The Beekeeper is back. Odyssey2 video game designer Bob “RoSHa” Harris (see our sidebar for an interview with him from a few years back) is back in the gaming business – sort of. Famous (at least in some circles) for creating the classic Odyssey2 game Killer Bees!, Harris is now in print with a new book on a variation of the popular Sudoku puzzle game called Squiggly Sudoku. You can order a copy directly from him here.

Whotoons. You can add an animated adventure to the Doctor’s travels this year; the BBC has announced that a 13-part animated story called The Infinite Quest will be featured in the 2007 season of the aimed-at-kids behind-the-scenes show Totally Doctor Who. David Tennant and Freema Agyeman will voice the characters of the Doctor and Martha, and Buffy alum Anthony Stewart Head will be back as a new villain names Baltazar. Star Wars prequel trilogy voice artist and Big Finish frequent flyer Toby Longworth will also be along for the ride; Big Finish’s Alan Barnes wrote the story and Gary Russell directs. The story is said to fit into the continuity of the upcoming third season.

Or maybe that’s the other way around. The Blue Sky Rangers, the original Intellivision programmers who are still making sure that gaming historians never forget their versatile early 80s game machine, are seeking a publisher (still!) for their completed Nintendo DS version of the Intellivision Lives! compilation. Boasting numerous Intellivision classics, wireless multiplayer, and what may be the most faithful emulation of the Intellivision yet (thanks to the DS touch screen, which allows the original 12-key overlays to be displayed), Intellivision Lives! DS is finished and ready to go. The Rangers hope to have a publisher lined up “before Girl Scout cookies arrive.” In the meantime, they’ve already brought the Intellivision games to another realm they hadn’t already conquered: the web. VH-1′s Classic Online Arcade now has emulated Intellivision Flash games available to play online for free. You can find Space Armada, Shark Shark!, Snafu, Sharp Shot, Brickout, Motocross, Astrosmash, Buzz Bombers, Pinball and Star Strike at VH-1′s Intellivision page (of course, you’ll have to watch a commercial or two). (VH-1 also has an online edition of the Midway arcade classic Satan’s Hollow here.) If you like what you see, then by all means come back to theLogBook.com Store and grab some Intellivision goodness to play at your leisure at home.
Source: Intellivision Productions

More Who Heroes. Now the Doctor and the Master are showing up on NBC’s Heroes – well, kind of. Christopher Eccleston made his first appearance as a mysterious man with a strange power in this week’s episode, but now Eric Roberts – who, in a one-off appearance as the Master, battled Eccleston’s Doctor Who predecessor Paul McGann – is also getting ready to make his Heroes debut, though the sketchy information on his character makes it sound like he probably isn’t going to be one of the good guys (imagine that!).

Sad tales of the death of pinball. Pre-orders are now being taken for an independently-produced film, released direct to DVD, about the last gasp of pinball at the legendary Williams Electronics, who were once kings of the pinball world (and, with games like Defender, the video game world too). This chronicle of the development of Williams’ Pinball 2000 systems goes behind the scenes to show how its designers tried to give the game a new lease on life. In the event, Williams closed its pinball division anyway, but the story is still told in Tilt: The Battle To Save Pinball. You can pre-order a copy now from the official website.

Xena: Warrior Backup Singer. Remember OMC, the New Zealand act that scored a bit of an international one-hit wonder with “How Bizarre” in 1998? They’ve returned to the studio and brought Lucy Lawless with them to provide backing vocals on a new album due later this year. She may also be appearing in the video for that album’s first single, which should be released next month.

And the Oscar nominees are… Without a huge amount of activity on the genre film front in 2006, nominations in that area were understandably thin. Of note are Pixar’s Cars, nominated for best animated feature, best original song (“Our Town” by Randy Newman), and the Mexican-made horror film Pan’s Labyrinth, up for best original screenplay, art direction, cinematography, makeup, original score, and best foreign picture. Superman Returns is up against Poseidon and Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest for the best visual effects trophy.

Connery goes Indy? Though he announced his retirement after his last live-action movie appearance (League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which he himself deemed “unfortunate”), Sean Connery says he’s awaiting a script from George Lucas to see if he’ll appear in the upcoming fourth Indiana Jones movie. (Connery appeared in Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade as Indy’s dad.) He’s apparently been in touch with Lucas about appearing in the movie, but won’t commit until he’s seen the script.

