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A few of them are comic themed (Kyrpton and Strontium) but there's a lot of other good ones there (Arsenic will give you the creeps).

Who will feed this giant new geriatric population?

Feed them? they will be feeding us! Haven't you see the documentary soylent green?

According to this official post from sci-fi on the demise of The Chronicle, they will be doing a movie based on Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld.

Also, some 20 hour miniseries from Steve Spielberg called "Taken". Also, according to this post, they will be doing a 4 hour Myst mini-series.

The first 2 sound quite neat, but I'm not so sure about the Myst series...

According to this official post from sci-fi on the demise of The Chronicle, they will be doing a movie based on Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld.

Also, some 20 hour miniseries from Steve Spielberg called "Taken". Also, according to this post, they will be doing a 4 hour Myst mini-series.

The first 2 sound quite neat, but I'm not so sure about the Myst series...

Strangeworld is done with Video Toaster and KDE kVideo. AFAIK, Strangeworld is the only active production using Debian right now. You'll find the Debian swirl hidden in at least one scene per show, so presumably they've got at least one Debian fanatic on board. Pretty damned cool!

You are completely mistaken. While the long version can be found on the scifi.com web site, the short version is that Strange World was produced, finished, and shelved in 1999. Only ten episodes were even made, and only three of those were aired before SciFi picked up the property. Nobody has touched Strange World in three years.

Whether Video Toaster or Debian Linux were used in the production of the series is open for discussion. But the question belongs entirely in the past tense.

If you want the read the story, it is online.
Right here

The problem with content is that in addition to the filming equipment that needs to be changed, HDTV will not miss any fault in the set.
Every detail needs to be corrected. If there is part of a rock that does not look real, it will show on the screen. Shows like buffy will need to get better sets.
The only example I have in mind is the Jules Verne adventures.
I have seen the set (actually, we cut it up and took it to build our mansion for a live action fantasy wargame, Bicolline) and it was amazing. I don't know much about tv sets for series, but I have been told that a normal one would look horrible when shown by a HDTV, especially stuff like fake crypts or makeup.

But do we have to have John Edward there to get the full truth?

Farscape is a continuing series on the Sci Fi Channel. Currently on the third series. It revolves around the story of John Crichton an astronaut who while testing a vehicle, designed to use the gravity well as propulsion, accidentally gets tossed into a wormhole.
Ok while the story is really good and all, THEY DON"T HAVE ANY BLOODY NEW EPS! Then next new ep, is supposed to air sometime in april. relevent links: Official Web Site

You are mostly correct. Except, Sorbo himself also wanted more guns and fight scenes.

Here's the /. article from last month
and the slipstream article.

Apparently, that's also how he strong-armed such great ratings for Hercules. (pun intended *ducks*)

Note the following from SS:
One large difference between the changes for the two shows is that all of Andromeda's main characters seem to be staying on board. In fact, it seems that main star Kevin Sorbo will be very influential in the creative tone of the series from now on. Sorbo has always said he had a major hand in the creative success of his former series Hercules, and hopefully that experience will enable him to let Andromeda continue to be a successful show as well.

I'm hoping that it's long absence from the screen doesn't kill it by making people find other shows to watch. From what I've seen on scifi.com we aren't getting new shows until April. And it's no longer running daily, so I just hope that they didn't just lose their fan base.

Here is a link to an article about the Farscape Video Game at SCIFI.com

Here is a link to a preview at Sonyweb.com for the game. It looks like the game will come out on the Playstation 2. The preview includes many pictures and lots of information.

Here is a a little of what it says:

The #1 sci-fi television show, Farscape, is set to make its appearance on PS2 and PC, and although not due to be released until early next year, the hype surrounding the game is already building. Farscape, a critically acclaimed original sci-fi channel series, has quite a large fan-base, and these science fiction lovers will be anxiously awaiting the release of a Farscape video game. Thanks to Jim Henson's Creature Shop, the show is brought to life with innovative creature design and high-tech special effects.

