FOX announced “So You Think You Can Dance” opens a seventh season with a two-hour premiere on May 27 at 8 p.m.

Syfy picked up the rights to “Merlin,” a British series from FremantleMedia. The series premiers in April. The first season aired on NBC last summer, but the second series will also air for the first time ever in the US.

Actress Brit Morgan will play Debbie Pelt, the psycho ex-girlfriend of Alcide in HBO’s “True Blood.” Emily Rose, from NBC’s “ER” will star in the new Syfy drama “Haven” based on Stephen King’s “The Colorado Kid.” Rose plays an FBI agent who comes to a small town in Manie to investigate a murder. Supernatural stuff happens.

Prophetic beginning in a cacophonous manner to illustrate that what we think was the cause of the future human near-genocide off the face of the planets, might not be as simple as we thought. Taking place 58 years Before The Fall, CAPRICA follows the Greystone and Adama families as they plan to take destiny into their own hands. From the start of the episode we see that all is as normal as can be; for a family that has everything, it seems something is amiss.

In this way, Caprica takes the Viper and flies. With absolutely no back story, no prologue, many viewers new to the franchise may find themselves asking whether this even takes place on earth. Fans of the BSG universe will analyze this episode from the very first scenes. Searching for clues or cameos, or anything that will give them an answer. We as viewers, fans and newcomers alike, will try to reverse engineer a genocide and try to find the impetus that began all that we know.

An attack on the local train leads to the involvement of two separate yet equally important families. The Greystone family loses a daughter, and the Adama family loses a mother and a daughter. The two fathers are then joined through grief in an effort to communicate their loss, and find a way to move on, or in the case of Daniel, to fix it. We then see how two totally different approaches to the loss of a loved one is dealt with. One through scientific (advancement), and one through humanistic (tradition).

While Daniel Greystone tries to regain his daughter, Joseph Adama tries harder to lay the memory of his wife and daughter to rest. All the while, Daniel’s wife is trying to deal with the reality of official inquiry and coming to grips with a life her daughter kept hidden. Daniel is trying to connect, Joseph is trying to connect, and Amanda is trying to connect. Which is where this series shines. Battlestar Galactica showed us how far we can go to keep our human connections, CAPRICA is trying to show us how far we can go to make them.

As Daniel Greystone, Eric Stoltz, is a perfect match. An adult nerd who keeps struggling and tries to find the answers to what seemingly are just complex puzzles. His delivery of his lines are spot on with an air of calm, and a cool honest inquiry into the world around him. While very hard pressed to show emotion, his awe at technology is quite realistic. The way he presents quite deep psychological themes, and metaphysical ideas works on a natural level, without sounding contrived, but a light touch of arrogance. He is endearing, but altogether despicable and morally questionable in his ways. You want him to find solace, but he’s dedicated in finding it in his own manner.

Esai Morales as Joseph Adama is just as solid. His family values upheld even in the light of an attack on them. He conveys a warmth that can quickly turn cold, or even passionate. Make no mistake, Joseph Adama is driven by his heart, in opposition to Daniel’s cerebral approaches. In this pilot we see his loyalty extends to the realm of the traditions embedded in off-world dealings, in his home-world of Tauron. Comprise will seemingly break apart a normal man, but Joseph seems adept at handling even the most crucial of choices when it comes to matter of loyalty and the heart.

Paula Malcomson plays the distant mother and friendly wife, Amanda Greystone. Personally, I think she plays the role quite realistically. While obviously not given much screen time, she gives each of her scenes more depth for the world around Daniel and Joseph. Without her presence and personal emotional displays, I wouldn’t care about, nor believe Caprica as anything more than a one-dimensional city.
Magda Apanowicz plays Lacy Rand, Zoe’s best friend. While her character basically serves as a platform for much of Zoe’s connection to the real world, Magda allows her youth to shine through to show how naive and yet understanding Lacy is. Even if not much screen time is given to her in this episode, she is integral to the main story, as seen in the end of the pilot.

