(Note: some of these scenes contain spoilers and / or some serious violence. Beware!)

Serenity

Serenity is Joss Whedon's sort-of-final-chapter for his much beloved television series, Firefly. But it's also a stand-alone story, offering any new viewers a chance to discover the crew and the world of the show anew. And what better way to throw a new audience into the world than a wandering tour of Serenity herself. In the opening shot of the movie, Whedon uses a long-take to fully draw us into his world. You can watch the first minute and a half of the six minute masterpiece here.

X-Files - Triangle

In this episode of the X Files, most of the on-screen action is depicted in a series of long takes and uncut sequences. There are some edits, but they are disguised to make the whole episode feel seamless. And the effect is pretty impressive.

Oldboy

It's not strictly sci-fi, but the action-filled, vengeance-fueled martial arts epic, Oldboy, has garnered a lot of praise for its unflinching take on violence and anger. That's pretty evident in this fight scene. It includes a hallway, a giant gang, and an enraged man with a hammer. And it's visceral impact is heightened by the fact that it all takes place in one seamless take.

Children of Men

Children of Men is a movie that relies on the long single take for a couple of breathtaking scenes, including the particularly moving one from which the picture above comes. But the one that is most impressive is the roadway assault scene. Watching it, its brilliance isn't immediately clear. It's not until you realize that there's no way a camera could fit inside the car that you realize the casual scene took enormous innovation and patience to pull off.

Contact

The introduction to Contact serves as a quick reminder that the universe could be an empty place that is entirely indifferent to humanity. It's almost like a counterpoint to the rest of the story that follows. And it's accomplished with a tracking "shot." It's technically a visual effect, but the purpose is clear, and it's accomplished relatively seamlessly.

Battlestar Galactica

As with Serenity, Battlestar Galactica needed to find a way to draw in the audience and show them the characters and the world they would be a part of for the rest of the series. In one of the earliest scenes in the miniseries, we get just that: a long tracking shot through the interior of the ship, showing us most of the important players of the rest of the series. A fitting beginning to a show that aimed to do things with space opera that were as-yet untried.

Cloverfield

Cloverfield's main conceit was that it was found footage, mostly untouched, from one long night of filming. As a result, most of the film is meant to look like a one-take sequence. You could choose any sequence from the movie, but this one is particularly terrifying, since being confined to one point of view makes the danger seem even more close and real.

Shaun of the Dead

The beauty of the long take in Shaun of the Dead is not the artistry of the camera movement or its length. It's that the same tracking shot was done twice, once before the zombie outbreak and once after. At the :40 mark in this video, you can see the two takes intercut with each other, showing just how carefully the two scenes were constructed.

This list is by no means exhaustive. What are your favorite long-takes in sci-fi cinema in television? Did we forget any greats?

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

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

Tuesday

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

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

Wednesday

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

Thursday

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

Friday

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

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

Maybe you shouldn't watch the whole thing.

Saturday

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

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

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

Sunday

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

Monday

It's the usual Monday evening decision between Fox's House, wherein the West Wing's Joshua Malina guests as a former patient of Wilson's who's now a little bit too close to dying for everyone's comfort, and NBC's Heroes, which promises an "unexpected destination" for Claire and Peter, who are struggling to come to terms with the truth. Both of them air at 8pm, so feel free to choose House and read our Heroes recap, instead. You know it'll be easier on everyone.

Tuesday

Prophets of Science Fiction on the Science Channel at 9pm is about it, now that V has slunk its way off-screen for a few months (And am I the only person who spent the last episode waiting for a big lizard reveal, only to be thwarted? They even talked about skinning an alien just to tease us, the bastards). But in many ways, this documentary about science fiction creators whose work predicted the future is likely to be less frustrating than ABC's alien drama, even if it may not be more entertaining.

Wednesday

While Mythbusters carries on Kari-less on Discovery at 9pm (Adam and Jamie look into whether you can escape from jail using antacids, while I continue to unfairly criticize newgirl Jessi Combs purely because of my love for the missing Ms. Byron), ABC's Eastwick begins to draw to a conclusion with new episode "Tasers and Mind Erasers."

Thursday

With the CW shows on reruns, your evening viewing is wide open for a helping of Flashforward at 8 pm on ABC and Fringe at 9 on Fox. This week's FF promises to reveal more about Demetri's future death, Zoey's flashforward and, most excitingly, what actually caused the flashforward itself. Meanwhile, Fringe gets out the Lovecraftian influence as "Snakehead" reveals a spooky squidlike creature burrowing into host bodies. Calamari will never be the same again.

Friday

If new episodes of Ghost Whisperer and Medium on CBS (at 8pm and 9, respectively) or Stargate Universe and Sanctuary on Syfy (at 9pm and 10, respectively) don't float your boat — Although, SGU sees Young handing over command of the Destiny to Camille when he's accused of murder aboard the ship, so maybe you should tune into that just in case — then there's only one thing that could take your attention (Well, beside Star Wars: The Clone Wars on Cartoon Network at 9).

