meanwhile, Linda is matched with Greg, who is also attractive and charming, but has one tiny little eccentricity. When working for Veridian makes him feel small and insecure (as it would anyone), he dresses in a bear suit and goes to the park to make himself feel mighty. And a receptionist at the Veridian health clinic has difficulty keeping Phil's medical records from Veronica. [Spoiler TV]

Heroes

The eighth episode of the new season will be called "Once Upon a Time in Texas" — perhaps the episode where Hiro goes back in time to save his sweetheart Charlie? [HeroSite]

Defying Gravity

It's Halloween in stills from the seventh episode, "Fear:"

[Spoiler TV]

Eastwick

In the fifth episode, Roxie will fill in for Bun, the Eastwick tour guide, when he suffers a bout of memory loss. She may not be the best choice, though, as the tourists question her historical accuracy, and at least one thinks she's an outright weirdo when she has a vision mid-tour. One of the tourists also asks about Eastwick's tradition of burning coffins at Halloween to symbolize the release of burdens.

Apparently, the tradition doesn't go well, because later Roxie screams that there is someone in the fire. She begs a fireman to put the fire out, but he misunderstands her because of the loud music playing at the Halloween celebration.

Also during this episode, Kat and Joanna have a fight after Kat kisses Will, which Mrs. Greenberg, an elderly patient at the hospital where Kat works, overhears. Mrs. Greenberg then steps in with her two cents. And Penny approaches a group of folks outside the Eastwick Cafe and asks them if they've seen Joanna recently. When one boy, looking at Joanna's picture, comments that he'd "tap" that, Penny retorts that he's never tapped anything other than himself. [Spoiler TV]

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown and Charlie Jane Anders.

But we'll get to that comic soon enough. Instead, let's start with Kevin Smith's return to the Dark Knight, in Batman: The Widening Gyre — the first of two mini-series he's doing with the character in an attempt to make some money in-between making movies starring Seth Rogen.

If that isn't enough movie action for you, then don't worry, Boom! Studios has you covered and then some. The first issue of the official 28 Days Later comic offers slow burn and foreboding, but also some fast-paced action to keep your interest. And the Jennifer's Body graphic novel lets you experience the new Megan Fox horror movie in a way that is completely unlike anything you'd expect, thanks to some great artwork from people like Jim Mahfood and Nikki Cook.

DC offers up some great (and diverse) takes on superheroes this week, with The Authority: World's End, Vol. 1, opening up with the day after the end of the world and providing some suitably dark post-apocalyptic stories from that point on. If you'd rather see a happier version of humanity's dark side, 1950s reprint book Showcase Presents: Eclipso gives you a glimpse at the man who can become his own worst enemy, thanks to a magically-powered evil diamond (No, really). And Gail Simone and Nicola Scott's Secret Six: Unhinged almost grabs the Book Of The Week title with its wonderfully screwed-up take on the former supervillains who now operate in the even murkier world of moral ambiguity and professional mercenaryness; funny, disturbing and gripping, it's highly recommended.

However, very little in the world of comics today can measure up to Brandon Graham, and particular King City, his tale of one boy and his magic cat. After original publisher Tokyopop pulled the series after its first volume, Graham is back with a revised version at new publisher Image. Make no mistake: This comic is entirely individual, entirely enjoyable, and easily the sexiest thing you'll find yourself reading this week. And it also has a cat that can do anything, given the right drugs. How could you even vaguely resist?

If that's not enough for you, you can always check Diamond Distributors' official list of everything reaching comic stores this week for other booty, or just go ask your local comic store what they recommend. Just make sure that King City #1 is amongst your reading pile. You can thank me later.

Superman:

James McTeigue, the rumored director of the next Superman movie, continues to make vague, forboding statements. This time, he says he thinks "the culture has sort of changed a little bit around Superman," and the next Superman movie "would have to be something a little darker." [MTV]

Iron Man 2:

We already linked to Kevin Feige's interview with Comic Book Resources where he talks about the Avengers, but there's also a bit where he said the climax to the second Iron Man movie will be a bit more spectacular and large-scale than the first one was. "On the highway and the rooftop in the last movie was great and the connection between Jeff [Bridges] and Robert was great but we wanted to give it a little more spectacle this time around for the finale." [Comic Book Resources]

Jennifer's Body:

Megan Fox sets her tongue on fire in a new image from the film. More images (from this film, as well as some other upcoming fall movies) at the link. [MTV]

Zombieland:

Jesse Eisenberg finally gets some quality time alone with his hot neighbor, in this clip – and if you don't see where this scene is going, you've never seen a zombie film. [MTV]

Spielberg's untitled alien invasion project:

This Dreamworks TV series (or miniseries) for TNT has got to get a catchier title. But anyway, it's filming now in Hamilton, Ontario, with star Noah Wylie playing someone who fights alien invaders. And the spoilery bit is that they're filming a lot at the Royal Botanical Gardens. So is there some kind of plant-themed menace here? Or are they hiding out in a garden? [THR]

Heroes:

The studio sent us a new picture of Hayden Panettiere, looking particularly squashed, from episode 4x02, "Jump, Push, Fall." [NBC]

Also, more about Jayma Mays coming back to the show — apparently, the original plan is: Hiro jumps back to the diner where Charlie works, and this time he succeeds in killing Sylar. This screws up the timeline, but it means Hiro can meet Charlie in a Tokyo bar later. (But this plan may be changed before this storyline gets filmed.) And meanwhile, Claire will be rushing a sorority at her new college. [E! Online]

Warehouse 13:

The guest stars keep coming. Looks like Joe Morton will be guest-starring in episode nine, and Mark Sheppard will pop up in episode 10. Yay! [SpoilerTV]

Supernatural:

Rogue angel Anna will be in the second episode of the new season, and is slated for more appearances after that. [E! Online]

Chuck:

There are no plans for us to find out Sarah Walker's real name, says Yvonne Strahovski. [E! Online]

Actor Matthew Bomer says it's possible he could still return as Bryce, and he doesn't believe Bryce is really dead. [ChuckTV]

True Blood:

Maryann won't stop coming for Sam, because she needs a sacrifice for her god. And Sam thinks maybe he should just give himself up, to spare everyone else in Bon Temps harm. But a savior is riding to Sam's aid. [E! Online]

Star Wars: The Clone Wars:

A new image from season two shows Cad Bane — the bounty hunter so wicked, both his names are naughty — leading his drones. [Lucasfilm]

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown.