09/09/2011 Hyde Fundraisers are inviting you to join them in a celebration of the life and work of Elisabeth Sladen as they host a special screening at Cineworld in Ashton under Lyne in aid of Sladen's charity The Lymphoedema Support Network and BBC Children In Need.

There will be a screening of the Dr Who episode School Reunion, which stars David Tennant along with selected episodes from The Sarah Jane Adventures.

This will include character photo opportunities - including a replica K-9 - a charity tombola with Dr Who prizes and merchandiser Galaxy 4.

The specially invited guest (Subject to work commitments) is Daniel Anthony alias Clyde from the The Sarah Jane Adventures.

The event takes place between 10.30am and 2pm with tickets available from the Cineworld website.

The event takes place with kind permission of BBC Television and Cineworld Cinemas.

For further details please visit Hyde Fundraisers.

08/09/2011 When Gene Roddenberry's epic series Star Trek first aired on NBC on September 8th, 1966 no one knew what a phenomenon it would become. Forty-five years later, the legacy and millions of fans across the globe still continue to believe that space is the 'final frontier' and has yet to be fully explored.

In celebration of this momentous occasion, SCIENCE is working with Gene Roddenberry's only son, Rod Roddenberry, to produce the world premiere documentary, TREK NATION set to air on Wednesday, November 30.

The film shadows Gene Roddenberry's son, Rod, as he explores his family legacy and the crusade his father's passion and curiosity for exploration. Through interviews with his most devoted fans, including George Lucas and J.J. Abrams, TREK NATION follows a son searching for the wisdom of his father. TREK NATION demonstrates that Roddenberry's work has not only inspired legions of fans across the globe, but also generated a movement which has influenced entertainment, politics, space travel, social moralityand much more. TREK NATION profiles how the Star Trek franchise helped foster a timeless understanding of the human condition and captured man's constant search for a better world.

Story courtesy of Trek Web.com.

07/09/2011 The fourth season of Sanctuary has a premiere date: October 7th at 10 p.m. The fantasy series that stars Stargate vet Amanda Tapping will be back with a 13-episode season, shortened from the 20 episodes that aired in two blocks this past year.

The season premiere is titled "Tempus," followed by "Uprising" on October 14th, "Untouchable" on the 21st, and "Monsoon" on the 28th.

Syfy Channel may have finally seen the light with the show's scheduling, moving it back to the more genre friendly Friday night time slot (at least according to the current schedule). The show plummeted from around 1.4 million viewers (Live + Same Day) to around 800,000 after Syfy bumped it to Monday nights in April.

There's little to speak of in terms of network competition in the 10 p.m. hour this fall: Blue Bloods on CBS, and news programs 20/20 on ABC and Dateline on NBC. FOX goes to local news at 10 p.m. Syfy will help viewers catch up with the story with a marathon of the last 10 episodes on October 7, starting at 8 a.m..

Story courtesy of Gateworld.

06/09/2011: Figures released by BARB show Doctor Who: Let's Kill Hitler, just missed out on a top ten place becoming the 11th most watched programme of the week.

The episode was the 6th most watched programme of the week on BBC Television. It was beaten in the charts by the two major soaps, EastEnders and Coronation Street, New Tricks and The X Factor, but out rated all editions of Emmerdale.

The figures do not include those watching on iPlayer, where over 1.2 million people accessed the episode within 7 days of the broadcast.

Meanwhile Torchwood: Immortal Sins had a final UK rating of 4.48 million viewers. It was the 31st most watched programme of the week.

The AI score for Episode Eight of Torchwood, End of the World, was 84.

Story courtesy of Doctor Who News Net.

05/09/2011: The policy about Star Trek at Paramount Pictures has been clear for some time: The more removed someone is from Star Trek, the better they will do in attracting a wider audience.

But Bjo Trimble, the woman who led the "Save Star Trek" campaign back in the 1960s that created the much needed third season of the original "Star Trek," says that's hogwash. In fact, it's actually hurting the franchise.

"Of the movies, some have been fairly good, some really horrid," Trimble recently told StarTrek.com. "The Powers That Be are convinced that they should never use anyone familiar with Trek for scripts, directing or any of those little production details. They say that what's really needed is to get non-Trek writers and directors to 'appeal to the non-Trek audience.' Which, of course, has assured that both Trekkers and non Trekkers stayed away in droves."

