Paul Hester, former drummer for Split Enz and Crowded House, was found dead in his hometown of Melbourne, Australia on March 26th; though police say the death is not “suspicious,” they have ruled it a suicide. Hester was a mainstay of the Melbourne music scene in the 80s when he auditioned to fill the vacant drum seat in Australian/New Zealand supergroup Split Enz. He joined the group for its 1984 tour, and only recorded one album, 1985′s See Ya Round, in the studio with Split Enz before the band broke up. He joined Neil Finn in a quest to launch a new band which, with the addition of bassist Nick Seymour, was eventually christened Crowded House and scored a #2 on the Billboard charts in early 1987 with Don’t Dream It’s Over. He recorded and toured with Crowded House until 1994, when the rigors of touring – and impending fatherhood – convinced him to return to Melbourne with his family. Even at home, though, he founded another band, the Largest Living Things, and would still occasionally join his Split Enz and Crowded House cohorts on stage. He is survived by his girlfriend and two young daughters. Mr. Hester was 46.
Sources: CNN, Frenz.com

The orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope has given astronomers their first direct look at planets orbiting other stars. Before now, extrasolar planets could be detected only by measuring the “wobble” resulting from the interaction of a planet’s gravity with the gravity of its parent sun. But NASA scientists have now seen the direct infrared light of two Jupiter-sized gas giants 150 light years away. The initial measurements show the gas giants to be radiating immense heat – to the tune of 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit – which may also be related to their relatively tight orbits; the innermost planet appears to have an orbit that sees it swooping around its sun in a mind-bogglingly fast four day “year.”
Sources: NASA, Associated Press

According to Lucasfilm’s Steve Sansweet, the rumors are right on the money: the possibility of a live action TV series set in the Star Wars universe is definitely being explored at Lucasfilm. There’s no further word on the project’s status, and no creative personnel have been mentioned (hey, we hear Rick Berman’s got an opening in his schedule!) so it’s almost certainly too early to speculate about when or where in the Star Wars universe a series might take place, let alone when it would go into production or premiere in our universe. This isn’t the first time that the possibility of Star Wars TV has been raised; in a 2004 interview with the Associated Press, George Lucas himself said “Ultimately, I’m going to probably move [Star Wars] into television and let other people take it.” Sansweet also mentioned the possibility of further animated adventures. And however early the plans are at this stage, you can almost bet there’ll be more details around the time Episode III shows up on DVD later this year.
Sources: Sci-Fi Wire, Associated Press

Well, it’s not Mansquito, but it sounds about as plausible. Lucy Lawless, late of Xena: Warrior Princess, stars in the CBS made-for-TV disaster movie called Locusts on April 24th, battling a plague of genetically engineered locusts that grow bigger and breed faster than naturally-bred locusts (which are, thank you very much, bad enough as it is) – ooooookay. Hopefully her next project will be a little less buggy.
Source: Zap2it

If you thought you yourself slid into an alternate reality, you’re not too far off the mark. Charlie O’Connell, brother of Sliders star Jerry O’Connell (and one-time regular on Sliders himself), has a new starring role, though this time he’s The Bachelor. O’Connell starts the process of trying to find true love among 25 female contestants as the latest iteration of ABC’s reality show premieres on Monday. Presumably, no Cro-Mags auditioned for a shot at being O’Connell’s future bride.
Sources: ABC, Associated Press

Former Red Dwarf star Craig Charles has a new gig, and a decidedly more dramatic one as he joins the cast of the long-running ITV soap opera Coronation Street. His contract runs for three months, with an option to continue depending on the character’s popularity; Charles begins shooting the new episodes soon, which will begin airing in June in the UK.
Source: official Red Dwarf web site

Can’t afford tickets to the Broadway musical adaptation of Monty Python And The Holy Grail? That just puts you in a category with a lot of other people (and, perhaps, a few dead parrots). But fear not! In just over a month, the original Broadway cast recording of Monty Python’s Spamalot arrives on CD, featuring Tim Curry, Hank Azari, David Hyde-Pierce and the rest of the cast, based on both the first Monty Python movie and bits and pieces from the TV sketch comedy series that started it all. You can pre-order Spamalot now from theLogBook.com.

Monty Python’s Spamalot –

If you’re looking for some SF blockbuster music this year, you probably need to look no further than this. Sony Classical has announced a May 3rd release date for the Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith soundtrack CD, featuring a bonus DVD containing 16 music suites accompanied by footage from all six of the films, essentially a chronological history of the Star Wars universe set to music. And from the eagerly-awaited big-screen incarnation of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, we’re already hearing good things about the musical score by Joby Talbot, which includes an opening song titled, appropriately, “So Long And Thanks For All The Fish”. Both of these soundtracks can be pre-ordered now from theLogBook.com Store.