Finally, we have Zoe Greystone, played by Alessandra Torresani. Alessandra can convey so much, and yet leave you feeling as if you truly are listening to a teenager. Theoretical computer terminology flow from her without a feeling of unbelievability. She actually presents emotional, technical, and expository monologues with riveting proficiency. Which is needed on science-fiction. Plus her demeanor at times of thoughtfulness isn’t contrived nor does it leave me with a ’she-wouldn’t-do-that’ thought at all.

At the time of this writing some of you have seen the CAPRICA movie on DVD/Blu-Ray.

As far as the visuals and audio of the show go, they’re top notch. We have the similar detailed sets that make a living room of the Greystone family seem as barren and character focused as the hanger bay of the Galactica. Cinematography is headed by Stephen McNutt, whom worked on many BSG episodes. So you’ll see similar lighting styles and angles and even that slight bobble (aka handy-cam like) technique to present the sets and even outdoor locations with a realistic framing. Hell, even Lee Jeffery, a professional stand-in, comes over from the BSG series.

The music is composed by Bear McCreary. So you know you’re in for an aural presentation of ear soothing or rumbling proportions. I enjoy that some of the crew that worked on BSG are now working on Caprica.

But I’m also glad that Caprica is no Battlestar Galactica.This means that you won’t be seeing starships go pew-pew, or even any feeling of military duty. This is purely a civilian point of view. Regular people dealing with extraordinary events. Asking much of them, and not letting them rest to even have a chance to absorb what is happening to them. And perhaps that lack of self-reflection is what began to bring down not only Caprica, but the entire Twelve Colonies. In any case, this is only the beginning. Where we have a chance to find out, what went wrong.

We also have some “Idol” news today. Simon Cowell is in talks with former and current co-workers about jumping into the American version of “X Factor.” And yes, he is talking to Paul Abdul. The new show will premiere on FOX in Fall 2011, and Cowell won’t be returning to “Idol” after this season.

Syfy is pulling out all the stops to plug “Caprica,” a new original drama. The 2-hour pilot has already been seen by 1.5 million viewers, and it hasn’t even aired yet. SyFy is working with Hulu, Apple, and Amazon and is offering DVDs and the streaming pilot on SyFy.com and various free on demand services. Syfy also placed Spanish advertisements on Telemundo to get Latinos interested. “Caprica” debuts on Syfy this Friday at 9 p.m.

The big news today is that Discovery and ESPN are creating 24/7 3D television channels.

Discovery Communications is teaming with Sony to develop an all-3D network by 2011, hoping to spur the purchase of special 3D televisions. Discovery promises content on the topics of history, space, adventure, engineering, tech, and children’s programming. Discovery is also working with IMAX on this deal.

At the same time, ESPN is working on its own 3D plans, and it said yesterday it would launch ESPN 3D this year to present 85 FIFA World Cup games starting on June 11. ESPN said it has been developing and testing ESPN 3D for more than 2 years, and will soon include the Summer X Games and college sports.

FOX Reality Channel is giving the always popular, often naked Cindy Margolis her own reality dating series called “Seducing Cindy,” starting January 30 at 9 p.m. The single mother of 3 will narrow down 24 would-be seducers in an attempt to find true love.

The People’s Choice Awards are on CBS tonight–btw.

Kind of a shocking piece of news coming out of PepsiCo. After 23 hilarious years, Pepsi will NOT advertise in the Super Bowl this year. Instead of spending the millions ($3 million for 30 seconds last year) the company will focus on its “Pepsi Refresh Project” to give $20 million to community projects all over the country. Frito-Lay (Doritos), which is part of PepsiCo, will continue to advertise, however. FedEx also said costs were the main reason why it will also not buy advertising space on the Super Bowl this year. Locally, with the Giants, Jets and even the Patriots looking like question marks, and the defending champion Steelers all but done, we wonder why we’re still watching…

The Super Bowl is February 7.

Elsewhere, the season three premiere of “Chuck” is January 10 with a two-hour opener at 9 p.m. after SyFy slaves away at an eight-hour marathon of season two on January 7 from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. FOX is pushing new episodes of “House” up to January 11 to compete with “Chuck,” which moves into the same timeslot after its premiere.