And that's the return of Dollhouse, with two new episodes starting on Fox at 8pm. "The Public Eye/The Left Hand" sees Senator Wesley From Angel finally stop talking and start doing something in his so-far-useless campaign against the Dollhouse, while Topher and Adelle meet a programmer with a connection to Echo and - Oh, never mind. All you want to know is this: It's the episode with Summer Glau. See? Now you'll tune in.

Saturday

NBC is showing the best Fantastic Four movie ever made, The Incredibles at 8:30pm. I'm sure most of you already own it on DVD though, right?

Sunday

Sure, Sunday night still belongs to The Venture Bros (a new episode is on Cartoon Network at midnight), but we're still kind of tempted by Syfy's Alice revival, from the people who brought you Tin Man. Bringing the story up to date and adding in various contemporary re-readings of famous scenes, there's always the possibility of things going totally wrong and it turning out to be another Prisoner, but we have hope nonetheless...

For those previously unaware of this televisual masterwork, Martin Landau is John Koenig, commander of Moonbase Alpha, humanity's outpost on, yes, the Moon. After a nuclear explosion, the Moon gets knocked out of orbit, sending Koenig and his intrepid crew on an incredibly odyssey through SPACE… in the year 1999! The title admittedly leaves this point somewhat unclear, so I wanted to take the time to spell that out.

Now, some might ask why such a series needs remaking. Indeed, some might even argue television producers should put the limited resources available for science fiction shows into making bold, new programming. Those people have apparently willfully ignored the way the entertainment industry has operated since...well, since forever, really. Anyway, the Space: 1999 intro is the grooviest thing in television history, and by itself should earn the entire show a second chance.

And make no mistake, folks, this is a show that completely blew its first chance. If the original Battlestar Galactica was an attempt to turn Star Wars into a TV show, then Space: 1999 basically tried to do the same thing with 2001: A Space Odyssey. As you might imagine, they failed at this absurdly lofty goal. The physics at the heart of the show's premise were utterly laughable – no smaller luminaries than Isaac Asimov and Harlan Ellison considered the notion that the Moon could be blown out of orbit and then cross interstellar distances in weeks the most ludicrous thing they'd ever heard of. The show's early attempts to kick around obscure philosophical points in the context of the celestial void soon devolved into the endless chases and mindless action sequences of, well, the original Battlestar Galactica, only minus all of the iconic stuff with the Cylons.

As such, Space: 1999 shouldn't be remade because there's something brilliant there so much as because it would be such a wonderful challenge for its makers. After all, the show already has one absolutely massive stumbling block, and it's right there in the title. Who in their right mind is going to accept a science fiction show set ten years ago?

And even then, what exactly is the premise of Space: 1999? At least Battlestar Galactica has a simple enough setup and goal – humans fight Cylons, Cylons wipe out humanity, survivors go in search of fabled lost colony, the Earth. It's maybe a little silly on paper, but as the recent series showed, it can be the basis for gripping television. On the other hand, Space: 1999 was never too sure itself of what it was precisely about – people on the Moon get blown out of orbit, weird stuff happens for no discernible reason, weird stuff continues to happen for reasons that are somehow even less discernible than the first set of reasons. It was all a bit too abstract for its own good.

So, let's make it about something. Instead of focusing on the Space part, let's do something with the 1999 part. We have one huge advantage over the show's creators back in 1975 – we actually know what happened in 1999. A new Space: 1999 could be the ultimate nineties nostalgia show, exploring all that delicious Clinton era angst through the spectacularly ridiculous prism of a moonbase that's been blown out into deep space. It wouldn't even need to be a radically different world than our own; just one where the Apollo missions lasted long enough to set up a now antiquated, largely forgotten moonbase. (It's not all that implausible - like anyone remembers the International Space Station even exists.)

Think of it! Instead of just having bizarre metaphysical mind trips inside something called "a black sun", the new Space: 1999 crew can have bizarre metaphysical mind trips while debating Monicagate! And trading Seinfeld quotes! And complaining about how Saving Private Ryan got totally robbed by Shakespeare in Love! And trying to get Windows 98 to work! And assuming the economic boom will never, ever end!

Make no mistake - 80s nostalgia is almost over, and 90s nostalgia is on its way. We're already running out of 80s culture to obsess over, so we're going to have to relive the nineties one way or another. So I have to ask: if we're going to put up with an insipid recreation of nineties life, why shouldn't it be set on a runaway moon hurtling into the vast and dangerous cosmos? Honestly, that sounds like a fair assessment of what happened after 1999 anyway. Keep the original theme tune, and I think we've got ourselves a winner.

These are but a mere handful of MacLane's dozens of CubeDudes, which include characters from the SuperFriends, Transformers, Dr. Horrible, and GI Joe. He has also built non-CubeDude Lego sculptures of Pixar characters WALL-E, BURN-E, and Carl Fredricksen.

