TVSquad

When you're bombarded with one panel after the other, it's sometimes hard to figure out how to group them together. One writer I was sitting with at the BBC America panel, for instance, was blogging each individual panel, and was such a frantic blur of writing and Photoshopping that she developed what can best be described as SCTS (Sudden Carpal Tunnel Syndrome).

You gotta do what you gotta do, I guess. Me, I figured that there were three panels that could be put in what I call the "Comic-Con group": Spartacus on Starz, and Doctor Who and Being Human on BBC America. These shows got extensive showcases in San Diego over the weekend, and there wasn't many details revealed in any of these panels that you wouldn't have heard over the din at SDCC. So I'm going to go over the three of them in brief after the jump.

Let me give you a good teaser: If you were on the fence about seeing Spartacus, the prospect of a naked Lucy Lawless may convince you.

It sounds like the title of an mid-90s game show on Nickelodeon, but it's actually the title of a new syndicated adventure series from Sam Raimi.

Wow, "syndicated adventure series." Whatever happened to all of those cheesy syndicated adventure shows that used to dot the television landscape? There used to be dozens of them on the weekends and late at night. Sitcoms too. There aren't too many of them anymore, replaced by reality, home improvement, court shows, and talk shows, or not replaced at all.

It's taken a couple years, as we first posted about the series in August 2006, but Sam Raimi's adaptation of the Terry Goodkind books will finally be beaming into our televisions the weekend of November 1, 2008. That's about as specific as anyone can be, because this is a syndicated series. We'll all have to check our local listings. The good news though, is that Disney-ABC says they have cleared the show in 95% of the country.

The press release mentions that Raimi and his partners, Rob Tapert, Joshua Donen, Ned Nalle, and Kenneth Biller are the team behind Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Why they continue to excise Cleopatra 2525 from that list remains a mystery to me.

The series will kick off with a two-hour premiere and Raimi describes it by saying, "The amazing characters and heartfelt story, combined with the captivating backdrop of New Zealand, will have viewers on the edge of their seats." I'm pretty much in the bag for anything Raimi is involved in, so I'll be watching. Wizard's First Rule could be that something to watch on Saturday night we're all looking for.

Hey, Brigitte here with TV Squad Daily. I'll be covering the TV stories I find interesting each day, Monday through Friday, in this video blog.

Today on TV Squad Daily:

• You'll always remember where you were when you heard the news: Miss USA may be dethroned.
• The downside of being A-list: Jennifer Aniston and Ben Stiller were both denied guest roles on 24.
• Just like Dustin Diamond will always be Screech to me, Lucy Lawless will always be Xena. But she's trying to turn her new love of singing into a career in music.
  

The video's embedded after the jump below, or you can download the file directly (Quicktime required). You can also subscribe to this vodcast via our feed.

Xena star Lucy Lawless, who has been busy lately battling locusts and vampires, wants a movie to happen, but at the same time she says that it's "a big fat pain in the ass" because nobody agrees on who owns the rights to the show.

And we're talking about a big screen movie, not a TV movie. Hey, if Firefly can come back to life on the big screen...

[via TV Tattle]