HBO has a 10-part miniseries called “The Pacific” slated to premiere March 14. It’s a followup of the award-winning 2001 “Band of Brothers” and will include the battles at Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal.

The first season had its fall premiere last week and will return to finish out the season in April.

The show has averaged 2.6 million viewers, including DVR recordings, per episode.

“Universe” is the second highest-rated show on SyFy, after “Ghost Hunters.”

In other SyFy news, “Sanctuary” will be renewed for a third season.

Nonetheless, we believe the movie will get made eventually. Stargate remains a popular and potentially profitable franchise.

If a new SG-1 movie is to be, the producers and writers have a high bar set for them. It would likely be the last we ever see of SG-1, and with the uncertainties raised by “Stargate Universe,” and the cancellation of “Atlantis,” this untitled DVD movie might be the last gasp of Stargate as its original fans know it.

Here is what we think the producers should do to make it a success — and a proper sendoff.

1. Create a funeral ceremony for General Hammond. Actor Don S. Davis gave his last media interview to Blast in March 2008, a few months before his death. In the Stargate world, they named a new ship, under the command of Col. Carter, after their beloved General Hammond and acknowledged that he died of a heart attack in the first episode of “Universe.” But Stargate never did anything to remember or commemorate him and the amazing actor who played General George Hammond. The new movie should begin with or feature early on some sort of ceremony, and feature Bra’tac in some way.
2. No time travel or alternate universes. The “SG-1″ episode called “1969″ was the only good time travel story the franchise ever created. Don’t get us started on “Stargate: Continuum.” The new movie should stick to the troubles of modern Earth and the SGC.
3. No religious bad guys. There are ways we could go with a new movie that don’t involve more fake religious. The Lucian Alliance is obviously still a problem.
4. No replicators.
5. Fix the Asgard core. Obviously the Stargate world has only had the gifts of the Asgard for one episode and two movies, and they haven’t done much good with this power and knowledge yet.
6. It’s time to disclose. It’s time to tell everyone about the Stargate. This would be the perfect arc to develop a movie. The people of Earth has been blind to the true nature of the universe for too long, and it’s time to open their eyes. We’re anxious to see how this would play out.
7. Let there be a genuine human conflict. There are a lot of humans in the galaxy. Now that the Goa’uld are wiped out and the Ori are defeated, the humans of the galaxy are going to rebuild. Maybe some “United Nations” style coalition will develop among dozens or even hundreds of worlds. Stargate’s biggest strength was always in its ability to be a “human” drama.
8. Make the movie at least two hours. This 1:40 crap has to go. If you’re going to make a movie, make a feature-length movie. Stargate fans would watch a 2-hour or 2:30 film — and we would watch it over, and over, and over again.
9. Pax Tau’ri. The Tau’ri — Earth — has once again saved the galaxy. This should usher in a Golden Age of sorts. It’s even possible that the new movie could easily be set 10 years in the “future,” which isn’t too hard since SG-1 ended three years ago. Earth can change. We can open with some kind of montage with Hammond’s funeral, and a glance at the team’s victories over the years. Then the people of Earth are told about the Stargate. We spend a few minutes dwelling on that and setting the stage. There will be some panic. Some riots. Then people will calm down. (It’s kinda like when the Red Sox won the World Series in 04). Then we show “Pax Tau’ri,” the period of relative calm. Time goes by. Then we formally start the movie. Get it? It’s opening the door for a clean slate.

What do you think?

Add those to the finales of “The Biggest Loser” at 8 p.m. on NBC and “Scare Tactics” on SyFy at 9.

Sunday night’s series finale of “Monk” drew the largest audience ever seen on a basic cable drama with 9.4 million total viewers. The success carried over to White Collar, where the fall finale right after “Monk” drew 5.55 million viewers.

NBC picked up the full season order for “Community” and “Parks and Recreation” and scaled back the new sitcom “100 Questions” from 13 episodes to six.

