LAST UPDATED: 12 November 2000

Turner Network Television and Warner Bros. Television To Produce Witchblade Limited Series
On the heels of the ratings success of the recent two-hour original film Witchblade, Turner Network Television (TNT) announced 12 October that it has ordered 11 episodes for a limited series based on the best-selling Top Cow comic book of the same name. More...

Jeremiah Is Straczynski's Pilot
Variety recently identified the pilot being written by Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski for Showtime: Jeremiah, based on a long-running European SF comic series of the same name. More...

Riverworld Set for TV debut
Phillip Jose Farmer's Riverworld novels are set to come to TV in another ground-breaking development deal from Earth: Final Conflict's production company, Alliance Atlantis Entertainment. Film director Alex Proyas (The Crow, Dark City) will be executive producing the new one-hour action series in a deal which marks his first television outing. He will also direct some of the episodes, including the pilot. The series will be filmed in Proyas' native Australia.
Alliance Atlantis say they will meet with potential international partners on the series during the upcoming MIPCOM TV market in Cannes from 2 - 6 October.
Riverworld is a mysterious and treacherous land, where every human who died between the years 99000 BC and 2200 AD has been resurrected on the banks of a colossal river. A team of people band together as they try to unravel how and why they've arrived in the strange place.
Sources: Atlantis, Hollywood Reporter

Shatner bares his soul over wife's death
William Shatner has told the US TV Guide his grief over the death of his third wife last year inspired him to write Star Trek Preserver, the best-selling novel released in July. In the book, Captain James T. Kirk, the character he played on TV and in film, struggles to save his dying wife. "When someone dies, for a while you want to make some meaning out of a life,'' Shatner tells the 23 September issue of TV Guide.
"You go on a spiritual journey. And hopefully, you don't stop." Shatner's wife Nerine drowned in the family's swimming pool in August 1999. The coroner ruled that alcohol and the sedative valium contributed to the accidental drowning.
"The loss of someone you love is horrible enough. But to do it with the public, with the media at your heels, is almost unendurable," Shatner said.

Andromeda Movie on Web
A three-minute trailer for Andromeda is now available on the show's official website. The file is huge but worth the wait. The clip gives a fair amount of background on the story, introduces you to the main characters, shows you some of the cool action shots. The show premieres 2 October in the US. The latest issue of TV Zone (#131), now on sale in the UK, includes an exclusive preview of the new show.
The Movie Insider published the first pic of the sentient spaceship "Andromeda Ascendant"at the end of August. Meanwhile the official site for the new series, which stars Kevin Sorbo(Hercules) Captain Dylan Hunt, is now online and features some great visuals from the set. They also have some video clips up at http://www.AndromedaTV.com. The show is set to premiere in the US on 2 October. Alex Lifeson from the rock band Rush has composed and performed the Andromeda theme, "March of the High Guard."

Nikita & Lexx Get New Seasons
SFTV reorts that USA Network has reached agreement with Warner Bros. for additional episodes of La Femme Nikita. Reports are that they have ordered eight more episodes and are working on arranging for most of the regular cast to appear in a few episodes each. Salter Street Films announced that SciFi gave Lexx a pickup for a fourth season, consisting of 24 episodes. Other reports have indicated that since SciFi is on board before production, they will be having input into the show now, as opposed to having an already completed season.

Andromeda Movie on Web
A three-minute trailer for Andromeda is now available on the show's official website. The file is huge but worth the wait. The clip gives a fair amount of background on the story, introduces you to the main characters, shows you some of the cool action shots. The show premieres 2 October in the US. The latest issue of TV Zone (#131), now on sale in the UK, includes an exclusive preview of the new show.
The Movie Insider published the first pic of the sentient spaceship "Andromeda Ascendant"at the end of August. Meanwhile the official site for the new series, which stars Kevin Sorbo(Hercules) Captain Dylan Hunt, is now online and features some great visuals from the set. They also have some video clips up at http://www.AndromedaTV.com. The show is set to premiere in the US on 2 October. Alex Lifeson from the rock band Rush has composed and performed the Andromeda theme, "March of the High Guard."

