Takara_Soong

From Zap2It!:

'Futurama' re-animated at Comedy Central

By Rick Porter

 

Sweet zombie Jesus, "Futurama" is coming back.

 

The animated series, whose last regular episode aired in 2003, is getting a second life on Comedy Central. The cable channel, which has been airing reruns of the show for the past year and a half, has ordered 26 new episodes of the show to premiere next year.

 

"Futurama's" revival follows a similar script to that of "Family Guy," whose success in repeats and on DVD prompted FOX to revive it in 2005. Comedy Central has scored solid numbers with repeats, and four "Futurama" movies -- "Bender's Big Score," "The Beast with a Billion Backs," "Bender's Game" and "Into the Wild Green Yonder" -- have performed well both on TV and in DVD sales.

 

"When we brought back 'Family Guy' several years ago, everyone said that it was a once in a lifetime thing that canceled series stay canceled and cannot be revived," reads a statement from Gary Newman and Dana Walden, chairmen of 20th Century Fox TV, which produces both shows. "But 'Futurama' was another series that fans simply demanded we bring back."

 

When Comedy Central made the deal to acquire "Futurama" in 2006, it announced it would produce 13 new episodes. That hasn't happened -- the four movies went forward instead -- but the channel is now doubling down on its initial commitment.

 

The show's cast, headed by Billy West (Fry, Zoidberg and others), Katey Sagal (Leela) and John DiMaggio (Bender), is expected to return, as are co-creators/executive producers David X. Cohen and Matt Groening and several writers.

 

The 26 episodes will bring the series total for "Futurama" to 98, and Groening notes that "We now have only 25,766 episodes to make before we catch up with Bender and Fry in the year 3000."

That line in Clues always bothered me too. It wasn't the only time that Data was threatened that way either*. I really wish the writers hadn't done that.

*The other time that I am referring to is when Dr. Marr threatened Data with disassembly if it were discovered he was working with the Crystalline Entity in the episode Silicon Avatar.

I'm not sure if it was mentioned before but Michelle Forbes (Ro Laren, TNG) is on the HBO series True Blood. I know I mentioned before that John Billingsley is another Trek alum with a recurring role on the series. I see that Junie Lowry Johnson is one of the casting directors so it's no surprise that there are some Trek alum appearing in the series. For those who aren't familiar with Junie Lowry Johnson, she was involved with casting TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT and three of the four TNG movies.

It looks like Star Trek is holding its own quite well. The Friday night box office numbers (estimates) for North America are posted at Box Office Mojo and ST was 5th. The Pixar movie Up ($21,400,000) was tops followed by Night at the Museum II ($7,550,000), Drag Me To Hell ($6,420,000), Terminator Salvation ($5,090,000) and then, as mentioned, ST ($3,650,000) followed by Angels & Demons ($3,400,000). I think it is quite impressive that the number of screens in North America that are still showing ST hasn't changed much. They lost the IMAX screens to Night at the Museum II but other than that it's been holding steady at over 3,500 screens since it was released.

Box office totals for ST are $200,350,000 (North American), $92,015,063 (International) for a total of $292,365,063.

I was watching Law & Order: Criminal Intent last night and Ronald Guttman, who played Gathra 'Gath' Laban in the VOY episode Prime Factors, had a very brief guest spot at the very beginning (before the opening credits).

Sorry for the delay in announcing the winner. VBG and I were both a little busy off the boards so it took a little longer for us to connect on the verification process.

Congratulations to Chataeya for receiving the most votes.

O........k so my vote for each series somehow was translated into a vote for every single amount of seasons possible excluding zero. crap.

I've fixed that and the poll seems to be working for others. I've PMed you about this.

I've seen every episode of each series at least once except for TAS. I've never seen it.

I am pretty sure I saw Denise Crosby-sure thought I did-as the wife of a detective on ''Southland'' tonight...or was I wrong?..hmm...Takara?

There's nothing listed at IMDB about Denise Crosby on Southland. Her last credit was a New Voyages episode in 2008.

Anton Yelchin (Chekov in Star Trek) plays Kyle Reese in Terminator Salvation which opens this week.

In the new series Southland, Michael McGrady plays Detective Daniel Salinger. He played a Nausicaan Prisoner in the ENT episode Canamar. Also Emily Bergl who plays Tammi Bryant was Bethany in the ENT episode North Star and Patrick Fischler who plays Detective Kenny No-Gun played Mercer in the ENT episode Demons. In tonight's episode Sufe Bradshaw guests and she played a cadet alien in Star Trek.

In the season finale of Criminal Minds, the episode's "unsub" (I think his name was Lucas) was played by Paul Rae who was the bartender in the ENT episode North Star. Also the hotel clerk was played by Scott Lincoln who played a miner in the VOY episode Live Fast and Prosper.