[CubeDudes via Super Punch]

Cameron tells John that she'll find a workaround to avoid trying to kill him again:

Okay, so it's not exactly an essential scene — we got to find out about Cameron's little self-destruct mechanism workaround in a later scene that did air. But it's a nice moment of tension between John Connor and the robot he depends on way too much. And it's always nice to see Summer Glau doing that creepy stalker thing she does so well.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete Second Season is out on DVD/BluRay Sept. 22, and here's a list of the special features:

- Write the Future - An inside look at creator Josh Friedman and the writing process and how it guides the creative decisions for each episode.
- Conceptualization - Visual Effects supervisor James Lima and others discuss the production challenges of bringing the sci-fi world of Terminator to television.
- Blood and Metal - Go behind the scenes with special makeup effects artist Rob Hall and the cast as they reveal the process of creating realistic cybernetic organisms.
- Designing Destruction - Production Designer Marek Dobrowolski and others discuss the challenges of combining real locations with futuristic sets to create a world in which the present fights to avoid a horrific future.
- Choreographing Chaos - See how Stunt Coordinator and 2nd Unit Director Joel Kramer and Special Effects Supervisor Steve Galich work closely to create the stunts and on set effects that add an undeniably kinetic quality to each episode.
- War Stories - From an unexpected earthquake on the jam-packed Santa Monica pier to the intricacies of filming underwater sequences, the producers and cast reflect on some of the most memorable production challenges from Season Two.
- Setting the Tempo - Composer Bear McCreary and the producers explain the process of taking cues from the Terminator mythology and incorporating them into the score. Bear, Josh Friedman and Shirley Manson also talk about the process of recording the season opening song "Samson and Delilah."
- Motivations - The producers and cast discuss the themes of Season Two and how these informed both the writing and acting.
- Terminated Scenes
- Cameron vs. Rosie: Fight Rehearsal - The raw fight rehearsal and choreography session between Summer Glau and a contortionist is interwoven with storyboards and interviews explaining this intricate battle sequence.
- The Storyboard Process: Cameron Goes Bad - The production team outlines the process for mapping key sequences from the show in Storyboard format.
- Audio Commentary with Lena Headey, Thomas Dekker, Summer Glau and Shirley Manson and Executive Producers Josh Friedman, James Middleton and John Wirth
- Gag Reel
- Collision with the Future: Deconstructing the HUNTER KILLER Attack - Interactive exploration of the climactic Hunter Killer attack featured in the Season Two finale. Four simultaneous points of view show all elements of the filmmaking of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles from Production, Direction, Visual Effects, and Special Effects. Additional focus points allow the viewer to explore even more elements of what it took to create this dramatic stunt sequence. (Blu-ray only)

Can. Not. Wait. [MovieWeb]

Oh, and in case you thought it was possible to watch clips from an upcoming episode without being spoiled... there are spoilers here.

We were already ready to storm the gates of Hell to see what happens next in Supernatural season five, but luckily, it looks like Hell is coming to us. And poor Sam — will he ever get his groove back? It's physically painful to rewatch the bits in season four where he keeps saying Dean doesn't have what it takes to get the job done, but he (Sam) does.

[via TV Overmind]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Riff Regan vs. Alyson Hannigan)

What they changed: Joss Whedon financed the original pilot himself, formatting it as a half-hour episode. It is, for the most part, a shortened version of "Welcome to the Hellmouth," but with different casting. The role of the Sunnydale library was played by Torrance High School's library — a much larger and airier room than the cramped Hellmouth library we've come to know and love, with a handy second floor for showing off those Buffy backflips. Instead of Ken "Hyena Chow" Lerner as Principal Flutie, we get a much more straightlaced interpretation from character actor Stephen Tobolowsky. But perhaps the biggest difference is in the role of Willow. Instead of Alyson Hannigan, the geeky witch was originally played by Riff Regan.

How might the series have been different? Flutie probably would have still ended up in the stomachs of his students, but the Scooby Gang might have never been the same. Regan's Willow was a sweet doormat, but she didn't have quite the neurotic, eager-to-please quality Hannigan brought to the role. Incidentally, it wasn't the first time Hannigan replaced an actress after the filming of a show's initial pilot. In 1989, she took over the role of Jessie Harper in the fantasy sitcom Free Spirit.

Unaired Pilot with Stephen Tobolowsky and Riff Regan:

Official Pilot — "Welcome to the Hellmouth:"

Dollhouse (Joss Whedon vs. Fox)

What they changed: The premise and the characters are the same, but the stories unfold in a rather different way. We're initially introduced to Echo through a trio of very different engagements: one philanthropic, one as a revenge date, and one where she talks down gangsters in Espagnol. Boyd is already Echo's handler, and Topher has already caught onto Echo's bison-like grouping with Victor and Sierra. Agent Paul Ballard also comes face-to-face with Echo in the original pilot...when Topher programs Echo to kill him.

How might the series have been different? The original pilot played more as the start of a noir series than as a proof-of-concept for an engagement-of-the-week serial (which is what the official pilot "Ghost" suggests). We probably would have leaped to Dollhouse's underlying plot more quickly, and spent more of the season focusing on Echo's emerging awareness. Plus, it seems the Dollhouse was originally going to be more hands on in addressing Ballard's investigation. We see some of that noir (and slightly more classically Whedonesque dialogue) in the original pilot clip below:

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Bad-Ass Sarah vs. Vulnerable Sarah

What they changed: The most readily obvious difference between the unaired pilot and what aired on Fox is that Tim Guinee, who played Tomin in Stargate SG-1, was originally cast as Sarah's jilted fiance Charley, but was replaced in the official pilot by Dean Winters. But more significant is a key change in the final scene. In official pilot, when Sarah Connor delivers her final voiceover, we see her caress her son's face before walking into her home. In the original pilot, we instead see her pulling a gun out of its hiding place while Cameron and John sit in the same room preparing their weapons, showing that Sarah's focus is on the coming war.

