The two new Fringe script reports mostly confirm what we already knew. Zap2It has a new synopsis:

When something disturbing, unexplainable and just a bit icky happens to the passengers on an international flight, FBI Agent Olivia Warren (Torv) begins an investigation that leads her to Dr. Walter Bishop (Noble), a renegade scientist whose unorthodox experiments into fringe phenomena led arrests and eventually institutionalization. Warren can only get Bishop out with the help of his estranged son Peter (Jackson), a young man with a genius IQ, but questionable morals and motivation. The son isn't ready to reconcile with his father, the father isn't ready to be reintegrated into the outside world and Olivia isn't ready to serve as babysitter, but they form an unlikely team. How does the airplane tragedy relate to The Pattern, a race of unexplained occurrences sweeping the world? And what does any of this have to do with the mysterious Prometheus Corporation, one of the world's most forward-thinking companies? And what do we make of Broyles (Reddick), the head of the Homeland Security's newly formed Fringe Division?

Meanwhile, screenwriter Jill Golick produces a snatch of dialogue between FBI agent Olivia Warren (Anna Torv) and high-school drop-out Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson), the son of an imprisoned mad scientist:

Olivia: They gave him the resources to do whatever work he wanted, which was primarily in an area called Fringe Science. He conceived experiments meant to push the boundaries of possibility. And, some would say, ethics.
Peter: Fringe science- you mean "pseudoscience."
Olivia: I suppose. Things like mind control. Teleportation. Astral projection, invisibility, genetic mutation, reanimation, fertility —

Fringe shooting image by Asianz.

The trailer includes rapper/actor Xzibit ordering what appears to be a search party over a snowy terrain and Callum Keith Rennie (Leoben from BSG) giving you the old shifty eyes. Between the little girls trapped under the ice, crazy Bill Connolly's blood-hued eyes and the predictable emotional tension between Mulder and Scully it could turn out to be a solid X Files. [Movies Online and IGN]

And here are those viral videos:

Fox Mulder on Dana Scully:

Dana Scully on Fox Mulder:

Iron Man:

I know I said we weren't going to talk about the Samuel L. Jackson cameo in Iron Man ever again, but then people started posting cameraphone copies of it on YouTube. Here's our version. [Thanks, Greg!]

X-Files: I Want To Believe:

X-Files 2 is a return to the "horror genre X-Files started in," says David Duchovny. Also, Scully is working in a Catholic infirmary called Our Lady Of Sorrows Hospital, which is really an abandoned mental hospital in Vancouver. One scene involves Scully, a bed-ridden boy, and a "vulture-like priest." And there's a scene which takes place in the hospital's chapel. Also, that rural house where Mulder is living at the start of the movie? He's hiding out there, because he's still a fugitive. [X-Files News]

Indiana Jones And the Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull:

A memorabilia site has photos from Indiana Jones And the Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull for sale, and some of them are quite spoilery, including some pics of Indy handling the eponymous skull of crystal. Plus, Indy in quicksand! (Is Mutt using a snake to get him out, or a big stick?) And Indy getting choked by soldiers! And Indy in a weird 1950s pastiche with plastic kids. Huh? [Worst Previews and Slashfilm]

Batman: Gotham Knight:

Warner Home Video released some new images for Batman: Gotham Knight, its direct-to-DVD animated anthology that comes out July 8. And Alan Burnett, who edited all six of the scripts, revealed some new details about the sixth segment, which he wrote. Titled "Deadshot," it features the gunman with perfect aim from the Bat-comics. Says Warner, "The segment ties together threads from all the film's chapters as Batman must thwart an unerring assassin whose love of guns and disregard for human life lets him cross lines that even a Dark Knight shies away from." Burnett, who worked on the seminal Batman: The Animated Series says he was never allowed to use Deadshot in the TV cartoon because they weren't allowed to show real bullets. In the DVD, Deadshot's first murder takes place against a backdrop of fireworks and balloons. [Warner Home Video]

Amazing Spider-Man:

On the heels of that picture we showed you of Anti-Venom, who's like the antifreeze to Venom's engine oil, more details about this summer's Amazing Spider-Man storyline have come out. "New Ways To Die" runs from ASM #568-573, and features Norman Osborn, current Venom Mac Gargan and original Venom Eddie Brock... who is now Anti-Venom.

Besides totally radical fashion sense, these villains have one thing in common: they knew Spider-Man's secret identity long before he unmasked in the "Civil War" storyline. Now that the timeline has changed in the wake of Spider-Man's deal with the Devil (don't ask), suddenly these three villains don't know his identity any more. The storyline crosses over with Thunderbolts, where Norman Osborne is in charge, and culminates in one of the most asked-for battles of all time. Oh, and it's written by Dan (She Hulk) Slott, who's quite good when he's allowed to be fun. [Comic Book Resources]

X-Files 2:

Here are some new stills from July's X-Files: I Want To Believe, including a canoodly looking moment between Mulder and Scully. So much for the official "the-kissing-scene-was-fake" line. Unless this is just more misinformation, which I doubt. [Slashfilm]

Synecdoche, New York:

Here's one new pic from Charlie Kaufman's new film Synecdoche, New York, featuring Catherine Keener and Philip Seymour Hoffman. [Slashfilm again]

Heroes:

That new character on Heroes you heard about? The impulsive girl named Joy? She's a villain whose superpower is super-speed, like The Flash. She meets Hiro in an art museum. He asks her if she has a superpower, and whether she's trying to steal some art. She convinces poor gullible Hiro that she's legit... and then runs off with a bunch of paintings. [E! Online]

Dollhouse:

Dollhouse did a two-day location shoot, mostly at night, at a Spanish Mission Revival-style house in L.A.'s Miracle Mile district, which doubles as FBI agent Paul (Tahmoh Penikett)'s apartment, where he first meets Eliza Dushku's Echo, and they have their first fight scene. Paul is obsessed with finding out about the Dollhouse, and becomes a sort of love interest for Echo. [E! Online again]

Lost:

The first installment of the three-hour Lost finale, airing May 15, features the beginning of "the face-off between the survivors and the freighter people." [Spoilers Lost]

Also, there's a super-secret scene coming up involving Sawyer, which is the "game-changer" that leads to the end of those flash-forwards. And Kearny survives at least until the first part of the season finale. Also, Charlotte has a "big, crazy scene" with someone interesting in the next episode. [E! Online again]

And here are some photos from the season finale. Looks like Sun and Kate take turns holding Aaron. [Doc Arzt]

Doctor Who:

The Doctor Who season finale will not only feature returning companions Rose, Martha, Sarah Jane, Captain Jack, Mickey and Jackie — it'll also co-star Gwen and Ianto from Torchwood. That prediction is supposedly included in the new issue of England's Death Ray magazine, but I can't read it online. (If you're in the UK and have a copy, can you email me?) Also, the magazine claims that Davros is back, and we'll visit the Dalek's homeworld of Skaro (which has been destroyed, like, twice now.) [Science Fiction Fantasy Chronicles]

And once again, Digital Spy is releasing a mixture of real and fake spoilers for Saturday's episode. I'm guessing it's true that Donna's mom wields an axe, we see some of the Sontarans' arch-enemies (the Rutans) in a flashback, UNIT prepares a nuclear strike, Donna punches the real Martha thinking she's the fake one, and Sergey Brin has a "mating program" for his baby geniuses. [Doctor Who Insania]

