Muppets. . . In. . . Space. . . .space. . space. . space. . Okay, so there are also a few humans on board like Stargate stars Ben Browder and Claudia Black, but Farscape will always mean Muppets to me and now it’s going to be a mega DVD.

Farscape ran on SCI FI Channel from 1999-2003 and it developed quite a fan following. The series revolved around a lone astronaut (Browder) who falls through a wormhole and lands in the middle of an intergalactic war. Produced by the Jim Henson Company, the show had two animatronic puppets in the main cast as well as several humans in alien garb, also designed by the talented people at Henson’s Creature Shop.

In honor of the 10th Anniversary of the series, A&E Home Entertainment is releasing Farscape: The Complete Series Megaset. The DVD package will include the entire sereis run along with an amazing amount of bonus features including commentary, interviews, and behind-the-scenes featurettes. They’ll be jump-starting the promotional efforts with a Farscape panel at this year’s Comic Con which will include executive producer Brain Henson, creator Rockne O’Bannon, and stars Ben Browder and Claudia Black.

The DVD release is scheduled for November 2009 and remember, “you gotta know how deep the doo-doo is, if you’re gonna dig your way out.”

24 June 2008 - Universal City, California - Ben Browder and Claudia Black. 34th Annual Saturn Awards held at Universal Hilton Hotel. Photo Credit: Charles Harris/AdMedia

In 1988, James Caan and Mandy Patinkin starred in the scifi version of Lethal Weapon, playing a human cop with an alien partner in the movie Alien Nation. But if you ask the average guy on the street, he probably won’t remember any of that, but he will remember Gary Graham and Eric Pierpoint playing those same roles on the TV series.

Though the show was canceled after only one season, it spawned a popular series of TV movies and novels so it’s not surprising that Syfy is looking to the series as its next big reboot.

The original Alien Nation was ahead of its time with its scifi take on the problems of discrimination, immigration and segregation.  Smarter than most people remember, the series revolved around the concept of a non-invasive alien invasion. These aliens were all slaves, who end up on Earth when their mothership crashes in the desert outside of Los Angeles.

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It’s been more than a year since we began talking about this far-reaching new project by Battlestar’s Ron Moore. As early as May of 08, snippets of information about the intriguing characters reached the web as casting sides were dolled out to actors auditioning for the roles.

There was the ship’s therapist who was using a reality show as a means of getting the crew to open up. A married couple who like to have sex in unusual places, a ship’s doctor who himself is dying and the first gay couple in space.

Then casting was completed and some people, like the folks at Futon Critic got a first look and they liked what they saw. By December, though, things were looking rocky and word of a retooling began to circulate around the web.

Finally, in May of this year, we were told that Virtuality would be a movie event on Fox. With that, all hopes of the show going to series were dashed.

It’s been a long wait, folks, but the time has come. Ron Moore’s Virtuality airs tonight on Fox and so the stars Clea Duvall and Sienna Guillory sat down with reporters to talk about, this much talked about, project.

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Hollywood Reporter says that actor Rick Worthy, who played Cylon Simon in Battlestar Galactica may be headed over to Heroes for the new season. Worthy is in talks to play Greg Grunberg’s new partner.

Worthy comes from a long line of scifi projects. He was Jannar on Enterprise, and he guested on Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Fallen, and he had a pivitol role in the series finale of Dark Angel. Without checking IMDB — can you name the character he played?

Photo: Mar 16, 2009 - New York, New York, USA - Actor RICK WORTHY at the New York premiere of ‘Duplicity’ held at the Ziegfeld Theater

Newscom

Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! Nope — I think that’s the moon hurtling toward the Earth. It’s all because of a pesky meteor shower that knocked the moon out of its orbit. (I hate when that happens.) Now. . .

“A small group of international astronauts, scientists and soldiers band together in a race against time to save humanity, in the thrilling limited ABC series “Impact,” airing SUNDAY, JUNE 21 and SUNDAY, JUNE 28 (9:00-11:00 p.m., ET both nights), on the ABC Television Network.”

The movie stars David James Elliott,  Natasha Henstridge, and James Cromwell, none of whom are in these photos. However, there are bonus points involved if you can identify the Supernatural recurring actor who is in one of these photos. (I’ll give you the answer at the end.)