How might the series have been different? It's hard to say to what extent this change represents a shift in tone across the series, but we worried that it signaled a "wimpifying" of Sarah Connor, showing her vulnerability where it could have shown her strength and determination. You can scene the unaired scenes and their official pilot counterparts below:

Life on Mars (US) (Sunny LA vs. Gritty NY)

What they changed: Pretty much whatever they could. The original pilot for the US adaptation of Life on Mars was thoroughly panned, and producers quickly moved the action from Los Angeles to New York (allowing for that Twin Towers shot), and recast several roles. Star Trek vet Colm Meaney was replaced by Harvey Keitel in the role of Gene Hunt and Gretchen Mol took over Rachelle Lefevre's role as Annie Norris (Lefevre might have experienced an unfortunate moment of deja vu when she was recently replaced in yet another role — as the vampire VIctoria in Eclipse). But beyond that, certain scenes from the original pilot were rewritten to more closely match the UK version, and made the scenes visually darker and more textured.

How might the series have been different? It simply wouldn't have been as good. The original US pilot genericized the UK version, washing it of all character. By ultimately sticking closer to the source material, the US version of Life on Mars was able to echo its tone while creating a new mythology to explain Sam Tyler's predicament.

Scene from the Unaired Pilot:

Scene from the Official Pilot:

Star Trek (Christopher Pike vs. James T. Kirk)

What they changed: The original pilot "The Cage" was a completely episode from the official Star Trek pilot "Where No Man Has Gone Before," with an almost completely different Enterprise crew. In lieu of William Shatner's syncopated Captain Kirk, Jeffrey Hunter was set to helm the ship as Captain Christopher Pike, and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's future wife, Majel Barrett, played his intellectual and rational second-in-command, known only as "Number One." Spock would be the sole crew member to make the transition from first pilot to official pilot, but even he would undergo some minor changes. The original pilot's Spock was known to smile and use human colloquialisms, while the final Spock inherited Number One's sense of cold, hard logic.

How might the series have been different? The basics of the Enterprise and the Federation would have remained largely the same (in fact, most of the footage from "The Cage" would be cannibalized for a later episode "The Menagerie"). But the dynamics of the crew would have been very different. Pike wasn't the emotive adventurer Kirk would be, and he wasn't cast in as nearly sharp relief against either Spock or Number One. Plus, the original pilot's entirely caucasian cast was hardly the rainbow coalition that made the final version of Star Trek such a progressive piece of television.

Original Pilot — "The Cage:"

Official Pilot — "Where No Man Has Gone Before:"

Doctor Who (The Doctor from the 49th Century vs. The Doctor from Another Time

What they changed: The original episode of the first Doctor Who serial "An Unearthly Child" has the feel of a filmed dress rehearsal, but there were a few changes made beyond tightening the performances and improving production values. The Doctor and Susan both undergo costume changes — Susan into a more casual, less futuristic look and the Doctor from a modern suit to an Edwardian one — and the Doctor is much less gruff than in the original pilot. Also, in the original pilot, the Doctor and Susan talk specifically about being from the 49th Century, rather than the being from "another time, another world."

How might the series have been different? Aside from making the First Doctor outright hostile to his new companions instead of largely indifferent to them, the original pilot is a bit less mysterious about the Doctor and Susan's origins. If it had gone to air, it might have set the stage for a Doctor who is less coy and more forthcoming.

Segment from the Original Version:

Segment from the Official Version:

There are spoilers in this post. Please exercise maximum spoiler contamination procedures.

So it appears the Daleks are back, and visiting World War II England. The posters at the GallifreyBase forums caught sight of some rooftop filming at this building, which is tricked out with barbed wire and soldiers bobbing around, and you can just glimpse the very top of a Dalek in this one.

And apparently, Winston Churchill is there. Or at the very least, the trailers on the set included the Doctor, Karen and Winston Churchill. So it's World War II, and the British Army are hanging around with Daleks.

According to observers, the Daleks are being friendly, since someone overheard a Dalek saying "Would you like a cup of tea?" And the Doctor tries to tell them that he's the Doctor and they are the Daleks, but they don't understand him. From the sound of things, the Daleks are totally domesticated and don't know they're supposed to be vicious killers — or maybe that's just what they want us to think!

Update: Here's an audio file of Matt Smith being a bit shouty and melodramatic:

And rumor has it the episode is written by Mark Gatiss.

And today, there's a lot of filming happening in a place called Jacob's Market, featuring the Doctor, Churchill, and Bill Paterson playing some kind of professor character.

Thanks to Bluehinter for the heads up! Photos by the amazing Scooty and EmmaG892.