Spectacular Spider-Man:

Here's what Doctor Octopus will look like on this Saturday's Spectacular Spider-Man:

Indiana Jones:

Here are a bunch of stills and production photos from Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, some of which are new and some of which are just much higher resolution than before. Not terribly spoilery, except that there's quicksand. And skeletons who aren't crystal. [Slashfilm]

Iron Man:

There's a scene in Iron Man where inventor Tony Stark's best friend Jim Rhodes looks at the Mark II Iron Man armor and says to himself, "Next time, baby." This is fueling speculation that the next movie would see Rhodes suiting up as War Machine — or, more likely, replacing Tony as Iron Man for a while first. And you won't see the way the movie introduces superspy organization S.H.I.E.L.D. coming, either. And there are tons of hints about uber-villain The Mandarin, who's not in this film. Also, the movie's end credits include animations that reference War Machine. [Rotten Tomatoes, via Cinematical]

And there are tons of hints that the next two movies in the would-be trilogy will address Tony's alcoholism (a big theme in the later comics) and Rhodes' arc on the way to becoming War Machine. [Moviefone]

And here's an incredibly boring behind-the-scenes video about Iron Man, in which director Jon Favreau points at a bunch of empty rooms and said, "this was where we shot the cave scenes, but we already took those sets down. This was his workshop, but it's been dismantled now." It includes some footage from the movie, but it's mostly stuff you've seen before. [MySpace]

X-Files: I Want To Believe:

World's most minor spoiler: Someone got a copy of the X-Files: I Want To Believe script and said the following three words appear on page 17: "believe," "visions," and "cigarette." [Thanks to Ewan]

Battlestar Galactica:

Nana Visitor (Kira from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) talked a bit about her role in episode six of Battlestar Galactica, as a fellow cancer patient who drives President Roslin nuts. "I'm dying and losing my hair. Talk about looking bad." She's not a Cylon, but her character does give "a glimpse of the other side, [what happens] when you die." [Jonja.net, thanks Chris]

Spectacular Spider-Man:

Here are some stills from this Saturday's Spectacular Spider-Man, which introduces the Green Goblin, and includes a big role for Mary-Jane Watson.

Lost:

At least one of the stars of Lost was in an "altered state" when E! Online visited the set recently. And Charlie puts in an appearance in next week's episode.

Meanwhile, the show just filmed the scene where the Oceanic Six arrive back in civilization, via a military transport plane. (And it sounds like they land in Honolulu, so Hawaii can actually play itself.) In another scene, the Six hold a press conference and are confronted by a very skeptical group of reporters, who have lots of questions and get some misleading answers. Also present at the press conference: Margo Shepherd and David and Carmen Reyes. The press asks:

Ms. Austen, how old is Aaron? Ms. Kwon, what happened to your husband? Mr. Reyes, what of your fortune, and this hefty airline settlement?

And here are more stills from the May 8 episode, showing Locke (and Claire?) in Jacob's Cabin, plus some goings-on on the freighter. [Spoilers Lost]

And here are two clips from next week's episode, "Something Nice Back Home":

Kyle XY:

Mark, that cute DJ who's been making a move on Kyle's step-sister Lori, is actually working for Latnok, the morally suspect group of scientists. And Kyle is going to get shot in season three. [Spoiler TV]

Also, Jessi XX, Kyle's female counterpart, will be back in season three and learning more hard lessons. Her biological mom Sarah (Ally Sheedy!) may also be back. And Kyle will come face-to-face with the scientists who created him, and have to deal with the fact that they're "not working with him." Kyle's relationship with his biological father Adam will be "doled out in pieces." Kyle's whole story arc has been planned out in advance, and may take him all the way through college. [TV Week]

io9's intrepid intern Nivair H. Gabriel was one of the first to jump up and into the question line. When she asked Carter and Spotnitz whether Mulder and Scully had been communicating with one another during the six years that elapse between the series and the movie. Carter's good-natured, ever-elusive response? "Well," he answered coyly, "they've been texting."

Other random movie details:

• 
  
• They showed the same trailer we already featured at io9 a couple of weeks ago.
• As we've heard before, it's a stand-alone story, without the government conspiracy/UFO mythos that made up a large bulk of the show's plot arc.
• The movie also provided a chance to get personal with the characters of Mulder and Sculy in a way the series never could, Spotnitz and Carter said.
• They're hoping this will only help move X-Files into the future and didn't rule out additional projects.
• One sort-of straight answer, at least: no, Scully's family, an emotionally wrought subject for her on TV, won't be appearing in the film. Carter was squirrelly, though: that doesn't mean we'll never see "references" to them again.
• Carter says that the X-Files is, and has been, not about aliens, but about other people.
• Spotnitz is happy to hand over full credit to Carter for the movie's title, "I Want To Believe"
• No word on extra or cut footage, but we're promised that a future Blu-Ray will be "very cool"
• A question comes about the political climate today. Mysteriously, we're told that while the X-Files movie isn't political, it feels like it's taking place "right now." "We live in scary times," Carter adds, tracing his own initiation into paranoia to the Watergate era and suggesting that we look to what our own government is up to more often.
• What should we take away from the movie? Spotnitz: Hope. Carter: The trash from under your seat.
• A question is fielded as to whether the movie has an underlying theology. Spotnitz says there's no theology, but that there's meaning and value in the world (always a critical element of the X-Files, he says.)
• Carter and Spotnitz have generously extended the Q&A several times to accomodate a long line of fan questions. Any actual information about the film's plot or the characters included are mostly skirted, though Amanda Peet and Xzibit are reconfirmed as playing FBI agents, and Billy Connolly, noted as an excellent comedian, will be very much "not funny" in "I Want to Believe." Carter neglected to mention sci fi favorite Callum Keith Rennie's inclusion, which likely would have brought cheers from some of the gathered fangirls/boys.
• A Q comes about whether the men have seen fan efforts online. Carter congenially responds that while it's appreciated, "that stuff is waaaay too racy" but he appreciates that "people are living much more hot and racy lives than I am" and using his characters for a medium. While Iappreciate Carter saying so, that's quite a change in tune from from the years when 20th Century Fox lawyers used to hound the websites of small X-Files fanfic websites with cease-and-desist letters.
• A fan asks: was Carter inspired at all by the late Arthur C. Clarke? Yes, Carter answers, without having to think about it: he was inspired by Clarke's uncanny way of predicting the future.
• Some old series issues wrapped up: by the 7th season Mulder has accepted that his sister Samantha is dead, and Mulder is, indeed, the father of Scully's baby, which I'm sure I wrote a story about once.
• No love for Mitch Pileggi as FBI boss Skinner? Carter joked that Skinner was surely a part of the excised steamy love scene Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny had talked about shooting together in order to mess with our fragile fan brains.