The first time I saw Invader Zim I instantly recognized it as Vasquezian artwork and humor. I loved JTHM way back when and liked every episode of Zim I managed to catch. I think to really like Zim you need to have liked JTHM as well. Both have a crazy protagonist at odds with absolutely everything around them. The fact Nick feels the need to cancel it goes to show how inept their fucking program managers are. They're trying to grab the 12-16 audience between the hours of 8-10pm. The problem is their shows appeal to the 18-24 audience who have other things to do besides sit at home watching TV reverently on a Friday night. Then to make it worse they don't reair it on Sundays with any sort of consistancy so you can only possibly catch a couple episodes if you have ANYTHING in life you life to do besides wait for the damn show to air.

I watch cartoons more now than I did when I was 10 but I don't have the luxery to sit around with one thumb up my ass and the other on a remote control flipping back and forth between Nickeodeon and the TV Guide channel hoping to maybe catch an episode of Invader Zim. If Nickelodeon wanted an audience for their shows they wouldn't have a website which insulted the intelligence of people over the age of 10 using it trying to find when a fucking cartoon aired. Nick's website is worse than a majority of the tripe they air. If the website says the show is on on Sunday I shouldn't need to drop candle wax into a bucket of water to predict whether or not it actually WILL be on on Sunday or not. I really liked Zim and it blows that I thought it already had been canceled because I couldn't find out when the hell it was airing on a-day-other-then-Friday to catch what I missed. Fuck them, fuck them up their stupid asses. Oh yeah, Scifi.com had a little piece about Invader Zim and how nobody would miss it when it's gone. I always missed it when it was airing, I'm going to miss it alot more once it isn't aired. Guess I need to download Real Player now.

Basically it was a rip off of the Marvel Comics Iron Man character, albeit without Tony Stark's litany of personal problems.

Even Iron Man, who first appeared circa 1963, is not that original. Robert Heinlein's Hugo award winning novel Starship Troopers, which prominently featured powered armor, was first published in 1959.

I know that GE did a great deal of development in the early 60's on the Hardiman and related "Warehouseman" (I forget the name) human augment suits.

I do not doubt that the idea of power suits predates 1959. It can at least be traced to the late 50's early 60's. So when someone pops up on a decades old idea with a "hey this idea goes all the way back to the 90s!", I get a little testy.

Cheers

I.V.

There's a nifty little website out there called Jump The Shark ... "a Chronicle of the moments a TV shows goes downhill" ...

For me, I'm not sure when that momemnt happened, but I just know I haven't been watching it for the past couple of years. To me, the show lost it's "Twilight-Zone-Like" playfulness somewhere down the line and is now just another tedious soap-opera with a monster waiting to jump out of a closet.

Then again, I liked the original Lone-Gunman, and lost interest after only a couple of episodes.

For fans of Vernor Vinge (as I am), you can pick up his new anthology, The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge, reviewed here and here. Amazon has both of these books for sale (though at a spurious "special low price").

"True Names" is one of two of his stories not included in the collection, sadly. I don't know what the other one is.

Check out The One Humvee to see the real Ultimate SUV!

It is all over comedy central too. I watch that channel more than any other (by far) and Impostor is being promoed to death on that channel as well.

I would have thought comedy central, sci-fi, and dimension (film distributor) was all owned by the same company, but that is not the case, so actual money did change in promoting this movie.

Sci-Fi is owned by USA Networks (which was just bought by Universal/Vivendi, the same company that owns mp3.com)

Comedy Central is owned by Viacom, says this site.

Dimension is owned by Miramax, which is owned by Disney -- says this site and this site.

I don't watch too much tv, but you would think that Disney would plug the movie on ABC and ESPN, which it also owns, especially since they are hurting for cash right now. Why not promote in house?

How is this related to Impostor? Only tangentially. But be aware of the Big Six media companies. Three are involved in this film. It's more than six, but the other companies are AOL/TimeWarner, Sony, NewsCorp, and Bertelsmann (of Napster fame).