Midnight, Mass consisted of one short-lived comic series, followed by a miniseries, about Adam and Julia Kadmon, who solve supernatural mysteries. They come from a long line of monster hunters, and there's lots of amazing backstory about the Kadmon family. But best of all, the Kadmons' relationship feels like a real marriage, and they lack the insipid Moonlighting-esque banter you tend to see in so many male-female investigator teams. (Here's hoping it stays that way in the TV series.) They live in the town of Midnight, Massachusetts (hence the name) which has an evil forest that nobody ever comes out of alive. And monsters are everywhere, but we start to see the monsters as real people, who wish they could live among humans and have normal lives — except the Kadmons won't let them.

The comic was written by John Rozum, whose other great contribution to comics was Xombi, the Milestone series about a man who can't die (thanks to nanotechnology) and finds himself entering a bizarre supernatural world as a result.

Apparently the TV show will be called simply Midnight, and it's being produced by Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts, of Pushing Daisies.

As Rozum points out on his blog, this is actually the second attempt at a Midnight, Mass TV series. Mostly, I'm hoping that this new TV series means we might get more issues of the comic at some point — and trade paperback collections of the first two series would be nice, as well. I read the comics when they came out, and I have a sinking feeling I'm missing some issues. As it is, Midnight, Mass doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry, which seems unfair. Oh, and TV industry? Please try not to do to Midnight, Mass what you just did to fellow Vertigo classic Human Target. [THR]

Alphas comes from X3 screenwriter Zak Penn and Michael Karnow. The series began life as Section 8, which sparked a network bidding war in the summer of 2007 and eventually found a home at ABC. But, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the Writers Guild strike and ABC's increasing discomfort with the show's scifi elements landed it in the dustbin. Now Syfy has dusted it off and redubbed the show Alphas.

Back when the show was at ABC, Futon Critic posted a synopsis and review of the Section 8 script, which had some intriguing ideas for its superpowered protagonists:

When a witness is inexplicably murdered in a locked room at a federal courthouse, Section 8 (under the auspices of the National Security Agency) is put on the case. Lead by Dr. Leigh Rosen (all roles have yet to be cast), the team has but one mandate - locate and assess the threats posed by "alphas," human beings "with enhanced abilities due to differences in their brain structure." Joining Rosen in his quest are four such alphas - Gary Bell, a highly functioning autistic with an ability to process information that rivals most computers; Bill Harken, a former FBI agent who can amp up his "fight or flight" reflex, giving him extraordinary strength for a brief period of time; Nina Theroux, a beautiful woman who can reprogram other people's minds to do as she bids; and Rachel Myers, an orthodox Jew who can shatter glass with but a whisper. However with said powers comes a price - for Gary, autism which makes him a child for all intents and purposes; for Harken, severe anger issues that cost him his job and family; for Rachel, living life as a near mute and being forced to wear an electronic device against her larynx; and Nina, never really knowing how those close to her actually feel. In any case, they've all come together for the common good with Rosen as their mentor, teaching them to further control their abilities with each passing day. As for the courthouse murder, it's not long before the team uncovers that one of their own kind was responsible - Christian Hicks, a former Marine sharpshooter with supernatural balance and aim (he guided the bullet through a ventilation duct). After bringing him in though, they realize someone even more powerful was pulling the strings... someone with a new technology that can be used to mimic one of the team's gifts.

Unfortunately, Futon Critic claims the script's execution doesn't live up to its shiny ideas, constantly trying to assure the reader of the show's awesomeness.

I'm on the fence with this one. Penn's got a bit of checkered past; he worked on the story for X2, but didn't write the screenplay, and penned Elektra and the better recent adaptation of The Incredible Hulk. Plus, he's writing the screenplay for the upcoming Avengers movie, so someone at Marvel must have faith in him. And the optimist in me hopes the original Section 8 script has had time to marinate. But maybe I'm just so excited at the prospect of Syfy picking up another scripted, science fiction-themed show that I'm willing to give anything a chance.

[The Hollywood Reporter]

It's going to be weird seeing Rover in the middle of the desert — it doesn't feel quite as intuitive. But at least it looks like they kept the same basic design and classic milky evilness. Glad to see the new show isn't throwing all of Patrick McGoohan's style points out the window.

Update: Thanks to PVIII for pointing it out: There's also a nine minute preview video of the new series!

[Posters via SpoilerTV]

During the FlashForward panel, producers David S. Goyer, Marc Guggenheim and Brannon Braga debuted the first 17 minutes of their show.

Opening on a shot of Joseph Fiennes upside-down in a car (next to some oranges), and it appears as though some catastrophic event has occurred in Los Angeles. Mark Benford is just starting to navigate the wreckage of a highway full of cars when the show jumps backward in time ala J.J. Abrams.

From there, the story is jumpy and cuts from one character to another too fast, introducing us to no less than seven potentially important characters in the first 10 minutes.

Penny (Sonya Walger) from Lost returns to ABC to become Olivia, Mark's doting wife. Or least a wife who knows the combination to Mark's safe which is where he stores his gun. As Mark heads downstairs, his daughter (who you just know is going to be pivotal) is watching crazy cartoons at 7 AM on what may or may not be a school day.

