TVSquad

You have to admire the tenacity of writer Harlan Ellison. He filed a lawsuit against CBS Paramount accusing the company of not paying him for all the ancillary income the company earned from the episode of Star Trek he wrote in 1967, "City on the Edge of Forever." Yesterday, Ellison announced on his web site that he had settled with CBS Paramount and he was very, very pleased. He didn't reveal how much money he made, but he probably did quite well.

After all, CBS Paramount has done very, very well with that original Star Trek episode. It's regarded as -- and is -- the all-time best show in the entire original ST canon. Ironically, Ellison never liked what Roddenberry and company had done with his script.

Harlan Ellison is a great writer and also one guy you don't want to piss off.

He wrote the classic Star Trek episode "City on the Edge of Forever" (often called by best episode of the original series by fans and non-fans alike), and now he's suing CBS-Paramount over what they have done with the story since he got paid for writing it in 1967. He got paid for the script and got residuals, but in the years after the episode aired the studio has not only published a sequel trilogy with Pocket Books based on the episode, they even had a "Guardian of Forever" talking Hallmark Christmas ornament that said Ellison's lines from his script, so he wants his money.

Like any normal person living in the 21st century, the first thing I did upon hearing about Tom Snyder's death was to try and find some of his old interviews on YouTube. I'm too young to have watched The Tomorrow Show, but I did watch Snyder on The Late Late Show during my college years.

As I assumed, my YouTube search resulted in a lot of great clips, but the most interesting, to me anyway, is the interview Snyder conducted with James Doohan, Deforest Kelley, Walter Koenig, Harlan Ellison and Al Shuster. The men are talking about the still-in-development Star Trek motion picture. I've placed the interview, in five parts, below.

Rich told you a year ago about ABC's new anthology series Masters of Science Fiction. It starts on Saturday, August 4 at 8pm. This is great news. We need an anthology series like this, even if it's just a series of specials and not a permanent weekly show.

There will be four episodes altogether, at least for this first go around. I'm sure ABC will make more if there's an audience for it. There are some great names involved, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes. Keith will be reviewing the show starting August 4. Full schedule and details after the jump.

That's a direct-to-DVD movie, not a TV movie or one for the theaters.

The movie was announced in 2005, and now Babylon 5 creator/writer J. Michael Straczynski confirms that not only is there a movie coming this year but it's just about done. The film has been shot and now they're just working on post-production stuff (title sequence, music, special effects, etc). He tells the Babylon 5 newsgroup that the DVD will be released around July 27.

I never watched Babylon 5, and I always thought I missed out on something good. Straczynski is a good writer, and I know that Harlan Ellison was involved in the show too, so I should really get the DVDs. The movie will star Bruce Boxleitner, Tracy Scoggins, and Peter Woodward.

ABC certainly doesn't seem to be making the same mistakes as it did early this century when it relied on only one show (Who Wants to be a Millionaire) to carry its entire programming schedule. In other words, it's not counting on the successes of Lost, Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy to carry the the whole network. So, only does it have a full slate of new series to try out on the public, but it is also experimenting with a few concepts that haven't been seen in awhile.

One of these is a new anthology series named Masters of Science Fiction. Created by IDT Entertainment, the same people who gave us Showtime's Masters of Horror, the six episode series will feature adaptations of stories from acclaimed science fiction writers such as Harlan Ellison, Robert Heinlein and Robert Sheckley. Each episode will be introduced by physicist, author, and recurring actor on The Simpsons Stephen Hawking.

A number of actors from current and new ABC series will be cast in this anthology. This includes Anne Heche from the upcoming series Men in Trees, Terry O'Quinn from Lost, and Desperate Housewives' James Denton. Also appearing will be Sam Waterson (Law & Order), Elisabeth Rohm (Angel), Sean Astin (Lord of the Rings), and Macolm McDowell.