As the big-screen version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy gets ready to unfold in late April, introducing whole new audiences to Douglas Adams’ universe, the cast of the original BBC Radio drama that started it all is bringing their adventures to a close, dramatizing the last two Hitchhiker’s novels completed by Adams, “So Long And Thanks For All The Fish” and “Mostly Harmless”. “Fish” is dramatized in the four-episode Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy: The Quandary Phase, available in May as a two-CD set, while The Quintessential Phase ends the radio adventures with an adaptation of “Mostly Harmless”, again in four episodes. The new episodes begin running on May 3rd on BBC Radio 4, but you can pre-order the CDs now – or an upcoming book containing all of the scripts from the new series (including last year’s Tertiary Phase) – from theLogBook.com’s Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy Store.

UK Battlestar Galactica fans, heads up: next week sees the release of the first season of the new series on DVD. You can pre-order the first season of the new series now from theLogBook.com. We’re still awaiting word of a season 1 DVD release in North America – the moment we know about it, you’ll see the news here. One other thing we can tell you is that La-La Land Records has announced that they’ll be releasing a CD with the best music from season 1 later this year. We’ll have pre-ordering info for the soundtrack as soon as possible too. You can find all of your Galactica goodness in theLogBook.com’s Battlestar Galactica Store.

Noted science fiction and fantasy writer Andre Norton died this week of heart failure after a long illness. The first woman to win the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America’s Grand Master of Fantasy award, Andre Norton was born Alice Mary Norton, adopting a male pen name because she expected her particular genre of fiction to sell primarily to boys. She legally changed her name to Andre in 1934. Best known for the “Witch World” series of novels, she wrote more than 130 books in a career spanning almost seven decades, and often collaborated with younger writers to help give their first works more exposure; her most recent complete work, “Three Hands For Scorpio”, will be published next month. Ms. Norton was 93.
Source: Associated Press

The moons of Saturn are still surprising NASA scientists as the Cassini unmanned probe continues its survey of the ringed planet’s neighborhood. Cassini’s sensors recently detected signs of a substantial atmosphere enshrouding Enceladus, a shiny, icy moon which is also the most reflective body in the solar system. Enceladus has also been associated with Saturn’s tenuous “F ring,” whose orbit is shared by the moon. With its relatively small size, Enceladus shouldn’t be able to hold on to such a relatively dense atmosphere, so scientists are theorizing that the gases are being constantly replenished from the surface or even beneath the surface, possibly from geysers or volcanoes spewing particles of frozen or slushy water ice instead of lava. And perhaps most surprisingly of all, whether something has changed at Enceladus or NASA’s sensor technology has improved that much, no one seems sure why Voyager 1 didn’t detect the same atmosphere in 1981.
Source: NASA / JPL

Buffy, Angel and Firefly creator Joss Whedon has been handed the task of bringing Wonder Woman to the big screen for Warner Brothers. Still finishing work on Serenity, the big-screen continuation of the sorely-missed Fox SF series Firefly, Whedon has signed to write and direct a movie based on the comic book heroine to be produced by Joel Silver and Leonard Goldberg. No timetable has been set for the beginning of production on the Wonder Woman movie.
Sources: Hollywood Reporter / Sci-Fi Wire

Sony Classical has announced a May 3rd release date for the Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith soundtrack CD, which the label also says will include a DVD containing 16 music suites accompanied by footage from all six of the films, essentially a chronological history of the Star Wars universe set to music. Each “music video” will be introduced by Ian McDiarmid and will be remixed into Dolby 5.1 Surround. We hope to have pre-ordering details for the Star Wars Episode III soundtrack CD soon – watch this space.
Source: Sony Classical

It’s become a tradition, almost dating back to Return Of The Jedi, for each new Star Wars film to be accompanied by some cool video games – and Revenge Of The Sith is no exception. In a unique two-player mode, players fight shoulder-to-shoulder as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker through much of the game, only to turn against each other in a duel to the death at the game’s end. You can pre-order the official Star Wars Episode III video game now from theLogBook.com.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith – PS2: | DS: | Xbox:

Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda, starring former Hercules star Kevin Sorbo, is coming down the home stretch of its final season, and word has it that even before the official word was in on the finality of that season, Sorbo was already shopping a sitcom project around Hollywood. This doesn’t mean the end of the Commonwealth, however. In a recent interview, Bill Hamm, the Vice President of Scripted Programming for Tribune Entertainment (Andromeda’s home studio), said that the series may spin-off into a new form featuring members of Andromeda’s current cast and crew. Hamm hinted that the basis of the as-yet untitled spin-off’s premise would be seen in one of the show’s final four episodes (currently airing Fridays at 6pm central on Sci-Fi Channel, as well as on several syndicated outlets and Chicago superstation WGN), but also warned against too much fan anticipation of the sequel, stating that “this project is kind of a long pass from one end zone to the other with a bit of a miracle catch at the end.”
Source: AndromedaTV.com