TV News...

AMC’s general manager, Charlie Collier, about the channel’s direction of redoing old science fiction miniseries, shows, and movies: "There's a wealth of old TV shows and sci-fi movies to look back at and see if we can take them and update them and reintroduce them to the public. We are having a ton of fun looking into the acquisitions of past science fiction, both movies and television."

“Ebert and Roeper leaving popular movie review show”

Family Guy spin off The Cleveland Show will have Mike Henry reprising his role as Cleveland, and also star Kevin Richardson, Sanaa Lathan, and Nia Long. It’s about Cleveland moving him and his son to Virginia where he move in with his high school sweetheart.

Sci Fi Channel has ordered five 30 minute episodes for Russell Barrett’s comedy Outer Space Astonauts (working title). “In the future, many courageous souls journey to the far reaches of the galaxy, seeking knowledge, adventure and the thrill of exploration. The rest are the Outer Space Astronauts. The slovenly Captain Ripley commands the "space-ially" challenged crew of the O.S.S. Oklahoma as they go about their daily routine of working in space.” It’ll be a mix of live action, 3-D, and 2-D animation.

No more Babylon 5? [Submitted by Sitting Duck]

The creator of HBO’s True Blood vampire drama, Alan Ball: "In our world, a lot of the myths about vampires were created by vampires themselves over history so that they could pass, because if you could convince everyone that you couldn't be seen in a mirror or that you would freak out if somebody shoved a crucifix in your face then you could prove you weren't a vampire pretty easily." Ball also said that he’s not a big fan of vampire movies, etc., but is a big fan of Near Dark. "I wanted it to be a show about characters and to really explore what it means to be 170 years old and what it means to fall in love with somebody who [finds it] satisfying being fed upon, you know, not being able to see this person except at night, having the entire town think, 'What? Are you crazy?'" The twelve episode first season of the show based on Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire book series premieres September 7.

Spike TV has announced that Lucy Liu and Mark Hamill will join Samuel L. Jackson and Yuri Lowenthal on the voice cast for the TV movie sequel to Afro Samurai, Afro Samurai: Resurrection, premiering January 2009. Liu will play a seductive nemesis, and Hamill will Sio’s manservant Bin.

Joss Whedon is shooting another first episode for Dollhouse, and will make the now first episode the second, "It definitely has to do with the network and what I presented to them," Whedon admitted in an interview at Comic-Con International in San Diego over the weekend. "It was one of those situations where we were all very enthusiastic about the world we were building, but they loved the pilot when they read it, and then they saw it and they said, 'OK, this feels a little different than we thought it was going to.' I began to suspect that they wanted something from the first episode that that episode didn't have. They [were] sort of wishy-washy about it, and I don't say this against them, because what they were trying to do was not rock my boat. So I was like, 'I think I can give them exactly what they want. It will make the show better, because everything I do in this episode will only have more resonance.'" He also said that the new episode was his idea. There will also be 13 webisodes. Dollhouse premieres January 2009.

Anime Moribito – Guardian of the Spirit will premiere on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block August 24,

Sam Raimi’s Wizard’s First Rule series Legend of the Seeker is scheduled for November 1, with a two hour premiere.

“Lost: Possible Contract Spoilers?”

Gretchen Mol has joined the cast for the American version of Life on Mars. SciFi Wire has a major spoiler.

The fourth season of Venture Bros. has begun production.