GeekMonthly.com reports that a Battlestar Galactica direct-to-DVD movie, possibly tying into and laying the groundwork for the still-in-development prequel series Caprica, could be in the works, to be shot after Galactica’s third season. Though other SF franchises are defying cancellation by going direct to video (Stargate SG-1, Babylon 5), none have done so while they’re still on the air and relatively healthy in the ratings. We’re still waiting for confirmation from other sources on this story, so please salt it liberally before ingesting.
Source: GeekMonthly.com

There’s an embarrassment of riches for Doctor Who fans of all ages over this year’s holiday season; of course, at 7pm on Christmas Day, BBC 1 airs the new Doctor Who Christmas special, The Runaway Bride, starring David Tennant and Catherine Tate; also on Christmas Day, BBC digital subscribers will be able to see the complete Cardiff Children In Need concert from November 2005. On New Year’s Day at 4:50pm, BBC 1 shows the premiere of The Sarah Jane Adventures, starring Elisabeth Sladen and aimed at young (or young-at-heart) viewers; a full series will follow later in 2007. Later that night at 9:30, BBC 3 will show the final two episodes of Torchwood‘s first season back-to-back.
Sources: BBC, Outpost Gallifrey

American Movie Classics has signed on to co-produce the on-again, off-again TV revival of The Prisoner with SkyTV and Granada. Though casting news hasn’t been announced, things appear to be more “on again” than off: production will supposedly begin in spring 2007 for a 2008 premiere. British screenwriter Bill Gallagher will still be writing the new version.
Source: Hollywood Reporter

One of the co-founders of the seminal Hanna-Barbera animation studio has died of natural causes. Joseph Barbera‘s first animation credits were on the very first Tom & Jerry cartoon in 1940, which was nominated for an Oscar that year. With long-time animation partner Bill Hannam, he formed Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1944 (though it didn’t become a full-time job for either until 1957) and the two created such all-time classics as The Flintstones, Scooby Doo, The Jetsons and countless others. Mr. Barbera was 95.
Sources: Associated Press, IMDb

New animated Trek in the works? Reports have hit fan sites and a few mainstream media sites that a pitch for an animated continuation of the Star Trek franchise is under consideration at CBS (which now owns Paramount/Viacom). Set a century after Next Generation and the other 24th century spinoffs, the new animated series – which may wind up being a web-only entity rather than a broadcast series – would supposedly depict the Federation in discord after a war with the Romulans, and one Starfleet crew’s attempts to put things right. In other Trek news, J.J. Abrams’ big-screen Star Trek XI is still on track for a 2008 debut, according to Paramount’s movie division; the animated series could be designed to tide fans over until then.

More Stargate? Despite the cancellation of Stargate SG-1, MGM is apparently going ahead with plans to develop a third live-action TV series set in the Stargate universe, according to Gateworld.net. No one’s leaked anything about the premise of the prospective new series, and it’s not likely to premiere before 2008. SG-1 finishes its run on Sci-Fi Channel in spring 2007 before moving on to a pair of direct-to-DVD movies, while Atlantis will be back later in ’07 for its fourth season.

Lost’s replacement loses. ABC has yanked the plug on Day Break, a time-bending series that was scheduled to air in the time slot normally occupied by Lost through the end of this month. Apparently, the ratings were perilously low enough that the network pulled the show before its last two episodes could air; those installments will instead premiere on ABC’s web site. On a similar note, Show Me The Money, a goofy game show hosted by Star Trek vet William Shatner, apparently didn’t show anyone the ratings numbers, so it’s off the schedule as well. ABC still plans to bring Lost back no sooner than February 2007.

You will shop like us. From the “now let’s see a death match between this and TMX” department: one of the top-selling toys in the UK this Christmas isn’t a Muppet, it’s a relentless metal behemoth hell-bent on the subjugation of humanity. The Cyberman Voice Changer Helmet, similar to a Darth Vader helmet that hit stores on our shores when Star Wars Episode III was released, is selling out in toy stores across the pond (and, naturally, there’s quite a bit of speculation that kids won’t be the only ones wearing ‘em). The full-size Cyberman head can speak pre-recorded phrases from the silver giants’ recent return to Doctor Who, or it can give the wearer’s voice that special Mondas accent they’ve always wanted – perfect for calling the boss and telling him that you won’t report to work today because you’ve been deleted. (Your webmaster is holding out for a Dalek voice changer, thank you very much.)