Others would add GE to the list, because they own NBC.

In any case, the entirety of our information and entertainment world comes nearly exclusively through those 8 companies.

Seriously, though, I'm kind of surprised NY Times didn't include a link to Otto Bock's website for more info.

As long as this never is...

John Brunner's 1975 novel "The Shockwave Rider" predicts a network of linked computers available from any point which talented users can use to change identities etc by sending programs to do their bidding ... even cleaning up their old identities with "tapeworms" ... from which we now get the term "worm".

Remarkably prescient vision. Though not in a vacuum of course.

does noone remember 'Parts: The Clonus Horror'???

But really, I think this is great, and I pity the legislators that can't tell the difference between bad (sometimes TERRIBLE) Hollywood visions of horror and evil, and real-life scientific purposes and benefits. I guess that happens to people raised in an environment of blind, unquestioning religious faith, trained to believe in fairy tails and some sca-a-a-ary man in the clouds that loves you but makes it hard not to get sent to some land pain and (literally) hellfire. I just find most near-sighted, child-like religions have 'moralities' that are anything but moral.

...we should all probably watch this. It has a very enlightening view of cloning, and what can go wrong. Parts is parts, you know.

Ben

There have been a few, but they don't do a very good job of helping anyone's cause.

Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers (B5LR) is a spin-off of Babylon 5 , and will initially be a 90-minute telemovie called "To Live and Die in Starlight". It airs on the US SCI FI Channel in January 2002.

Good Interview here

The hope is that this will go on to become a series

As far as Andromenda, this sounds like Paramount is trying to do what TNN wanted to do with the Bab5 sequel, turn it into a Science fiction version cross mix of WWF and Baywatch.

If it was that easy, why doesn't someone try to write stuff like that? Or don't they know that that it is easier to write stuff that sucks vs stuff that is good?

Sci-Fi (http://www.scifi.com/babylon5/) has been running Babylon 5 episodes (and the movies, and the 13 episodes of the follow up series Crusade on occasion) in order for over a year now. I missed it during the original run, but have since seen the vast majority of the show during this new run.

Moreover, they funded a new B5 movie which will air in January, B5: Legend of the Rangers (http://www.scifi.com/b5rangers).

Sci-Fi (http://www.scifi.com/babylon5/) has been running Babylon 5 episodes (and the movies, and the 13 episodes of the follow up series Crusade on occasion) in order for over a year now. I missed it during the original run, but have since seen the vast majority of the show during this new run.

Moreover, they funded a new B5 movie which will air in January, B5: Legend of the Rangers (http://www.scifi.com/b5rangers).

The show is about a guy, named Mike Nelson, who is stuck up in space with his robot companions, and they have to endure bad movie after bad movie. That's all that you have to know to get started. The whole plot is confusing if I try to get you up to speed in the next few lines, but trust me, this is a show you cannot afford to miss.

In the not too distant future (next Sunday, A.D.) Joel Robinson was under the employ of one Dr. Clayton Forrester. By trapping Joel in space and sending him bad movies, Dr. Forrester and his assistants (such as TV's Frank) attempted to determine the movie that, when inflicted on the masses, would cause insanity and he could control the world. To combat this, Joel invented several robots to keep him company and to heckle the movies mercilessly to ensure his sanity. After several years, Joel escaped to be replaced by Mike Neslon, a temp worker without a clue. After Mike and the bots were turned into omniscient energy beings, they returned to the Satellite of Love (their ship) in the future and were confronted with new adversaries including Pearl Forrester (Dr. Forrester's cryo-frozen mother), Professor Bobo (an ape), and Observer (a super-intelligent alien that carries his brain in a bowl).

If you liked MST3K when it was running, you should check out Edward The Less, an "online series" with the same writers and actors.
You should also check in on this MST3K tape-trading site from time-to-time. It's still under construction, but it'll be cool when they finish it.

