TVSquad

(S03E05) What a dick. It turns out that former Squadder Wil Wheaton, who guest-starred on tonight's episode as himself, is totally the Jonny Fairplay of fantasy role-playing card game tournaments, who broke Sheldon's poor little heart not once, but twice. I love the fact that Sheldon has this vendetta against Wheaton in the first place, because of course Sheldon Cooper would consider the guy who played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: TNG to be his mortal enemy. The only thing that surprised me about that is that Sheldon's complaint was due to a slight that happened in the real world, and not some scientific inconsistency in the show, or Crusher's anachronistic hair.

When Sheldon and Wil are skirmishing to the death, there's a part of me that was thinking that the story of Wil's grandma was a lie, but he's Wil Wheaton! They wouldn't actually make him evil, would they? But they did, and poor Sheldon nearly had the big aneurysm that Wolowitz had been wishing on his mother.

Wil Wheaton's guest appearance on The Big Bang Theory airs next week, and neither he or CBS has had much to say up to this point about his character. I speculated that he could be a rival for Penny's affection, but it looks as though he may be a rival of a different kind. We now know who Wheaton is playing in this episode, and it's not Penny he's after.

As the fall release date for the J.J. Abrams Star Trek DVD closes in, Star Trek merchandising is making a comeback.

Everything Trek made a huge bull rush earlier this summer when the first major run of merchandising took hold. Everything from bottle openers to iPod got the final frontier treatment. Now the DVD is shaking the space trees again.

The long-rumored Star Trek colognes beamed their way into stores last week -- immediately becoming a product that folks might want to try as curiosity without ever admitting they bought it.

We here at TV Squad like Wil Wheaton. He starred on Star Trek: TNG and tons of movies and writes fun books and even wrote a great column for us at one point. Tonight he guest stars on Leverage, and as you can see from the clip below, he's in his natural habitat: sitting in front of a computer, typing.

The merchandise opportunities for classic shows like Star Trek has been outlandish, to say the very least.

You can show your financial love for Star Trek by buying Star Trek toys, Star Trek apparel, Star Trek cell phones, Star Trek Pez dispensers, Star Trek burial coffins, Star Trek living room furniture
and even Star Trek erotic theme art. Don't click that last link if you're at work, school or don't really want to know what James Doohan would look like spread eagle on a Tribble skin rug.

Now the folks at Genki Wear, a geek themed jewelry manufacturer, have helped the Enterprise explore a strange new world of merchandising and seek out new lifeline accounts and financial liquidations with a line of Star Trek-inspired cologne and perfumes.

Being a nerd, I'm very familiar with Jeri Ryan's career. She helped make Star Trek: Voyager watchable for a while as a self-aware Borg and recently starred in CBS' Shark alongside James Woods. But it was her work on the David Kelley shows Boston Public and Boston Legal that has me thinking she'll be a good fit for Leverage.

The actress handled Kelley's sharp dialogue like a pro, and I'm guessing she'll bring the same confidence to her role as a "smart-ass, street-wise con woman" on the second season of Leverage. Ryan has signed on for a recurring role on the TNT heist drama. Her character will be a friend of Sophie's (Gina Bellman), Leverage's sexy grifter with a bag full of tricks and foreign accents.

And it might open just in time for ... one of the eventual sequels to J.J. Abram's new movie? Maybe. We're not sure.

Details about the re-opening of Star Trek: The Experience in Las Vegas are sketchy at best. TrekMovie.com reported that Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman said part of the new Experience would open this week, just in time for the new Trek movie. We're still waiting on that.

The latest news is that the new Experience -- the original closed last year – will open in 2010 at Neonopolis in downtown Vegas. Here's the cool news: It will feature more elements and props from the original 1960's Star Trek series and from the new movie.

TV Squad man-at-arms Brad Trechak already filed his disappointment at last night's Family Guy episode, but I had a question of my own after I watched the it:

Was that the first time a network show actually endorsed atheism?

I mean, I've seen Bill Maher throw his anti-religion grenades, but that's HBO and that's Bill Maher. To my knowledge no network -- even a network like Fox, which once had a line-up made up entirely of World's Scariest Alien Autoposies -- had ever come down this hard on the beliefs of its viewers...

Yesterday, Latino Review got our nerd hearts aflutterin' with a report about some possible Star Trek: The Next Generation cameos in J.J. Abram's upcoming Trek film. It would be great to see Picard, Data or even Riker rubbing elbows with Spock in the new flick, but sadly it's not happening says TrekMovie.com.

