Just a note for those wondering where theLogBook.com’s News has been this week: the site staff has been busy working on some other major improvements to the site behind-the-scenes, to be revealed soon, and the news will return for the July 31st update. Please do not adjust your set.

Plenty of interesting news emerged from panels at last week’s San Diego Comic Con. Here are just a few of the highlights. Since spoilers are involved, click here to continue: (more…)

Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski unveiled a new chapter in the B5 mythos at San Diego Comic Con this weekend. Titled Babylon 5: The Lost Tales, the production has been greenlit by Warner Bros. and will be going direct to video, though Warner may or may not also be shopping it around to broadcast outlets. The half-hour stories will more or less be an anthology set in the B5 universe, focusing on one character from the franchise per story (though the details of which characters and settings will be used has yet to be released). The first DVD release will contain three stories running roughly 30 minutes each. In his Comic Con panel, Straczynski says that it was Warner Bros. who approached him with an open door to a new B5 project, but that he insisted on “complete creative support in writing” – and Straczynski himself will be directing. (He previously only directed one Babylon 5 episode, the series finale Sleeping In Light. Shooting begins in September, with post-production scheduled for October through December, and a possible release in the second quarter of 2007.
Sources: J. Michael Straczynski, B5tv.com, JMSnews.com

Simultaneously unveiled at San Diego Comic-Con International and on StarTrek.com, Paramount has given fans their first glimpse at an early promotional image for the eleventh Star Trek film, set to be produced (and possibly directed) by J.J. Abrams (Lost, Mission Impossible III). For the first time, the poster seems to be nailing down a 2008 release date, and news items on StarTrek.com acknowledge that this is a poster for the movie, not a game or another upcoming product. (The poster is up for discussion in the webmaster’s blog.)
Source & image: Paramount Pictures

David Maloney, who directed a string of notoriously violent 1970s Doctor Who episodes and then went on to produce the more adult SF drama Blake’s 7 from 1978 through 1980, died on July 18th. Early in his BBC career, he served as a production assistant on the Doctor Who story The Time Meddler, starring William Hartnell, but by the final season for Hartnell’s successor, Patrick Troughton, Maloney was directing serials such as The War Games and The Mind Robber. His most attention-grabbing work came during Tom Baker’s era, with the horrific imagery of such stories as Genesis Of The Daleks and The Deadly Assassin, which drew fire from Mary Whitehouse, a frequent critic of media violence. He later moved into producing, and was in charge of the first three seasons of Blake’s 7 (and still found time to sit in the director’s chair on that series as well). He enthusiastically appeared on numerous DVD commentaries for both shows, including the recent Blake’s 7 box sets and Genesis Of The Daleks. Regrettably, at this time we have been unable to verify Mr. Maloney’s age or birthdate; this article will be updated in the archives when we have that information.
Source: BBC

The only slice of the Trek franchise that hasn’t hit DVD yet is now scheduled to arrive in stores on November 21st, according to Paramount/CBS. The Star Trek: The Animated Series DVD box set will bring all 22 episodes of the early 70s Filmation series, which starred much of the original cast and was written by names such as D.C. Fontana, David Gerrold and Larry Niven. There’s also a documentary feature about the making of the animated series, Dolby 5.1 Surround audio mixes, and at least three episodes will get the Michael & Denise Okuda “text commentary” treatment. The packaging is somewhat similar to that of the Classic Trek box sets. We’ll have pre-order information in theLogBook.com Store as soon as possible.
Source: TVshowsonDVD.com

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the first landing of the NASA/JPL unmanned Viking probes to Mars. (Perhaps not coincidentally, that event itself happened on the anniversary of the first manned moon landing.) Viking 1, launched in August 1975, made the first soft landing of a man-made object on Mars in 1976; its identical twin, Viking 2, left Earth in September 1975 and landed on Mars almost exactly a year later. Presaging such future successes as the Mars Rovers, both Vikings were designed to operate for a month and a half, and instead relayed observations from the surface of Mars for six years, sending home over 4,000 pictures from the surface, while the two landers’ respective orbiters managed to map nearly the entire planet in unprecedented detail; the Viking mission ended in 1982. The Viking landers were also the first unmanned probes to do extensive soil studies to look for the presence of life on Mars, digging shallow samples from the planet’s surface and then testing those samples in sealed chambers within each lander to check for any evidence of biological activity. The methods used to land the Viking probes safely have been refined and used again on such missions as Sojourner and the two Mars Rovers which are still operating on the red planet today.
Sources: NASA/JPL