Here's the blurb for the movie novelization, which is written by Max Allen Collins (creator of Miss Tree, the greatest comic book character ever):

When a group of women are abducted in the wintry hills of rural Virginia, the only clues to their disappearance are the grotesque human remains that begin to turn up in snow banks along the highway. With officials desperate for any lead, a disgraced priest's questionable "visions" send local police on a wild goose chase and straight to a bizarre secret medical experiment that may or may not be connected to the women's disappearance. It's a case right out of The X-Files. But the FBI closed down its investigations into the paranormal years ago. And the best team for the job is ex-agents Fox Mulder and Dr. Dana Scully, who have no desire to revisit their dark past. Still, the truth of these horrific crimes is out there somewhere...and it will take Mulder and Scully to find it!

Iron Man:

That metal thingy in the middle of Tony Stark's chest? It doesn't just keep his heart beating, it actually replaces his heart, claims one guy who's seen the movie. And part of Tony's transformation when he returns home from his harrowing captivity in Afghanistan is that he starts seeing more in Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) than just a lowly assistant.

Tony decides to stop making weapons, but his mentor Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) disagrees and cuts Tony out of all decision-making at his own company. So Tony puts on his Iron Man suit and flies back to Afghanistan to destroy all the weapons he made. Also, the film is too long and sluggish, especially the first half. [Moviehole]

Indiana Jones:

Indiana Jones IV is about "greed, abduction, the Cold War, anticommunist fervor, torture, theft, artifact-acquisition rivalry, and the post-WWII generation gap," says Entertainment Weekly. The warriors you meet in the South American jungle are called the Ugha, and there are "large, nasty ants." Shia LaBoeuf plays a "muscled up" Marlon Brando-style punk-rebel named Mutt Williams. The Russians are seeking that Crystal Skull because of its "reputed mind-controlling powers." There were aliens in earlier drafts of the movie's script, but nobody's saying whether they're still in there. Oh, and Indiana Jones doesn't die in this movie.

X-Files: I Want To Believe:

Here are two new X-Files stills that just came out. [Slashfilm]

The Happening:

The "villlain" in The Happening, to some extent, stays unseen, says director M. Night Shyamalan. It's a "very scary thing that can permeate the entire movie — even when you walk out of the theatre." [Entertainment Weekly again]

Doctor Who:

Here's a completely random Doctor Who rumor: Donna will die at the end of the season, and Rose will stay with the Doctor, appearing in all the 2009 specials. [Soapchat]

And here's a clip from this Saturday's episode. Digital Spy have also done their ever-annoying thing of releasing some real, and some fake, spoilers for the episode. Off the top of my head, I'm guessing it's true that the Ood should be holding something organic instead of those translation globes they're all stuck with, and there's a silly song that markets the Ood as servants. [Planet Gallifrey]

Lost:

The Lost producers held a teleconference yesterday, and spilled some info about upcoming episodes. Don't expect to see Penny any time soon, because actress Sonya Walger is busy with her HBO show, but we will see more of Penny/Desmond at some point. The fate of Danielle and Karl will be decided in the next episode, and they were shot with actual bullets. We'll get more of Danielle's backstory, even if she really is dead.

As for the Jack/Kate/Sawyer triangle, producer Damon Lindelof says:

All we can say is that Sawyer is not one of the Oceanic Six, and Jack and Kate are. Obviously there will be a huge focus in the finale in terms of how that series of events transpires and what ultimately happens to Sawyer, and it's all on the axis of the love triangle. We think that both fans of Sawyer and Kate — otherwise known as the 'Skaters,' I am told — and Jack and Kate, the 'Jaters,' will have a bounty of interesting romance scenes.

They had no comment about whether we'll be seeing Claire after this season, but added that she'll have some "compelling events" in the next batch of episodes. We'll also see more of Jeff Fahey in upcoming episodes, and more than we might expect to see of Alan Dale.

Orchid will play a big role in the season finale. And huge, "seismic" events will befall all the characters before the season's end. Some characters' fates will be clear — but not all.

We'll see more of that wacky four-toed statue, and it will be explained before the show ends. We'll also see more of the smoke monster and of Jacob. The end of the show will be an end, and won't be open-ended in any way. They've already written the final scene of Lost, and everything is leading up to it. [Spoilers Lost]

X-Files: I Want To Believe:

Mulder has been living for the past six years in a house on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. at the start of X-Files: I Want To Believe. The house includes an office that's a loving recreation of Mulder's FBI basement space, including a poster with the words "I Want To Believe" on it. The office also includes some other touches from the TV show: a bowl of sunflower seeds, a board with newspaper clippings, a drawing of the creature from "Post-Modern Prometheus," pencils stuck in the ceiling, a photo of Samantha, and a basketball. Another room has a fishtank in it. There's a scene where Scully shows up at the house in a long camel coat, while Mulder is clipping something from a newspaper. He turns to face her, and that poster comes into focus in the frame. [Sci Fi Wire]

Splice:

Splice, the genetic experiment movie starring Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley, includes a very "lax" laboratory that looks as though the couple is doing DNA experiments in a slapdash manner, very much under the radar. Their "child," Dren, ages rapidly but her room in a nearby farmhouse still looks like a child's room, including a teddy bear. Delphine Chanéac, who plays Dren, had to shave her head and also wear weird clothes that allow the VFX crew to superimpose effects on her body, especially her legs below the knees. Dren develops into a deadly winged half-human creature. (And here's an early design of what Dren is supposed to look like. You can see more photos here, but some of them are NSFW.) [Bloody Disgusting]

Iron Man:

There's a new featurette showing Iron Man director Jon Favreau on the set, which reveals that Tony Stark has a very nice house. [IESB]

Wolverine:

A high-res version has appeared of a Wolverine promo pic that you may have seen before. It confirms that, yes, his claws do keep getting longer and longer. [IESB again]

Doctor Who:

Here's a photo from this Saturday's Doctor Who, which also includes the following dialog:
The Doctor: You've been shot.
Ood: The circle...
Donna: No, don't try to move -
Ood: The circle...must be broken.
The Doctor: What Circle? What d'you mean? Delta Fifty, what circle? [Spoiler TV]

Lost:

The upcoming Lost episode focusing on Locke (airing May 1 or May 8) will include a return appearance by Nestor Carbonell, as we'd previously speculated. Also, we'll see Ben in "a few different places" over the next few episodes, and Ben will seem like less of a bad guy compared to the violent and dangerous characters we'll be meeting in upcoming episodes. The final batch of episodes will move backwards, forwards and "sideways" in time. [Spoilers Lost]

Also, celeb gossip sites caught Josh Holloway, who plays Sawyer, in Los Angeles. Apparently he's doing some filming there, and it's not for a flashback. [Lyly Ford]

And here are some stills from episode 10, "Something Nice Back Home." Jack is injured, and meanwhile it looks like Sawyer and Locke may have a bit of a falling out. [Doc Arzt]

Smallville:

Some details about the Smallville season finale, "Arctic," have leaked out. Unfortunately, they're only in Spanish (that I've seen.) Here's what I've been able to glean: Clark is freaking out at the farm, when Kara comes crashing to Earth, with no memory of the past few weeks. She has no clue how to find Brainiac, but keeps urging Clark to go to the Fortress and seek Jor-El's help. Clark says he's tried that, but Kara keeps insisting that they should go to the Fortress, with a weird urgency.

