Based on a comic book, ZMD sounds appropriately awesome for Blackman and McCain. According to Hollywood Reporter:

The comic, created by Kevin Grevioux ("Underworld"), follows an elite team of soldiers sent on a covert operation into hostile territory in the Middle East to stop what they soon discover to be a government-created army of the undead.

Apparently the zombies are "photosensitive," i.e., vampire-like in their aversion to light (which makes sense given that Grevioux the vampy is involved). They are part of an experimental weapons program developed in the US to destroy the enemy at night, but one gets loose in the Middle East and soldiers have to come in to stop it before it goes all Zombie Strippers on everybody's ass. (If you'll recall, Zombie Strippers is also about a zombie experiment to create soldiers in the Middle East that goes awry.)

Blackman and McCain were hired by production company Benderspink, which is also working on Y the Last Man.

via Quiet Earth

Panspermia is the term for the most scientifically plausible version of this concept, but it isn't necessarily what science fiction usually presents. The panspermia hypothesis holds that the building blocks of life are not found exclusively on planetary bodies but are instead found scattered throughout the cosmos, and it is these spaceborne particles that are at least partly responsible for life on Earth. There's a little circumstantial evidence for the theory (although far, far more to support the reliable old "Life comes from Earth" hypothesis), and there is something undeniably fascinating about the subtext – the aliens are already here, and we are they. But science fiction barely ever depicts the actual theory of panspermia, mostly because it's just a physical process that takes billions of years to play out and is pretty boring unless you're willing to get really mystical.

What science fiction more properly deals with is exogenesis, which simply states that humanity or its genetic ancestors didn't always live on Earth. That generally means one of two things – either an ancient alien race introduced life to a previously dead Earth (sometimes as part of a larger directed panspermia project) or a bunch of humans from some other civilization colonized Earth, a fact that somehow slipped the minds of their descendants (you know…us). Plenty of science fiction deals with both, including two of the big science fictions works currently in the news. (The occasional spoiler may lie ahead.)

Outlander
One of the most satisfying little details of everybody's favorite Vikings vs. aliens epic is its answer to why Jim Caviezel's character, the alien Kainan, looks exactly like the Norsemen and how he can possibly speak their language.Outlander solves both of these problems by revealing Earth is an "abandoned seed colony" of Kainan's spacefaring civilization. Unfortunately, the whole notion that Earth was colonized by an interstellar race really opens up a far bigger plot hole than the one it was meant to fill. After all, Kainan's people would have had to have "seeded" Earth eons ago. If they could pull off planetary engineering on that sort of scale way back then, you'd think they wouldn't have so much trouble with a bunch of bioluminescent dragons. In the end, it's probably best not to think too much about the logistics of the whole abandoned seed colony concept. Because, ultimately, the very inclusion of the idea in the first place is, like so much of Outlander, awesome.

Battlestar Galactica
In both the original and new versions of the series, humans originally came from Kobol, the legendary planet of the gods, and Earth is just the fabled lost colony. The new series is busy dealing with Earth, so it's entirely possible a couple "What the frak?" moments still lie ahead that will reveal humanity actually did come from Earth. The original series, however, left no doubt that Kobol was where we all came from, as the no-budget god-awfulness that is Galactica 1980 established contact between the Galactica and contemporary Earth. Flying motorcycle chases ensued.

Star Trek
The Next Generation episode "The Chase" sought to acknowledge and explain the genetic improbability of a galaxy full of nothing but humanoid aliens with rubber foreheads. The solution – ancient aliens who, upon finding themselves all alone in the galaxy, seeded various planets with their genetic codes – is surprisingly deft, and actually turns a three-decade failure of imaginations and budgets into something almost elegaic. As one would expect, Picard takes this existence-altering revelation in his usual stride, while the Cardassians look a bit grumpy.

Stargate
Honestly, between all the genetic engineering, forced relocations of ancient humans, and universe-altering civil wars between godlike aliens it all gets a bit difficult to keep track of which species actually came from where. In short, a bunch of plague-decimated demigods maybe used this thing called the Dakara superweapon millions of year ago to shoot their genetic information throughout the Milky Way, which maybe had something to do with humanity's evolution. Or maybe not.

Babylon 5
Since we might as well finish off the sweep of nineties science fiction, the Centauri initially tried to dismiss Earth as one of their lost colonies. Sure, this probably wasn't true, but how else are you going to haze the new interstellar species?

Isaac Asimov
Most aliens seem to create life on Earth for slightly more practical (well, relatively speaking) reasons than the Star Trek aliens' "monument to our existence." Asimov imagined Earth as an eons-old alien experiment not once but twice – in "Jokester", the aliens did it to explore the concept of humor, while in "Breeds there a Man…?" the aliens are engaged in a more vague exercise in genetics. There’s also "Death Sentence", where an anthropologist for the Galactic Federation discovers that a previous civilization created a planet of robots as part of a larger psychological experiment. Realizing the Federation will surely have to destroy the planet as a potential threat, he decides to take his dire warning to one of the robots' biggest cities: New York.

Wildstorm Comics
The Kherubim people sent their genetic seed throughout the universe in a bid to conquer the universe without their genetic descendants even knowing it, which they then followed up by actually conquering much of the universe.

