And when Mellie was freed from the clutches of the “Dollhouse,” it appeared to many that her time on the show might be over.

Not so fast says Laurie.  The actress recently told the Baltimore Sun that Mellie will be back for the second season of “Dollhouse.

“All I know for sure is that I’m coming back next season,” she told the paper. “I don’t actually know in what form I’ll be back. The writers are kind of teasing me—everybody knows but me.”

“Dollhouse” debuts on DVD and Blu Ray later this month and returns on Fox on Friday, September 25.  The season premiere is a week later than originally announced by Fox.  The network pushed back the premiere to allow series creator Joss Whedon to write and direct the first installment of season two.

The premiere drew an audience of 3.5 million viewers according to preliminary ratings and was the most watched cable show for the evening.’

“Warehouse 13″ drew the third-highest total viewership for a Syfy original series, trailing only the series premieres of “Stargate Atlantis” (4.2 million total viewers on July 16, 2004) and “Eureka” (4.1 million total viewers on July 18, 2006).

When final DVR viewing is included, “Warehouse 13″ will increase its viewership and may surpass one or both of those premieres.

The Sci-Fi channel has changed their name to SyFy. The reason is to attract more women in the 18-49 year-old range by softening the name and the content. Their once much desired 18-25 year-old male demographic has fled for the greener pastures of Spike TV (boobs) and video games (killing without character development). This shift is evident in their new marketing campaign, a Skittles-on-LSD commercial which feature no robots, monsters or space ships, only paper unicorns, magic carousels and hip young people (I’m not making that up). The message is clear: leave your hardcore nerd at the door, we wanna go mainstream!

And you know what? I’m okay with that to a certain degree. The name is ridiculous to be certain and I will never, ever write the phrase SciFi (SyFy) channel without the appropriate parenthetical demarcation. SciFi stood for Science Fiction at one point in time and I’ll not bastardize it further so that that it one day becomes a question in some future etymological trivia game. But back to the point, SciFi (SyFy) needs to sell ads to make money and if they think that puppies wings and magic kittens lure in the ladies, who am I to argue?

But I am going to take issue with lazy storytelling and borrowed premises. I’m desperately trying to work my way through Warehouse 13, one of the new shows to debut on the network that’s now heavily relying upon the “And sometimes ‘y’ is a vowel” rule to rebrand itself. It’s a difficult prospect and like a hiker ascending Everest, I need to take slow steps and pause often lest I suffer from episodic hypoxia.

What’s this show about? No clue. That’s not to say that it’s so nuanced, subtle and mysterious that I can’t fathom it. Rather, I submit that Warehouse 13 has lifted from so many other sources that I can’t plumb the depths of plagiarism to find an original idea.

Let’s use the ol’ SciFi (Syfy) subterfuge and see if we can’t separate the parts into their individual stolen components…
* our leads are two attractive government agents. They crack wise with each other and feign indifference when in fact there’s a spark between them that may lead to something else. AS SEEN IN X-FILES and FRINGE.
* A strange warehouse in the middle of nowhere houses unusual artifacts. AS SEEN IN RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.
* A ‘Crazy’ lead scientist who oversees the project. He’s both brilliant and a little off, providing comic relief. AS SEEN IN FRINGE, EUREKA and BACK TO THE FUTURE.
* Mysterious benefactor/boss who speaks in cryptic sentences and hints of larger conspiracies (yet to be fleshed out by producers). AS SEEN IN X-FILES, LOST.
* Monster of the week AS SEEN IN…EVERYTHING.

I could go on and list the Men-in-black, Friday the 13th (the Series), even The Invisible Man connections (boo-yah!), but why bother? The creators obviously pitched this show to the network (whose name I shall not invoke!) using those very series as direct references. They promised a Frankenstein patch-work of a series and they don’t care if people recognize that they dug up their loved ones for spare parts. This is a shambling ‘mediocrity monster’, stunning everyone in it’s path with a ‘meh’ or a ‘it’s not so bad’. The only thing that can kill it is counter programming as it hypnotizes those that watch it with just enough promise to warrant another episode. That will never come, of course and once he show has run out of ideas to drain, it will flee from the schedule to haunt Hulu for the rest of its days.

Look, I get that all ideas are modifications with enhancements on the other ideas. But I gotta take a stand on this. If someone is gonna take the time to change their name and be all trendy (Of “Trendi”?), they can’t just be the same old person. SciFi ditched their name, created a pretty ad campaign and then serves up something that they claim to be indicative of their new direction. It’s only on inspection that inside the shiny box is the same old feldercarb.