Next up in the revolving door of quick character intros is the Benford family's babysitter, Nicole. She enters the house and soon we see her "hanging out" on the couch with her boyfriend. We quickly move on to Bryce, a dysfunctional man on a dock with a death wish.

The show begins to slow slightly when we see John Cho as Mark's (I'm assuming) comic sidekick, though, sadly, we only see some of his sass here. He and Fiennes are buddy-buddy FBI agents tracking down some guys. And a girl. As with all drawn-out television shows intent on keeping you around for the long haul, you don't get many details up front.

There's a flash and we see about 30 seconds of Mark's personal flash into the future. It's grainy and full of easter eggs and totally confusing to the untrained eye. Words jump out at Mark and somewhere in there is a slight homage to Watchmen artist "D. Gibbons."

After the flash, Nicole the delinquent babysitter runs upstairs where the creepy daughter is sitting upright in her bed and she tells her babysitter, "I dreamt there were no more good days." What?! What does this mean?! Which is precisely what the producers are hoping we'll ask.

And now we've caught up to the true beginning of this show. Mark hops around trying to figure out what caused these crashes and runs into an oddly serene looking Cho. The two pair up to fight some crime and end up with more questions than before.

The whole world has been affected by this phenomenon, and it appears the first order of business is deciphering exactly what happen. It's an intriguing idea, and with Goyer on board, we definitely shouldn't take for granted that it will follow the original novel by Robert J. Sawyer.

In fact, Goyer said, they crunched the timeline from a hard-to-film 21-year vision of the future into a six-month one, to help move the plot along. Everyone sees 2 minutes and 17 seconds of their future as it happens on April 29, a date which will sync up nicely with at least part one of the season finale.

Despite the changes, however, Robert J. Sawyer apparently approves. The producers haven't lost any of the death and destruction of Sawyer's original novel, even showcasing the collapse of Los Angeles in the wake of the flash, up close and personal in the first two acts of the pilot. Goyer said Sawyer is the show's "unofficial science advisor" and that he will be writing an episode for the first season.

The show looks decent despite a rough beginning, and it sounds like the writers have an endgame in mind.

And, finally, at the very end of the panel came our glimpse of Dominic Monaghan as a man named Simon.

In the clip, Mark chokes a dashing Lloyd Simcoe (played by Jack Davenport), holding him against the wall and demanding to know who he is and who he works for, dammit. And then Dominic Monaghan appears, looking oh-so-fine in his suit and saying, simply, "I am Simon."

It's also not clear whether Warehouse can beat Eureka's third-season average of 3 million viewers per week. Meanwhile, how will Eureka do in its new doghouse slot of Friday nights? And why aren't both these shows airing on Tuesday? [THR]

So the first two episodes of Torchwood season three, the five-part miniseries known as "Children Of Earth" have already aired in the U.K., and they've vastly exceeded my expectations.

I'll try and keep this review relatively spoiler-free, for all the people who aim to watch the show when it airs on BBC America starting July 20. But be warned: by "relatively spoiler free," I mean I'll try and stick mostly to details that were in the trailers and preview articles that have appeared in official places like the Radio Times. Information the BBC wants you to know before seeing this story, in other words.

So. Honestly, I think the trailers sold this story a bit short. I expected it to be a lot of slow scenes of children being spooky while people wrung their hands, intermingled with sinister government people being sinister. But actually, the thing with the kids stopping absolutely still, and later repeating the alien message "We are coming," was extremely intense and well handled. And most of the credit belongs to Russell T. Davies, who wrote the first episode and obviously worked on the second one as well. Davies knows how to convey the rhythms of family life, and the chatter of everyday people coming and going, so when he gives us children stopping dead and chanting spookily, it doesn't feel at all like a cruddy horror movie. It feels, at first, like an inconvenience — and then the horror of it sort of sneaks up on you. The aspect of this storyline that I expected to be the most annoying turned out to be dead effective.

I often feel like there are two Russell T. Davieses — there's the one who creates storylines like this one, or the Doctor Who episodes "Midnight" and "Turn Left": jagged dramas where people are pushed to the edge and they reveal their inner ugliness as well as their inner courage. And then there's the one who wants you to bathe in a swimming pool full of schmaltz and bombard you with a rough sequence of over-the-top "moments" that are disconnected from each other and from any sense of storytelling — like last season's "Journey's End." Like so many writers, Davies' greatest strengths can become his worst weaknesses, when he gets too self-indulgent. But he's got a lot to prove here, by turning Doctor Who's weak sibling into a genuine success. Davies has said again and again that he'll stay with Torchwood (and the other spin-off, the Sarah Jane Adventures) forever, even though he's leaving Doctor Who at the end of the year. So he's obviously determined to win people over with this one.

The Torchwood team have never seemed as likeable as they do in these first two episodes. Giving both Jack and Ianto family members of their own seems like such an obvious step at character-building, you have to wonder why it didn't happen in season one. Jack's visit with his daughter Alice is, as the Radio Times says, "low-key but poignant" — especially given what we find out about why we haven't seen her before. "I get older... and you stay the same," she says. Meanwhile, all the stuff with Ianto's family is hilarious, and it's great to see a different side to Ianto than the eager-to-please manservant we've grown to love.