Meanwhile, Lex has Jimmy firmly under his thumb thanks to the deal Jimmy made to protect Chloe. And there are some scenes with Edward Teague where they talk about the death of Virgil Swann, and how to use the device Lex found in Zurich. And then Lex tracks down some weird power sources in the North Pole, using government sources.

Clark goes to warn Lois not to underestimate what Lex is capable of. Lois says it's cute when Clark acts all concerned about her. Then Lois stumbles upon Jimmy's bloody body in the street. Jimmy says Lex has Chloe. And indeed, Lex has Chloe tied up in a vat of Kryptonite, connected to a computer via electrodes on her head. Lex is performing some kind of experiment on Chloe, having to do with tissue regeneration (I think.) [Smallville-Krypton]

Meanwhile, some clips from tonight's Smallville have turned up online, and they pretty much confirm what you already thought: Lex kills his dad. And then argues a lot with his inner child. If I may interject a personal opinion, the "Lex kills his dad" part seemed sort of promising. But then you add the "Lex argues with his inner child part, and I'm suddenly less thrilled. Here they are. [The TV Addict]

Even more spoilers for tonight's episode, from someone who's seen it: if Lex gets both of the Veritas keys, Clark will have to "do his bidding" and Lex will have complete control over Clark. Lex tells Clark, "I did try, Clark. In fact, when I first met you, you inspired me." Lex forbids anyone from going to Lionel's funeral, but Clark goes anyway. [Tasabian]

X-Files 2:

Here are some new promo stills from July's X-Files sequel. You can just glimpse a clipping behind Mulder that says something about a Frankenstein doctor.

Iron Man:

Professor Yin Sen, the Vietnamese scientist who helps Iron Man create his armor, is now played by Shaun Tolb, who also appears in The Kite Runner. Tolb says he appears in about 30 minutes of the movie, saves Iron Man's life and sends him on his journey. [Superhero Flix]

Batman: The Dark Knight.

That scene showing Heath Ledger in a body-bag won't be cut from the theatrical release of Batman: The Dark Knight, as some had speculated. [MovieHole]

Heroes

Here are the titles of the first four episodes of Heroes season three: "The Butterfly Effect," "Dreamtime," "One Of Us, One Of Them," and "The Year Of Our Lord." So, just reading between the lines here, we'll see some philosophizing about how you can't step on a butterfly without changing the course of history. And that wise Aborigine storyteller we're told is joining the cast will take us on a spiritual journey in the second episode. Or maybe I'm reading too much into those titles. In any case, the first two episodes are written by Tim Kring. [Heroes Television]

Lost:

In the first Lost episode back, we'll quickly learn the identity of the Rousseau and Karl snipers. The body that washes ashore in the episode is that of Doc Ray, from the freighter, and the body itself isn't as significant as what it implies. Meanwhile, we'll soon discover more about how the Island has a "pull" on people, even after they leave it. And there are more hints that Claire may not have much longer to live. [Spoilers Lost]

The second episode of Lost after the break involves Kate and Juliet teaming up to save Jack, whose "health is severely compromised." Meanwhile, Sawyer, Claire, Aaron and Miles head back to the beach, and then "something goes wrong." It appears this episode may be a Jack-centric flash-forward after all, since they were filming those scenes of FutureJack visiting Hurley in the mental hospital. [Fan Forum]

In upcoming episodes of Lost, Desmond stays on the freighter, where there are more shenanigans, says actor Henry Ian Cusick. And the actor has a strong feeling that Desmond is not going to make it out of the show alive. [Doc Arzt]

And here's a promo for the next episode:

Doctor Who:

Remember Friday's spoiler about the Doctor Who Christmas special featuring Cybermen in a Victorian graveyard? Here are a couple more pictures of the shooting. [South Argus and AltNation] And here's the synopsis for the upcoming "Planet of the Ood": "The Doctor takes Donna far into the future, to her first alien world. But on the planet Ood-Sphere, they discover terrible truths about the Human Race. As the enslaved Ood struggle for survival, a secret buried for 200 years threatens to rise up and engulf them all." [Bad Wolf PR]

Star Trek:

J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot has been filming in Bakersfield, in a farm that's supposed to look like Iowa — presumably where Kirk grew up. And here's some video of the filming, which shows a 1960s Corvette, which seems to have a woman and a boy (young Kirk?) driving. [TrekMovie]

Hancock:

Here's a new promo still from July 2's Hancock, which shows Will Smith's superhero doing "more harm than good." [USA Today]

Wolverine:

A German fan hiking in New Zealand got to watch some of the filming for the Wolverine solo movie, and took pictures of a barn being blown up, and Wolverine on a motorcycle. You can view the pictures here. [Goliath]

Also, British actor and martial artist Scott Adkins will play Weapon 11 — the next most advanced military experiment after Wolverine's Weapon X — and will fight Wolverine in a spectacular end-sequence in the X-men spin-off, due in 2009. [IGN]

X-Files 2:

The new X-Files movie includes a good priest (Billy Connoly) and a bad priest, plus genetic engineering and organ harvesting. It also includes a "horrific disease" and a warped cult. One major character is an eleven-year-old in a wheelchair, and someone's head gets cut off, according to rumors from semi-reliable sources. [Westender]

Doctor Who:

In Doctor Who season four episode four, "The Sontaran Strategem," Martha Jones summons the Doctor back to Earth (using her cell phone?) The ATMOS devices are spreading all over the world, and even Martha's own family may not be safe. It may already be too late to save the Joneses. [SpoilerTV]

Meanwhile, the Doctor Who Christmas special is already filming, and as you've heard, it takes place in Victorian London. One scene today in a snowy graveyard involved a woman in red, a vicar and a bunch of other Victorians running from a pyre. And then some Cybermen attack the Victorians and "delete" a whole bunch of them by grabbing their necks. They look exactly like the "Cybus Industries" Cybermen from season two. Plus, there are some other weird-looking "Wraith Cybermen," who have feathery cloaks and weird-looking cyber-heads that are more like rust or bronze, with the handles in a diamond shape. The "Wraith Cybermen" appear to be working with the regular Cybermen. [Planet Gallifrey]

And here's a new preview clip from Saturday's episode:

Lost:

The latest Entertainment Weekly includes tons of info on the final five (or six, possibly) episodes of Lost season four.

The show was shooting its next episode, "The Shape Of Things To Come," in a rock quarry, and Michael Emerson (Ben) says he's in an "all-Ben extravaganza" that includes "combat, riding horses, foreign languages. And piano playing!" The episode is a flash-forward focusing on Ben's war with Charles Widmore, and as we've reported it includes the funeral of Sayid's old flame Nadia. And we learn something new about the smoke monster. It'll also start a major turning-point storyline for Claire that carries on for the remaining four episodes.

As for the rest of the season, in addition to learning how the Oceanic Six got off the island, we'll find out who was in that coffin, what happened to those left behind, and why future Sayid is Ben's hit-bitch. The only flash-back will be "mythically significant" and (probably) feature Locke. (We already reported on the filming of what seemed to be Locke's birth.) We'll see a new Dharma station called the Orchid, with three lvels — and it sheds some more light on the island's time-warping properties. Penelope, Matthew Abaddon and Nestor Carbonell will turn up. But we won't learn more about Farraday and Miles until next year, thanks to the writers' strike.