Zoetrope links with Viacom, Alliance for TV
Francis Ford Coppola's production company American Zoetrope has signed with Alliance Atlantis and Viacom Prods. in two exclusive development deals, says Hollywood Reporter. Zoetrope's one-year deal with Viacom is to produce television series, and the two-year contract with Alliance Atlantis (creators of Earth: Final Conflict, Beastmaster and others) is to create and develop television films and miniseries.
Zoetrope and Viacom, as part of their deal, are in negotiations with CBS to get a script commitment for Boulevard of Dreams, a drama about a family of cops who walked a beat in Hollywood, sources said, but this show is not the only TV series in development by Zoetrope and Viacom. "We're working on a whole range of things in all areas: drama, half-hour, reality, animation," Viacom Prods. senior vp creative affairs Michele Conklin said.

Britney the Vampire Slayer?
According to Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it's "very likely" that Britney Spears will be guesting on the ironic teen drama. Sexy Spears had been in talks to guest-star in Dawson's Creek, but the deal never came off. Since the "Oops! I Did It Again" songstress is a pal of the slayer herself, Sarah Michelle Gellar, a guest shot looks very possible.
In other Buffy news, as if being a movie star with Buffy the Vampire Slayer for a girlfriend weren't enough, Freddie Prinze Jr. now owns a $3 million home. Prinze, 24, bought a five-bedroom, 4,000-square-foot house in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, the Los Angeles Times reported recently. The one-story home, built in the 1930s, has a guest house and a pool. The home is in the Old World style, an architectural and design style that reflects European antiquity.
Prinze appeared in the movies Boys and Girls and Down to You, released in the US earlier this year, and co-stars in the upcoming comedy-romance Head Over Heels.
Links: • Buffy the Vampire Slayer Official Site • Britney Spears Official Site

Witchblade online!
TNT & Top Cow have partially opened a site for the Witchblade TV movie that does have a substantial trailer to view. The film is based on the Top Cow-published comic. Go

Anderson signs her X
Gillian Anderson has signed on to do another season of The X-Files, Hollywood Reporter has stated (27/07/00). Robert Patrick was named her new partner special agent John Doggett just last week, and has signed for one year with an option for a second year. Anderson's contract expired at the end of the eighth season, currently in production. The extension will keep her on alien hunt for the 2001-02 season.
Show creator Chris Carter, who has committed only for the eighth season and will no doubt keep Fox on tenterhooks for a while yet as to whther he'll remain for a ninth innings.
The series eight season debuts 5 November in the US.

Sci Fi Springs for Corman's Scorpion
Variety reports that TV icons Adam West, Lou Ferrigno and Soupy Sales will return to the small screen in the comic-style action series Black Scorpion. The Sci Fi Channel has acquired the exclusive rights to 22 episodes of the one-hour series from B-movie king Roger Corman, the cable network announced at the semiannual Television Critics Assn. tour in Pasadena.
Links: Variety

Buffy's New Buddy
Buffy has finally found her evil-sniffing kid protégé. Michelle Trachtenberg, the 14-year-old sleuth from Harriet the Spy and Inspector Gadget, will take on a kid-sisterly role in WBs Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the network has confirmed.
Trachtenberg, a native New Yorker and admitted Buffy junkie, will join the cast this autumn as Dawn, a nice, vulnerable girl with psychic abilities who ends up developing a sister-like relationship with Sarah Michelle Gellar's Buffy.
In addition to her big screen roles, which include Penny in Disney's Inspector Gadget in 1999 with Matthew Broderick Trachtenberg also played autistic child Lily Montgomery from ABC's All My Children. She also had a recurring role on Nickelodeon's The Adventures of Pete and Pete.
Though the network isn't elaborating, E! Online's Wanda reports that Dawn's special powers will take form through "a kind of trance during which dark forces speak through her." And aside from developing a crush on Xander (played by Nicholas Brendon), Buffy creator Joss Whedon recently told Entertainment Weekly that Dawn's relationship with Buffy will be more like "squabbling siblings."
Sarah Michelle Gellar's official Website says Trachtenberg's is a huge Buffy fan --a nd one of her many hobbies includes collecting Slayer-related memorabilia.)
Buffy creator Joss Whedon insists that the creration of the role is no sop to the 'cute kid' factor prevaleant in much US television. "The WB certainly didn't say, 'Can you add a moppet? Everyone likes a moppet!' " he told Entertainment Weekly. "Dawn is not there to be cute and cuddly."
We're keeping our fingers crossed.