Ringworld, by Larry Niven
It turns out we're all part of a larger plan by the Pak race to create a galaxy full of ultra-lethal, ultra-intelligent superhumans. Apparently, the plan failed because there wasn't enough of the right kind of fruit.

Mission to Mars
In this Brian de Palma stinker, a bunch of Martians that didn't flee their dying planet shot the neighboring Earth – then a barren chunk of rock – full of the building blocks of life because…um, because they wanted to take Gary Sinise on a tour of the universe? (And that was probably the least nonsensical part of that movie.)

Salvage Rites, by Eric Brown
One of the very few times when a race made from directed panspermia confronts their creators, this short story finds a group of Benedictine monks in a cathedral-shaped starship seeking out what is, for all intents and purposes, God.

South Park
In easily the most awesome use of the concept, the anniversary episode “Canceled” revealed Earth for what it really is – one giant reality show. At least in South Park, someone is actually bothering to watch.

Starliner, by David Drake
In this 1992 novel, the narrator explains that no one bats an eyelid at botanists cross-breeding plants from different worlds because panspermia is "no longer a hypothesis but simple observation." Not the most earth-shattering application of panspermia, but still.

Ej-es by Nancy Kress
A rather less mundane spin on that same idea, as members of an interstellar marine corps realize a deadly plague on one planet threatens all the intelligent species in the universe – because panspermia makes them all genetically related.

Doctor Who
The classic "City of Death" features a more accidental case of aliens creating life on Earth. In the midst of all the ridiculously complex art forgery, random acts of violence, Monty Python cameos, and endless location shots that prove the thing really was shot in Paris, writer Douglas Adams somehow squeezes in the origin of all life on Earth. As it turns out, an exploding Jaggaroth ship kickstarted the whole "life" thing. That was nice of them.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
Speaking of Douglas Adams, his most famous work envisions the noblest version of the alien-built Earth. Indeed, the emphasis here is on "built", as Earth is not a planet at all but instead a ten million year old computer program supervised by hyper-dimensional mice designed to determine the question to life, the universe, and everything. Of course, as is so often the case, this wondrous philosophical pursuit was interrupted by a bunch of hairdressers, TV producers, and telephone sanitizers from the planet Golgafrincham, who obliviously managed to replace the native humans and almost wreck the entire program. All of which rather neatly leads us back to wandering, forgetful colonists.

The Hainish Cycle, by Ursula K. Le Guin
In ancient times, colonizers from the planet Hain came to Earth and, for a time, coexisted with its native hominids. Whether the settlers ultimately killed the native Earthlings or simply bred them out of existence is anybody's guess, but the Hainish now consider modern humans their descendants.

Women of the Prehistoric Planet
This MST3K entry builds a whole parable of post-War American-Japanese relations around two rival alien races, time dilation, and giant iguanas, with plenty of sixties-era chauvinism left to go around. After a whole lot of silliness (as that previous sentence probably suggested) the marooned lovers Tang and Linda settle down on the titular prehistoric planet, which they decide to call…well, I think you can guess, but it rhymes with "Mirth."

Earthsearch
The classic BBC radio series had one of the best twists on this idea, as the four teenaged survivors of the massive starship Challenger search for Earth-like planets to colonize. It's slowly revealed that the planet they call Earth has some rather unrecognizable geography, but that the Earth-like planet they finally do discover, with its saltwater oceans covering two-thirds of the planet, sounds very familiar.

The Twilight Zone
But stories don't get much more familiar than the 1963 episode "Probe 7, Over and Out." Astronaut Adam Cook finds himself stranded on a faraway planet just as nuclear war is breaking out back home. He encounters Eve Norda, an alien who cannot understand his language. The pair ultimately agrees to start a new life together on the planet that Eve keeps calling "Irth." Judging by their first names, I’m guessing they'll do just fine.

Outlander co-writer/producer Dirk Blackman posted on his blog that the movie is adding some more cities to its run this weekend. It's not clear how many of the cities from its opening weekend it's sticking around in, but if you live in one of these places, your Viking ship is in:
1. Mobile-Pensacola , AL
2. Knoxville, TN
3. Huntsville-Decatur, Fl
4. Greensboro-H. Point-W. Salem , NC
5. Dothan, AL
6. Cleveland , OH
7. Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY
And yes, it's hitting Huntsville-Decatur, but New York City or Los Angeles. The WTF continues!

I won't pretend to you that Outlander is the kind of movie that will transform your soul and fill you with a new appreciation of what it means to be human. Go see Wall-E or 2001 if you want that, OK? Tonight go to see the movie that is so badass, so unapologetically fun, that the characters actually fight a battle with swords forged from the hull of a spaceship.

Look me in the eye and tell me that you haven't at some point dreamed of a giant fucking sword made from indestructable space material. Well, maybe it's just me.

The story behind the alien smackdown in Outlander is suprisingly fresh and original. It takes place in eighth century Norway, at the height of Viking civilization, which is about to be menaced by a creature who looks like something out of Norse mythology. It turns out that Earth is a former seed colony of an interplanetary civilization - and that civilization has just returned to our planet with a vengeance. Humans' space-going counterparts have been terraforming a planet filled with glowing, dragony creatures called the Moorwen, and unfortunately they decided to do it via genocide and fire.