That "spectacular" kiss we keep hearing about in the season finale? Will complicate the Jake-Kate-Saywer triangle. And the finale's revelations will underscore just how hard it will be for future Jack to get back to the island. The season-ending plot twist, code-named "Frozen Donkey Wheel," will set up another reinvention of the show's premise. And at some point, we may no longer have flashbacks or flashforwards. [Entertainment Weekly]

Battlestar Galactica:

To nobody's surprise, TV Guide posted the following description for next week's Battlestar Galactica episode: "Cally learns the truth about Tyrol." Just a reminder that you probably shouldn't be getting to attached to Cally.

The Dark Knight:

At one point in the new Batman movie, the Joker gets up in Christian Bale's face and quotes that Brokeback Mountain line about "You complete me," but in a really stalkery, unnerving way. (I thought that was a line from Jerry Maguire?) Also, there's a scene where the Joker gets inside a body bag and pretends to be dead, which freaked out everyone in the audience of an early preview screening — and it may have to be edited out. The movie's soundtrack includes a Jaws-esque tension-inducing heartbeat sound. Eric Roberts plays an icky mobster. Everyone in the movie, not just Harvey/Two-Face, has some kind of duality. [Batman on Film]

X-Files 2:

UGO has one of its spoiler roundups about X-Files 2, and doesn't really add much new information. Except supposedly the movie starts with scrolling introductory text, like Star Wars, to bring new viewers up to speed. And it does reference old episodes of the show. And Mitch Pileggi may be back as Skinner. And Mulder and Scully may encounter creatures they first met on the TV show. [UGO]

Dragonball:

James Masters, who plays Piccolo in Dragonball, will have the silliest fake latex muscles you've ever seen. At least, they look pretty stunning in this picture from make-up artist Edward French's home page. French won't reveal the prosthetic makeup he spent four hours applying to Marsters, but he did show off everything below the neck. [Edward French, via I Watch Stuff]

Heroes:

Season three of Heroes will introduce two new characters, because the show isn't overcrowded enough already: Joy, who's in her early twenties and good at getting herself into, and out of, trouble. And Senator Robert Malden, a "political straight shooter" in his fifties. [TV Guide]

Doctor Who:

Towards the end of Doctor Who season four, rumor has it we'll hear more references to the Medusa Cascade, which the Master mentioned at the end of season three. Also, still more rumors that Davros is showing up. And the final episode is supposedly extra long, which means it'll be extra-butchered for American viewers.

And the new Doctor Who Magazine includes key quotes from some upcoming episodes. In the Pompeii episode, the Doctor tells Donna, "Some things are fixed, some things are in flux, and Pompeii is fixed...That's how I see the universe. All the time, every waking second: what is, what was, what could be, what must not. That's the burden of a Time Lord, Donna."

In the Ood episode, the Doctor says, "The Ood aren't born like this, can't be - a species born to serve could never evolve in the first place. What does the company do, to make them obey?"

In the Sontaran two-parter, the Doctor says, "Whatever you do, Colonel Mace, do not engage the Sontarans in battle. There's nothing they like better than war! Leave this to me..." [Doctor Who Forum]

Smallville:

The 150th Smallville episode, airing May 1, will resolve the Clark/Brainiac story once and for all. That's the episode where Clark visits a world where he never crash-landed on Earth. (Think the Buffy storyline where Buffy never came to Sunnydale.) And in the alternate reality, Chloe is engaged to be married, while Alt-Lex will have a fancy job with an even fancier office. [Ask Ausiello]

Lost:

That "spectacular kiss" in the Lost season finale happens between a boy and a girl, and it doesn't take place on the island [E! Online]

The season finale involves a "big scene" involving the rescue of the Oceanic Six from the island, soon to be filmed. But the freighter crew aren't the ones who rescue the Six, and the cliffhanger will "leave you ballistic." Also, in the last five episodes of the season, we learn a lot more about Kate's love-life, both in the present and in flash-forwards. [Spoilers Lost]

Ben 10

The new Ben 10 series, Ben 10: Alien Force, takes place five years after the original series, with a more mature Ben. Ben goes to visit his grandfather, but aliens attack and his grandpa goes missing. So Ben teams up with Gwen, plus Max's old partner, an alien plumber, and they bust a weapons deal that turns out to be the work of Kevin Eleven, now back in human form. Despite being pissed about his deal going south, Kevin agrees to help Ben's team, and they use a "spiffy piece of alien tech" to infiltrate an alien base. The mission is mostly successful, but they the plumber dies, and they still need to find and rescue Grandpa Max. Meanwhile, Ben's watch has transformed and gives him access to a whole new set of aliens. The show launches April 18 on Cartoon Network. [Toonzone]

The comparison between this weekend's season premieres of Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who does the latter no favors, unfortunately. BSG was all fresh, dark and conspiracy-minded, with lots of throat-cutting and screaming action. Who was at its absolute campiest, schlocky and backward-looking. It honestly felt kind of old-school compared with BSG.

As with the old Lois and Clark Superman series, the new Doctor Who tries to invert the traditional Doctor-companion relationship, putting the companion in the starring role. And as with Lois and Clark, the device feels a bit hollow, because the Doctor is still the one we're invested in, the person who saves the day.

The shocking twist this time around is that the companion, Donna, isn't in love with the Doctor. She pursues him and desperately needs him to fill an emptiness in her life — but it's a need for adventure, not love. It's not as much of a difference as I'd hoped, because her life is still totally worthless without the Doctor, as we're shown at great length. The only reason she's even investigating the evildoings of Adipose is because she hopes the Doctor will show up there too.

Whether you think this new spin on the Doctor-companion dynamic is enough to sustain a whole season may depend largely on how much you like the clip above, where the Doctor and Donna have a mimed reunion while they're both spying on the same barely-a-supervillain. My sympathies are entirely with Miss Foster, who wants to know if her evil scheme is interrupting their long ASL processing conversation. But to be fair, the plot of "Partners In Crime" is so thin, there's not that much for the Doctor and Donna to interrupt.

Speaking of being fair, I made a resolution last year, after I watched the end of season three — the bit where the Doctor suddenly returns to youth after being aged 900 years — and levitates — because everyone on Earth believes in him. That moment was simultaneously so amazing, and yet so awful, that it totally destroyed my critical faculties. I decided that you can't really judge Russell T.'s work based on any normal standards of good or bad. You just have to take it on its own terms.

But even if you judge "Partners In Crime" on its own terms, as a "jolly romp," it's just barely okay. It doesn't quite ever muster enough verve to be a real romp. And the jollity is a bit forced. A lot of the clever bits feel a bit rehashed, as if Russell T. is running through his greatest hits. Especially the relationship between Donna and her mom, who feels entirely like a stock character made up of pieces of Jackie and Martha's mother. And the main plot, with the fat people who make farting noises and then have babies burst out of them, is literally a rehash of the Slitheen. Except that this time it's not evil aliens pretending to be fat people, it's innocent fat people who give birth to evil aliens. And the alien babies are actually babies this time, instead of just looking baby-like.