Sorry SyFy, bring us compelling stories, interesting characters and bend our imagination or don’t show up at all. Your tagline is “Imagine Greater”, and you need to heed your own advice. Take a chance and greenlight a series that will truly let our imaginations soar to new places and times with magic and science that seems like magic. You take the leap and we’ll be there to catch you. You trot out derivative shows like Warehouse 13, and we’ll box them up an store them in our own warehouse of lesser Science Fiction/Fantasy works, never to be thought of again.

For the upcoming San Diego Comic Con, outgoing “Doctor Who” producer Russell T. Davies has elusive promised that he would make an big announcement regarding the series.  Given the fact that actor David Tennant will be making the jump across the pond to join Davies on the panel, it doesn’t take too much to connect the dots and assume that the long-awaited “Doctor Who” movie could be announced at this year’s ComicCon.   And it’s also be an easy jump to assume that David Tennant would be starring in the film, which might be penned and/or produced by Davies.

As a long-time “Doctor Who” fan, I suppose I should be excited about the potential of seeing the good Doctor on the big-screen.  We haven’t had a “Doctor Who” movie since the Peter Cushing films on the 60’s (both of which are retellings of two early Dalek stories) and the prospect of an original “Doctor Who” feature should fill me with glee, joy and unparalleled geek love.

And yet, I can honestly say it doesn’t.

Why do you ask?

Because I fear that a “Doctor Who” movie with David Tennant in the lead as the Doctor will only serve to marganilize the upcoming era of the 11th Doctor.  Incoming producer Steven Moffat has promised a show that will be a bit darker when the 11th Doctor comes into the role–something the show desparately needs.  I’ve made no secret that I prefer any script Moffat has written to the best of Davies, so the thought of him being given the reigns to shape the series in his vision is something that makes me want to squeal in geek joy.

And yet, I have a feeling that this new, darker vision of “Doctor Who” is going to get lost in the shuffle.  In a lot of ways, I find myself wondering if the new era of “Who” will get overlooked by some fans in the same way that some “Star Trek” fans overlooked “Deep Space Nine” during its seven-year run on television.

Easily the best of the modern “Trek”s, “DS9″ was consistently overlooked in favor of the more high profile movie projects featuring the “Next Gen” crew and the launch of “Voyager.”  Even when “DS9″ was running circles around a lot of other genre shows (at the time, only “The X-Files” and “Babylon Five” were consistently in the same league as “DS9″) and a lot of conventional television series, it was widely ignored by critics and never really got the due it deserved.  Looking back, “DS9″ is still like the red-headed stepchild of the “Trek” universe.

To paraphrase Rodney Dangerfield, it just don’t get no respect.

Which is exactly what could happen to the Matt Smth era of “Doctor Who.”  In a lot of ways, Smith already has the decked hugely stacked against him.   In poll after poll, David Tennant easily wins the fans hearts as their favorite Doctor, so Smith has big shoes to fill there.  Tennant inhabited the role for four years and three seasons plus a series of specials.  In a lot of people’s minds, Tennant is the Doctor in much the same way that Tom Baker was the Doctor in the 70s.   Add to it that Smith comes in during a behind-the-scenes regime change and with a new companion and that’s a lot to ovecome in winning the fandom over.

So the idea of a movie featuring Tennant doesn’t seem to help things.  It could end up overshadowing Smith and his start on the show.   And it could end up dividing the fandom–well, even more than it already is.  (If you want to see a good arguement, go on any “Who” message board and write that you like the Sylvester McCoy era.)

I’m not against a “Doctor Who” movie, per se.  But I think the timing could have been a bit better–assuming it is a movie we’re getting in the near future.  Surely the year long hiatus would have been a better slot for the movie.   And while I don’t think that a movie as David Tennant’s last hurrah would have been a good idea (making fans pay to see the continuing storyline isn’t always the best idea….see “The X-Files”), it might have been more fun to see the program’s resources put into one solid movie idea rather than the two specials we’ve got so far.

Of course, a lot of my misgivings about this movie is that Davies is invovled and possibly writing it.  As former script-editor Christopher H. Bidmead recently told “Doctor Who Magazine” Davies has a lot of great first-draft ideas.  It’s just too bad that he never appears to do any re-writes–especially later in the season as the demands of being producer start to catch up with him.

I could, hopefully, be surprised though.  And I’m hoping I will be.  I was dead-set against a “Star Trek” reboot and it worked beautifully.  Maybe the same will happen here.