But the Moorwen strike back, killing many of the colonists. And one of the extremely pissed Moorwen has survived by stowing away on a ship piloted by our hero Kainan (Jim Caviezel), which he's flying home to bury the bodies of his dead family. His stowaway has other plans, however, and after a scuffle we never see his ship crashes in a lake near two Viking villages. Now it's Kainan vs. Moorwen on an alien world - Earth. What follows is an occasionally slow, but mostly exciting and gorgeous exercise in world-building.

I think what I was most impressed by, aside from the generally excellent special effects on the monster, was the way filmmakers Howard McCain and Dirk Blackman show us how easily a space-traveler fits into the world of the sea-faring Vikings. Unlike many of their medieval contemporaries, the Vikings had mastered the art of traveling hundreds of miles over the sea, and often crossed the ocean to countless islands (including England) for raiding and colonization. So when Kainan first encounters the Viking band he eventually teams up with, he tells them the truth about his situation. He says he was on his way to an outpost when his ship crashed, carrying a "dragon" that had destroyed his village.

Because the Vikings understand the idea of ships traveling great distances, they accept his tale - though of course they think he's traveled the ocean rather than from the stars.

Most of the movie is, in fact, about Kainan becoming a Viking. I think probably this whole middle section of the movie, where the Vikings fight a bear and a rival gang, is what has put many critics of the film off. They're looking for something like Aliens when in fact McCain and Blackman have explained that the movie is much more along the lines of Beowulf or Lord of the Rings. If it weren't for a few scenes where Kainan uses high tech equipment from his ship (including making the swords at the end), and some flashbacks to the Moorwen world, this could really be a Viking epic with a dragon instead of an alien.

But the fact that the dragon is an alien, and that the man the Vikings call "outlander" is in fact a space-traveler, lifts Outlander head and shoulders above your typical D&D ripoff tale. This is an action-adventure that shows how some dangers transcend both space and time. And it reminds us that space operas have a lot in common with medieval epics.

There are also some surprisingly good performances here, too. As Kainan's rival and friend Wulfric, Jack Huston is funny and lithe (and looks good in fur); and John Hurt plays King Rothgar with cool gravity. Sophia Miles plays Freya, Rothgar's sword-wielding daughter, who manages to kick major monster ass while wearing a dress that will be all the rage at the next SCA gathering near you.

Of course there are groan-worthy moments - it's a freakin monster movie. There's a scene of drunken Viking revelry that goes on waaaay too long, and the movie does admittedly take a bit too long to get down to the Viking vs. alien action. But once it does, you'll be beating your chest and demanding another barrel of the monster mead this flick serves up.

The point is that if you want a great example of the alien smackdown genre, Outlander will please the hell out of you. It's a fresh, original take on a timeworn topic that's been ruined by many giant Hollywood movies with budgets four times bigger than Outlander's. And did I mention the giant sword? Made out of a spaceship? Holy crap I love this movie.

We were starting to wonder if Outlander would ever open in U.S. theaters, after it had showings around Europe last year but nothing was scheduled in the U.S. But the delay in getting the film released here was just the tail-end of a long struggle by co-writers McCain (who directed it) and Blackman (who produced it.)

Outlander tells the story of an alien (Jim Caviezel) who crashes on Earth, near a Viking town. And with him comes the Moorwen, a deadly monster that threatens to kill everyone in its path — if Caviezel's character can't enlist the Vikings to help him. Also starring in the film are Sophia (Doctor Who) Myles, John Hurt and Ron "Hellboy" Perlman.

Their mission to create a viking-alien adventure story began years ago — they had both read Beowulf in high school and loved it, unlike most of their peers. So they wanted to make a Beowulf-esque saga. Early drafts of the script actually named the hero Beowulf and the monster Grendel. But their Hollywood agent, "in true Hollywood style," told them nobody wanted a Beowulf movie.

Since then, of course, there's been Michael Crichton's Beowulf clone The 13th Warrior, the Robert Zemeckis Beowulf, and an Icelandic version, among others. But by that time, McCain and Blackman had already revamped their script to make the Beowulf references less overt.

They wanted to have an alien and his monster foe crashland in Viking times, because it removed the whole issue of historical accuracy from their "historical epic." Whether or not you can believe there was a monster named Grendel, anybody can tell that a crashed spaceship is made up.

Over time, the studio execs pressured Blackman and McCain to change some of the more authentic Viking names. And in every development meeting, Blackman and McCain had to explain that their Vikings would not have horned helmets, they wouldn't be goofy, and this wasn't going to be something out of Asterix.

The story McCain and Blackman ended up with clearly borrowed from Lord Of The Rings — another epic that nobody was considering filming, back then. And since LOTR lifted heavily from Beowulf, "we cribbed from a cribber. We stole from the best, who was already stealing," says McCain. "We knew what we were doing. For better or worse, whether anybody likes the movie or not, we knew what we were stealing from."

