The Japanese Space Agency, JAXA, has reported a successful landing and sample collection at Asteroid Itokawa by the unmanned Hayabusa probe. But as someone else noted for flying close to asteroids once said, it’s not over yet – Hayabusa has again been put into a “safe mode” so its controllers can investigate more irregularities in its thrusters. Hayabusa is scheduled to return its sample – the first material returned to Earth from an asteroids – in June 2007 if all goes well.
Sources: Reuters, CNN

The full casts of both Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis have signed up for the shows’ respective tenth and third seasons, with Ben Browder staying with the SG-1 team – and if that’s not enough of a Farscape flashback for you, the Sci-Fi Channel has announced that Claudia Black will join SG-1 as a full-time regular as well, reprising her role of Vala. (Any rumors you may have heard about Rygel replacing Beau Bridges as General Landry are simply untrue.) All four of the SG-1 cast from season 9, including Amanda Tapping, will also be returning; the Atlantis cast similarly remains unchanged from season 2 (i.e. no Rainbow Sun Francks in the regular cast). The 10th and 3rd seasons of SG-1 and Atlantis go into production in the new year, and debut in July 2006.
Source: Sci-Fi Channel

The Jennifer Garner spy series Alias seems to have run aground with this week’s announcement that ABC is ending the current season, and the series as a whole, in May 2006. Alias has been struggling to stay on top in the ratings, especially with Jennifer Garner’s well-publicized pregnancy (which was also worked into the storyline of her character, Sydney Bristow) reducing her screen time as the show’s lead. A press release from ABC insists, however, that the show’s action will be ramped up to a thrilling conclusion rather than going out with a whimper. Curiously, two more episodes will air in December in the post-Lost time slot normally occupied by Invasion before production of Alias takes an extended break for Garner’s maternity leave.
Source: ABC

Is it cancelled or isn’t it? The CBS series Threshold, created by David S. Goyer (Blade, Batman Begins) and counting Goyer and Star Trek: Voyager/Enterprise‘s Brannon Braga among its executive producers, has been yanked from the network’s schedule after ratings continued to fall in a new Tuesday night slot. (The show originally aired on Friday nights.) While CBS has made no statement at the time of this writing (due to the holiday weekend in the U.S.), many critics and observers are hailing this as the cancellation of Threshold, while other sources suggest the show is merely taking a break.
Source: Sci-Fi Wire

Absent for a long time even in audio form, the team of the fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) and Turlough (Mark Strickson) is back in the newest Doctor Who audio drama from Big Finish Productions, Singularity. Time experiments in near-future Russia could have dire consequences for the future history of humanity, and the Doctor must set things straight – even if it means returning humankind to a path to the stars that will be anything but easy. Big Finish has also just announced that a second series of solo adventures featuring former companion Sarah Jane Smith will premiere in 2006; the four single-CD adventures will naturally star Elisabeth Sladen (who is also bringing her character back to TV in the 2006 season of Doctor Who alongside David Tennant) with vintage Who guest star Tom Chadbon aboard as a new regular character, Will. Singularity can be ordered now from theLogBook.com’s Doctor Who Store.

If you’re yearning to show your friends how the journey of a lifetime really began, the BBC is bringing The Beginning to you in the new year. (An update since this item first appeared: the U.K. edition will be released in January, with a North American edition slated for a March street date.) A three-disc box set with meticulously remastered DVDs of the first three complete Doctor Who serials (known collectively as An Unearthly Child, The Daleks and The Edge Of Destruction), The Beginning will also boast commentaries and interviews from surviving members of the cast and crew who launched the Doctor’s first adventures in time and space. The original unaired pilot version of An Unearthly Child will be included (complete with the infamous outtakes that occurred when the TARDIS doors didn’t seem to want to close), as will a special feature on the origins of the theme music. Doctor Who: The Beginning is now available for pre-order from theLogBook.com’s Doctor Who Store.

More Miyazaki is arriving on shiny round things in March 2006; under a DVD distribution deal with Disney, the Hayao Miyazaki animè films My Neighbor Totoro, Howl’s Moving Castle and Whispers Of The Heart are due March 7th.

The second volume of J. Michael Straczynski’s scripts from Babylon 5 has been released at the B5scripts.com site, alone with a new range of coffee mugs, calendars, throw pillows, T-shirts and other merchandise sporting some of the best quotes from those scripts. Yes, the “Ivanova Mantra” is among them.

DVR/VCR alert: maybe Lost should change its title to “Long-Lost” – once again, this week’s episode (November 30th) will run long, 64 minutes to be precise, invading Invasion‘s time slot.

