TVSquad

A Thursday panel at Comic-Con International announced a new animated project about space that packs a stellar voice cast.

TV stars like William Shatner, Brent Spiner and Mark Hamill will join movie big shots like Chris Pine, Samuel L. Jackson and James Earl Jones in Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey.

Producer -- Dr. Larry "Doc" Kloor (scientist science fiction writer and the only human in history to earn two doctorates simultaneously) -- led the panel with special guests Bob Picardo, Doug Jones and a call-in by Pine.

According to Kloor, Pine plays Dave -- "a photon who lives in Sun City, at the core of the Sun. He's forced from the Sun and drawn into an epic battle between The Core (Shatner -- right) and The Void -- the embodiment of nothingness (Hamill)."

I made it my business to catch the episode of Family Guy which guest-voiced the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and I have to say I was somewhat disappointed.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed some parts of the episode. The "shut up Wil" line by Patrick Stewart had me in stitches, as well as the sudden death of Denise Crosby (obviously, the writers are ST:TNG fans). Hell, Patrick Stewart is a recurring guest on Seth McFarlane's other series American Dad.

It just seemed to me that after the brilliant Star Wars parody from last year, they would do something more with such a line-up of talent than simply "Stewie gets to hang out and go bowling with the cast." It was even relegated to the "B" plot, with the "A" plot being Meg's sudden faith in God as a result of watching Kirk Cameron on TV.

I was hoping for something more akin to an episode of The Next Generation done Family Guy-style. Or would that have been redundant of the Star Wars episode? What do you think? Was the episode decent or could it have used improvement?

If this clip is any indication, this could be one of the funniest Family Guy episodes ever (at least for Star Trek fans).

The entire cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation lend their voices to the episode, which features Stewie going to a Trekkie (er, sorry, Trekker I guess they like to be called) convention and not being able to ask the group a question. So he does a very Stewie-like thing and kidnaps the entire cast.

There is life after Star Trek. Jonathan Frakes, Star Trek: The Next Generation's former "Number One," has moved on from sci-fi stardom to a successful career as a TV and film director. He's helmed four feature films, countless hours of Star Trek and Roswell, plus the two latest entries in TNT's Librarian telemovie franchise. Now, he's joining one of TV's most critically acclaimed new shows.

Frakes directed tonight's episode of Leverage, TNT's hit heist drama starring Timothy Hutton. The episode is a Star Trek reunion of sorts with Frakes behind the camera and his former Star Trek co-stars Brent Spiner (Data from TNG) and Armin Shimerman (Quark from Deep Space Nine) guest starring.

I spoke to Frakes by phone for a few minutes this week and, somehow, I was able to hold back from asking him a million geeky Star Trek questions. (Now I'll never know if "Tom" Riker ever escaped from the Cardassians!) We discussed his love for Leverage, his friendships with his former cast mates, and the possible return of "Number One" Will Riker.

Tonight at dinner, a friend of mine mentioned that he recently met Brent Spiner at an event. He then proceeded to tell me about how a particularly annoying Star Trek fan spent the entire evening bothering Spiner with questions about his character Data.

It reminded me of an episode of Joey where a similar thing happened, except in the episode, Spiner was more than happy to reminisce about his Star Trek days. He even went so far as to take Joey's nephew out to his car to show him his actual uniform from the show.

The Threshold DVD has been out for a while now. But for casual fans like myself who liked the show but don't really feel like shelling out forty bucks for the DVD set, this is good news. As Bob mentioned here, Sci-Fi has been airing repeats of the first nine episodes and it was supposed to include the final four installments of the series. No dates were set for those at the time though. Now we have them and they're coming... tonight.

The final four Threshold episodes ("The Crossing," "Outbreak," "Vigilante," and series finale "Alienville") will air in a row starting at 8PM tonight on the Sci-Fi channel. Supposedly, the finale is supposed to be completely ridiculous (in a good way), so I'm looking forward to seeing how things turned out for Dr. Molly Caffrey and the rest of her team.

I'm reading this review of the Threshold DVD set in the New York Times (yes, The New York Times - glad to see they actually have a review of the set), and while I knew that the set includes the final four episodes that weren't shown on CBS last year, I didn't realize that the creators found out about the cancellation before the final episode was filmed and actually had a little time to put a little closure on the show.

The paper describes the finale as "slapstick comedy," and an episode that will remind viewers of Three Men and a Baby, Rosemary's Baby, and Night of the Living Dead.

Wow, with that description, I might have to get this set after all. Though the Sci-Fi Channel is currently showing repeats of the series (including a mini marathon tomorrow night at 8) and the run will include the final four episodes.

According to ComingSoon.net, Brent Spiner, who played Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation and associated theatrical movies, has ruled out a return to the role in the new Trek movie, which will be directed by J.J. Abrams. It's not that he doesn't think the movie, tentatively titled Star Trek XI, is going to be any good. He just thinks he's too old for the role.

"There certain characters that I think work in a youthful way and I think I really skated along the edge in the last couple movies as it was," he tells Simon Thompson of BANG Showbiz. Of course, he also jokes that he'll play the android again if the money is right. I think that's the same joke Leonard Nimoy made before Star Treks III through VI, and we all know how that turned out.

Too bad for Brent Spiner. CBS canceled Threshold before he got the chance to make out with Catherine Bell. That's just one of many revelations in this TV Guide article by Threshold creator Brannon Braga. Only 8 episodes of Threshold aired before CBS pulled the plug on the sci fi show last season. Fans will get to see all 12 episodes on the DVD, including the finale that Braga admits was thrown together to at least give the audience some closure. In it, Dr. Molly Cafferty (Carla Gugino) dreams about the first alien-human child, who tells her that her plan will work but she will not live to see it.

Other tidbits about how season one of Threshold was supposed to end after the jump.

Yup, it's true. The short-lived CBS series is coming to DVD this summer, confirming the rumors that we talked about here shortly after the show was canceled.

The entire series will be released in one set. No word yet on extras or whether or not they'll include episodes that were filmed and never aired, though I assume there will be both.

Now ABC: what about Eyes?

TVShowsOnDVD.com is reporting that the recently canceled CBS sci-fi show Threshold is coming to DVD, maybe even quicker than anyone thought.

Threshold - constantly overlooked in favor of Invasion but usually liked by those who gave it a chance - was canceled by CBS after 9 episodes. There were 13 episodes produced (and a 14th ep in the planning), so it will be good to see those unaired episodes in the DVD set as well. 

Now let's hope they do the same thing with Eyes and Suface.