They also did tons of research into Viking culture — an earlier draft of the script spent way more time going into local Viking politics, including blood feuds and a battle over the throne. "There was a deeper tapestry." Blackman and Howard amassed a four-inch thick notebook with a D-ring binder, full of notes on belt buckles, tattoos, sword hilts, buildings and hairpins. They visited the Viking ship museum in Norway and took copious notes. In the end, of course, they had to decide which details to represent faithfully and which to sacrifice for the sake of a good story.

"It's a monster movie," says Blackman. "You're not there to recreate history, you're there to create a world that's fun to enter into and live in."

Their dedication extends to including some of the Viking warfare and politicking — plus a fight with a bear — before Caviezel's character even shows up. That way, you feel as though it's a real world, which was already having a life before the story begins.

The duo had a stroke of luck, when they managed to get Ninth Ray studios, a group of artists formerly from Pixar and ILM, to work on art and designs for the movie. (Including some of the concept art featured with this interview.) Ninth Ray had just done a first pass on a John Carter Of Mars movie, and had time to work on Outlander. So by the time the film actually had a budget, it already had detailed designs for every prop and building. (See more of that stuff here.)

One of the great parts of the film is that when Caviezel's alien visitor shows up, the Vikings pretty much understand him right away. They get the idea of his ship having crashed, and the fact that he's hunting a monster. McCain argues that the Vikings would have been pretty cosmopolitan — they had raped and pillaged so many other cultures, and traded with so many as well, that they had an idea of what other cultures were like. Vikings reached as far as Constantinople and Africa. Plus they had a rich mythic life, including valkyries as well as dragons.

On the other hand, Blackman says, if E.T. had visited the Vikings, "they would have eaten him."

In coming up with the Moorwen, the alien monster Caviezel and the Vikings fight, Blackman and McCain were mindful that only a few classic alien monsters had beocme icons, like Giger's alien and the Predator. So they came up with the idea of making the creature bioluminescent — something they think will also turn up in James Cameron's Avatar later this year. And they focused on giving the creature a rich backstory. But then they were lucky enough to have input from Patrick Tatopoulos, who worked on Dark City, I Am Legend and several other big films.

They wanted the creature to look like it could fit into the more natural world of the Vikings, as opposed to Giger's alien, which looked more mechanical and could only look at home in a world of conduits. "We had to thread a needle where it looks like an alien, but it could actually have a presence in the Viking world," and the Vikings could mistake it for a dragon.

The Moorwen also got some backstory, as we learned that humans had destroyed the Moorwen's homeworld. The Moorwen becomes more of a sympathetic character — right before everyone goes back to trying to kill it. Blackman and McCain said they wanted to add some depth to the storyline, and make Caviezel's space traveler less of a clear-cut good guy. In an earlier draft of the screenplay, the monster actually talks towards the end, so you realize it's not just a mindless beast. You have to feel for the Moorwen a bit, just like you feel sorry for King Kong.

"We may still have to kill it, but it's not entirely a good thing," says Blackman.

They also wanted to include a bit of a political message about invading other people's homelands and stirring up trouble — even though when they first wrote the script, Bill Clinton was still president, they felt it was a timeless theme about the "cycle of violence" perpetuating itself.

So is Outlander an action movie? A horror movie? A monster movie? An adventure film? I asked, and it turned out Blackman and McCain have been arguing this exact same point for years, partly in the process of figuring out how to market their baby. "We had a lot of deep arguments, ten years ago," says McCain. Blackman is very clear in his own mind that it's an adventure film, but McCain sees it as more of a monster movie with adventure elements.

But their biggest genre influence, originally, in coming up with the story, was all of the Chinese movies of the 1980s and early 1990s. "All those Chinese action movies, where they'll throw in everything," says Blackman. "I mean, there's gods and there's demons and there's kung fu fighting, and when we thought about that, we decided, 'what'll be fun?'... There was a certain amount of influence there, in terms of saying, 'Okay, we'll have some mythology, we'll have some scifi. Why not?'" But unlike some of those Chinese films, they think they found a narrative thread that ties it all together.

They're still sad that the film was kept out of the U.S. for so long, and didn't get a wider release. This weekend, it's opening in a bunch of cities around the country, but not L.A. or New York. The film did really well in Spain, "a country which isn't known for loving its Viking films," where it made $3 million on 200 screens. If it had opened wide in the U.S., and gotten a similar per-screen average, it could have made $30 million. It's not impossible that its U.S. run could get bigger if the film does well in its first weekend. (So tell your friends!) At this point, though, they mostly hope it gets a new life on DVD.

Meanwhile, the duo also have another movie opening this weekend — they rewrote the script for Underworld III: The Rise Of The Lycans. They were involved with a Conan reimagining that's still looking for a director. They have a World War II film, based on a true story, in development. And they're talking about a host of other genre projects. Let's hope their next movie doesn't take another 18 years to come out.

First, the Dead Snow poster, courtesy of Rushprint, is glorious — and if you're curious as to what role the chain saw plays in this whole snowy undead third reich pictures, you may want to check out this clip.

