TVSquad

I've been counting down the days with sadness this year, as we get closer and closer to David Tennant's final foray into space and beyond as The Doctor. And with only a few movies to tide me over, it's even more bittersweet. By the end of the year, he will be gone and replaced by Matt Smith.

But while Doctor Who has to move on without Tennant, another classic will be coming stateside with Tennant in the lead. PBS will be airing the television adaptation of the Royal Shakespeare Company's Hamlet with David Tennant as part of its Great Performances series in 2010. Tennant performed as Hamlet live with the Company to great success in 2008.

If that's not enough to get you excited, how about the fact that the cast includes yet another pop culture icon. None other than one of the greatest Starfleet captains in the history of Star Trek: Captain Jean-Luc Picard himself, Patrick Stewart, as King Claudius.

I may be getting a little obsessed. Most of the posts I've written recently have been about the soon-to-be-departing Doctor Who lead David Tennant. I'm also quite disappointed that a lack of time and funds did not permit me to take a trip to England to see Tennant in the RSC production of Hamlet. Thankfully, the BBC has come to the rescue.

For those like me, the BBC is reassembling the cast and filming that production of Hamlet for broadcast in late 2009, with American and Japanese broadcasts to occur in 2010 (I wonder which channel would show it in the States? BBC America? PBS?). To sweeten the deal for us nerds, former Star Trek: The Next Generation captain Patrick Stewart plays Claudius.

Perhaps they'll even let Tennant improvise the role a bit. I would love it if he could throw a little script that Neil Gaiman wrote for him upon hearing of his participation in the role.

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.

Okay, let me preface this first: this tidbit of information comes directly from The Sun. Not the piece of crap North American tabloid but the piece of crap United Kingdom tabloid. This was the same paper that reported Doctor Who was ending after the fourth series, which ended up being refuted by millions of other reputable sources. So, take this information I write below with a grain of salt.

The Sun is reporting that Captain Jean-Luc Picard himself, Patrick Stewart, has agreed to guest star in the next Doctor Who series (season, to us in the Colonies) as a Time Lord. The agreement came after Stewart performed with Who star David Tennant in a summer production of Hamlet. According to the report, Stewart would team up with the Doctor in a two-part episode involving the Daleks (who just. Won't. Die.). He would play the role of a renegade Time Lord seen during the early days of the first Doctor Who series called the Meddling Monk.

One of the greatest TV mini-series of all time was I, Claudius. It was riveting TV and every time it's been repeated since it premiered in 1976, I've watched it religiously. The Robert Graves novel about the Roman empire, including the mad Caligula, is now set for a remake. Director Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot) will be helming an adaptation of I, Claudius with Nye Heron and Sheridan penning the script.

At this point, the project seems headed to the big screen. That would be a plus insofar as the set design and lush look. However, one of the benefits of the 1976 version was the length. It was 13 episodes, a hour each (sans commercials). That meant the complexities of Graves' novel -- and there were dozens of them -- not to mention the enormous cast of characters, could be played out.

Nobody would ever confuse Rufus Sewell for Patrick Stewart (Star Trek: The Next Generation), right? Well, super-producer Jerry Bruckheimer has chosen Sewell for the lead in the $4 million pilot of the British drama series Eleventh Hour. Presumably, Rufus will be playing the same role Patrick played, that is Professor Ian Hood, Special Advisor to the government's Joint Sciences Committee, enlisted to tackle all kinds of dangerous threats stemming from science gone awry.

OK, this isn't exactly "Who Shot JR," but it does have people guessing.

NBC Nightly News will have a new announcer starting tonight (longtime announcer Howard Reig retired in 2005), and they're trying to make it a surprise. The only clues from the network is that it's a name we all know, and this person had "an extensive, award-winning theatrical career for nearly forty years." Some of the guesses from fans include James Earl Jones, Patrick Stewart, James Lipton, Morgan Freeman, and ... Tom Brokaw? Yes, he was great in A Streetcar Named Desire.

It's becoming clear that if you plan on buying every season of a TV show, at least the more popular ones, you might want to wait a couple of years (if you can wait, that is). They're coming out with more and more "complete sets" and if you buy the sets individually you're probably paying more (and missing out on some extras, though that's not always the case).

Here's another one. CBS/Paramount will release a complete set for Star Trek: The Next Generation on October 2, to celebrate the show's 20th anniversary.

Are you a Captain Kirk fan or a Captain Picard fan? On one hand you have toupees and overacting and awesome songs, and on the other hand you have a calm, tea-drinking guy who pulls at his shirt all the time. I lean more toward Picard, but I often find that punching an alien instead of talking to him and sleeping with various female life forms gets the job done too.

In honor of Star Trek: The Next Generation's 20th anniversary,* Marty Beckerman makes a case for Jean-Luc Picard as President of the U.S. in this Huffington Post piece. More specifically, he compares the leadership qualities of the Enterprise captain with the leadership qualities of our current President.

It's a great piece, even if you're not a Trekkie geek virgin Star Trek aficionado.

* God I'm old.

(S05E14) The up and down season of Family Guy continues, and I thought this one was a bit of a valley, rather than a peak. It had its moments, to be sure, but as a whole, it was somewhat lacking. Peter summed up my feelings for this episode pretty well with his quote after seeing the opening to Maude, "That was an ordeal."

That bit is a good example of what was wrong with this installment. Aside from the fact that it was a reference to a show that you have to be 40 years old, or a tv nutter, to get, it just wasn't funny. And no matter how long the song went on, it was never going to be funny. I found myself in much the same situation while watching tonight. I was just sitting and watching, waiting for it to get funny.

As I may have mentioned here once or twice, I was a huge fan of the British version of The Office. No matter what the US version accomplishes or how good it gets, I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for the vision Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant had of the average dead-boring workplace and the relationships that are developed there.

So when I was sent a preview copy of the first season of the pair's follow-up effort, Extras (out Tuesday), I was intrigued but wary: after such a successful debut, the sophomore effort more often than not disappoints. Also, all the reviews of the show I had read during its BBC and HBO runs (I have neither channel) were of the mixed-to-positive variety. So... is it worth buying, renting, or neither? I'll let you know after the jump.

Buried within this press release about an episode of a show no one cares about, The War At Home, FOX casually mentions that a show at least some people care about, American Dad, is coming back on April 23.  I'm actually looking forward to it; the show's been steadily improving since it first premiered last year, and it's a funny prelude to my Sunday at 10 viewing choice, Grey's Anatomy. Good to see it back.

Oh, and just on a side note: I hope they bring back Patrick Stewart more often as Stan's boss. Just hearing his voice cracks me up for some reason.

[via The Futon Critc]

Joshua Jackson just landed the lead role in a CBS legal drama that, so far, does not have a title. Jackson, also known as Pacey Witter (heart!) from Dawson's Creek, is fresh off the stage in England where he acted with Patrick Stewart in a David Mamet play. He also shot a couple of indie movies last year.

In the new series, Jackson will play a first-year lawyer, badgered by a firm partner, whose career takes an important turn when he is assigned the case of a death row inmate. The series is produced by Carol Mendelsohn, one of the producers of the CSI franchise.

Maybe 2006 is the year of the Dawson's Creek kids? Katie Holmes will allegedly give birth to Tom Cruise's baby later this year and Michelle Williams may or may not win an Oscar for her role in Brokeback Mountain. Now, where on earth is James van der Beek?