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Odyssey 5 Returns, as does Andromeda!

After a year with no episodes, tonight saw the return of Odyssey 5! While scary in truly disturbing ways, it is also science fiction of the first order. And if you have any doubts about it’s humor content, be sure to check the Harry Mudd (Ted Rami) episode, number 12 from the first season. Put this on your must see list, and let me know what you think!

Also returning with new episodes is Andromeda on the SciFi channel. If I followed this right, the Canada company who made this series (and a few others, like the never-to-be-lamented MutantX) went belly up. Scifi channel stepped in with funding to keep the good show out of their collection running, and am I glad!

All in all, a quality week for SF on TV. Hope we get some more like it soon!

Sky Captain: The REAL Hero

For anyone who is still not sure if they want to see Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, may I say you are Making a Mistake! If the movie’s home page didn’t convince you it was worth your time and money, let me point you to a wonderful interview with the lunatic behind the project, Kerry Conran. This is my kind of maniac; he spent most of the last decade building this movie on his home computer, but only 26 days filming the actors on set. In the process he may be spearheading a whole new breath of life into indi films, and big budget scifi movies as well. Using his approach, things like Ringworld or The Uplift Wars could be brought to the screen for less money than the national debt (or even the interest on it). And if this wasn’t enough, his next project may well be A Princess of Mars, the first book in the E.R.Burroughs John Carter of Mars series. Would I love to see that one as a movie; like so many other great SF books, the scope has often been beyond the technology of the movie industry. Maybe with this new paradigm, it will finally get made.

Movie Alert! Sky Captain, Sean, Ghost and RE2

There are some great movies hitting the theaters in the next few weeks; at least one of these should catch your attention!

First up is Resident Evil 2, Apocalypse. I am not a horror fan, but from the trailers this looks like it may be more action than thriller. I have been waiting a long time for the next two, and am thrilled that it looks like Sky Captain and the World Of Tomorrow will finally come out on the 17th. On that same day another one I have been eagerly awaiting also hits the screen; Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. And word just got to me that there is an American release set for the Brit spoof Sean of the Dead. What fun, see you in the theaters!

A Trek Fairwell: Scotty

It is with sadness I pass on this link; another TOS star is in retrograde. After Spock, Scotty was the character I identified with most. Here is the short version, from the BBC .

Dalek’s Return to Doctor Who!

The estate of Terry Nation has reached an agreement with the BBC; We will have Daleks in the new Dr. Who TV series as a result! In honor of that, I want to pass on a few of my favorite Dalek links. The first one is from the website where I learned the news, Andrew Hearn’s Doctor Who World. Taking it a step farther, The Sun reports that Daleks may be given legs this incarnation!

For those of you wondering what a Dalek is, let me point you to the Googlism: What Is A Dalek. Or for an actual definition, you can go with:
dalek n. a member of a race of hostile alien machine-organisms which appeared in the BBC television science-fiction serial Dr Who from 1963. [invented word, named after an encyclopedia volume covering the alphabetical sequence dal-lek] The Oxford English Reference Dictionary, © Oxford University Press 1996

If you want to add a Dalek to your own collection, you can build, buy, or render one. One of the best places to see what has been buyable in the past is the Skaro Toy Museum. For current merchandise, try the BBC Shop . If you want to buy a life-size Dalek, you should visit: LifeSize

If you like to build your own physical Dalek’s, you should check out Steve Phillips Daleks for a reproduction of the original instructions. If you want to render Daleks into your 3D software, two great choices are Mimrie’s Online Dalek Resources and Who3D.

The last link is the one to beware of; someone is starting to build Daleks! Check out this story from The Register ! Enjoy!

Don’t Panic! Hitchiker’s returns…

Douglas Adams had a wonderful writing style and a world-class sense of humor. And while he is no longer with us, his projects live on. His best known work, the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, is about to be rendered again, not once but twice.

The new Radio version takes up where the original left off, with never-before heard presentations of Life, The Universe And Everything, So Long And Thanks For All The Fish, and Mostly Harmless. The original vocal crew returns (with one exception), and Douglas himself does a character. For information, including air times, check these links:

www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/

www.abovethetitle.com/content/programmes/hitchhikers/hitchhikers.html

For those like me who don’t live in England, you can catch the show online at:

www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio4.shtml?fm

If you haven’t listened to the BBC online, test it before the night of the first show. You may need to download and install a player, and it would be a shame to miss the first part of the program while you were doing that! It adjust for your bandwidth, so even dialup users can listen with a good computer.

The other new treat is the movie version of Hitchhiker’s. They are filming it now, so the official web site is fairly sparse yet (not much to put there at this point). The Blog is live and worth checking, though. So is Martin Freeman’s site, the actor who get’s to be Arthur Dent this time around. And just because you can never get enough Douglas Adams, a few more links….

hitchhikers.movies.go.com/hitchblog/blog.htm

www.martinfreeman.com/hhgg.php

www.douglasadams.com

www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hhgttf/

And finally, the indirect link to the classic computer game from the ’80s. This was the first game (and one of a small handful) that caught my attention to the point where I played it to the end. Enjoy!