I think Frank Herbert will still be read 50 years from now, since Dune has been/is being used for games and Television series etc.
Who knows, maybe we'll even see a new Dune movie.
On the lighter side, I think Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy will still be read, with tears of laughter stream out of peoples eyes in 2051.

The classic work of "build/corrupt-it-yourself" electronica is, of course, the Forbidden Planet Soundtrack (1956). As I recall, much of the soundtrack was recordings of the home-made electronic instrumentation being overloaded into destruction.

Okay, so when I'm published in the International Journal of Intergalactic Science I'll have to edit these sections down a bit, but for now, I've gotta talk about how great it was to be inside Aeryn.

Oh, not like that, come on now. Give me some credit. I'm not the type to kiss and tell - not when I think I might get caught, anyhow.

See, these aliens attacked us, but Moya used the defense screen we'd recovered from the Zelbinion. Somehow the combination of the energy beam and the defense screen caused a bizarro physical reaction, and *poof* next thing I know I'm in AERYN'S body! I mean, like, my consciousness is, or something. And she's in Rygel's, and - ick - Rygel's in mine. BOY was it weird. But, Aeryn's body, man, let me tell you, I thought that thing was fun from the OUTSIDE. I'm not even going to try and describe what breasts feel like, I mean HAVING breasts feels like... Suffice it to say if I got to keep Aeryn's body I might never leave my room again.

'Course, alien beam hits again, right, and it's bye bye breasts.

Hmm...

Go to scifi's farscape page. You can read the "journey log" wich is essentially a teaser for each episode. It is best if you just read up to where you are to get an idea of what it going on. But the logs leave enough unsaid to still make the episodes worth watching if you are like me and loose control and just read all of them. Right now they are rerunning earlier season 3 stuff on fridays. This Friday they will be showing "Thanks for Sharing," and Wednesday they will show "Family Ties" the last episode of season 1. There will not be any truly new episodes until the season finale in January. After you read the journey logs there is lots of other interesting stuff, like the character profiles and Chrichton's notes. Though my personal favorite was the "character insights" with the director that are in the "farscape primer." The character insights more than anything will help you get an idea of what is going on in the show.

Here a link to make it easy for you Farscape

It's a bit of a dilemma, you see. On the one hand, every time we make some change to our daily routine because of this despicable terrorist act--dropping episodes, delaying the premiere of shows, editing the World Trade Center out of the Spiderman movie altogether--we are in some small sense handing the terrorists a victory, acknowledging that they've affected us exactly the way they wanted. On the other hand, people should have a right to watch TV to try to forget the tragedy for a while and destress from the whole thing without being reminded of it by what's on the set.

Hopefully the pre-emptions and delays will be only temporary, for just a month or two until such time as people are a little less sensitive. The Buffy episode that was delayed over Columbine was eventually aired, after all. The networks did pay money for these shows, and they'll want to use them sooner or later.

It's a bit of a dilemma, you see. On the one hand, every time we make some change to our daily routine because of this despicable terrorist act--dropping episodes, delaying the premiere of shows, editing the World Trade Center out of the Spiderman movie altogether--we are in some small sense handing the terrorists a victory, acknowledging that they've affected us exactly the way they wanted. On the other hand, people should have a right to watch TV to try to forget the tragedy for a while and destress from the whole thing without being reminded of it by what's on the set.

Hopefully the pre-emptions and delays will be only temporary, for just a month or two until such time as people are a little less sensitive. The Buffy episode that was delayed over Columbine was eventually aired, after all. The networks did pay money for these shows, and they'll want to use them sooner or later.

check out the Majestic game advert at: http://www.scifi.com/farscape/ . Looks like what you mention is not too far away!

Hell, humanity might become the equivalent of the computers' pets, and as far as I'm concerned, that's not a bad thing. All my cat does is eat sleep, and play - how often I wished I had that lifestyle.