But there is some hope in the current J.J. Abrams helmed environment. "We think he did pretty well, though we're a tad tired of bald, tattooed villains in long leather coats," Trimble said. "We understand that comic book characters and loud music is considered necessary pandering to the kids. Still, there is some lovely character development that we'd love to see in future movies -- if we ever do see a second movie before the actors are ready for retirement."

However, the use of an alternate timeline was good, because it opened the franchise up to other time dimensions. Yet, Trimble understood why some fans might be upset with the changes, like Uhura and Spock being a couple.

"Well, in the Trek time we're most used to, they never got together," she said. "In this alternative time, they did. We suggest that the fans trying to wrap their mind around this read a whole lot more time travel sci-fi."

Trimble turned 78 in August, but is still revered -- along with her husband John Trimble -- as being two of fandom's most influential people, particularly during the 1960s. She met her husband under Forest Ackerman's piano, during an overly crowded party at his house. This was after, of course, she was supposedly courted by Harlan Ellison.

She and her husband own Griffin Dyeworks & Fiber Arts in Southern California.

Story courtesy of Airlock Alpha.

04/09/2011: 5.5 million viewers tuned in to watch Night Terrors, according to unofficial overnight figures.

The eighth in the current series has a share of 25.9% of the total TV audience as it faced its toughest opposition for some time. On ITV1, Red and Black, the new game show with Ant and Dec had an average of 6.6 million watching.

Doctor Who was the most watched programme of the day on BBC One and fourth overall for the day. ITV1 took the first three places with The X Factor on top with 11.1 million, followed by the two editions of Red and Black.

Doctor Who's audience was steady throughout the episode, with a peak of 5.6 million viewers and nearly 2.7 million leaving BBC One as the show finished, boosting Red and Black in its final half hour. Doctor Who currently stands at 21st for the week.

Final figures, which will be released in 8 days time, should see the final total rise considerably, when those who record the episode and watch it later are factored in. Doctor Who is likely to have a much higher percentage of people watching on a delay and could overtake Red and Black on the final ratings.

Story courtesy of Doctor Who News Net.

03/09/2011: LeVar Burton tweeted this yesterday with a picture of the gate to CBS Television City: "Stopped by to see how the TNG conversion to HD for Blue Ray was coming along..." I trust the rest of us will have the same experience soon enough, when CBS finally announces their "sampler" BD project, which SHOULD contain (according to sources at Comic-Con) Encounter at Farpoint and a trio of other interesting demo episodes.

Story courtesy of Trek Web.com.

02/09/2011: Doctor Who - Let's Kill Hitler may only have been available on the BBC iPlayer for the last five days of the month, but it still managed to be the most requested programme of August with just under a million requests.

As the month finished, 0.99 million people had accessed the first episode of Doctor Who since the series took its summer break. Top Gear, Episode 6 took second place with episodes 4,5 and 6 of Torchwood coming in 3rd. 4th and 5th for the month with around 0.7 million requests each. Torchwood Episode 7 was 16th for the month with around 0.5 million requests...

The recent BBC Three repeats have seen the first episodes of the current series back on the iPlayer and given the first episode, The Impossible Astronaut, the boast it needed to become the most accessed programme of the year. So far 1.93 million requests have been made for the episode, ahead of comedy programme Come Fly with Me: Episode Two which has 1.86 million requests. Third for the year so far is Day of the Moon with 1.72 million requests.

Story courtesy of Doctor Who News Net.

01/09/2011: SciFiAndTVTalk posted an interview with Star Trek Voyager actress and director Roxann Dawson, in which she talks about directing episodes of genre shows, and here is an excerpt.

"As for Caprica, I have to say that it's one of the most exciting shows that I've ever done," she told journalist Steve Eramo "and it's probably because of the way that it's shot. They use three cameras all the time, there was a lot of improvisation, and the actors were just hot as well as, again, very receptive. It was an adrenaline-filled show to do and challenging on every level. We had a lot to do in a very short period of time, but it was all extremely creative and everyone there was incredibly positive about wanting to do the best work possible. It really was a joyful experience."