Next up, a new poster shows a close-up of James "Jesus" Caviezel in Outlander, where Caviezel crashes on Earth in Viking days. But unfortunately, he's not bringing tidings of comfort and joy — instead, he's got to gather allies to fight an alien foe, with iron-age weapons. And here's that new trailer:

We've been dying to see this movie all year - it's opened all over Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, but apparently was just too good for those of us in Canada and the States. At last the epic about a bunch of Vikings who fight a giant alien monster is set to arrive on Jan. 23 - or so Box Office Mojo promises. On the official Outlander blog, the creators write (a bit bitterly):

It seems that the Weinsteins have shoved the film off into their Third Rail releasing distribution arm where they send all the movies they don't care about. This isn't entirely surprising and fits comfortably with the Weinstein's reputation for being dismissive of genre films. For example they released Diary of the Dead under this label into a whole of 42 theaters...

While we don't have any details yet on how many theaters or where you will be able to see the film in the US, it's still fantastic that at least some of you will get to experience the film the way it was meant to be. And it also means it's one step closer for the rest of everyone else to get a chance.

The low-budget film has already made several million dollars in Europe, so it's doing pretty well for a film with no publicity and a lot of people in horned helmets meeting aliens. The concept is so cheesy/awesome, and the monsters in the clips we've seen look so cool, that I think Outlander is guaranteed to be a good time.

More clips at the link. [Outlander via Shocktillyoudrop]

The Outlander site denies any DVD talk but mentions a rather "small" theatrical release. Which usually means 15 screens, then the movie gets dumped to DVD. This would be a terrible idea, but this is what they say:

We'd like to reiterate that Outlander is *not* going direct to DVD. The nearest we can tell, no date has actually been set for the DVD release, so the Amazon listing is possibly spurious. Though they are taking preorders, don't expect to see the DVD come November 18th. And again, The Weinstein Company is contractually obligated to give Outlander a theatrical release. We don't yet know to what extent they'll do so (hopefully not on the level of Death Defying Acts), but we're hoping the reactions out of the fantasty filmfest spur them to action in this matter.

Would you buy the Outlander DVD? Or drive 100 miles to see it in the theater?

[Outlander Solesector]

Variety's Derek Elley says Outlander's, "screenplay hardly makes a convincing case for being set in the Viking Age rather than any other period," and that, "Hardcore genre fans will turn out, but word of mouth is likely to be pic's biggest enemy."

French film site Cinema also called the film slow and is bored by the monster hunt. Besides the slow moving plot Cinema also accuses Outlander of having an easy guess plot and that, The love story is obvious... and the actors' dialogues are filled with testosterone." Critics also said the film only picks up in the second half, when we finally see more of the monster.

The only one who had a positive thing to say about Outlander was The Hollywood Reporter, which called it, "entertaining nonsense."

These negative reviews hurt my heart. How could they mess this up? It's Vikings versus an alien, just let it happen! Or maybe people actually went to this movie to see something other than vikings fighting an alien? I know that I won't be going looking for the love story from Pride and Prejudice, but there had better be a whole lot of horned-helmeted Viking bluster, and alien gnashing of fangs.

[Outlander]

Star Trek:

Star Trek director J.J. Abrams was willing to reveal a few scraps of info about his film. The sequences featuring baby Spock and kid Kirk are not "flashbacks." And Leonard Nimoy is a major presence in the film. [Coming Soon]

Outlander:

Are you excited about Outlander, the Vikings vs. alien monster movie, yet? How about if we show you a second trailer, featuring a voice-over narration from Sophia (Doctor Who) Myles? How now?

Watchmen:

As we've reported before, the movie of Alan Moore's celebrated Watchmen graphic novel remains the same as the original, squid and all. [MTV Movies]

Transformers 2:

In Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, as we mentioned before, Megan Fox's character Mikaela is left behind in L.A. when Sam Witwicky goes off to college. But the two do finally reunite. And there are some hair-raising scenes where they're zooming along in Bumblebee, and he's going 120 miles per hour without anyone driving him, and with no seatbelts. [Sci Fi Wire]

The Dark Knight:

World's most minor spoiler: good cop Jim Gordon has a daughter who looks about eight or nine years old in the new Batman movie, and she has a creepy encounter with a supervillain. Could she be Barbara Gordon, fated to become Batgirl? Nobody's saying, probably because that's an issue for the ninth or tenth movie in the series. [MTV Movies]

Also, here are even more message-board spoilers. The Joker pretends to kill Rachel in an explosion, but instead he ties her up and burns her to death. (It's mostly off-camera.) The Joker kills a ton of mobsters and cops in gruesome ways, and there's a broadcast of him torturing a fake Batman to death which is pretty horrifying. You think the Joker is going to die, but then he survives. But Harvey/Two-Face does die at the end. [Agony Booth]

Heroes:

Volume III of Heroes would have focused on the actual villains of the show if the writers' strike hadn't happened, but the retooled version this fall will be much more about the good guys facing the temptation of their powers. And romance. There'll be lots of romance. And weird murals. And a turtle. And when Adam/Kensei comes back from being buried in that coffin, he'll be pretty pissed at Hiro. [TV Guide]

Life On Mars:

Some changes to the American version of the British cult hit Life On Mars. The time-traveling cop will be in New York, not Los Angeles as in the earlier U.S. pilot. And whereas the earlier pilot made it very clear that Sam is actually in a coma, and not really transported back to the 1970s, the new version will be much murkier. It'll get more mysterious and confusing as to what's really going on with Sam, in each passing episode. (Although it will eventually make sense, promise the producers, who worked on Alias and are aware of the perils of too much confusion.) [TV Guide again]