It’s been a week of close calls for the Hayabusa robot probe, dispatched by the Japanese space agency, JAXA, to explore and gather samples from Asteroid Itokawa. Early last week, JAXA lost contact with the tiny Minerva landing probe, designed to serve as a “test run” before Hayabusa’s own landing. Hayabusa itself was intended to make a “hopping” landing on Itokawa to gather samples of the asteroid’s surface material for return to Earth in 2007, but it too ran into trouble over the weekend, inexplicably losing contact with ground controllers for three hours while preparing to make its landing. Miraculously, Hayabusa survived the loss of communication by going into an automatic safe mode that would return it to an orbit around Itokawa. Hayabusa currently remains in that “hovering” position as ground controllers try to learn the reason for the glitch; they’re expected to transmit the probe’s “go” for a second landing attempt next Friday.
Sources: Reuters, CNN

Things seem to be going slightly better for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched in August to take advantage of a planetary alignment that would shorten travel time between Earth and Mars. On November 18th, Mars Recon made a minor course adjustment and officially passed the halfway mark on its 25,000,000 mile journey. The course correction was written into the flight plan before Mars Recon left Earth, and adjusts the probe’s speed to roughly 61,000 miles per hour. Mars Recon will conduct a detailed study of the Martian surface from orbit, mapping minerals and possible deposits of water, and sending back data at a record-breaking rate of 6 megabits per seconds (or, as mission planners boast, a CD-ROM worth of data every 16 minutes). Mars Recon will arrive in March 2006.

Sources: NASA / JPL

Though there’s been news of a big-screen revival of Patrick McGoohan’s seminal, surreal 1960s series The Prisoner floating around for years, it now appears that the Sky One U.K. satellite network – which also bankrolled part of the production of the new Battlestar Galactica – is preparing to mount a TV remake of the trippy classic. While the new show would continue to address the questions of identity, authority and paranoia that made the original show such a compelling psychological drama, early plans seem to be that it’ll do so without the original version’s striking visual elements (incluidng the Welsh holiday village of Portmeirion, where the entire original show was filmed). Damien Timmer (producer of several TV movies based on the Agatha Christie mysteries, as well as the Russell T. Davies-penned miniseries Casanova) is signed up as the executive producer of the new Prisoner, with Bill Gallagher (Casualty, Clocking Off) slated to be the show’s head writer. As the show is in early pre-production, it’s far too early for any word on casting.
Source: BBC

Hot on the heels of the renewal of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, Sci-Fi Channel has announced that Battlestar Galactica is also getting picked up for another season, the show’s third. The entire cast has been signed up and the new order covers 20 more episodes (meaning that, even if you count Galactica: 1980, the new show will have outlasted the original). Executive producer Ronald D. Moore has hinted in recent weeks that storylines were already under consideration for the third season. The current season resumes on January 6th for the remaining ten episodes of the 20-episode second season.

Source: Sci-Fi Channel

After the show’s lowest-rated episode to date fell in the critical November ratings sweeps, ABC has cancelled Night Stalker, its revival of the influential and spooky early 70s series Kolchak: The Night Stalker. And in a move sure to please fans of the show (not), ABC yanked the series from the schedule in mid-cliffhanger, leaving the threads of the November 10th episode dangling until further notice; it’s unknown if the network might schedule the remaining two episodes at a less critical time of the year for ratings, or if fans will have to wait for the new series to hit DVD to complete that storyline. Spotnitz is already working on his next project, a four-hour miniseries for Spike TV.

Sources: The Futon Critic, Variety

So you weren’t satisfied with the brief glimpse of Darth Vader at the end of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith? Author James Luceno has your fix – of pure evil, that is. Dark Lord: The Rise Of Darth Vader, the latest Star Wars novel, picks up immediately after Episode III to show how the newly-rebuilt Vader quickly became the Emperor’s most-feared ally in the wake of the Republic’s fall – and how Anakin Skywalker came to terms with his new identity and the powers that came with it. Dark Lord ships this week and can be ordered now from theLogBook.com’s Star Wars Store.

The BBC has announced a March 2006 release date for the final 13 episodes of Blake’s 7 on DVD. Given a surprise renewal on the very day that the third season‘s finale (originally intended to be the end of the series) aired, the fourth year of the show had to start from scratch – and had to compete with the increased special effects budget of both Doctor Who and a new televised incarnation of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. The fourth season also infamously concluded with what may still be the biggest “bummer” ending in the history of SF TV, which legend says lit up not just the BBC’s ratings but the suicide hotlines as well since it aired just before Christmas 1981. You can pre-order the fourth season DVD box set now from theLogBook.com’s Blake’s 7 Store.

Big Finish Productions has announced that 2006 will see the recording and release of what is said to be the third and final season of its Doctor Who audio spinoff series, Gallifrey. Starring Lalla Ward as Romana, Louise Jameson as Leela and John Leeson as K-9, the series chronicles the cutthroat political intrigue on the home planet of the Time Lords. The titles announced are Fractures by Stephen Cole, Warfare by Stuart Sheargold, Appropriation by Paul Sutton, Mindbomb by Justin Richards and Panacea by Alan Barnes. All five installments will be directed by Gary Russell.

Source: Big Finish Productions

The original makers of the Miner 2049er games, First Star Software, has teamed up again with Atari2600.com to offer a brand new original Atari 5200 game, Flip-Flop. Featuring colorful isometric 3D graphics, Flip-Flop is based on First Star’s 1980s Atari home computer game of the same name, and is being sold in both a regular and limited edition. You can find ordering information at the link below.

Atari2600.com – Flip Flop for Atari 5200