J.J. Abrams, the man behind Lost, Alias and Mission: Impossible III, is about to add another sci-fi classic to his résumé. Paramount recently handed the 40-year-old writer-producer-director the reins to one of its most revered projects: the next Star Trek film. Abrams will produce the movie with Lost cocreator (and fellow Trekker) Damon Lindelof. Abrams recently called from his Pacific Palisades, California, home, where he was hanging with kids (and budding sci-fi fans) Henry, Gracie and baby August, to chat about sci-fi, the th
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Some actors possess an Everyman quality that gives them the versatility to take on any role. Ron Livingston is that type of guy. After gaining notoriety as a member of Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn's crew of Swingers, he went on to play a conflicted World War II captain in HBO's Band of Brothers. This fall the Iowa native gets his first opportunity to play a series lead on Fox's hostage-negotiator action-drama
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There’s a reason they’re not calling this movie "Inspiration."
Actually, the desperation is all ABC’s, which is desperately hoping to attract anyone at all away from the penultimate episode of American Idol. The strategy: lean on longtime horror-story collaborator Stephen King, who has given ABC some of his best (It, The Stand, The Shining) and worst (Kingdom Hospital, Rose Red). Desperation (Tuesday, May 23, at 8 pm/ET) falls somewhere in between.
The first hour is promisingly, amusingly creepy, as innocents stray into the seemingly empty Nevada desert mining town of Desperation, where wild animals line the highway like eerie sentinels. It all seems ver
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Question: With the six genre shows that premiered this past season and the tons of genre pilots in production, do you think that sci-fi and fantasy shows will ever become mainstream hits? Everyone counts Lost as a revival in genre, but it's just a [great] character drama with a small tinge of science-fiction elements. Medium is just a crime show in which the lead character has weird dreams, and Ghost Whisperer is light fluff. But it seems that The X-Files has been the only sci-fi show to be truly successful on the Big Four. I know that there are lots of bad genre shows, but there are just as many truly great ones. The networks seem to completely lack faith in promoting these shows and the audiences seem to steer clear from them, for the most part. Why do you think this is? Also, with the recent trends of tons of reality and crime dramas on the air, I was wondering if a day would come when most of the shows were in the sci-fi genre. Critics always seem to pay special notice when more ...
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Question: What was the strange and funky show on HBO that was a sort of risqué sci-fi anthology à la The Outer Limits and Twilight Zone? It had a CGI female robot host. The name of it is totally escaping me and all my friends.
Answer: Sounds like you're thinking of Perversions of Science, a sci-fi-oriented offering from the people who brought you HBO's Tales from the Crypt. As you say, the hostess was a buxom animated android. The lady's name was Chrome and she was voiced by actress Maureen Teefy.
Based on EC Comics' Weird Science, the show featured a pilot episode with a notably apt title, "Dream of Doom." Perversi
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