Doctor Who:

Yes, it's true. There will be Doctor Who spoilers every day between now and Christmas, when the British time-travel programme actually returns. Today, some crazy rumors about the 2009 one-off specials. One of the Doctor's companions will be a "heroic cyberman" (named five of eight perhaps?). One of the special episodes will take place entirely within the TARDIS, so we'll finally see the massive scope of the Doctor's craft. And we're not done with the Time War, by any means. [Veidt.com]

Chuck:

So we were lucky enough to dig up some actual script pages from the fifth and sixth episodes of the new season of spy-database-brain comedy Chuck. They're "casting sides," which means they're for audition purposes. But they appear to be actual pages from the scripts.

In the fifth episode, we start off in 1983, where Jeff Barnes, sporting a mullet and mustache, has just won the Moto Industries Missile Command championship. He's asked what's next for him. Flanked by two bikini babes, he says: Why decide, when I've got so many tasty options? Then it's 25 years later, and he's working at the Buy More, wistfully muttering to himself about his "tasty options."

Some terrorists have taken over Moto Industries. Casey and Chuck show up to infiltrate the place, and Chuck tries to use his nerd skills to talk his way in with the geeks up front. But the PhDs at Moto Industries are not impressed with Chuck's paltry nerd-fu. "Why don't you help some old lady log onto AOL or something?" So Sarah has to go in and flash some cleavage to get the nerds' attention. The nerds fall all over each other to help fix her computer. Meanwhile, Casey decides to sneak around, leaving Chuck where it's safe — but as soon as Casey's gone, a terrorist turns up. But Chuck talks his way into Mauro Moto's penthouse.

A Moto Industries satellite is going to destroy everything unless Chuck can get the control codes, which can only be found on the last level of every Missile Command game, as we explained before. Maury Moto explains that the mathematics underlying Missile Command are too complex for anyone else to reach that level: "the music of the universe." "As much as I loved making games, I hated making weapons," he adds. The terrorists have forced Maury to play Missile Command, so they can access those codes. "How many will die for my weakness?" he asks. But Maury has to keep playing the game, or it'll explode. "The kill screen doesn't end," he explains. So Chuck and Casey have to escape, leaving Maury to explode.

Casey mistakenly believes that anybody who was into Missile Command would now be in their 30s and have jobs, wives and kids, but Chuck mouths: "No they don't." Meanwhile, he sees a TV broadcast about someone trying to beat the Missile Command high-score record, and "flashes" on the information. He realizes the terrorists are using the local TV station to control the satellite. Sarah heads over there.

Jeff explains the secret of Missile Command is "all about patterns. Heavy duty math. Before I play, I like to listen to Rush, and when I listen to Rush, I like to partake of a certain 100% natural, but not altogether legal, herbal enhancer... It's gotta be outta this world." Meanwhile, literally out of this world, the satellite is preparing to strike. Morgan is jealous of all the attention Chuck is paying to Jeff. It turns out Rush's music follows the exact same time signature as the game. And Rush's sheet music is in the "intersect," the spy database in Chuck's head. Because they're Canadian.

But Morgan gets over his jealousy enough to announce Chuck on-stage, with flashing lights, as "the King Of Sting, the Dancing Destroyer," etc. Chuck jumps up on stage and brandishes a single quarter. Chuck loses the first time, to the amusement of a crowd of jeering nerds who call him "king of the losers." But then he gets Morgan to play some Rush, and this time he beats the game, reaching the "kill screen" and then "beating the kill screen," finally getting to the satellite codes.

Meanwhile, Sarah takes out two terrorists holding the TV relay station, catching one unawares with a bag of chips in his mouth. She catches both their machine guns and brandishes them. Chuck gets her the codes just in time to stop the countdown, as Casey is preparing to try and shoot the satellite down.

And then episode six starts off with a flashback to 2003, with Chuck wearing a slightly different version of the Buy More uniform. He's at a Tri Delt sorority party at Stanford, and people are whispering about how he got kicked out for "stealing." He insists he didn't cheat. Then he throws a pebble at his ex-girlfriend Jill's window. Her bitchy friend Shari opens the window and says that if Jill wanted to talk to Chuck, she would have answered his 28 phone calls. Chuck says it's only 20 phone calls, because for eight of them, he hung up before her voice mail picked up.

A bunch of frat guys gather around, and it's getting embarrassing. Chuck says he drove 346 miles on his break from his purely temporary job because he loves Liz. She finally pokes her head out and says "it's over." Chuck hopes she means the public conversation is over, to be replaced with a private chat at Starbucks. But no. She's dating Bryce Larkin now. "Deal with it," says Shari.

In the present day, Chuck is in a hotel conference center, when he spots Jill. He hides under the desk, and begs the hotel clerk to pull the fire alarm as a distraction, so he can get away. Then Jill walks up and asks for help setting up her computer. The hotel clerk gives up Chuck's location.