In their black & white heyday, Doctor Who’s Daleks and Cybermen got their voices from one of the same actors. Peter Hawkins, who helped originate the Dalek voice style and played them throughout their reign during the 1960s (including both Peter Cushing theatrical films), and later did the same for the Cybermen through most of their 60s appearances, died on July 8th. He also did voice work in the original radio version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, and in numerous children’s programs; outside of voice work, his 45-year acting career saw him working with Peter Sellers, Morecambe & Wise, Dave Allen and Ronnie Barker. Mr. Hawkins was 82.
Sources: Outpost Gallifrey, The Stage, The Independent

One of the biggest complaints heard about ABC’s hit series Lost last season was that new episodes were unexpectedly interspersed with reruns, and those reruns seemed to happen an awful lot, sometimes even reshowing episodes from the first season. ABC has announced that the new season of Lost will be shown in two “blocks” of new episodes without reruns. The third season premiere will air on October 4th, kicking off six weeks of new episodes, but in mid-November, Lost will vanish from the schedule to make way for a new Wednesday night show, Day Break. Lost is then scheduled to return in February 2007 with an unbroken string of 16 new episodes.
Sources: Zap2it, Sci-Fi Wire

After over a year of frantic requests from fans of the new series, the BBC has announced that a Doctor Who soundtrack will be released by year’s end. Featuring the new version of the theme and several incidental music compositions from Murray Gold, the soundtrack will be available in “the near future” according to the BBC. And of course when it is, you can bet we’ll be adding it to our already wide selection of Doctor Who soundtracks in theLogBook.com Store.
Source: BBC

Space shuttle Discovery returned to Earth on Monday morning, landing at Kennedy Space Center (the first shuttle to do so in nearly four years) with newly-installed landing gear and bringing a near-perfect mission to a close. NASA is now looking at launching Atlantis as soon as the end of August, on a mission that would resume the schedule of construction for the space station with a major component of the station on board.
Sources: NASA, Associated Press

A new press release from the makers of the upcoming fan film miniseries Star Trek: Of Gods And Men announces that the first half-hour installment of the 90-minute project will be available for download on Christmas Day 2006. Also, J.G. Hertzler (DS9′s General Martok) has joined the cast, which also includes Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig and Grace Lee Whitney. Voyager’s Garrett Wang is apparently starring as the villain of the piece, while Tim Russ reprises the role of Tuvok and directs. You can visit the official web site here.
Source: Great Bird Of The Galaxy Productions

After a successful mission to the International Space Station, space shuttle Discovery is awaiting final clearance to return home. The shuttle has undocked from the station, but is remaining in an orbit near the station pending the outcome of another inspection of the shuttle’s heat shield tiles; if any major problems are found, the shuttle can easily redock. If no problems are found, the shuttle will be cleared for landing on Monday. There’s no word yet on when mission planners might be pencilling in the next shuttle mission, or if further refinements to the external tank’s protective foam may cause more delays.
Sources: NASA, Associated Press

Welsh-born actor Gareth Thomas, best known in SF circles for his portrayal of Blake in the BBC’s cult classic Blake’s 7, has shot a guest appearance for an episode of the BBC’s Doctor Who spinoff series, Torchwood. The Cardiff-based series, created by Doctor Who producer Russell T. Davies and starring John Barrowman as former TARDIS traveler Captain Jack Harkness, premieres this fall on BBC3 in the UK; CBC in Canada will also be showing Torchwood, though it’s not known when it’ll be premiering there.

Royksopp has just released Royksopp’s Night Out, a live EP of some of their best performances, to the rest of the world (it was previously available only in Japan). Clocking in at 40+ minutes, Night Out is culled from the duo’s November 2005 concerts in Oslo, Norway and includes favorites such as “Remind Me”, “Poor Leno”, “Only This Moment” and a Royksopp-style cover of Queens of the Stone Age’s “Go With The Flow”. You can have your own Night Out now – just go to theLogBook.com Store.

The eagerly awaited new full-length installment of Star Trek: New Voyages, starring original series regular Walter Koenig reprising the role of Chekov, is making its public premiere on September 8th, 2006, the 40th anniversary of the original series’ broadcast debut. Koenig himself will introduce the episode on stage at the Star Trek 40th Anniversary Gala Celebration, held at the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle, Washington; the episode will be shown on the Museum’s 2 1/2 story big screen for the event. (For those of us stuck at home, the episode should be available for download from the Star Trek: New Voyages web site at around the same time.) In addition to starring Koenig, the episode was also written by original series story editor D.C. Fontana.
Source: Star Trek: New Voyages

La-La Land Records is now taking orders for their second limited edition release of full episode scores from Farscape. Farscape Classics Volume 2 contains every note of Guy Gross’ music from the episodes Die Me Dichotomy and Into The Lion’s Den Part 2. As with Volume 1 (of which La-La Land says only around 200 copies are still available), only 1,200 copies of this second release are being pressed, and this time they’re being autographed by Gross himself. You can only get this CD from our pals at La-La Land Records; go see them here.
Source: La-La Land Records