I just hope it does and that it doesn’t overshadow the hard work that Moffat, Smith and company will be putting into continuing the phenomonal success “Doctor Who” has been for the past several years.

That may be to allow actress Cameron Diaz to join the cast.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Diaz is considering an offer to join Rogan and Stephen Chow in the movie.  Diaz would play the lead female character according to reports.

“A deal hasn’t been sealed yet, but sources tell EW that she is in early talks for the role. Her reps at CAA declined comment,” reports the magazine.  “Michel Gondry is set to direct the film based on a script by Rogen and his writing partner, Evan Goldberg. Shooting is supposed to begin shortly, with a release date already set for July 9, 2010.”

Your prizes will be arriving in your mailbox any day now.

And thank you to everyone who entered the contest.   And keep your eye open for another “Stargate” contest coming soon….

The series centers on three roomates who happen to be a ghost, a werewolf and a vampire who’s on the wagon.  Created and written  Toby Whithouse, who penned the “School Reunion” episode of “Doctor Who,” the series is one that many fans have been looking forward to seeing in the United States since it’s run on the BBC in January.

And Whithouse said that getting the show to television screens was a bit different than how most British shows are produced and commissioned.

“It was a very odd process, really, because we don’t do pilots in this country at all,” Whithouse told SciFi Wire. “For some reason BBC Three … decided to do this series of pilots. We’d already been developing ‘Being Human’ just as a normal series. Suddenly this opportunity to do this as a pilot came up. In a way we felt it improved our chances.”

When the pilot aired, it “got this extraordinary response that we were completely unprepared for,” Whithouse said. But when the BBC gave them the green light to make the series, many of the cast members were otherwise employed. “Apart from George the werewolf [Russell Tovey], pretty much everyone else changed,” he said.

The casting changes didn’t mean that Whithead had to discard the mythology he’d created for the series, he said.

“The benefit of doing the pilot was that it gave us a chance to re-examine certain aspects that didn’t work,” Whithouse said. “One of the things we didn’t feel worked in the pilot was the portrayal of the vampires. They were just kind of too … they were very Anne Rice in the pilot. And we felt that, because we’d gone to such lengths to make everything else so believable and realistic, we felt that that just wasn’t in keeping with the rest of the show.”

And the series is definitely one for adults.  The original British cuts feature some nudity and adult language.  When asked if these would be toned down for the American audience, Whithouse wasn’t sure if any cuts were being or had been made.

And should the series prove to be a success on BBC America, there’s more to come.  Whithouse is currently working on the final two episodes of the second series, which will being production later this year.

Optimus Prime dropped by to help Letterman with the list of “Top Ten Things That Sound Cool When Spoken By A Giant Robot.”

If you missed the segment or just want to see it again, you can check it out below.

“It’s actually about sex, potions and rock ‘n’ roll,” Yates told SciFi Wire.  “It’s a wonderfully fun, slightly rebellious, quite naughty stage of teenage life, when you’re kind of discovering the opposite sex. … In the previous film, it was about the first kiss. This film is a bit more sexualized than that. You know, in a way. We don’t see sex, but it’s kind of in there. And the relationships are a bit more complicated and romantic and convoluted. So we’re pushing into new emotional and kind of physical territory for ‘Harry Potter’, you know, in a way, so it’s quite playful and fun.”

Yates, who is directing the final three installments of the franchise, said he enjoyed the intensity of the “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”

“This has intensity, but it’s very playful, and there are some terrifically funny scenes,” he continued.  “And six is a much lighter, more playful book than five was. It still has some tremendous intensity at the end of the story, but it’s got lots of laughs, too, and for me, as a director, what’s lovely is to change gears a little bit, and that’s why I wanted to do it. I didn’t want to make a kind of film about teenage angst, I wanted to make a film about teenage romance.”

As for his cast, Yates said that seeing them all grow up in the roles has been a fascinating journey.

“Emma has become much more confident,” he said. “I mean, she was confident before, but … her acting … is becoming more effortless. Dan’s been off and done ‘Equus’ and some television things, a television film, and he’s grown a lot more confident and matured a wee bit. And they’re all getting a wee bit older, and the material allows them to take a few more turns. … They’re getting better, as they should be as they get older, you know, so it’s encouraging and enjoyable to see the whole [evolution].”

“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” opens in theaters on Wednesday, July 15.

And he’s looking to follow in the footsteps of Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford to do it.

