Fox

For some, the fact that Atari games are being mined for potential big-budget motion picture franchises signals some kind of death of creativity in Hollywood. For me, I see it as business as usual, and I'd be lying if I didn't admit there's a part of me that actually gets a little excited over the announcement of things like an Asteroids movie. It taps directly into my personal nostalgia vein, and the sci-fi fan (and kid in me) wonders if we'll get to see the amazing 1980's cartridge art brought to life.

According to the L.A. Times, Fox is looking to adapt Atari's Missile Command into some sort of 3-D action/adventure film. The simple game, in which players use a tiny cross-hair to stop a never-ending rain of missiles from destroying pixelated cities, is basically a clean slate for a sci-fi film. All any filmmakers needs to keep are the constant threat of missiles (and some form of commanding, I guess) and the rest is theirs to make-up as they go along.

All I hope is that they keep the guy in the mushroom helmet and orange jumpsuit featured on the original cartridge.

Typecasting is a funny thing. Someone is so good at a specific role that filmmakers forget that there's an actor behind the performance, and just think of them as The Bad Guy or The Sidekick. In the case of Brent Spiner, it's The Android.

Seems Eugene Roddenberry has named Spiner as his first choice to play Questor in The Questor Tapes -- an abandoned 1974 Gene Roddenberry sci-fi pilot about an android looking to fill in the gaps in his memory, concerning his creation and purpose. A lot of Questor's central conceit was used for storylines involving Data on the elder Roddenberry's Star Trek: The Next Generation, so it would surprise me a great deal if Spiner was interested at all in going back to that well. Even Eugene Roddenberry sounds realistic about the pick, recognizing that the folks casting the show probably have other plans. Maybe they can find room for Spiner in a different part? I hope so.

The Questor Tapes is being developed by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer's Imagine Entertainment with help from Tim Minear (Firefly). I'm not sure why anyone would entertain the idea of putting the sci-fi show on Fox, but that's where it seems to be headed, eventually. Doesn't that virtually guarantee a premature cancelation?

You can watch the first 9-minutes of the original pilot after the jump.

(via Airlock Alpha)

Here's a look at tonight's sci-fi TV:

Dollhouse, "Epitaph Two" – We head back to the future (2020 to be exact) as Echo and crew fight to undo the mindwipe-ocalypse in the series finale of Dollhouse. Can a stress-addled Topher save the world with his brand new futuretech? Will Paul and Echo live happily ever after? We'll find out tonight. (8 p.m. ET on Fox)

Smallville, "Disciple" – Oliver's old teacher The Dark Archer (Andromeda's Steve Bacic) heads to Metropolis and sets his sights on Lois and Chloe. Clark and Speedy are pulled into the drama as Oliver looses control of the situation. (8 p.m. ET on The CW)

Caprica, "Rebirth" – Digital Zoe deals with her download into the real world while the Graystones learn more about their daughter's past and her connection to the bombing. (9 p.m. ET on Syfy)

Head after the jump for clips and more TV picks.

Here's a look at tonight's sci-fi TV:

Fringe, "The Bishop Revival" – The team is called in to investigate when a group of people mysteriously suffocate in a room full of air. Walter connects the incident to an experiment he was working on in Germany and later makes a shocking discovery involving the Bishop family and the Nazi regime. It's the Fringe team vs. Nazis, a showdown so potentially awesome that it makes up for the apparent lack of alternate dimension craziness in this episode. (9 p.m. ET on Fox)

The Vampire Diaries, "Unpleasantville" – The Vampire Diaries reminds us that it's nothing more than a gothed-up teen soap with another hour of bubbly high school drama. Damon and Stefan fight over who gets to slow dance with Elena at the sock hop while a crazy new vampire crashes the party. Sounds like somebody spiked the punch! (8 p.m. ET on The CW)

Supernatural, "Swap Meet" – Supernatural takes a cue from an '80s Fred Savage movie when a nerdy teen swaps bodies with Sam. (9 p.m. ET on The CW)

Archer, "Killing Utne" – Assassins target a UN intelligence chairman at Malory's dinner party. Also, Archer insults the help. (10 p.m. ET on FX)

Head after the jump for clips and more TV picks.

A look at tonight's sci-fi TV:

Dollhouse, "Hollow Man" – The end is near for Joss Whedon's latest mindfrack, but there's still a lot to learn about our favorite Dollhouse denizens. Everyone's backstory is finally revealed tonight as Echo and the team rush to Arizona to take out Rossum's mainframe computer. And things get tense when Echo confronts Dr. Whiskey Saunders. (9 p.m. ET on Fox)

Sanctuary "Kali" - Sanctuary's double-sized season ender (already?) finds Magnus fighting a major threat to all abnormals while Will is struck by visions connected to a dangerous cult. Also, we're told a giant lizard monster might cust loose in Tokyo! (Two episodes starting at 9 p.m. ET on Syfy)

Batman: The Brave and the Bold – Before heading to Smallville, the Justice Society of America drops by the Batcave to help ol' Bats defeat baddie Per Degaton. JSA members slated to appear include Hawkman, Wildcat, Hourman, The Flash and Dr. Mid-Nite, with special guest Black Canary! (7:30 p.m. ET on Cartoon Network)

Head after the jump for clips and more TV picks.

