After months of speculation, Paramount has confirmed that it is reworking all 79 of the original Star Trek episodes with new effects, and trying to bring the show up to date for the HDTV era. The new effects and edits have been supervised by Michael and Denise Okuda, and the episodes have been prepared and will be shown in an almost-random order that favors “effects showcase” episodes. TV Guide quotes Michael Okuda as saying that the team behind the revised episodes is trying to focus on what Gene Roddenberry would have done with CGI at his disposal, with space “exterior” shots and matte painting scenes being revised in the spirit of the original series’ effects (which were groundbreaking, and incredibly costly, for their time). A newly recorded version of the theme music will also grace each episode, performed by a larger orchestra than the original and bringing back the human vocal that was jettisoned by the original show after its first season as a cost-saving measure. The episodes are being syndicated (as with Next Generation and Deep Space Nine) and shown on a weekly basis, and will premiere during the week of September 11th nationwide. There’s no word on a DVD or hi-def DVD release of the revised episodes, but as sure as this planet is spinning right now, Paramount wants your money, so you can bet all your gold-pressed latinum that a DVD release is in the works.
Source: TVguide.com

Best known as the writer of the screenplay for Hitchcock’s Psycho and the co-creator of the original Outer Limits TV series, Joseph Stefano died August 25th. Originally setting out to be a musician and songwriter, he turned his attention to scriptwriting in 1958, and only a year into his Hollywood career landed the assignment of adapting Psycho from Robert Bloch’s novel to the big screen. He developed a close relationship with Alfred Hitchcock afterward, but turned down the opportunity to write The Birds. In 1963, along with producer Leslie Stevens, he created The Outer Limits, which ran for two years; he wrote several episodes of the series himself (including The Bellero Shield and The Zanti Misfits), as well as an episode of the 1990s revival of the series on Showtime. As a freelancer, he also wrote the teleplay of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Skin Of Evil. He is survived by his wife and his son. Mr. Stefano was 84.
Sources: Associated Press, IMDb

Are you cooler than the Cat or dimmer than Dwayne Dibbley when it comes to Red Dwarf trivia? That’s what the Beat The Geek interactive DVD is here to find out. Due out in October in the UK (no Stateside release date has been announced yet), the DVD offers a multi-player trivia quiz with several levels of difficulty, allowing newcomers to the show to compete against seasoned pros. New CGI footage and all-new scenes with your hosts, Holly (Norman Lovett) and Holly (Hattie Hayridge) keep you on your toes. You can pre-order Red Dwarf: Beat The Geek now in theLogBook.com Store.

With its launch pad under a tropical storm warning, NASA’s flight rules have dictated that space shuttle Atlantis should be removed from the launch pad and rolled back to the enormous Vehicle Assembly Building for safety. Flight rules don’t allow the shuttle to stay on the launch pad if sustained winds over 45 miles per hour are forecast, and Tropical Storm Ernesto could easy exceed that when it arrives at Florida. This will prove to be a problem for NASA, when launching even a week late could put Atlantis’ arrival at the International Space Station in conflict with the arrival of an unmanned Progress capsule launched from Russia.
Source: NASA

Two classic games are coming to the Atari 2600 for the first time, thanks to the fine homebrew programmers who frequent AtariAge.com. The classic Commodore 64 game Aztec Challenge has been ported to the Atari in the form of A-VCS-Tec Challenge (with the permission of the original game’s programmer), with multiple levels and startlingly good graphics for a 2600 game. And the early 80s arcade game Lady Bug, originally announced as a Coleco cartridge for the 2600 but never released, is also finally available in homebrew form. You can get both of them in the AtariAge Store.
Source: AtariAge.com

