I'm far from an expert on the subject but it seems to me that outside of Warcraft, none of these Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing games ever actually work. It's a simply question of audience. They require a large group of interested players sticking with it over a long period of time and while your Star Trek Onlines of the world might have a brief period of popularity, they never seem to have any staying power and the people playing them invariably seem to drift back to Warcraft.

But it's safe to say that if you're going to try and launch an MMO that you'd better launch one with the biggest, existing fanbase possible. Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings. Making MMOs out of these make sense and yet, even those have struggled to find enough players. So what the frak are the people at a company called Bigpoint doing making a MMO out of Battlestar Galactica? I have no idea.

Don't get me wrong, I love BSG and so did a lot of other people. But BSG's fanbase is less then 10% the size of Trek's or even Lord of the Rings, and that's being generous. Turning it into an MMO seems doomed to failure, but it's happening anyway. As long as they're doing it, sign me up for my own Raptor.
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Dollhouse may have been cancelled, but that doesn't mean Joss Whedon is out of ideas for series' star Eliza Dushku. They're getting back together for a movie.

Duhsku tells Hollywoodlife that they're plotting an unspecified feature film together, somewhere down the road.

Dushku says:

I would say that we would [be working on something new very soon]! I think we’re going to work on a kickass feature together that we’ve been thinking about for a few years.

The BBC has released a teaser image for the new season of Doctor Who in which we'll meet the 11th Doctor. Yeah I know, it's hard to go on without David Tennant. But this guy seems to be compensating for not being Tennant by having a super hot companion. Ignore the inferior Doctor and look at the eye candy.

Here's the new teaser image, in two different sizes showing slightly different details.

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Before Hollywood announces yet another reboot of some already beloved science fiction movie franchise, let's give them a few better ideas. Since we're talking about the entertainment industry, we can't expect anything to original. But it doesn't have to be. There's a wealth of science fiction out there, just waiting for some movie studio to pick it up and do something with it. No more waiting. Drop that Back to the Future remake Hollywood and do something with these already brilliant sci-fi properties instead:

FuturamaIt worked for The Simpsons and they ran out of jokes ten years ago. Futurama on the other hand, thanks to frequent network cancelling, is still young as when the world was new. Matt Groening's other animated masterpiece has never gotten a fair shake, but with its spacey setting and tendency towards blaster fire, it's far more suited to the big screen than Springfield's favorite family. It's animation, yes, but animation for adults. Feel free to take things up a notch for the theatrical version, hook Bender up with a three-nippled robot hooker, and slap it with an “R” rating. Or if you're really feeling spendy, ditch the animation and give us a live action version.

The Pitch: A pizza delivery boy is accidentally frozen for a thousand years, and wakes up in the future. There he finds employment at the interplanetary delivery company, Planet Express, and struggles to fit in with the company's strange assortment of employees. His best friend is an alcoholic robot, he's in love with a smoking hot kung-fu Cyclops who finds him repulsive, and he's employed by a mad scientist with an increasingly bad case of dementia. Hilarity ensues. Think Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy meets Encino Man.

Quantum LeapWe're running out of time on Quantum Leap. Scott Bakula isn't getting any younger. In fact we're probably out of time and if there's any hope that the early 90s most brilliant sci-fi show will ever get its cinematic due, it'll have to start all over with a new Sam Beckett. Much as I love Bakula, I can live with that. It's Dean Stockwell Quantum Leap can't live without. Stockwell's stint in Battlestar proved he's still spry enough to play the wise-cracking, cigar-smoking Al and Quantum Leap's resonate style of character-driven storytelling is still as relevant as it ever was. Maybe even more so. Imagine Sam leaping into 9/11. Oh boy.

The Pitch: A botched experiment sends Sam Becket leaping through time. But Sam can explain it better than I can. "It all started when a time travel experiment I was conducting went... "a little caca". In the blink of a cosmic clock, I went from quantum physicist to Air Force test-pilot. Which could have been fun... if I knew how to fly. Fortunately, I had help - an observer from the project named Al. Unfortunately, Al's a hologram, so all he can lend is moral support. Anyway, here I am, bouncing around in time, putting things right that once went wrong, a sort of time traveling Lone Ranger, with Al as my Tonto. And I don't even need a mask... Oh Boy" more...