No, it's not a Lost-Fringe crossover – although that would probably be the coolest thing ever! – it's a "lost" episode of Fringe.

That's right, apparently rumors about a missing episode of Fringe filmed for season one are true, and Fox plans to air the missing ep, aptly titled "Unearthed," in January up against NBC's Heroes.

"Unearthed" centers on another creepy case-of-the-week involving a dying girl who wakes up screaming an alphanumeric code after her mother pulls the plug on her life support. Suddenly, loads of Russian spy data are downloaded into the girl's brain, leaving her in danger and the Fringe crew with another eerie mystery to solve.

Fans of actor Kirk Acevedo will be happy to know that a live and kicking Charlie Francis is featured in the episode, alongside Olivia, Peter, Broyles and Walter. It'll be nice to see Charlie acting like himself again, instead of like an evil, twitchy shape-shifting murderer.

A look at tonight's sci-fi TV:

Dollhouse, "Stop-Loss," "The Attic" – It's another Dollhouse double bill as Fox tries to burn off the few remaining episodes as quickly as it can. In tonight's first hour, Victor is released from his contract, but he runs into trouble when his past as a soldier starts to haunt him. Will he come back to the House? Will he leave Sierra behind? And, more importantly, what's Victor really like when he isn't being controlled by the Dollhouse? I can't wait to see the awesome Enver Gjokaj take center stage in this one, especially after watching him "become" Topher a few weeks ago.

In Dollhouses' second hour, the inevitable happens as the Rossum big boys decide to stick Echo in the attic, where she encounters her worst nightmare (cancellation, perhaps?). Let's hope Joss Whedon has cooked up some decent horrors for us tonight. The attic is supposed to be Doll hell, and something tells me Echo's journey through its nine levels ain't gonna be pretty.

Sanctuary, "Sleepers," – Vampire Tesla returns! And he's on a mission to restore vampires to a place of dominance over the Earth. How does he plan on accomplishing this? By opening a resort in Mexico where he turns troubled teens into bloodsuckers, of course. Will and Magnus track Tesla down and try to stop his evil plan. We're just hoping Jonathon Young gets a few good one-liners in that'll tide us over until January.

Head after the jump for promos and clips.

Fringe, "Grey Matters" - Get ready for more gruesome mad lab science on Fringe as the team investigates a mental patient who ends up with an exposed brain after an impromptu surgery. While Mojo Jojo runs around, Olivia is drawn back into the dueling universes arc following a shape-shifter sighting and a visit from William Bell (Leonard Nimoy). With all of this distracting stuff going on, will anyone have time to save Walter from the evil brain doctor's clutches? We'll find out tonight. (10 p.m. ET on Fox)

Head after the jump for behind the scenes and preview clips.

A look at tonight's sci-fi TV:

Dollhouse, "The Public Eye/"The Left Hand" - Dollhouse is officially done for, but Fox still has a few episodes left to air, including tonight's tense-looking two-parter. Echo is sent to dispatch Senator Perrin (Angel's Alexis Denisof) before he can expose the Dollhouse, while Adelle and Topher meet up with genius programmer Bennett (Summer Glau) at the D.C. House. Later in the ep, Adelle clashes with the another Rossum head honcho (the always brilliant Ray Wise) while Bennett plays mind games with Echo. Elsewhere, November finally goes public with what she knows, spurring Topher to experiment with some cool doll "disruptor" tech. Let's hope tonight kicks off a string of great final episodes that will leave us wanting to send those impatient Fox execs to the attic. (8 p.m. on Fox)

Stargate Universe, "Justice" – Tonight's mid season finale is packed with big developments. Someone aboard the Destiny is murdered with a gun found in – gasp! – Col. Young's quarters. Did the weasly Telford somehow sneak aboard to frame the good colonel, or is there something even more distressing going on? (9 p.m. on Syfy)

Sanctuary, "Next Tuesday" – Will and Magnus spend the episode swimming in sea creature-infested waters after their helicopter crash lands on a decommissioned oil rig. And Will screams, a lot. (10 p.m. on Syfy)

Head after the jump for previews and clips.

The fight has come to an end.

After a massive rejigging of the show's first episodes, a struggle to find out what it wanted to be, bad ratings, a fight to stay on the air, and a month-long hiatus after only a handful of episodes, The Hollywood Reporter posts that Joss Whedon's Dollhouse will not go past episode 13. In fact, it's not even clear whether or not we'll get to see how the series wraps up on television. Pre-cancellation, the plan was to air the rest of the episodes starting December 4, but with the end of the show, that plan could very well end up in the trash.

Joss is currently shooting the eleventh episode, so there is room to try to wrap it up in the remaining two, but as with any Whedon universe, there's too much plot to just put a pretty bow on the series in 80 minutes. Then again, when Joss is really feeling the pressure, greatness often bursts forth. After an abysmal fourth season of Angel, he managed to reinvigorate the entire series and go out with a bang (death, carnage, bloody awful poetry!).

All in all, I'm not surprised and not terribly bummed by the news. I'm still holding out hope that he'll whip up a series with the magic Buffy had. And considering all the shots he gets to make his floundering projects work, I think that's everyone's hope. Could try #4 make that wish a reality?