Last Light. The final two CDs to be released in the ELO remaster series are now available for pre-order in theLogBook.com Store. Out Of The Blue, the 1977 double album, gets a deluxe book-style package (complete with a mini replica of the original LP’s cardboard cut-out ELO spaceship!) and three extra tracks, including demos and the outstanding “rediscovered” song “Latitude 88 North”. Balance Of Power was the final studio album for ELO’s original run, released in 1986, and originally Sony/Epic wasn’t planning on releasing it as a CD at all until fans raised a ruckus about plans to release it as digital downloads only. The last album (and appropriately, the last remaster) contains several additional tracks, including alternate mixes and songs that were left on the cutting room floor. Both can be pre-ordered in theLogBook.com Store.

There has been tantalizing news aplenty about Neil Finn’s return to the studio with former Crowded House cohort Nick Seymour, supposedly to record a new solo album. After news was leaked to the Australian press, the word is now out: the new album is not a Finn solo project, but a Crowded House reunion album with surviving members Seymour and Mark Hart. A new drummer – who has yet to be identified – was auditioned to replace the late Paul Hester, who took his own life in 2005. The new group will also tour for the first time since their farewell concert on the steps of the Sydney Opera House in 1996.
Source: Frenz.com

Pluto or bust! There’s no turning back now. NASA’s New Horizons probe, on a one-way trip to become the first probe to swing past distant Pluto, is about to pick up speed dramatically as it slingshots past Jupiter. New Horizons isn’t sleeping off the whole trip, though; its sensors are trained on the giant planet to get the first look at Jupiter since Galileo swan-dived into its crushing atmosphere. New Horizons will be taking a look at Jupiter’s huge magnetic field, which is so much bigger than the planet it surrounds that it would be bigger than Earth’s moon in the night sky if it emanated light. New Horizons will gain nearly 9,000 miles per hour as it swings past Jupiter, while will put it at Pluto in July 2015. The probe will also continue its observations well into the Kuiper Belt of small objects surrounding the solar system.

Where’s Weir? In a bit of shocking news for the upcoming fourth season of Stargate Atlantis, yet another member of the show’s cast is leaving the main credits – and this time, it’s a shocker. Torri Higginson will only be portraying expedition leader Dr. Elizabeth Weir on a recurring basis in the fourth year of the show. (A similar change of status was announced earlier for Paul McGillion and his character, Dr. Carson Beckett.) With SG-1‘s Amanda “Samantha Carter” Tapping moving from that show to Atlantis for at least 14 episodes of the upcoming season, there’s some speculation that Colonel Carter may be taking over Weir’s job (though the producers have said that Carter will be appearing on Atlantis as the commander of her own ship). Of the show’s original cast, this leaves only Joe Flanagan, David Hewlett and Rachel Luttrell as full-time players.

No news is good news? We realize that the news section has been “asleep” for much of this month; we’re working on finding a candidate to take over updating this section of theLogBook.com. If you’re interested in the gig, you can find our contact info here. There are some further changes in the site’s future, since the site’s webmaster has just learned that parenthood is impending, but theLogBook.com will still be here. You can’t kill it with a stick.

Lost Tales news.The direct-to-DVD Babylon 5 project The Lost Tales is now in post production, with J. Michael Straczynski due to return to Vancouver to oversee CGI effects and dialogue looping. He’s also working on a new title sequence, and says that elements of the upcoming first volume, due in July, will tie back to the finale of the original series, Sleeping In Light. Bonus material is also in the works, including interviews with original series stars Bruce Boxleitner and Tracy Scoggins, and Crusade survivor Peter Woodward, as well as tributes to Andreas “G’Kar” Katsulas and Richard “Dr. Franklin” Biggs, both of whom have passed away since the series ended.

Triple threat. Spirit and Opportunity, the little Mars rovers who just won’t quit, have just completed their third year on the surface of the red planet. And like any three year old, they’re just getting smarter, thanks to new navigation software uploaded form ground controllers on Earth. Each of the rovers is still functioning, despite having only been designed for a three-month tour of duty, and surviving climbs in and out of large craters and intense Martian dust storms. The new software, which helps the rovers to recognize and track landmarks and other features via their electronic eyes, is a proving ground of sorts for the system that will be installed on the more advanced Mars Science Laboratory rover which is currently slated for a 2009 launch.