According to Dark Horizons, Clooney is currently considering stepping into the shoe of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan on the big-screen.   The role has previously been played by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and, most recently, by Ben Afflick.

“Clooney seems to recognize that at this time in the world and this time in his life (he’s pushing 50), it’s time for some commercial maintenance,” says web-site the Daily Beast.

The film franchise has been in limbo since the Affleck lead “The Sum of All Fears” a few years ago.  At the time, the series attempted a reboot with Affleck as the younger version of Ryan.  And while the film garnered critical support for the story and action, Affleck’s work was almost universally derided by critics.

Would Clooney be a good fit as Ryan?  And which Tom Clancy novel would be next for adaptation?   Or would the film series create its own story for Ryan?

And there are other actors interested in the role.  Actor Ryan Gosling said he might be interested in playing Ryan and Ford has expressed some interest in returing to the role.

The Elonex will come pre-loaded with about 1,000 books and will support both the open-source ePub and proprietary Adobe formats. It will be “completely compatible” with the 45,000 odd e-books sold through the Borders website, says the company.

“Digital bookselling is still in its infancy but we believe it is here to stay,” says Peter Newbould, commercial director at Borders. “By launching the e-book reader, we hope to bring new customers into the market.”

The Equinox will offer readers the ability to go into a Borders store and purchase and instantly download titles.

Borders isn’t the only bookstore challenging the Kindle.  Competitor brick and morter store Barnes and Nobel has also stepped up and is working on their own e-book reader.

“The big book stores are seeing Amazon take more and more market share of digital book sales,” says Sarah Rotman-Epps, an analyst with Forrester Research. “E-books are a small part of the market but it is one of the growth areas and retailers don’t want to stand back and let Amazon get ahead.”

The moves by Borders and in the future by Barnes & Nobles is also attempt to stave off a fate that music retail stores have faced as records went digital, says Epps. Still the transition is unlikely to be easy.

“It’s not a pretty picture right now for brick-and-mortar retailers,” said Epps. “E-books sales are growing but they can’t nearly bring in the same kind of revenue as physical books do,” she says.

Meanwhile, e-book readers promoted by big stores could also widen the gap between chain stores and independent book sellers who may not be able to offer an integrated e-book reading experience.

Of course, this begs the question of if the e-book readers will be cross-store comptabile or propritary .   And could this be the next great battle along the lines of digital music players?

The new series debuts in comic stores today and feature stories about classic characters like Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Flash and others from the D.C. Universe. Creative talent behind the series includes Paul Pope (writing/drawing Adam Strange) Neil Gaiman (on Metamorpho), Brian Azzarello, Dave Gibbons, Kyle Baker, Joe Kubert and others.

If you want to get a sample of what you’ll get, USA Today is postin each week’s Superman strip online.

The first issue goes on-sale today.  DC says the comic will arrive in stores folded twice to 7″ x 10.”  New issues will arrive in stores weekly for the next three months.

When contacted about his decision to depart, Vaughan cryptically said, “My only official statement. I can confirm that I left Lost to become best friends with Olivia Munn.”

Munn is the host of G4’s popular series, “Attack of the Show” and is the cover model in the most recent issue of “Playboy.”

The departure may be for Vaughan to pursue big-screen adaptations of some his popular graphic novels and comic books. Vaughan has big-screen versions of “Ex Machina,” “Y: The Last Man” and a new King Arthur movie currently in development at several studios.

Vaughan served as an executive producer and story-editor on the show.  He wrote several episodes include “Namaste” and “Meet Kevin Johnson.”

The new system is called Chrome OS and is intended to be “lightweight, quick-starting operating system” according to Wired.  The central focus of the system will be supporting the Google Chrome browser, which will run most of the applications.   The move wiill make the web browser the computer’s default operating system as opposed to the desktop scheme currently used by Microsoft.

The Linux-based OS is the second for Google, following on Android, another open-source OS that intended for small devices such as mobile phones. Chrome OS will first be on netbooks — the popular lightweight and inexpensive notebook computers — in the second half of 2010, the company said in a blog post. Desktops will come later.

“People want to get to their email instantly, without wasting time waiting for their computers to boot and browsers to start up. They want their computers to always run as fast as when they first bought them,” Google said in a statement. “Even more importantly, they don’t want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates.”

Google has already worked to compete with Microsoft in offering several other web-based applications from the popular gmail to spreadsheets and word processing.  The annoucement of Chrome is the next step in giving Microsoft even greater competition.