Dawson also took great pleasure in revisiting her Star Trek roots when she directed multiple episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise. "My favorite episode is probably the first one I did [The Andorian Incident] because it was right at the beginning of it all," she notes. "It was about being on the ground level of still doing a franchise that had been around for 30 years. However, because this was sort of a prequel, it was a matter of going back and deciding, 'Well, when did these characters discover this? When did this knowledge come into being?' etc. On top of that, we were bringing in the whole Andorian element.

"So helping create something that had already been established was a great deal of fun, especially when it came to working with the cast. They treated me with a lot of respect because they knew I had done it for seven years and that I 'got it.' It was a very, very generous group of actors on Enterprise and all trying to find their characters, knowing that they were part of the franchise, but still looking to find their own voices, as we did on Voyager. It was neat for me to have that understanding and to look at them and go, 'I know what your days are like. I know what you're feeling right now and what you're going through.' I think that insight allowed me to better communicate with them. Again, they were all very nice, generous actors as well as people and I enjoyed getting to know them."

Full interview available at SciFiAndTVTalk.

01/09/2011: Radio Times have printed Steven Moffat's guide to the rest of Series 6, complete with all episode titles.

Episode 9: Night Terrors: Written by Mark Gatiss. Horror in Doctor Who comes in many forms and many places, and a cry of distress reaches the TARDIS from the darkest and scariest place in universe. But where is it exactly? This story began with Mark Gatiss and me chatting on the set of Sherlock. "I'd like to do scary," he said. "Do you know where the scariest place in the universe is?" I've known Mark for a while. If he's decided to tell me where the scariest place in the universe is, I'd better listen. "Where?" I quavered from behind my rapid-deployment Doctor Who fear sofa. "A child's bedroom" he answered.

Episode 10: The Girl Who Waited: Written by Tom MacRae. Time Travel is more than just an element of Doctor Who - it's one of the main characters. I'm going to boast now and say that Tom MacRae's stylish and moving script is one of the best uses of time travel in any story anywhere - mind-blowing and heart-breaking in every twist and turn. The Doctor has been in Amy and Rory's life for a long while now - far longer than he ever intended. What if something were to go wrong?

When they step from the TARDIS into a strange white waiting room, they're all about to learn just how wrong time travel can go.

Episode 11: The God Complex: Written by Toby Whithouse. The brief to brilliant writer Toby Whithouse was just this - a hotel: make a hotel scary. All those corridors, all those identical rooms, those bleak and soulless bars and waiting rooms, that tinkling musak - surely all that was made for Doctor Who, where the scariest things of all come bleeding through the ordinary world.

If you've seen Toby's wonderful Being human, you've probably already decided he's a sick and twisted man. Doctor Who is delighted to confirm this simple truth for a BBC1 audience. (Oh, and do you have a ventriloquist dummy lurking somewhere in your house?

Episode 12: Closing Time: Written by Gareth Roberts. The Lodger was a surprise hit of last year's Doctor Who. It was a simple tale of a barmy Time Lord in a flatshare with a nice man called Craig. Except when you say one them's Matt Smith and the other is James Corden, then frankly you've got enough going on for a whole other series. I leapt at the chance of a sequel and writer Gareth Roberts leapt at the chance to take up his story again.

Events have moved on in Craig's life when The Doctor turns up on his doorstep for a second time; there's a terrible alien threat, of course, but never mind that - dear God, there's a BABY!

Episode 13: The Wedding of River Song: Written by Steven Moffat.

"I don't want to marry you."

"I don't want to murder you."

And here it is at last - the episode with all the answers, as The Doctor journeys to Lake Silencio for his date with destiny. While I was writing this, my wife asked me, "What happens?" and when I frownedm and pondered my answer, she hurriedly added, "In one sentence. Quite a short one." I thought a moment and said, "The Doctor goes to his certain death - and it doesn't work out as well as he'd expected."

So welcome to what is, without doubt or serious competition, the wedding of the year! Wary reports indicate that it could make On Her Majesty's Secret Service look like a fairly successful honeymoon.

Story courtesy of Doctor Who OnLine.