I take comfort in the fact that the previous two season openers were also paper-thin: the one in the hospital with the cat-nuns, where the hospital gets sealed off and there's an evil secret. And the one in the hospital with the Judoon, where the hospital gets sealed off and there's an evil secret. Russell T. has a record of tossing out his fluffiest episode first, and then getting into the heavier stuff later. And indeed, everyone who's seen next week's Pompeii episode says it's miles better than the army-of-babies one, with Donna actually showing more emotional range.

Meanwhile, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that the episode sets up some mysteries for the season's overall arc. The main one, of course, is the Rose-ghost whom Donna tells about the car keys in the rubbish bin. (Which, if I was Donna's mom, would be grounds for disowning her, by the way.) Then there's also the question of where Miss Foster got her own version of the Doctor's sonic screwdriver, but there's a good chance we'll never find out. And then it's possible there's some significance to the fact that Donna and her grandfather Wilf both met the Doctor separately, a year apart. But it's probably just a coincidence. (And why wasn't Wilf at the wedding anyway?)

But, yes, it was a jolly romp, and it was nice to see David Tennant jutting his chin and shouting, "Oh, yes!" again. And a still-impressive 8.4 million Brits tuned in. So even if you hope (like me) that we're reaching the tail end of the RTD era of Who, the phenomenon still seems to be going strong. And I'm pretty sure there are better episodes ahead. What did you think?

• Show creator Chris Carter hadn't had much success in television writing, having written mostly comedies and worked for The Disney Channel, before he was offered a chance to create shows for Fox.
• Carter was inspired to delve into the mysterious world of The X-Files by both the Watergate scandal, the old television show Kolchack: The Night Stalker, and a report that was circulating around 1992 that said 3.7 Americans "may have been abducted by aliens."
• Originally, Fox executives wanted someone blonder with big boobs instead of Gillian Anderson. Thankfully they didn't win that fight.
• The company Carter formed to run the production was called Ten Thirteen Productions, after his October 13th birthday. Sound Designer Thierry Couturier's son says the "I made this" over the company logo.
• Fox left Carter and his production team alone for the most part during the first season because they were putting a lot of time and effort into The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. Now, as a Bruce Campbell fan, I have to say I loved that show, and I'm glad it was able to take some heat off of The X-Files.
• The writing staff didn't want to follow Carter's all-alien abduction storylines, especially since the UFO show Sightings was airing on Fox. As a result, the show "Squeeze" with the creepy guy who ate livers, hibernated for 30 years and had Plastic Man like stretching abilities became a template for the "freak of the week" style the show eventually adopted.
• Besides the pilot episode, Carter also wrote "Space" during the first season, which was about a ghost in the Space Shuttle program. It was extremely expensive to make, and Carter calls it "one of the worst hours ever produced for the show."
• The show often fought for its life during the first season, having low ratings and a Friday night timeslot. Despite finishing 102nd out of the 118 programs in the Nielsens that year, it was picked up for a second season. This is why the season one finale "The Erlenmeyer Flask" has the X-Files being shut down, and Mulder and Scully being reassigned.
• The X-Files' opening sequence was nominated for an Emmy, and the theme song was remixed and became a hit in dance clubs in the UK, Australia, and France.
• The legendary writing team of Morgan and Wong, who were also co-executive producers, wrote many of the best episodes in the first season, although they left in season two to produce their own show Space: Above and Beyond. Sadly it tanked after one season, although Morgan and Wong didn't return to The X-Files until season four.
• The show didn't actually show an alien until the "Little Green Men" episode in season two.
• Gillian Anderson was pregnant throughout season two, and the producers decided to hide the fact by having her behind a desk or a medical exam table most of the time. It helped that she'd been transferred to Quantico to teach.
• By the end of season two, the show had climbed to 64th out of 141, although it was gaining cult status and spreading fast by word of mouth. The show had also spread beyond the U.S. borders, and was one of the most popular TV shows in the world, outside of the country.
• The show was also named the best show on TV by Entertainment Weekly that year, and also won a Golden Globe for best drama.
• However, the show was still so budget strapped that they couldn't afford location filming, and in the episode "Ascension," a rock quarry had to be painted to look like the desert of the American Southwest.
• Season three brought on a cavalcade of comedy, and a slew of guest stars including Alex Trebek, Jesse Ventura, Giovanni Ribisi, J.T. Charles Nelson Reilly, Walsh, R. Lee Ermey and Jack Black.
• Guest star Peter Boyle won an Emmy for his portrayal of a man who could predict death in the episode Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose, and the show also won for best writing.
• The show went on to win five Emmys that year, and Gillian Anderson won a Screen Actors Guild Award. By now The X-Files was here to stay.
• Season four premiered to their highest ratings ever, and Carter's new show Millenium (set in the X-Files universe) was put on Friday nights, so they moved The X-Files to Sunday night.
• By the fall of 1996, it was the most popular show on Fox, and Fox got the rights to broadcast the Superbowl. So, they decided to feature an episode right after the game, and "Leonard Betts" (about the guy who could regrow his body) received the highest ratings ever for an X-Files episode. More awards and kudos followed.
• Season Five opened to even bigger ratings, and the show was supposed to end there and become a series of feature films. However, Fox desperately wanted to keep the show, and worked out a new contract with Carter.
• Carter had been planning a feature film versin of the show ever since season two, and security was so tight that they were sending the script around on red paper, which would make it unable to be photocopied.
• They filmed the X-Files movie, X-Files: Fight the Future, inbetween seasons four and five, although it ended up pushing the start date for season five back, and as a result that season was two episode shorter, with only 20 instead of 22. It was code named "Blackwood" after Algernon Blackwood, a British writer of ghost stories.
• By season five, the two main stars were also becoming popular, and as a result many episodes featured either Scully or Mulder, and not usually both of them together. This was to allow them time to concentrate on other projects.
• Season five also featured episodes written by guest writers, including Stephen King and William Gibson.
• By the end of season five, both Anderson and Duchovny wanted the show to move from Vancouver to Los Angeles (where it was originally supposed to be shot), and so the sets were struck and production moved at the end of the season.
• X-Files: Fight the Future opened in 1998, although it wasn't a smash success. The movie grossed around $189 million worldwide, which recouped their reported $126 million dollar budget (with advertising figured in), but not by much.
• The movie takes place right inbetween seasons five and six, and season six picks up right where the movie left off.
• At the end of season five, the X-Files were once again closed, but then reopened in season six. However, new agents Spender and Fowley were assigned to them, and Mulder and Scully were given a new boss.
• Season six was seen as the "beginning of the end" for several reasons. There were several episodes which hardcore fans considered too comedic, like the gated community episode "Arcadia" or the two-part body hopping episode starring Michael McKean as Morris Fletcher. Also the move from Vancouver to L.A. seemed to alienate fans as well.
• However, the show was Fox's most popular again that year, and pulled in more awards. But, the wheels had been set in motion.
• David Duchovny left the show after season in part due to contract problems and feeling the need to "move on." Scully's role was dialed back as a result, and new agents John Doggett (Robert Patrick) and Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish) were introduced.
• Doggett and Reyes had some good episodes, but the show had lost a lot of it's hardcore fans and was turning into a sinking stone.
• For the season nine episode "The Truth," most of the cast returned and ended the season, and the show, on a cliffhanger. Sadly, they finished third in their timeslot, pulling in less viewers than their original pilot episode.
• In 2001 Fox introduced The Lone Gunmen spinoff show (which I must admit I am a huge fan of), although it only ran one season. The first episode had the unfortunate plot of hijackers trying to fly planes into the World Trade Centers, although it was filmed before 9/11. They were eventually (supposedly, I hope) killed off in season nine of The X-Files.
• The X-Files has a long-lasting legacy, having inspired shows like Smallville, Torchwood, and even Alias. You can buy the entire mammoth nine season set with the Fight the Future movie (but sadly, no Lone Gunmen disc) for just about $150 bucks right now. As a fan, I'll tell you up front that the packaging sucks on this set, but the contents are more than worth it.