Rescheduling the Gods. With post production taking longer than expected on the ambitious three-part Star Trek fan film Of Gods And Men, directed by Tim “Tuvok” Russ and featuring a who’s who of Trek alumni, the release date – originally announced as Christmas 2006 – has been pushed back. The film’s producers have announced that the three installments will appear monthly between April and June, beginning on April 15th. Of Gods And Men features Russ, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, Alan Ruck, Garrett Wang, Gary Graham, Chase Masterson, and Grace Lee Whitney – among others. In other Trek fan film news, DS9 alumnus J.G. Hertzler is slated to guest star in an upcoming episode of New Voyages as that rascal of the spaceways, Harry Mudd himself. The episode will be filmed later this year, and could be released in late 2007 or early 2008 (given that each episode depends on a worldwide network of volunteers pulling together for a week or more in upstate New York, even three episodes a year is impressive).

Dwarfin’ on DVD. Again. Not wanting to miss an opportunity to milk the fan base Paramount-style, Grant Naylor Productions is bringing Red Dwarf to DVD – again. A new series of box sets debuting later this year will see the digital debut of the “Red Dwarf Remastered” episodes, a controversial 90s experiment in bringing the show’s older episodes into line with the then-current series by adding new CGI effects to them. It wasn’t the most popular move with the fans, who insisted that the episodes as originally broadcast were released on DVD first. The catch? The new box sets will feature more comprehensive behind-the-scenes features, with new interviews aplenty, including the elusive series co-creator Rob Grant, who managed to avoid the interview cameras during the production of all of the bonus material for the DVD releases of the original series.

Survival DVD explores the end of Who. The BBC has announced details of the April DVD release from the classic Doctor Who series, Survival, which aired in late 1989 and served as the finale of the show in its original form. Though the budget for the classic series releases has been scaled down somewhat, the three-part Survival will be a two-disc set loaded with features about the production of this story in particular, and the end of Doctor Who’s original run. Much of the second disc is its own bonus feature, titled “Endgame,” exploring the factors that led to the show’s demise, and what fans might have seen during the planned-but-not-made 1990 season. Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, script editor Andrew Cartmel, writer Ben Aaronovitch, composer Mark Ayres, and even former BBC Drama head Peter Cregreen appear in this documentary. The rare appearance of McCoy, Aldred and – oddly enough – K-9 on the education series Search Out Science will also be included, along with Anthony Ainley’s final Doctor Who footage, from the 1997 CD-ROM game Destiny Of The Doctors (covered elsewhere on this site), in full-resolution form. The other obligatory extras – production notes subtitles, isolated music, and commentaries (two of them!), among others – will also appear, along with deleted scenes, hopefully including the infamous original ending, vetoed by producer John Nathan-Turner, which would have sent the series in new directions by stating in no uncertain terms that the Doctor had evolved into something more than just a Time Lord. Survival can be pre-ordered now in theLogBook.com Store; a North American release date has yet to be set.

Lucas says Indy IV will shoot this year. After years of sending the script back to the drawing board, George Lucas now says that the fourth Indiana Jones movie will be ready to roll soon, filming in 2007 for a release in May 2008. Harrison Ford is still set to reprise his role, and the movie will still be produced (and presumably directed) by Steven Spielberg and Lucas.

Tracking some Mudd into the house. The producers of the fan film series Star Trek: New Voyages have announced more celebrity guests in the writing department; D.C. Fontana is returning to write another episode, while fan favorite Howard Weinstein – who sold his first TV script to the animated Star Trek at the age of 19 – isn’t just returning to Trek, but he’s bringing the character of Harry Mudd back with him. (No casting announcements have been made as yet.) The episode World Enough And Time, guest starring George Takei, is set for a spring 2007 release, with pre-production already underway on David Gerrold’s Blood & Fire, a script originally submitted for the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but ultimately left on the shelf due to its potentially controversial take on AIDS. In February 2007, a sister fan film series, Starship Farragut, is due to kick off with its own premiere, The Captaincy, which will debut at the Farpoint Convention in Maryland; a second episode of Farragut, which does some filming on New Voyages’ impressive bridge set, is already in production. The two series take place in the same time frame, and will cross over with each other.