Read the rest of the review HERE

The series, which takes place after a global catastrophe, will chronicle lives of residents of a southern California apartment complex. In the wake of a mysterious event that has shattered lines of communication and (literally) changed the shape of the world, the survivors must work together to both rebuild and save the Earth from a menace that might have already consumed countless other worlds.

Below is a video for the show that reveals some behind-the-scenes info about the new program from executive producer Jesse Alexander (”Heroes,” “Lost”).

“When I first saw her, she looked very mysterious, unfriendly and gloomy,” June said. “It was kind of shocking, but very attractive.”

The movie is a live-action adaptation of a popular anime and manga series.  The story follows Saya, a “halfling,” or person with a human father and vampire mother. Though she is centuries old, she looks like a schoolgirl, which allows her to infiltrate her enemies. She works with a secret organization, which cleans up after she goes all slayer on evil vampires. Ultimately, she hopes to find and destroy head vampire Onigen to avenge her father’s death. If we’ve learned anything from revenge movies, finding peace is never that simple.

“I wanted to portray Saya’s inner pain and her charm through more action scenes,” Gianna said.

The film will feature some intense fight scenes when it hits theaters.  The actress said she had no idea how intense they’d be while filming because some of the blood-splatter effects were added in post-production.

“I myself was pretty surprised when I watched the finished product,” she said. “It was much bloodier than I had imagined while filming. I didn’t realize I had killed so brutally. Ha ha.”

Fans can check out the results when “Blood: The Last Vampire” opens Friday.

The move to BBC1 has, so far, been a huge success for the show and almost assures the series will get a green light for a fourth season.

Ratings for the first night of the third season mini-series “Children of Earth” were solid according to overnight figures.  The series attracted close to 6 million viewers and easily won its timeslot in the UK.

The BBC was looking to capture a “powerful sense of event” with the new season and, so far, it looks like that’s happened.  Now comes the waiting to see if the ratings remain solid, grow or decline as the mini-series continues.

And the BBC said a few days ago that a fourth series of “Torchwood” was almost a lock, but they were waiting for the ratings and response to the new mini-series.   So, it looks good for more “Torchwood” though how much we’ll get remains in the air.

Warner Brothers has purchased the movie rights to Midway video games.  This means that we could soon see movie version of “Mortal Kombat,” “Spy Hunter,” “Space Invaders,” “Pac-Man,” “Rampage” and “Joust.”

Yes, you read that right–the “Joust” movie could be back. Heaven help the voice mail line.

Warner Brothers picked up the rights to the entire catalog for $33 million. The move came when Midway was forced to declare bankruptcy.

Warners has not revealed what plans they have in store for potential film development of the properties, though they did not purchase the company’s two development studios which would indicate they’ve little interest in continuing on the company’s game franchises.

A film version of “Spy Hunter” and a long in development relaunch of the “Mortal Kombat” film franchise have both been hampered in recent years in their attempts to get made.

Whatever the case, the second half of season four hits DVD and Blu Ray later this month. Until then, Universal Pictures has sent over a clip from the upcoming DVD and Blu Ray release of this popular series.

You can check it out below:

The episode features guest star Felicia Day and is set in the future.

According to SciFi Wire, the special editions that will be available at the upcoming San Diego Comic Con are seeing solid business. And that is translating over to pre-orders for the series at various on-line vendors. Hopefully this will be good news for the show finding a greater audience on DVD and when it returns this fall.

Then hopefully your local theater hasn’t sold out of midnight showings for the latest installment.

Following the trend of most recent blockbusters, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” will have a midnight opening next week.

If you’re interested in finding out more about the movie and the pace of its early ticket sales, tune in to this week’s Slice of SciFi. You can catch the live feed Thursday evening or hear the show when it goes on-line Saturday.

If you don’t want to know what it might be, please turn back now.

Panettiere says that Claire may explore a romantic relationship with another woman on the fourth season of “Heroes.”  While this hasn’t been confirmed by anyone involved with “Heroes,” Panettiere did have this to say about the potential storyline, “ “It’s just girlie fun at first. But it might progress into something more serious. It depends on how viewers respond.”

What we do know is that Claire will be enrolling in college next fall.  Photos of Panettiere filming location scenes on campus have surfaced at various web-sites.

“Heroes” returns this fall on NBC.

The new four-page comic book installment from Dark Horse may take the whole Spike and Angel relationship to the next level.  The installment, which is available on-line, is written by series creator Joss Whedon.  And while it may be an elaborate dream sequence (including Buffy marrying a skin-less Warren), it does include one portion that should have slash fans buzzing.