Here's a closeup up the ship.

And here are a couple schematics from "anonymous."



Please do let this be from the upcoming X-Files movie. Or even better, some other movie that I haven't heard about yet.

UFO Reports Draw National Attention to Capitola [San Jose Mercury News]

Once again we see the footage of Billy Connolly leading a small army of FBI agents on some sort of manhunt across the snow, and then digging the snow with his hands. Mulder tells Scully he needs her on this case, and Scully says, "That's what scares me." There's also a very romantic moment with Mulder's hand on Scully's face, as if he's about to kiss her. Oh, and some kind of weird autopsy-looking thing. The video probably won't cause epilepsy, but we make no promises. [X-Files News]

A fansite has collected tons of spoilers for the new Doctor Who season. The first episode reunites the Doctor and Donna to investigate a company called Adipose Industries (adipose meaning fat?), and they meet Miss Foster, who has her own sonic screwdriver, and is part of an alien takeover plot.

In the second episode, they visit Pompeii right before the famous volcanic eruption, which turns out to be caused by aliens. And apparently the aliens are known as "pyrophiles" (or flame-lovers) from the planet pyrovili. Someone names Lucius is under alien control, and there's a creepy temple chock full of priestesses.

Episode three takes us to the Ood Homeworld, which is all icy and frozen. We see Ood in chains, and Donna gets locked in some kind of nasty blue chamber. And there are nasty humans with guns. Fans speculate it shows how the Ood Hive Mind was destroyed, turning them into the slaves we saw in season two.

In episode four, the Doctor joins Martha and the paramilitary organization U.N.I.T. to fight the Sontarans, and there's some weird alien tomb thingy. Episodes six and seven feature Georgia Moffett as the Doctor's pseudo-daughter... plus an alien race called the Haff who blow bubbles when they talk and wipe out a bunch of human soldiers. Martha comes along for the ride.

Episode seven is the one where they meet Agatha Christie, and apparently also tangle with that giant wasp we saw in the season four trailer. Episodes eight and nine are the Steven Moffatt two-parter where the Doctor visits an abandoned planet-sized library in the 51st century. And just like in Moffat's "Blink," where you would die if you closed your eyes, this time the rule is: "If you want to live, count the shadows." And possibly Donna gets married (again!).

In episode ten, the Doctor and Donna arrive on an intergalactic "spa" planet, and wind up getting stranded in the leisure resort, with an alien threat closing in. They meet a "terrifying" woman on holiday, played by Lesley Sharp.

Rose is back in time for episode eleven, this season's "Doctor-lite" episode. At one point, Rose says she "came out of nowhere. I was there, now I'm here!" And they seem to think the Doctor is dead. Also, London gets evacuated (again) and Donna's family gets relocated to live with an Asian family in Leeds. Donna sports a "vortex manipulator" on her wrist at one point, and both she and Rose are quite downcast. There's speculation that Donna has some kind of animatronic insect on her back, which she doesn't know about, which may go all the way back to her first appearance in "The Runaway Bride." There's also even wilder speculation that the Doctor isn't in this episode because he's been removed from time, hence Rose and Donna living their lives as if they'd never met him.

Supposedly, the Daleks are definitely back in the season finale. And they utter the line, "Daleks do not accept apologies!" There are also reports that former prime minister Harriet Jones joins the Daleks, or even turns into a Dalek. (They wouldn't really do that, would they?) Oh, and someone snapped some pics of the Doctor (wearing two different suits, as if there are two alternate Doctors) with Rose and Donna on a beach, with the TARDIS. The Doctor gets rained on, and leaves in the TARDIS on his own (probably at the end.) [Planet Gallifrey]

More spoilers:

• David "Trouble With Tribbles" Gerrold visited the set of J.J. Abrams' Star Trek movie, and signed a huge stack of non-disclosure forms. But he still felt comfortable giving away this incredibly vague, yet intriguing description:

  Stage 18 is one of the largest on the Paramount lot (it's where they shot the big crew scene in Star Trek: The Motion Picture) and the set that we saw totally filled it. We saw lots of computer screens, lasers, smoke, mirrors, machinery, bright lights, and big set thingies, plus a humongous thing that I'm not going to describe, but it took up a lot of space and must have been very heavy to hang from the rafters. We saw some very large cameras (they looked like 70mm cameras to me, but I could be wrong.) We saw a guy in what might have been a Starfleet uniform, it was very impressive and very very Star Trek. We also some some bad guys and they looked very good to me too, very much in keeping with the look and feel of classic Trek.

  So now you know the uniforms at least look somewhat like old-school Starfleet, and there are "classic" bad guy costumes. And a ginormous thing hanging from the rafters. [Trek Movie]
• And here are the shocking set photos from the new X-Files movie, which appear to show Mulder and Scully in an extremely tender moment together. [FlyNetOnline]
• Episode 10 of Lost will definitely take place in a Middle Eastern country, probably Tunisia. Rumor has it, it'll feature Ben flashbacks in Tunisia, but also possibly some Charlotte flashbacks, due to the writers cramming as much development into the shortened season as possible. [Doc Arzt]

We didn't see much more of Iron Man than you did if you watched the Superbowl commercial a few weeks ago, but director Jon Favreau did let it slip that he had to do some very creative editing to make this flick kid-friendly. No wonder, given that Iron Man as a character is about as dark as you can get: in recent series Civil War, he led the government crackdown on the superhero community, rounding up his cohorts and forcing them to be placed under surveillance under the Superhero Registration Act.

Starship Troopers III writer and director Ed Neumeier, who worked on the first film, said the new film will be a lot more darkly satirical. The soldiers are sick of the war, and just want to go home. It's based much more faithfully on the original Heinlein novel, and from what we could see from the hefty clips they showed us the action scenes will be fun and exciting to watch. A new generation of bugs have cool robo-suits that make them look like a cross between bug and Tripod from War of the Worlds.

And of course the biggest draw of the weekend was the new X-Files movie, which is being shot even as I write. The packed crowd of thousands was going crazy for every little word dropped by director Chris Carter, and the teeny taste of the movie we got to see was exciting. X-Files protagonists Scully and Mulder have always been morally ambiguous — even, at times, obviously insane. And the new flick has 9/11 looming over it like a dark cloud. The fans couldn't stop talking about conspiracy theories about how the original series was destroyed by the 9/11 disaster, and even Carter admitted the movie had to wait until the mood in the country was lighter again. Just to prove how light their moods were, stars Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny spent a while joking about how XF3 should be about Mulder's experiments with autoerotic asphyxiation. (And we got it on tape — you can see it if you click through.)