As for Gwen — I never thought I'd say this, but she's really growing on me. Davies seems to sense that Gwen has spent too much time in previous outings having her lip tremble and her wall-sized eyes water, so she's thrown into the role of action hero — and it works beautifully. It's hard to believe these are the same people we saw bickering endlessly, and obsessing over who was snogging whom, back in season one. There's still plenty of time for weird/risque humor, but it doesn't drive the story into the realms of the trivial.

And then there's all the political intrigue, something Davies has tackled in the past, with mixed results. This time around, the stakes genuinely feel enormous, and the mystery that unfolds regarding whatever happened in 1965 is genuinely intense. And all of Torchwood's incompetence and silliness, that we've all lamented in the past, finally comes back to haunt them once the government sets out to destroy the team before they discover the truth about what's going on. We saw back in season two that even random old ladies on the streets of Cardiff see the Torchwood van drive by and mutter, "Bloody Torchwood." Now the fact that this organization is possibly the least well-kept secret in Wales turns out to be a genuine liability. And the ubiquitous surveillance state, which the Torchwood crew were so happy to take advantage of in the past (Remember all those scenes in the first two seasons where our heroes check the public CCTV camera feeds?) suddenly turns out not to be quite so warm and fuzzy.

The other thing that "Children Of Earth" is doing really well, so far, is its alien menace. Whatever the mysterious alien threat behind the mind-controlled children and governmental paranoia is, it's being built up as a legitimately huge menace. Without having shown us so much as a tentacle-tip so far, the show has managed to build tons of anticipation for the alien threat to show up — here's hoping it doesn't actually disappoint.

And finally, as the Radio Times says, Jack and Ianto have to deal with the implications of being a couple. And this is the other thing I really liked about those first two episodes. Without dragging us into any long relationship-wrangling scenes, the show gives us several glimpses of just what it might mean for Jack and Ianto to be "a couple," rather than just storage-room lovers. (And no, the show doesn't forget that Ianto used to have a girlfriend, as we saw in the episode "Cyberwoman." Even though we've all tried to forget that episode.) Not surprisingly, this is a subject near to Russell T. Davies' heart — the vast difference between queerness behind a veil of innuendo and secrecy, and proud, open queer relationships in the light of day. He doesn't retreat behind any simplistic archetypes, and instead allows both Jack and Ianto to have complex feelings about their relationship and how public it should be, which are hinted at from various vantage points, rather than spelled out in giant block letters.

Oh and — and this is a bit more of a spoiler — RTD doesn't stint on the nudity. Those of us who worried that the move to BBC1 meant Jack would be covering up more needn't have worried. And I have a feeling adherents to at least one obscure fetish will be very happy about one particular scene in episode two.

Obviously, the show isn't perfect — there are a few convenient coincidences that help our heroes out at various crucial moments. The British civil service seems to be pretty easy-going about handing out passwords to top-secret computer accounts as well. And there are one or two moments, here and there, that fall flat. But so far? I'm pretty riveted.

I can hardly believe I'm actually saying this, but this could be the year that Torchwood becomes better than Doctor Who — at least until Steven Moffat takes over the reins of the parent series. Then all bets are off.

And a warning to people who've read this far and want to remain unspoiled — I have a feeling the comment thread on this post will get quite spoilery. That said, if you've seen the episodes already, please keep your first paragraph of your comment spoiler-lite, in case it crops up on the front page of the site. Thanks!

The Los Angeles Times caught up this weekend with Phillip Paley, who played the caveboy Cha-Ka in all 43 episodes of the 1974-76 series. Paley earned the role thanks to a childhood spent learning gymnastics and karate; he studied under Chuck Norris and was a black belt by age nine. Today, he's 45 and working at a law firm in Santa Monica, and he tells the Times that, while he no longer has his Cha-Ka costume, he still has the dictionary of the Paku language created for the show that Cha-Ka and his people spoke. Years before Klingon appeared as a full-fledged language of its own in the 1980s in the Star Trek films and on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Land of the Lost hired a UCLA linguist to invent a complete language for Paley and his fellow Pakuni.

Series co-creator Marty Krofft, speaking to British magazine SFX in 1997, said the initial impulse to create an artificial language for the show came from the network, which, hoping to appease the FCC, wanted to ensure that the kids' show had a positive educational component. Sid and Marty Krofft hired linguist Victoria Fromkin to create the language.

In the same issue of SFX, Fromkin said that she developed the language to be revealed over time in the series, so that kids watching could learn new words every week the same way Will and Holly did in their attempts to understand Cha-Ka, by picking up the Paku vocabulary and grammar in context as Cha-Ka used them. (Unfortunately, Fromkin said, the episodes would frequently air out of sequence in reruns, spoiling her lesson plan.) "Since I did a lot of work on West African languages, particularly Akan, the major language of Ghana, Paku appears to be in the Kwa family of Bantu languages," she said. "Or at least if some linguist 2000 years from now would find excerpts of it, through reconstruction methods they would probably conclude that."