The adult-oriented Doctor Who spinoff Torchwood has gotten a renewal for a second season – and, after some fierce internal lobbying among the controllers of the various BBC channels, a new home. Ratings for the show have been consistently good, sometimes bettering the ratings of programming on the “terrestrial” channels in the UK (BBC3 is a cable and satellite service only). The second season of Torchwood will be premiering next year on BBC2, which is an over-the-air channel – which could spell even bigger ratings for the series. Russell T. Davies will be staying on board as the show’s executive producer; no other announcements about returning (or changing) cast or crew members have been made.
Source: Outpost Gallifrey

One of the founders of the legendary BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Desmond Briscoe died on December 7th at his home. Upon the founding of the Workshop in 1958, he served as the first manager of the group, which was established with a total budget of £2,000. The Workshop was created to service the BBC’s productions with sound effects and music that couldn’t be obtained from traditional sources, and naturally science fiction shows frequently called upon it, including Quatermass And The Pit and, of course, Doctor Who. He retired from that position in 1977, but remained with the Workshop in other capacities until 1983. During his final year there, he also wrote a book about the group’s first 25 years – 15 years before the BBC closed down the Workshop permanently because it failed to comply with a corporation-wide mandate for all departments to generate revenue in and of themselves.
Sources: Doctor Who Restoration Team, Wikipedia.org

Blake’s 7 Productions, the company that was formed to buy up and exploit the rights to the classic BBC SF series Blake’s 7 several years ago, has announced it’s finally going into production, reviving the series in audio drama form. Billed as a “radical re-interpretation,” the Blake’s 7 audio plays will feature an all new cast: Derek Riddell as Blake, Colin Salmon as Avon, and Daniela Nardini as Servalan. Other cast members will include Michael Praed (Robin Of Sherwood), Carrie Dobro (Crusade), Craig Kelley, Doug Bradley, and India Fisher (the eighth Doctor’s sidekick in Big Finish’s Doctor Who audio dramas). Recorded only last week, the series will consist of 36 5-minute episodes, and will be made available on CD “after broadcast” in spring 2007, according to the B7P press release, though no broadcast outlet is mentioned. The series’ writers include Doctor Who veterans Ben Aaronovitch, Marc Platt and Big Finish writer James Swallow.
Source: B7 Productions

Lost finds a new time: The latest genre show to move out of its original time slot is ABC’s Lost; upon its return in February, the show will be moving to 10pm Eastern, and the network isn’t being shy about why – the show’s ratings take about as much of a pounding from American Idol as Mr. Eko did from the monster earlier this season. In the UK, the third season of Lost is reportedly taking a pounding of its own, courtesy of the Doctor Who spinoff Torchwood.

Assorted Doctor Who news: BBC’s home video arm, 2Entertain, has announced the March UK DVD release will be Survival, Sylvester McCoy’s final regular appearance as the Doctor and the final installment of the original TV series; it’ll probably be available later in the year in North America. BBC Radio’s latest promotional blurbs have let slip that the upcoming series of radio-only adventures starring Paul McGann as the eighth Doctor on BBC7 will take McGann “up to the point where he regenerates into Christopher Eccleston,” according to the Radio Times; that series begins on New Year’s Eve. The current Doctor returns to TV screens across the UK at 7pm on Christmas Day in The Runaway Bride, with The Sarah Jane Adventures (starring Elisabeth Sladen) premiering on New Year’s Day.

After trying for a number of months to do more-or-less daily news here, it’s been decided that theLogBook.com’s news section will instead scale back to its original weekly update. While not as timely, it’s at least a bit more manageable, since it’ll be done at roughly the same time that the rest of the weekly update is being prepared anyway. Maintaining a weekly pace of adding new content to the site at the same time as retrofitting older content into the database format is proving to be quite a challenge, what with work and that whole “real life” thing providing unforseen roadblocks, speedbumps, and other vaguely-related traffic metaphors to the process. As more emphasis is placed on making video material available on the site, that’s also proving to be quite a time-intensive chore. For the forseeable future, the news updates will be weekly.

Also in this week’s update, if you haven’t already noticed the new addition to the site’s main menu, we’re kicking off a new section to review fan-made films that build onto or are otherwise related to existing franchises. Though this idea has been kicked around for a while now, the impetus to go ahead and get it started was the outstanding, if controversial, new episode of the fan-made series Star Trek: New Voyages, whose review you can check out as our new Fan Film Reviews section debuts this week. Please note that theLogBook.com does not provide distribution for these productions, but does include a link to the site where you can watch it. There was originally some thought given to including these in our episode guide section, but there’s too clear and obvious a delineation between the “official” and the “unofficial” to go there. Some of the previous reviews of Doctor Who fan films that were previously featured in that episode guide will be migrating to the new section in the near future.