We know.

i thought Quantum Leap was a TV series about a guy who time travles by trading places with people throughout history.

check it out on the SciFi channel :)

well somone had to say it!

i thought Quantum Leap was a TV series about a guy who time travles by trading places with people throughout history.

check it out on the SciFi channel :)

well somone had to say it!

You could tape full seasons of a dozen shows and watch 'em in the summer instead of BB2.

Or do I record those and watch 'em in the winter? :)

BTW, Mon-Thurs showings of Farscape on SciFi start tonight at 8pm Eastern/Pacific. Watch it from the beginning!

For example, go to The Universe on the Table, read the story (it's good)... keep on reading... there! You are on the footnote. Do you see that editor's note where it says the author produced the story you just read especially for The Inifite Matrix and that's part of a larger work, The Periodic Table of Science Fiction? Well, there there's another story, the one that corresponds to Mg (you just read H), called Under's Game. Ah. That got your attention, didn't it? Go read it. It's hilarious (if you read the original work by OSC)

For example, go to The Universe on the Table, read the story (it's good)... keep on reading... there! You are on the footnote. Do you see that editor's note where it says the author produced the story you just read especially for The Inifite Matrix and that's part of a larger work, The Periodic Table of Science Fiction? Well, there there's another story, the one that corresponds to Mg (you just read H), called Under's Game. Ah. That got your attention, didn't it? Go read it. It's hilarious (if you read the original work by OSC)

More details available via Corona Canada and KeanuWeb where it states that Matrix 2 was planned for Christmas 2002 and Matrix 3 for Summer 2003.

There was an article at Sci Fi Wire that stated there was going to be a Stargate SG-1 movie. I can't wait.

I've been hoping that all these great advances in computer graphics would enable more of the great stories of scifi to be recreated in film.

Last series I saw that had potential was Crusade, and I beg the producers to bring it back.

As a science fiction snob, I should never ever watch this show, let alone admit it, but the only episodic television show I watch is Andromeda. Even worse, it's pretty much just because Lexa Doig is so hot. (For those who don't know, she plays the avatar of a massively powerful warship, so she's not even playing someone real, and yet that's part of the appeal. Psychoanalyze me now!)

I'm going to science fiction hell for sure.

For non-episodic science fiction shorts, I try to check out Exposure . It's a mixed bag, but usually has something worth watching every show.

Mote in God's eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle features an alien race that manage to send a beam of light to a nearby colonized planet.

Though they were not stupid enough to send a laser beam in small angle spotting just one measly starsystem just to contact someone else. (even though the manage to feed the laser for years!)
If you want to contact someone you'd better look for radio signals, anyone that can manipulate stars as a semaphore will probably decide for themselves whether they will come here or not. Btw, the aliens in the book used the laser to propel a large solar-sail vessel.

We air an anime movie every Saturday morning in our Saturday Anime block (temporarily preempted for Summer '98). Acquiring the U.S. TV rights to anime is difficult and expensive (compared to other programming) so we only add new movies to our anime library during our annual Festival of Anime theme week. This theme week usually runs during the spring or summer months. We have no plans to acquire the rights to anime series - we only run anime movies.

I know I would.

I don't get why everyone's calling this a nuclear-powered rocket.

All the radiation does is heat the hydrogen to a point that it reacts at an efficient rate with the ramjet flow of normal air (20% oxygen) instead of with a huge tank full of LOX.

You still need a huge tank full of hydrogen, and you need an atmosphere full of oxygen. Which, guess what, there ain't none of in outer space. You can't get to ramjet speed without some other propulsion system that works in the atmosphere, and you can't navigate into orbit without some other propulsion system that works outside the atmosphere.

Robert Heinlein told a story 55 years ago (Rocketship Galileo) about a couple of kids who reach the moon using atomic power alone as propulsion. They evaporate zinc*. No oxidizer involved.

Basically, I'll be impressed when they make the heater for this hybrid ramjet solar powered.

--Blair

* - That link is way cooler than just the book mention. Way, way, way cooler.