Oh, and as with last year, we decided not to stick any April Fools stuff in today's spoilers... and we did our best not to get taken in by any April Fools posts from other sites. Fingers crossed that we succeeded...

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen:

The two main characters of this sequel are Sam and Optimus Prime, who both go through similar character arcs about being away from home and learning to live on your own. And the "giantic" first bot we see is Wheelbot. Other Transformers in the movie include Jetfire, Arcee, Mudflap, Volt (the electric car), plus the Decepticons (Starscream, Soundwave and the Fallen) and the Constructicons (Demolishor, Hightower, Long Haul, MixMaster, Rampage and Scrapper.) There may or may not be an explanation in the film for why Arcee is a girl. [Sci Fi Wire]

Terminator Salvation:

A new extended trailer shown at Showest included a shot of either John Connor or Kyle Reese holding the iconic photo of Sarah Connor, from the first movie. [Slashfilm]

And here are four new photos, which look pretty fantastic. [SpoilerTV-Movies]

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles:

The first look at the penultimate episode of the season, airing Friday. Finally, the strands start to converge! [Fox and Sarah Connor Society]

Lost:

The scene where Sayid shoots Ben will have huge repercussions for the rest of the series, and will be one of the most talked about scenes, says actor Sterling Beaumon. He also claims that now the castaways can change history, because they're stuck in the past. So maybe the massacre will never happen. And "that big older mean Ben that we know very well may not even exist." But the other Ben, Michael Emerson, says it would be wrong to count Ben out, because Ben has a destiny. [TV Guide and TV Guide]

Also, Beaumon had two theories: that Ben and Locke are brothers, and that Miles is Marvin Candle's son. Producer Damon Lindelof told him one of those was true. (I'm pretty sure it's the one about Miles.) [Zap2It]

Ooh, and here are some clips from tonight's episode. Hurley's BTTF riff is amazing. But man, Jack is cold!

Whoever dies at the end of the season, we'll have a Charlie-level freak-out over it, and it'll cause tons of grief and remorse. [E! Online]

According to the spoiler-fiends at SpoilersLost, the "Watch With Kristin" Q&A also included a bit where they said the person who dies in the finale is the polar opposite of Charlie Pace in "at least one physical attribute." But for some reason, the E! Online folks deleted that question and answer after a while. (I never saw it, so I can't verify this.) [SpoilersLost]

Life On Mars:

We weren't the only ones to interview producers Josh Appelbaum and Scott Rosenberg. They dropped a few spoilers. In tonight's episode,

The jumping off point is that his mother and father come back into this episode in a big, big way. His mother comes to the station house and says that his father has reappeared and kidnapped a little boy. So, basically, Sam has to save himself, as it were. And it goes from there.

The episode involves a "major climax" to Sam and Annie's shared journey. Perhaps significantly, they say Lisa Bonet, who plays Sam's 2008 girlfriend, will not reappear. And they promise, once again, that tonight's episode will wrap everything up, with no ambiguity whatsoever. Everything's explained, even the "tiny robot." Oh, and once again, they say the ending will be nothing like the BBC version. [TV Guide and EW and Sci Fi Wire]

Fringe:

Speaking of answers, by the end of the first season, "various players' interests and allegiances, like William Bell-like his potential connections to our characters from before-all that will be more fleshed out and their place in the world more defined," says producer Roberto Orci. We'll get a "deeper context" on the Observer. We'll learn why Broyles requested Olivia be part of this unit. Weird science to watch out for in upcoming episodes includes subcutaneous tracking chips, chemtrails, invisibility cloaks, cloning, etc. [Sci Fi Wire]

Supernatural:

You'll be shocked — shocked! — to hear that those imdb spoilers were false. John Winchester does not appear this season, in the flesh or in the spirit. We will see a photo of him at some point though. Meanwhile, Castiel is definitely a season regular in season five, but we can't say the same for Ruby or Anna. And with a couple of deaths coming up in the season finale, neither of them is guaranteed to be safe. [E! Online]

Chuck:

The second season finale is "Chuck Vs. The Ring." [Chuck TV]

Heroes:

The producers answered more fan questions. Hiro's only power is freezing time. In episode 3x24, we'll learn more about how Janice really feels about Matt Parkman, and why she named her baby "Matt." Speaking of which, Baby Matt will get some great screen time, continuing into season four. He's the same Matthew as we saw in the episode "Five Years Gone." And in season four, we'll see Matt Sr. struggling to protect his "very powerful son."