While a few people are still on board with the Clone Wars cartoons, Star Wars has for the most part, lost all the momentum it built up with the prequels. The old franchise ain't what it once was, and it'll take a lot to get casual fans interested again. A good way to start, might be for George Lucas to finally deliver on at least one of his better promises: Give us live action Star Wars on television.

Lucas has been teasing a live action Star Wars TV series for years now, and every time it's talked about, it's talked about as if it's right around the corner. But it never is. So far it's been all talk. That may be about to change.
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It's nothing but bad news for Terminator fans. After the mediocre performance of Terminator Salvation, the franchise went up for sale. Halcyon, the rightsholder, was headed for bankruptcy and in need of cash. Both Sony and Lionsgate were heavy bidders for the rights to the property, presumably with the goal of owning it and making something good. But now the rights to Terminator have been sold, and not to creative people with big ideas about how to get this thing back on track. Nope, they've sold it to a bunch of bankers. Here's how Deadline explains it:

Halcyon Holding Corp accepted the $29.5 million bid from, of all parties, the debtholder which pushed it into bankruptcy, Santa Barbara-based hedge fund Pacificor. (This is the same Pacificor whom Halcyon accused in a lawsuit of extortion, bribery, and fraud and demanded $30M in damages.)

UPDATE! Now that the Evil Bankers are in control, they are of course, looking for someone else to pay them. Word is that Lionsgate and Sony are now in negotiations with the Evil Bankers to jointly take control of the property for them, since Evil Bankers don't know a thing about film production.

For those of you who, like me, may be on the fence about whether to tune back in for more Doctor Who after the devastating departure of David Tennant, here's an incentive: Neil Gaiman.

Gaiman is the celebrated author of things which are awesome (my favorite is Good Omens which he co-authored with Terry Pratchet) and he's getting involved in Doctor Who. According to SFX Gaiman is writing a Who episode. Neil tells them:

As anyone who’s read my blog knows, I’m a big fan of a certain long-running British SF TV series. One that started watching -- from behind the sofa -- when I was three. And while I know it’s cruel to make you wait for things, in about 14 months from now, which is to say, NOT in the upcoming season but early in the one after that, it’s quite possible that I might have written an episode. And if I had, it would originally have been called “The House of Nothing”. But it definitely isn’t called that any more.

Countdown. You’ve got about 14 months.

David Goyer, perhaps best known as the writer of such gems as Dark City, Blade, and Batman Begins, is also the guy responsible for TV's FlashForward. He's been the series showrunner since it's inception but now he, much like a lot of us, has better things to do.

THR says he's leaving the series to pursue other projects. Here's the statement he issued this week:

"As my feature projects have started ramping up again, I felt I was being pulled in too many directions. I'm proud of the show and excited about the relaunch. It's in great hands."

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So you tuned in for the season premiere of Lost this week, learned the identity of the Smoke Monster, and now you're dying for more. We've got you covered with a clip from the next episode. It'll be titled "What Kate Does" and here's a little taste of just exactly what she do. Hint: It's not Sawyer.

Note: This picks up right where the season premiere left. If you haven't watched the Lost season premiere yet, don't watch this!

"What Kate Does" - Kate finds herself on the run, while Jack is tasked with something that could endanger a friend's life, on Lost, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9 (9:00-10:00 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network.

ABC has just released two brand new, amazing clips from the final season of Lost for your consumption. Both clips involve Locke and Ben inside the statue, where we left them last season. Never has Ben look so completely confused, clueless, utterly beaten. Like Ben, I have no idea what's going on either but that's half the fun isn't it? Watch and speculate:

And in case you missed it, here's the full trailer for the sure to be mind-blowing sixth season of Lost: more...