You can check it out here:

You can check out the whole comic HERE.

And while SyFy may have hoped to get questions about its programming, including the new series “Warehouse 13″ and the return of “Eureka,” a lot of the questions were related to network’s decision to change its name.

According to the Hollywood Reporter’s Live Feed blog, Engler has responded to many of the questions and criticisms lobbed and he and the network.  Below is a sampling of the questions and responses.

Q) Does SyFy’s new branding mean less science fiction/fantasy programming?

A) No, we are not changing our programming mix

Q) How do you pronounce SyFy? When I see it I want to pronounce it so it rhymes with ‘jiffy’

A) Just like “sci-fi”

Q) Why do you insist on trying to pretend your demographic isn’t what it is and pandering to people who will never watch you?

The series, which follows two  Secret Service agents find themselves abruptly transferred to Warehouse 13: a massive, top-secret storage facility in windswept South Dakota that houses every strange artifact, mysterious relic, fantastical object and supernatural souvenir ever collected by the U.S. government.

Producer David Simkins said the decision to use the number “13″ in the title wasn’t an arbitrary one.

Rather, the “13″ will directly tie into the history of the enigmatic building housing all the powerful objects gathered by a covert government agency

“We just finished a document that sort of tracks the chronology of the warehouses,” Simkins told SciFi Wire. “In our mythology, the first warehouse was created by Alexander [the Great] in an effort to keep hold of the artifacts that he collected on his wars. And it didn’t last long, because Alexander died young, but then the library at Alexandria was a warehouse, too, where research and development and things were stored, and books. And so we’ve tracked the chronology of empires, and our feeling is that the warehouse has moved from empire to empire throughout the ages, moving to the country that was best able to protect it. It was in the Western [Roman] Empire, the Hunnic Empire, the Byzantine Empire, all the way up through the Russian Empire, the British Empire and then, finally, the United States.”

Simkins elaborated on the show’s deep backstory. “It was in one of the early warehouses in iterations where it established that a board of directors essentially would be in charge of it, an ever-changing sort of Supreme Court called the Regents,” he said. “And the Regents were in charge of deciding when and where to move the warehouse. I think the longest it lasted was in the Western Roman Empire for about 500 years, and the shortest was about 14 years in … I think it was the Khmer Empire. So, yeah, we’ve established this long history of the number of warehouses that have gone through the ages, and eventually, when we get it all polished up, it will maybe show up on the Web site or something.”

“Warehouse 13″ debuts tonight on SyFy.

“The Value Gamer” is report based on a survey of the first five months of the year.  According to the survey, gamers are spending an additional one to two hours a week playing videogames.

They’re also purchasing the games used or taking advantage of rental services for the games the report indicates.

According to Nielsen, the ratio of used games to the total number purchased is at an all-time high, as consumers cut back on new title purchases.  Use of rental services by mail have also reached Nielsen peaks.

The research cites this rise in used games and rentals as well as a lack of blockbuster titles for a drop in new game purchases for 2009.

The survey included 2,400 participants classified by Nielsen as gamers, or consumers who have purchased a game in the last six months and played for at least one hour a week on current consoles or PC

If you’re a child of the 80’s, you may remember that William Shatner had a successful television series called “T.J. Hooker.”  On the series, Shatner played a veteran patrol sergeant, who ruffled feathers with his no-nonsense attitude but always got the job done.  The series ran from 1982-86.

According to a Variety report, a movie version is in the planning stages with “The Mask” director Chuck Russell set to take the helm. The movie would be an action comedy that revolves around the relationship between the titular cop and his father.

Shatner starred in the original show, with movie producer David Heppe explaining “The series was the poster child for cop shows in the 1980s with great stunts, so we think there’s a fun movie to be made from it.”

Brent Maddock and S.S. Wilson will write the script.

No word yet on if Shatner might have a starring or cameo role in the film.

Astronaut Jose Hernandez will deliver updates from outer space in both English and Spanish.  Hernandez grew up in a migrant farming family and did not learn English until he was 12. He is scheduled to fly aboard the space shuttle Discovery in August and tweet bilingually from orbit. It will be his first flight.

His twitter account is astro_jose. He has already started tweeting in both languages while training on the ground.

NASA says this is the agency’s first Twitter account in Spanish.

According to TV Guide On-Line, the premiere runs 124 minutes.  So you may want to padd the recording time on your recording device or else run the risk of not catching the last few minutes of the show.