Joss Whedon’s Serenity and a Steven Moffatt Doctor Who two-parter snagged this year’s Dramatic Presentation Hugos at the World Science Fiction Convention. Moffatt’s two-part story, The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances, beat out two other Doctor Who episodes (Dalek and Father’s Day), Battlestar Galactica (Pegasus) and the Pixar short Jack-Jack Attack for the “short form” Dramatic Presentation award, while Serenity slipped ahead of Batman Begins, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit in the “long form” category. “Spin” by Robert Charles Wilson won Best Novel, “Inside Job” by Connie Willis was Best Novella, “Two Hearts” by Peter S. Beagle was Best Novelette, “Tk’tk’tk” by David D. Levine was voted Best Short Story, “Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop” by Kate Wilhelm won Best Related Book, the Best Professional Editor award went to David G. Hartwell, Locus and Plotka won, respectively, Best Semi-Pro ‘Zine and Best Fanzine, Donato Giancola scored the Best Professional Artist award, Dave Langford was voted Best Fan Writer and Frank Wu was voted Best Fan Artist. (The complete list of nominees appeared here in March.) Congratulations to this year’s winners – you can, in fact, take the sky from them, but you have to give them a nice shiny rocketship trophy in return.
Source: Sci-Fi Wire

Emmy wins for genre fare were scarce this year, with no genre shows scoring in Sunday’s Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony, and few in the Creative Arts Emmys announced a week earlier. Of interest to SF fans, however, may be 24‘s impressive showing, including best drama and best lead actor in a drama series (Kiefer Sutherland); former Star Trek: Enterprise executive producer Manny Coto is among the producers and writers named in the best drama series award. Edward Shearmur landed the outstanding original main title theme music award for Showtime’s Masters Of Horror anthology, while Smallville‘s Arrival episode snagged a super win for outstanding sound editing. Part 1 of Sci-Fi Channel’s miniseries The Triangle scared up a win for outstanding visual effects for a miniseries, movie or special. Congratulations to this year’s winners, and best of luck to the folks who are making next year’s nominees right now.
Source: Academy of Television Arts & Sciences

Plans for a weekend launch of the space shuttle Atlantis were scrubbed after the shuttle’s launch tower was struck by lightning. (The vehicle itself doesn’t appear to have been damaged, as NASA’s launch towers are equipped with lightning rods and detection systems.) Another attempt to launch Atlantis, which is carrying new solar power arrays to add to the International Space Station, will be made on Monday. NASA’s had plenty of experience with lightning before, with perhaps the most memorable of those being the Apollo 12 flight in late 1969, whose Saturn V booster was struck by a freak bolt of lightning seconds after liftoff, resulting in a sudden loss (but eventual return) of power in the cabin of the Apollo capsule itself. Another delay next week could be a major setback, with Tropical Storm Ernesto expected to hit Florida next week.
Sources: Associated Press, NASA

The most recent issue of Doctor Who Magazine revealed that major changes in Big Finish Productions’ Doctor Who audio dramas are in the works for 2007, under new producer Nick Briggs. (Briggs has taken over from Gary Russell, who is now known to have taken on a gig at the BBC that basically makes him a script-editor-in-training for Doctor Who and Torchwood.) Beginning in February 2007 with the story Nocturne by Dan Abnett, Briggs is instituting numerous changes, including restricting stories to the traditional 25-minute format of the classic TV series, and bringing back three-part stories, a format that was last seen during Sylvester McCoy’s era on television. Filling out the remaining space of a three-parter will be single-part, 25-minute stories, featuring the same Doctor, which will be stand-alones that gradually give listeners a glimpse of a larger storyline. Any remaining space not filled by those 25-minute segments will now be devoted to behind-the-scenes tidbits, outtakes, and interviews; three-parters will only be an occasional feature, with four-part stories still being the norm. The eighth Doctor will also experience a bit of a renaissance in 2007, with a secondary range of single-CD stories in a longer format more akin to the current TV series. These stories are said to take place later in the Doctor’s eighth incarnation, and will feature new companion characters, though the “current” team of Paul McGann, India Fisher and Conrad Westmaas will continue to be part of the rotation of monthly double-CD releases. A new cover design, new audio-only villains, and a renewed emphasis on guest stars are also in the works. Classic series script editor Christopher Bidmead will contribute the four-part Renaissance Of The Daleks to the 2007 audios, and the 100th monthly Doctor Who audio drama will also arrive next year, a six-part story to be written by SF novelist Stephen Baxter.
Source: Doctor Who Magazine