Thanks to everyone for their support of the site and their patience. Hopefully everyone’s having a good holiday season while they’re at it!

Earl Green
theLogBook.com webmaster / editor-in-chief

NASA has shown plenty of evidence that water flowed on the surface of Mars in the past, but today they’re announcing a finding that could indicate that there’s been surface water on the red planet within the past 7 years. In photos of the same locations taken seven years apart by the cameras aboard NASA’s unmanned Mars Global Surveyor, bright “gullies” with features similar to small running bodies of water on Earth were spotted in two craters, indicating running water that may have frozen – or, to quote NASA’s press release directly, “Roughly 20 percent brighter than the surface as it appeared before the flow occurred, the new deposit exhibits characteristics consistent with transport and deposition of a fluid that behaved like liquid water and likely transported some fine-grained sediment along with it.” (The temperature on Mars, combined with the thin atmosphere, isn’t conducive to surface water, though signs of subsurface water have been spotted before.) The phenomenon has been earmarked for further study by the rest of NASA’s fleet of Mars probes currently in orbit and for future missions.
Source: NASA/JPL

Sci-Fi Channel has announced that the two Stargate series will return in April, with the slot formerly occupied by Battlestar Galactica now taken up by a new original series, Painkiller Jane. Stargate SG-1 will only air 10 more episodes before switching from weekly series production to direct-to-DVD movies (though Sci-Fi will also air those movies); contrary to some early reports, the SG-1 movies will have a larger budget than the series, complete with money budgeted for series composer Joel Goldsmith to utilize a full orchestra for the first time since the premiere of Stargate Atlantis. Atlantis also returns in April, with the second half of its third season saying farewell to one of the show’s regular characters (click “more” to find out who), who will be repalced in the fourth season by former Firefly star Jewel Staite.
Sources: Sci-Fi Channel, Gateworld.net (more…)

As promised, the new Tom & Jerry & Tex Avery Too! CD from Film Score Monthly is now in theLogBook.com Store; you can find it here.

British SF author Craig Hinton, known for a string of Doctor Who novels as well as numerous factual reviews and essays on the subject of popular SF, died December 3rd at his home. In 1994, during a stint as the merchandise reviewer for Doctor Who Magazine that his first Who novel, “The Crystal Bucephalus,” was published; “Godengine” and “Millennial Rites” followed under Virgin Publishing, and he penned “The Quantum Archangel” and, most recently, “Synthespians” for BBC Books’ Doctor Who range. He happily proclaimed that he was the originator of the term “fanwank,” describing fiction (often fan-generated) that relied too heavily on a franchise’s continuity or tried too hard to explain away its plot holes – and he himself admitted that his own works sometimes fell into that category. Mr. Hinton was 42.
Source: Outpost Gallifrey

Since it’s been fully eight minutes since we posted a blurb about the Doctor Who soundtrack, here’s our final reminder: the eagerly-anticipated ships on Monday, with over 70 minutes of music from the first and second seasons (as well as songs from each of the show’s Christmas special episodes so far, including this year’s, which has yet to be broadcast!). Almost every episode to date is covered in this compilation. You can still sneak a pre-order in now through theLogBook.com Store – go on, we won’t tell anyone that you were the last hold-out. Click “more” here for the full track listing. (more…)

Film and TV composer Shirley Walker died on November 29th as the result of a brain aneurism. One of the few female composers in Hollywood to land major film assignments, she also served as an orchestrator and conductor for the likes of Hans Zimmer, Richard Band and Danny Elfman (whose first two Batman feature film scores she worked on). Her work was often heard as the accompaniment to superheroes’ exploits; she scored numerous episodes of Batman Beyond, The New Batman Adventures, Spawn, The Flash, the animated ’90s Superman series, Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm and The Batman/Superman Movie. She also created the theme and episodic scores for Space: Above And Beyond, as well as composing music for movies such as Final Destination (and its two sequels), Escape From L.A. and Memoirs Of An Invisible Man. Only recently she scored Black Christmas, due later this month. Ms. Walker was 61.
Sources: IMDb, Film Music Network