Carter kicked things off by saying the film was worth the wait,"Because it will scare the pants off you. You'll see Mulder and Scully again in a whole new way."

Suddenly a bunch of adolescent girls behind us started yelling at Duchovny, "Can you give us your pants?" Sadly he did not oblige. A fan asked asked about the X-Files and 9/11 controversy. (For those who don't know, the pilot episode of X-Files spinoff The Lone Gunmen is about a plot to crash a hijacked plane into the WTC.) Carter passed the question to Spotnitz, who said:

We were really upset, and worried that somehow we had inspired the plot. But we were relieved to discover that the plot pre-dated The Lone Gunmen, and that 9/11 had nothing to do with our work. And then once we realized that, my next thought was how the government hadn't known about this plot. There have been a lot of conspiracy theories about the connection between 9/11 and The Lone Gunman, but none of them are true.

There was lots more we could have done but we ended at the right time. Things had changed after 9/11... and now the mood is right once more.

Anderson said it was hard to get back into character. "I had a really bad couple of days. I thought it would be really easy to step into it and I actually sucked for 48 hours."

Carter said, "I've always thought the series was a search for God."

Anderson said:

One of my favorite episodes is Bad Blood. Probably because it's one of the only episodes I remember. It was each of our ideas of what took place in an event, and we both got to play the other person's perception of ourselves. So I was moody and bitchy and David was going on and on and on [with the talking].

• The "Ian Levine" syndrome. The BBC's Doctor Who was still a runaway success in the mid-1980s, partly thanks to the return of old monsters like the Cybermen and the Daleks after years in retirement. Producer John Nathan-Turner started going to conventions in the U.S. and England and listening to fans' questions about whether the giant-ant Zarbi would ever meet the giant spiders of Metebellis Three. Soon, he hired "superfan" Ian Levine as a "fan consultant." All of a sudden, you had stories with plots like, "The scientist from 1974's "Invasion of the Dinosaurs" tries to stop that sock monster we glimpsed briefly in 1964's "Dalek Invasion of Earth" from eating the cricket player from 1982's "Black Orchid," and we won't bother to explain what's going on. It'll be awesome!" Here's the "We Are The World"-style record which Levine produced to try and save Who after he'd helped put it on the verge of cancellation:
• Manny Cotto, savior of the universe. Star Trek: Enterprise was already on its last legs when Manny Cotto took over as show-runner, and started running episodes that answered lingering questions left over from The Wrath Of Khan, or finally explained why the Klingons didn't always have weird foreheads, or resolved inconsistencies between the different shows' portrayals of Vulcans. It was like the Discovery Channel for Trek maniacs. And the fans loved it. Everybody else? Too busy watching Iron Chef. To be fair, though, Cotto's fanservice* overkill was a symptom of Enterprise's fatal illness, not its cause. Here's Brent "Data" Spiner, playing the great-uncle of Data's creator, who it turns out created Ricardo Montalban by coincidence:
• "Dog-whistle" fanservice. When George Bush wanted to reassure conservatives that he wouldn't appoint any Supreme Court justices who supported Roe v. Wade, he used coded phrases that didn't mean much to most people, like "Dredd Scott." (These are called "dog-whistle" appeals, because they're only audible to some people.) In the same way, media SF sometimes slips in little nods to the fans that go over most people's heads. In Battlestar Galactica: Razor, you have Starbuck saying "I love it when a plan comes together," which is Hannibal's catch-phrase on former Starbuck Dirk Benedict's show The A-Team. Oooh, instant fangasm! (Weirdly, David Eick's Bionic Woman also had a gratuitous A-Team reference in its final episode.) More obvious fan-gifting was the inclusion of "classic" Cylons in Razor. And a recent Doctor Who episode turned a generic monster into the Macra from a 1966 story, but the reference was so vague that only fans would catch it.
• Shippers! Let's be clear here: romance subplots are a sign of a healthy book/TV/movie series, because you don't want your characters to be sexless robots. It's only when two characters get together because the fans demanded it (I'm looking at you, Mulder and Scully) that it becomes a problem. Sometimes, romantic/sexual tension is better kept tense. And sometimes, it doesn't actually exist. (I still love the Mary Tyler-Moore episode where she and Lou Grant finally kiss — and realize two seconds later that it's a dumb idea and they have no sexual chemistry.)

Fringe focuses on the brilliant-but-maybe-crazy scientist Walter Bishop (Noble), his estranged son... and the female agent who brings the two of them together. When the show starts, the elder Bishop is in an institution. Every week, the show focuses on another self-contained paranormal mystery, plus the relationships among the characters. Also, Lance Reddick (The Wire) will co-star as Phillip Broyles, special agent for Homeland Security. Broyles heads up the special Fringe division, set up to investigate a series of terrorist/paranormal events. Alex Graves (Journeyman) will direct the pilot.

Of course, J.J. is in the can-do-no-wrong zone right now, so maybe this show will subvert X-Files the way Cloverfield subverted Godzilla. You never know, right? [Production Charts]

I already mentioned Alien, but the prison planet on Alien 3 was actually even creepier than the smashed alien ship. That bleak, abandoned planet with its industrial freakshow prison was so depressing and hopeless that audiences stayed away from this film in droves — even though it was directed by David "Se7en" Fincher, a guy who certainly knows how to give good setting. William Gibson worked on an early version of the script. If you haven't seen this one in a while, give it a second viewing. You might be surprised.

One of the all-time most horrifying scifi settings is the hallucinatory, hellish veterans hospital in Jacob's Ladder. This film about a guy given weird "super soldier" drugs during Vietnam has strange religious overtones, but mostly is about someone driven crazy by government-conspiracy pharmaceuticals and high-tech warfare. Played with wide-eyed hysteria by a very young Tim Robbins, the guy begins seeing himself in a hospital hell, which is full of these twitchy-headed, masked demons who make the scariest dry-shuffling noises I've ever heard. Watch if you dare.

A cult movie from the mists of time (ie, 1975) called A Boy and His Dog wins for best scary, underground city long before City of Ember locked us into its spell. Featuring Don Johnson and a talking, mutant dog who is smarter than he is (yes, I know that's believable), the post-apocalyptic flick chronicles Don's foray into an underground city called "Topeka" where everybody wears weird clown makeup and lives a horrifying nightmare of suburban life, complete with enforced church-going and scary, ultra-trimmed lawns. Unfortunately for poor Don, radiation has made all the men sterile and they want to keep him prisoner and milk him for sperm (but not in a fun way). Jason Robards does an amazing job as the underground city's demented mayor. Actually, this trailer may scare you for reasons other than the underground city.

Laboratories — especially where They are experimenting on humans — are always frightening. That's what made so many scenes from The X-Files compelling.

And it's also what makes us love to fear the lab featured in Resident Evil: Extinction, where Milla Jovovich's clones kept getting tested and killed over and over again. But for sheer horror in set design, nothing can beat THX 1138, George Lucas' film about a completely sanitized, emotion-free society where everyone wears white (except the cops), every room is white, and everything is lit with insanely bright floodlamps. Filmed partly in one of San Francisco's ultra-white subway stations (the Powell St. BART station, to be exact), the whole film is saturated with a freaky fascist feeling created by Lucas' minimalist but frightening setting.