The International Astronomical Union voted the tiniest planet off the island after weeks of debate about what constitutes a planet. According to the IAU’s ruling, Earth’s solar system now has 8 planets, and Pluto has been reclassified as a “dwarf planet.” Not that this makes it any less interesting – NASA’s unmanned New Horizons probe will still be arriving there in a few years – but now decades’ worth of textbooks, planetarium displays and other learning materials have been rendered incorrect (to say nothing of the Schoolhouse Rock classic “Interplanet Janet”). The other recently discovered bodies in the solar system will join the ranks of dwarf planets along with Pluto.
Source: Associated Press

35 years ago this Thanksgiving, astronaut Alan Shepard took a swing at playing golf on the moon during the Apollo 14 mission. To commemorate the longest drive in history, the exclusive club of space duffers will be welcoming its newest member. The Russian Cosmonaut currently aboard the International Space Station will hit a golf ball during a Thanksgiving space walk. If it seems like an unusual duty to perform in a spacesuit, it’s not completely unplanned – it’s a promotional stunt paid for by a Canadian company whose golf club will be used. The ball itself may outdo Shepard’s record, circling the Earth for an estimated three days before burning up in the atmosphere.
Source: Associated Press

IGN reports that frequent J.J. Abrams collaborator Michael Giacchino has – not surprisingly – signed on to do the music for Abrams’ Star Trek XI. Giacchino has won an Emmy already for his work on Lost, and has scored other Abrams projects such as Alias and Mission: Impossible III. Giacchino has also been an Oscar contender with his score for The Incredibles. A second volume of his music from Lost is due soon from Varese Sarabande.

Renewed or rejected: USA Network has renewed The 4400 for a fourth season; BBC News reports that Russell T. Davies turned away “a fortune” by deciding not to do yet another Doctor Who spinoff focusing on Billie Piper as Rose Tyler. Three other spinoffs – Torchwood (premiering soon on BBC3), a Sarah Jane Smith spinoff for a younger audience, and a live-action/CGI K-9 series – are still going ahead. Watch this space for an exciting announcement about CSI: Mondas.

After making it debut at last weekend’s Oklahoma Video Gaming Exhibition, Rob O’Hara’s book “Commodork: Sordid Tales From A BBS Junkie” is still available. Recounting tales both serious and silly from the age when “going online” meant having a second phone line from which your computer could dial up someone else’s computer on their second phone line, “Commodork” is also a study of how online life has changed from the BBS era to the internet era. If you were “online” in the 80s and early 90s, this is the story of your life – or at least a life very much like it. You can order “Commodork” here. (Rob has also written several DVD, book and Commodore 64 game reviews for theLogBook.com – check those out too while you’re waiting for the book to hit your doorstep!)

Just days after the celebratory episode 200 was said to bring in lackluster ratings, media outlets are reporting that Sci-Fi Channel will drop Stargate SG-1 from its schedule after airing ten final episodes starting in March 2007. Spinoff series Stargate Atlantis has been renewed and will continue in the fall of 2007; so far this season, Atlantis has consistently scored higher ratings than its parent series. MGM, the studio producing both Stargate series for Sci-Fi, is reportedly shopping around for a new home for SG-1. Sci-Fi Channel has yet to officially confirm this story or comment on either show’s future prospects.
Sources: Multichannel News (Daily Variety), GateWorld.net

So Stargate SG-1 just turned ten years old and you haven’t gotten a present yet? Lucky for you, we’ve thought of everything – SG-1′s ninth season, the first to feature Ben Browder, is coming to DVD on October 3rd, with featurettes on the show’s changes of direction and commentaries on every episode (though it seems odd that the only actors participating in the commentaries are Gary “Walter Harriman” Jones and Barclay Hope). You can pre-order Stargate SG-1 Season 9 – now in new slimline packaging – from theLogBook.com Store.

Scientists at Arizona State University are making a case for the existence of huge geysers on the surface of Mars, blasting not water but sand into the air with great force. Located at the south pole, these geysers are said to force sand and dust into the air atop a 100mph burst of carbon dioxide released when the sun warms the polar ice caps enough to heat up CO2 pockets just under the surface. (The ice at the Martian north and south pole are comprised of frozen carbon dioxide ice.) The team says they’ve spotted the geysers erupting in at least one orbital photo taken by NASA’s Mars Odyssey probe.
Source: BBC News