The Sentinel Returns To UPN
he on-again, off-again SF show The Sentinel will return to UPN's regular lineup in January 1999.
The series was canceled early this year but was later brought back as a mid-season replacement, thanks in part to a high-profile protest by fans.
Now UPN has decided to give the show another chance, providing it with a steady home in the Monday, 9 p.m., timeslot. UPN plans to kickoff the new year of The Sentinel by airing the original pilot on Jan. 25, followed by the season-three cliffhanger finale on Feb. 1. The first episode of the new season--which is also the second part of the cliffhanger episode--will then run on Feb. 8.
Two-Hour Voyager Underway
roduction has begun on a special two-hour episode of Star Trek: Voyager that will chronicle the struggle between Captain Janeway and the Borg Queen for control of Seven of Nine.
The story--entitled "Dark Frontier"--starts out when Voyager's crew attempts to steal advanced technology from a Borg ship.
The heist goes awry, and Seven of Nine is reassimilated by the Borg. The story then takes viewers back in time 20 years to see how Seven of Nine's family was first assimilated into the Borg collective.
The episode marks the return of the Borg Queen character, who was first seen in the film Star Trek: First Contact. The small-screen version of the Queen will be played by Susanna Thompson, who has previously appeared in The Ghosts of Mississippi and Little Giants.
"Dark Frontier" is slated to air in February 1999.
New Line Teams With Alien Voices
ew Line Television has inked a development deal with Alien Voices, the acting troupe headed by Star Trek alums Leonard Nimoy and John de Lancie.
As part of the pact, the companies will create television movies that feature famous SF stories by noted authors such as H.G. Wells and Jules Verne.
Alien Voices has already produced five audio dramas for Simon & Schuster Audio, including adaptations of The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and Journey to the Center of the Earth. The troupe also produced several live radio-style TV events for the Sci-Fi Channel, including the recent Alien Voices: A Halloween Trilogy.
3rd Rock Ratings Plummet
BC's hit SF sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun is off to a lackluster start in its new Tuesday, 8 p.m., timeslot, according to Variety.
The Emmy Award-winning show earned a mere 6.5 rating in the Nielsens on Dec. 8, an all-time low for first-run episodes of the series.
The poor performance helped boost ABC's flagging sitcom Home Improvement--which airs directly opposite 3rd Rock--to its best ratings in the last two months. 3rd Rock previously ran on Wednesday nights.
Sci-Fi Sets Third Ratings Record
he debut of Pumpkinhead 2 and the strong showing of Star Trek Special Edition helped propel the Sci-Fi Channel to its third consecutive month of record primetime ratings.
The channel averaged a 0.9 household rating in the Nielsens for November, an increase of more than 50 percent over its performance during the same month last year.
Pumpkinhead 2 was the highest-rated telecast for the month, garnering a 1.8 rating during its Sci-Fi Channel premiere. The channel's Tuesday-Friday 9 p.m. movie block also fared well, averaging a 1.0 rating, and Star Trek continued to deliver viewers with an impressive 0.8 average rating.
Columbia Lands Nichols For Planet
olumbia has signed Primary Colors director Mike Nichols to take the helm of the upcoming SF comedy What Planet Are You From?, according to Variety.
The film stars comic Garry Shandling as an alien who is sent to Earth in order to procreate, even though he lacks a penis.
The handicap doesn't stop Shandling's alien, however, as the mechanical substitute he's equipped with proves to be a big hit with the ladies.
The Specials Fills Out Roster
ix actors have joined the cast of Mindfire Entertainment's independent superhero film The Specials, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Rob Lowe, Jamie Kennedy, Thomas Haden Church, Judy Greer, Kelly Coffield and Melissa Joan Hart have agreed to lend their talents to the film, which was written by James Gunn.
Gunn, whose credits include Tromeo and Juliet and the upcoming Spy vs. Spy, will also star in the film, which is being directed by Craig Mazin. The Specials is about a group of dysfunctional superheroes whose problems include jealousy, infighting and insecurity.
Abe's Exoddus Hits Stores
T Interactive has released Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus, the second in a series of five Sony PlayStation and PC games based in the Oddworld universe.
Exoddus is a sequel to the acclaimed game Abe's Oddysee, which hit stores in September 1997 and has since sold more than a million copies.
Oddysee told the story of Abe, a former floor waxer who overthrew his evil Glukkon masters and went on to rescue 99 of his fellow Mudokon slaves from Rupture Farms. In Exoddus, Abe and five of his friends are tasked with shutting down the evil Soulstorm Brewery, which produces an addictive beverage made from ground-up Mudokon bones.
Exoddus made headlines earlier this year when footage from the game was entered for Academy Award consideration in the Animated Short category.
Briefly Noted
- DreamWorks SKG and Twentieth Century Fox announced that they will jointly produce the film Minority Report, which is a based on the Philip K. Dick story of the same name and which will star Tom Cruise under the direction of Steven Spielberg.
- The E-greetings Network is now offering 15 digital postcards based on the Star Trek TV shows and films.
- ABC has decided that it will not order additional episodes of Fantasy Island, the Columbia TriStar TV show based on the 1970s series of the same name.
- Prufrock Pictures has agreed to produce All Fall Down for New Line Cinema, a film about sexual temptation and the supernatural, according to Variety.
- A 145-foot-tall inflatable snowman that was supposed to promote the release of the Michael Keaton film Jack Frost collapsed under high winds, according to Variety. The figure was perched atop the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles, Calif.
- ABC is developing a spinoff series based on Sabrina the Teenage Witch. The show would reportedly star Emily Hart and Alexandra Hart-Gilliams, the younger sisters of Sabrina star Melissa Joan Hart.