Chuck takes Jill out for a stroll and a fancy dinner, where everybody else in the restaurant is CIA. Casey is the maitre d', and this gives Chuck a chance to act like a big shot, giving Casey a rolled up dollar bill and patting his cheek. Sarah is the waitress. Just when Chuck is trying to convince Jill he's a big shot now, the rest of his Nerd Herd coworkers show up. He tries to pretend they're his ex-coworkers who just won't let go. Then a valet shows up with a Ferrari, and Chuck tries to pretend its his. Lester bursts his bubble: "He makes eleven dollars an hour at the Buy More. Do the math."

Some time after that, Chuck is standing outside the door of Jill's hotel room, giving a long speech about his life, and the fact that he rented a car he couldn't drive, because of the transmission, and his ability to quote movies, and the fact that he still hasn't gotten over Jill. A middle aged woman across the hall is quite impressed and tells Chuck she has a bubble bath running. Chuck says he'll play this hand out first. Then Jill opens the door and asks if it's really true that Chuck hasn't gotten over her. He says yes and she invites him in. Casey and Sarah are watching the hotel room, and Casey owes Sarah ten bucks.

Later, Chuck listens in on Jill's phone line in the spy van, and hears Jill talking to her bitchy friend Shari about how Chuck came to her hotel room to apologize, and she let him in. He's like a cute puppy that she couldn't turn away. Shari says Chuck is a loser who only makes $10 an hour, and Chuck can't resist piping up to say he actually makes $10.75. Jill is like, "Why are you on my phone line, Chuck?" Chuck tries to pass it off: "I just tried to call, I guess our wires got crossed. Is this a party line?"

Chuck spots an assassin named Fox Den getting into an elevator, and Casey and Sarah follow. It turns out the assassin is really named Rommell, and he kills someone named Guy Lafleur.

Sarah has to give a talk on toxicology at a scientific conference, pretending to be an Australian scientist named Dr. Eva Anderson. She stalls, talking about how great the buffet was. Meanwhile, a man named Rommell pulls out a vial of deadly virus, with a thin membrane covering it. The membrane starts smoking away. Casey thinks it's a wet dog, then realizes: "The virus has been released. Don't inhale!"

They find Rommell, who tells them he's really CIA and the mission is much more complex than they could have realized. Then Chuck runs up and announces that he's their only hope for survival. "Just when I thought things couldn't get worse," Casey gripes. [Casting sides]

Meanwhile, here's a new promo photo from the upcoming episode where Chuck goes to Sarah's 10th high school reunion. And here's a brief new clip about Nicole Richie appearing on the show, which includes a tiny amount of new footage. [Chuck Online]

In an upcoming episode, Casey answers a knock at the door from a man dressed in a FedEx uniform who gives the correct passcode. But then the man surprises Casey and leaves him coughing up blood. The man's partner tells him they have two more targets, and shows pictures of Chuck and Sarah. [TV Remote]

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles:

John Connor flips over a car, says star Thomas Dekker. And something happens to John in the first episode to harden him, and he becomes more of a bad-ass out of rage. Also, if you care about his feelings on Hayden Panettiere's love life, he addresses that issue. [EW]

The Middleman:

Wendy has to put on high heels and pearls to go undercover at Omega Theta Nu sorority house, going against all of her moral fibers to track down a ghostly apparition. But she begins to suspect something other than a haunted sorority house is going on. Meanwhile, Tyler, the cute guy who lost his memory after the Lucha Libre attack, comes looking for the soulmate he met that day. But he mistakenly thinks it's Lacey, Wendy's roommate. [SpoilerTV]

Kyle XY:

Ally Sheedy's super-mom character will appear in the season opener of ABC Family's show about a teen with strange abilities. But then you probably won't see her again until the season finale. [TV Guide again]

James Caviezel plays a crashed space man, Kainan, who has been doing battle with the Moorwen alien race. He lands on Earth smack-dab in the middle of Viking times. A Moorwen hitched a ride on his ship and is now seeking revenge on all the innocent Vikings on Earth. It's up to Kainan, a pig-tail-bearded John Hurt as Viking leader Rothgar and the resident warrior Wulfric (Jack Huston) to best the beast.

Outlander will open on Latvian screens today, so if you live in Latvia I'm insanely jealous. It has also been screened across the globe yet still there is no release date in America. Surely this Viking versus alien battle story will be retold through the ages, and it needs to come to the States as soon as possible.

Here's the storyline for Outlander: Spaceman Kainan (Caviezel) crash lands his ship onto Earth smack dab into Viking times. Unfortunately for our ancestors Kainan is carrying a nasty alien monster, the Moorwen. The monster has been in an all-out war with Kainan and his kind, and is now seeking her revenge on Earth's people. Kainan must lead an army to best the beast, or face death by her claws. We already showed you the concept art for Moorwen, but here are some new stills.

Outlander received scattered reviews from the Cannes debut, some praising Caviezel's work, others mocking the CGI alien. But I have high hopes for any movie that pins Vikings against alien monsters.

[Outlander]

[Outlander official site]

Movies we're looking forward to:

The Signal (Feb. 22). A weird signal takes over TVs, radios and cell phones, and makes everybody lose their shit. The tagline is "Do you have the crazy?" and it's become our new standard greeting. The buzz about this horror/SF hybrid from Sundance was pretty exciting. Divided into three segments, with three different directors, the stories of people driven berzerk by mass communications include killing sprees and demented sex. In the neopolis of Terminus City.