Not only was Paku the first artificial language created for a kid's show (according to Stephen Corley and Tim Cain's Encyclopedia of Fictional and Fantastic Languages), but it was also the first instance of a television show hiring a professional linguist to develop such a language. Fromkin went on to invent the far less extensive vampire language spoken in the 1998 film Blade.

Fromkin created a 200-word vocabulary for the Pakuni. A good chunk of which survives in this Pakuni-English dictionary reconstructed by LOTL fan Nels Olsen. So if you're watching the reruns again on SyFy, you can consult the list and learn not to confuse an aganka (iguana) with an agamba (dinosaur).

BBC America sent us DVDs of the first two episodes of Primeval season three, and the show about monsters and rips in the fabric of space/time has continued to develop. The cast of monster-hunters is a bit different than in season one, and there are monsters from the future, plus there are mysterious artifacts, conspiracies within conspiracies, and a healthy amount of romantic intrigue.

In the first episode of the season, there's an ancient Egyptian shrine thingy in the British Museum, and it turns out the Egyptians trapped a hole in space/time, out of which come dinosaurs known as Pristichampsuses, which the Egyptians used to worship/fear as the demon Ammut. Basically it's a big crocodile terrorizing London, until it goes away agin. And then in the second episode, there's a haunted house, where a gremlin from the future has killed three boys, and our heroes investigate.

I had previously watched a couple of episodes of Primeval season one, and hadn't been able to get into it at all. So I was hoping things would be different this time around, and season three would suddenly electrify my brain. Sadly, that wasn't the case - the show still feels like a warmed-over copy of Torchwood to me. I couldn't get interested in any of the characters, from the moody scientist Nick Cutter to Connor, who inexplicably dresses like he's in a Thompson Twins video.

Oh, and in the first episode, they meet a cute Egyptologist, who's moderately useful since they're dealing with a monster that has a lot of ancient Egyptian lore about it - and then they recruit her to join the team. Because when you're coping with dinosaurs and "future Predators" every week, what you really need is an expert on Egyptian funerary practices. It makes perfect sense! Actually, there is a sort of explanation for their decision to recruit Sarah Page to the team - their leader, Nick Cutter, has decided all ancient myths are actually about monsters coming out of temporal anomalies. And he thinks that because Page knows about Egyptian mythology, she'll be able to help him chart every myth in the world.

The other thing that sort of turned me off the show originally, the copious amounts of goofy humor, are still in full effect, mostly centered on Connor. In the first episode, Page tells Connor that by touching some Egyptian thingy, he's incurred some ancient curse, and is now doomed to die, like her friend who died earlier in the episode. And then it turns out she was just joking. (But meanwhile, we get to see Connor "hilariously" freaking out about it.)

Anyway, I hate to be negative about this show - it does have some nice CG monsters, and there are some fun monster-hunting bits. The "future gremlins" are sort of spooky, especially when they camouflage themselves. All of the stuff about conspiracies and mysterious artifacts from a vaguely apocalyptic future is intriguing, and Wikipedia says it all gets a lot more intense later in the season. If you feel sad that there's not more SF on television, you could definitely do worse than curling up with Primeval this weekend.

But sadly, it just didn't excite me at all - even as the monsters from the past and future were being flung out of time to terrorize the people of London, it all felt like something I'd seen before.

I liked Kyle XY well enough in its first season, but it really took off for me in season two. That's where we first met Jessi, Kyle's psychotic fellow test-tube baby. But season two also introduced Andy, the nerdy girl who p0wns Josh at video games and then steals his heart. There are lots and lots of TV shows about nerds who can't get a date or can't talk to girls, because girls don't understand nerd stuff. And then there's the story of Josh and Andy.

Luckily, a Josh/Andy shipper has compiled every single clip of their scenes together on Youtube. This allows you to get caught up quickly and painlessly, in time to find out whether they're actually going to get married in tonight's episode. (I'm guessing not, since they're only like 16 years old.)

Josh and Andy meet and she "hammers" him on G-Force. Plus, a bathroom encounter:

Andy and Josh geek out about cars:

Andy gives Josh pointers on how to show a girl a good time:

Josh likes Andy OMG!

Andy has cancer!

Andy gets herself a "cancer girl" T-shirt:

OMG their last day together:

I'm skipping over some of the vids, because there's a lot. Josh and Andy go to Mama Trager for relationship counseling:

Kyle cures Andy's cancer!

Andy wants to pay for prom:

Prom nite! Andy's lesbian moms hate makeup, so she goes to Lori for a makeover. Meanwhile, will Josh lose his virginity???

Yes!

The aftermath:

Sadly, the videos seem to stop there, so you don't get to see the whole subplot where Andy and Josh turn Jessi's apartment into a party pad for debauched teenagers in exchange for cash. Or the ongoing thing about Andy moving to Cleveland. It looks like the "Josh proposes to Andy" thing is happening in tonight's episode. OMGsquee!

Oh, and obligatory disclaimer: Yes, it's on ABC Family, and it's a sometimes heartwarming show with occasional family values mixed in with the lesbian moms and teen sex. And no, I'm not saying it's the best show on TV. Just, you know... better than Heroes.