Here's how the confusion apparently started: There's currently an IDW Star Trek movie prequel comic series out called Star Trek: Countdown that mostly takes place in the Next Generation era. That comic is billed as a direct prequel to Abrams' film and it features TNG favorites like Picard and Data interacting with Bana's character, Nero, and Nimoy's Spock. Apparently, the new movie will start out with Spock and Nero living in the TNG era and time traveling back to the era of Kirk, Scotty and young Spock. But, according to TrekMovie's sources, no TNG cast members will show up in the film.

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.

Reason #1: Because the Sci Fi Channel wouldn't be the Sci Fi Channel without those craptastic movies-of-the-week.

Reason #2: Because it might star Marina Sirtis (Star Trek: TNG's Counselor Troi) and Luke Goss (the pastey prince from Hellboy II).

Reason #3: Because TV could use more evil mohawk-sporting, Fine Young Cannibal-rockin' punks and medieval mad scientists.

Am I wrong?

Last week another terrific cable drama, The Shield, took its final bow in a series finale that still has fans talking. The talk is mostly about the last three minutes, which featured Vic Mackey's silent contemplation of the life he now leads after losing his friends, family and, some say, his freedom. Right before the screen went dark we saw Vic stride out of the cubicle that is now his home -- unsure of what his fate would be from now on.

Some fans of the series were unhappy with this ending, saying that there was no closure to the life that Vic had led over the last seven seasons. Some hearken the ending to the now-famous series finale of The Sopranos, which featured several seconds of nothingness before the credits rolled. This concept of not giving finality to a series finale is a new one for viewers to grasp onto. But, when you look at it further, it makes complete sense. Why should the lives of our favorite characters come to a complete ending when our own lives don't?

This week's letter comes from a fan named Jim Rodrigues.

Jim writes...
"I just saw an episode I've never seen before! This was rare indeed. It involved the crew of the Enterprise devolving into different creatures. Barkley became a spider. Captain Picard was becoming a lemur. Warf (sic) was biting amphibian Troi. It was my favorite episode other than one of the best T.V. episodes ever, "Cause and Effect." I was wondering if this "monsters running around" episode was released for Halloween? It would be the perfect October 31st episode. If someone knows the title and the date of release, I surely would appreciate it."

Title: Angel One
Original Air Date: January 25, 1988
Written by: Patrick Barry
Directed by: Michael Rhodes
Episode: S01E14
Stardate: 41636.9

Synopsis: The Enterprise comes across the long-lost freighter Odin, which has been missing since Captain Hazelwood crashed the ship into an asteroid seven years ago. Three escape pods are missing and assumed to be on their way to Tatooine, but since the planet Angel One is closer, Picard decides to look there, first. Besides, it's supposedly run by hot babes who like to snu-snu, so Picard can finally dump that load of hats he's been hauling around since "Justice." And -- Science Fiction Cliche alert! -- it's "similar to mid-twentieth century Earth."

After a chilly initial audio-only contact with Angel One's leader, Mistress Beata, during which no one at all asks why the leader has a dom-sub porn name, Picard sends Riker, Troi, Tasha and Data down to the planet to get permission to look for any survivors. On their way to the transporter room, they run into Wesley and Nameless Extra Kid, who are wrapped up in Jiffy Pop suits and on their way to skiing lessons. On the holodeck's version of the Denubian alps. Now, for all the failings in this episode, here are two things it does right: the holodeck doesn't malfunction, and we don't have to watch Wesley and his friend doing their best Suzie Chapstick impression on the icy slopes of Mount Needaplotpoint (part of the majestic Isthisthebestyoucoulddo range).

Picard tells the away team that Angel One could one day be of strategic importance to the Federation, so they'd better be on their best behavior. Riker says, "Dude, is there any planet in the galaxy that isn't going to be of strategic importance to the Federation one day?" Picard responds, "If you keep asking questions like that, Number One, it's going to be fifteen years before you get your own command. Beam them away, Nameless Transporter Chief."

(S04E13) 'Wait, what are the other numbers?' -- Teyla

'42.' -- Sheppard

'What is that?' -- Teyla

'It's the ultimate answer to the great question of life, universe and everything.' -- Sheppard

I seem to be getting the episodes of Stargate Atlantis to review that remind me of episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. This week's episode, in which various members of the Atlantis team are trapped in different parts of the city after a false quarantine is declared, reminded me very much of the TNG episode 'Disaster', in which the crew members of the Enterprise are trapped in different parts of the ship after being struck by a quantum filament.