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In case you’ve been off planet for the last 24 hours, may I be the one to tell you that Comedy Central has picked up the scifi cartoon Futurama ordering 26 (or possibly 13) new episodes.

Collider.com broke the news as a “rumor” a few days ago but since then Ausiello and other outlets have jumped on the band wagon so the rumor appears to be true.

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It’s that time of year again folks, time to reach into your wallet and bid on a cool scifi collectible in the name of charity. Stargate’s Michael Shanks (Dr. Daniel Jackson) is the man behind this yearly effort and the auction always features some really amazing items, like this autographed cap (see below for the list of signers). Other auction items include:

* Michael Shanks’ signed, personal “SG-1″ scripts (with hand-written notations), plus scripts and call sheets from his appearances on the USA Network series “Burn Notice” and the Fox Network series “24″

* Stargate DVDs signed by the original movie’s stars, Kurt Russell, Mili Avatal, Erick Avari and Alexis Cruz.

* Photos, posters, DVDs and action figures signed by – among others – Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles and Misha Collins (”Supernatural”), Jeffrey Donovan (”Burn Notice”),  Jamie Bamber and Katee Sackhoff (”Battlestar Galactica”), Joe Flanigan, David Hewlett and Paul McGillion (”Stargate: Atlantis”), Sean Astin (”The Lord Of The Rings”) and Gareth David Lloyd (”Torchwood”).

* “SG-1″ team and individual photos, DVDs, and more, signed by Michael Shanks, Claudia Black, Amanda Tapping, Beau Bridges, Ben Browder and Christopher Judge, among others.

The profits from this auction will be donated to the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada. The auction starts today and new items will be added daily for the next two to three weeks. You can go straight to the auction on ebay or visit Michael’s website for more detailed information.

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Here’s how you normally see the the cast of The Big Bang Theory. There’s pretty Penny (Kaley Cuoco, second from right), Leonard (Johnny Galecki, far right), Sheldon (Jim Parsons, center), Raj (Kunal Nayyar, second from left) and Wolowitz (Simon Helberg, far left).

But just wait until you see the new photo shoot the cast did for CBS Watch magazine - they go from geek to glam! Want a sneak peek? Ausiello has a photo from the shoot in his column. If you like what you see, head over to CBS Watch magazine and ask for your free subscription. If you sign up in the next week, you’ll be guaranteed to get the Big Bang issue when it ships.

While you’re at the CBS Watch site, read Brainiacs for Beginners — it’s a crash course in how to sound like a genius by quoting from The Big Bang Theory. “Homo habilis discovering his opposable thumbs says ‘what?’”

Don’t miss The Big Bang Theory in its new time slot, Monday’s at 9:30 with new episodes beginning this fall.

Photo: Monty Brinton/CBS ©2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved

Fox has once again given Virtuality the bump though this time it seems like a move in the right direction. The much anticipated pilot from Battlestar Galactica’s Ronald D. Moore and Friday Night Light’s Peter Berg was downgraded from series launcher to special movie event with a July 4th airdate.

Burning the pilot off in the summer was bad enough, but scheduling it on a holiday where the majority of the people in the US are outside watching fireworks – that was insult to injury.

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From motion capture to computerized camera moves to the construction of a real live “fake” crime scene - science and technology play a huge part in all of our favorite TV shows and movies. Want in on how it all works? The Science Channel has just the show for you. It’s called Science of the Movies and it premieres this Tuesday, May 26th.

The series is hosted by Nar Williams, the Geek-in-Chief at AchieveNerdvana.com. He’s going to take you behind the scenes and give you a close up look at all how individual scenes were actually made. You’ll get to see the latest visual effects equipment and listen in on interviews with artists, stuntmen and directors on everything from Star Wars to Dexter.

In the first episode, Williams interviews Academy Award-winning special effects pioneer John Dykstra who invented the Dykstraflex – a motion control rig used to blow up the Death Star in “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.” Williams then gets up close, and maybe a little too personal, with the most used modern motion control system in the business today: Milo. Milo captures precise shots so that two or more scenes can be composited together to create one fluid moment, and is most famous for creating the “spidysense” scene in the first “Spider-Man” film.

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