And in next week's episode, 3x22, we'll see a huge Big Matt/Danko showdown that's cathartic for Big Matt. Also, there are hints that Sylar and Nathan will have some quality time together. We won't see Micah and Claire meet up this season, but Micah will meet up with someone in 3x24. [Comic Book Resources]

Star Trek: The New Frontier:

So the real synopsis for Peter David's next New Frontier book, Treason, finally came out. Unlike the weird leaked version we ran back in December, this time there's no mention of Captain Calhoun being stuck in Andromeda. Here's the official version:

It is a time of political upheaval and uncertainty in the New Thallonian Protectorate. Following the brutal assassination of her husband, Si Cwan, former Starfleet officer-turned-newly-appointed-Prime Minister Robin Lefler must now face the growing danger and intrigue surrounding her newborn son and heir to the noble line of Cwan. Following a harrowing assassination attempt, Robin has no choice but to flee New Thallon with her child...seeking refuge with Captain Mackenzie Calhoun and the crew of the U.S.S. Excalibur and creating a major diplomatic crisis in Sector 221-G.

The political fallout between the Federation and the New Thallonian Protectorate pales, however, in comparison to the threat of an enigmatic alien race determined to seize the infant Cwan for its own mysterious purposes. But nothing could possibly prepare Calhoun for the shocking betrayal from within — an act of treachery to aid and abet this alien race — forever altering the lives of the Excalibur crew....

I've read every single one of these books up to now, but I'm not sure I'm up for any more Thallonian intrigue. [Simon and Schuster via TrekWeb]

Additional reporting by Alasdair Wilkins.

David was already one of the best known Star Trek novelists when he launched the New Frontier series of spin-off books. His Imzadi was a #1 New York Times bestseller and a rare Trek novel that got taken seriously by readers. But in the New Frontier books, he's managed to create his own soap-operatic annex of the Trek universe, with its own races, politics and dynasties. Over the course of twenty-something books, comics and short stories, Captain Mackenzie Calhoun has married his long-lost love, Elizabeth Shelby (from the TNG two-parter, "Best Of Both Worlds") and various people have gotten together, broken up, had babies and overthrown empires. I have been meaning to do a giant post about the New Frontier books, which I've read in their entirety, but it's hard to explain their appeal to someone who's never read them. Suffice to say, it's Peter David taking enormous liberties with the Trek universe and having a blast in the process. You can get the first four books as one collected volume, which should be enough to let you decide whether you really want to commit to this crazy ride.

UPDATE: Apparently that's not the real synopsis, after all. We'll post the real synopsis as soon as we have it.

So here's the synopsis for Treason, the umpteenth book in the series coming next year:

Three years have passed since the events of the previous New Frontier novel, Missing in Action, and tensions within the New Thallonian Protectorate are at fever pitch following the murder of Prime Minister Si Cwan. Captain Mackenzie Calhoun and the crew of the USS Excalibur face an uncertain future in the turbulent Andromeda Galaxy. The sudden power vacuum will have far-reaching consequences for them all, as lives and the very fate of Sector 221-G are catapulted into utter chaos. In Treason, the New Frontier storyline jumps ahead three years from the events depicted in Stone and Anvil, picking up again at a point of crucial change, where new and old Star Trek readers are at the same level of discovery for the series.

I have to admit I'm a little lukewarm about the idea of jumping ahead three years. Didn't David already pull this trick in between Stone And Anvil and After The Fall? It feels a bit... well... gimmicky. As though he wasn't sure how to move forward with the story otherwise. Also, I'm officially bored with the whole subplot about Si Cwan, the former emperor who returned to power in a new regime (and married Robin Lefler, from the TNG episode about the orgasmic video game) only to be murdered. I wish Mackenzie Calhoun would travel to some other part of his sector, instead of constantly dabbling in Thallonian politics. At the same time, that's sort of what these books are about, and it's part of the whole "David taking liberties" aspect of the storyline. It feels, at times, like a generic space opera with Trek elements grafted onto it. Which isn't entirely a bad thing, since it lets David play with some peripheral Trek characters (Lefler, Shelby, the cat-woman from the animated episodes) while inventing most of his pocket universe out of whole cloth.

In any case, I'm still pretty excited for another New Frontier book to add to the 20 others already on my shelf. It's fun candy for Trek fans who want to read adventures set after the end of the TNG movies.

[TrekWeb]