Outlander (early 2008). Okay. Alien versus Vikings. If that doesn't thrill you, your heart is made of dung. In a nutshell, Jim Caviezel (Passion of the Christ) is an alien whose spaceship crashes in ancient Norway. He soon realizes the crash had another survivor, a rampaging monster called the Moorwen. So Caviezel has to convince the feuding Viking clans to work together to destroy the best. It's like Beowulf, with space guns.

The Incredible Hulk (June 13). Ang Lee has lowered our expectations to the point where any Hulk movie that doesn't feature mutant poodles will thrill us. But it also sounds as though this version will stick to monster-movie basics. The Hulk's daddy issues will be in the background where they belong. And Edward Norton gives good man-with-monster-inside, judging from American History X.

The Dark Knight (July 18). Batman Begins wasn't perfect (Ra's Al Ghul was a boring villain) but it did have the right pulpy feel. And Knight could be the rare sequel that improves on the original, thanks to Heath Ledger's angry-nerd Joker. The viral Gotham Times site, with details on the crime war, overcrowded mental institutions and families fleeing Gotham, makes us feel director Christopher Nolan's Gotham is a real place, not just a fantasy backdrop.

CJ7 (Jan. 31). Stephen Chow is veering into science fiction after a string of kung-fu hits. This story of a semi-homeless guy who scavenges a toy for his son (played by a girl) will probably drip with sentimentality, but it also looks inventive and crazy as hell. The junkyard toy turns out to be an alien dog, which could kick Wall-E's ass in a cuteness contest. And then the boy/girl gets transported into space, and (judging from the trailer) things get kind of trippy.

Movies we're cautiously optimistic about:

Iron Man (May 2). The suit looks cool. We're glad they're keeping the storyline of Tony Stark being a weapon-mongering asshole who learns a lesson. But it also looks seriously cartoony, and it's from the director of Elf and Zathura.

Franklyn (unknown). The sequences of Ryan Philippe in his spooky mask in the city of crazy religions sound awesome. The other stuff, about people in the here and now having emotional crises, sounds less awesome and more IFC-ish. But we trust director Gerald Morrow when he says all three storylines finally come together somehow.

Death Race (Sept. 26). A super-champion racer (Jason Statham) is convicted of a crime he didn't commit. His only hope is to race cross-country in a tricked out car with rocket launchers and shit, for the amusement of the multitudes. Another remake, plus another movie by Paul W.S. Anderson (Mortal Kombat). It'll probably be a guilty pleasure.

Cloverfield (Jan. 18) Better to think of this as a cheesy monster movie with an artsy twist (the handheld video cameras) than to build it up as a masterpiece in the making. The script from Drew (Buffy, Alias) Goddard will probably have some clever bits. And if Cloverfield rolls in enough clover, it could usher in a whole crazy new era of low-fi monster movies.

Speed Racer (May 9). It'll be a fun ride, judging from the trailer. But the Wachowskis are sticking too close to the source material's kiddie cartoon roots. And we're scared we'll have weird dreams about John Goodman's mustache after seeing this film.

Movies we're dreading in depths of our marrow:

Star Trek (Dec. 25) We've already explained our reasons why Star Trek should stay dead in general. But this movie, in particular, sounds horrendous. We lost all hope when they announced Leonard Nimoy is coming back as Spock. That means instead of a pure reboot, it has to be some sort of continuity-heavy restart. They'll have to use either time travel or flashbacks to justify Nimoy. But also, didn't we already go back to the beginning with the TV show Enterprise? We're predicting a very expensive flop that will make back its money overseas.

The Day The Earth Stood Still (Dec. 12) The words "Keanu Reeves as Klaatu" froze our blood. Keanu's biggest problem is his flat, stoner delivery, so having him play a super-bland alien might not be the best idea. But also, the original Earth Stood Still was such a product of Cold War anxieties that a remake will just feel like a nostalgia trip.

Babylon A.D. (Aug. 29). We love Vin Diesel and Michelle Yeoh, but this is just sounding more and more like a trainwreck. It had a troubled shooting, with delays, budget overruns and epic battles between Diesel and director Matthieu Kassovitz. Add in the fact that Kassovitz's previous film, Gothika, was universally panned. And the U.S. cut of Babylon will be 30 minutes shorter than the European release, so there's speculation our version may not even make sense.

Starship Dave (May 30). Pluto Nash wasn't enough. Eddie Murphy has to star in another kiddie SF comedy. And this one has a premise designed to lead to more slapstick than three Norbits put together. A group of tiny aliens led by Murphy travel to Earth in a spaceship disguised as a human (Murphy again), and they control him remotely. It sounds like an acid-induced remake of Steve Martin's All Of Me.

Hancock (July 2). The trailer confirmed our worst fears. After a string of serious roles, Will Smith is going to dust off his comedy chops to play a lame drunken superhero who falls for his image consultant's wife. There are two main problems right off the bat: Will Smith has done well in comedies where he's the straight man (Men In Black), but he's not so great at playing the fool. And superhero comedies like My Super Ex-Girlfriend usually don't have enough respect for the material to be funny.