CBS is making a drama based on the upcoming James Patterson novel, “Private.” Twentieth Century FOX will produce the drama about Jack MOrgan, a former Marine and CIA operative to takes over his father’s private detective business.

“Charlie Brown Christmas” is on ABC tonight!

ABC is moving “Ugly Betty” to Wednesdays at 10 p.m. as of January 6 as part of ABC Comedy Wednesday. “Shark Tank” comes back to ABC on January 8 at 9 p.m.

Syfy has another new whimsical comedy series. “Outer Space Astronauts” premieres Tuesday at 9:30 p.m. The series was created by Russell Barrett, who developed the series at his home using computer graphics. It’s a five-par series airing Tuesdays at 9 after the first episode.

Bravo will sign on for a third season of “Shear Genius” starting in February.

We are so close. I’m mixed on this episode. I like the dark character twists. I don’t like the love triangles so much. Cheating and affairs and all that shit … I just don’t know.

I liked “Time.” Poof. It was gone. Not on television. They even wrapped up the interesting “Time” storyline online. I guess, there wasn’t enough time to finish “Time.”

Enter “Life.” With an initial impression that screams: “Days of Our Lives.”

Here’s a sci-fi question: They have no fresh food. They’re rationing what they have. Why are they all doing heavy calisthenics and burning all their calories? You lose weight when you starve to death too.

The interesting thing in this episode was the discovery of an Ancient chair that might hold the knowledge the crew needs to use the ship or maybe even get home.

There’s a lesbian story arc with Ming-Na’s (E.R.) character. I like it. It’s well done. It’s romantic instead of pornographic like most shows show lesbians. It adds value to the story and the character, which is always a struggle in Stargate with International Oversight Committee members. I just loved it. It is the only relationship that feels real so far. Ming-Na, a guest, supporting character, has shown the most talent.

And that’s just interesting. Homosexuality is lampooned on television. It’s debated in most of the country. And on this show, this show that I’ve trashed all fall, there’s a homosexual relationship that’s portrayed as real is real life is.

Also, Lt. Scott has a kid. We saw that coming.

What I also like is the intrigue being shown by Rush and the conflict between Col. Young and Dr. Rush. We actually have some interaction between the characters that’s meaningful.

Let’s go back to an argument I’ve made for three weeks now: If we were in week four or week five, we’d be on the right track. We’re still behind. We’re through 10 episodes with five episodes of story.

Yes, I’ve decided it: I liked “Life.” It sets a stage. Even a seed sprouts in the end, a sign of hope.

Cause, maybe, just maybe, they’re not doomed every week.

This week the team of flirty, dramatic lost wanderers finds themselves on a jungle planet with weird food, and suddenly people start getting sick. The race is on to figure out what’s making everyone sick and how to fix it before time runs out.

It’s an episode! Get it? Well, almost. Because it’s another multi-part episode.

But it’s progress. We’ve well established that they’re stranded on a ship in outer space with no chance of getting home. That doesn’t mean they can’t have a little off-world fun, does it?

There’s drama, jungle, disease, rain, but oh no wait, it’s all just a flashback from an alternate reality that they now need to work to prevent. Perhaps even two alternate realities.

Finally, it almost feels like we’re watching Stargate again.

Character development: We learn about these people. We learn their human stories; where they come from; what their burdens are. We learn what makes them tick, and it makes is relate to the characters. How many people gasped when they learned *spoiler* that Eli’s mom’s mystery sickness is that she was a nurse who got HIV from a junkie who stabbed her in a hospital.

These are the kinds of things that add value to the show. The soldier and the scientist working together, helping each other.

In the episode, a team from the Destiny arrives on a jungle world and finds one of their floating recording devices already on the planet with a full recording file. They return immediately and see that the video is actually of them. The team on the tape arrives, comes down with a horrible disease, and they can’t risk going home. But at night, horrible lizard-like creatives emerge and attack, laying waste to the team. Lt. Scott gets bit and goes into a coma. He wakes up to find he’s the only one alive. The alien snake’s venom cured the disease. An unstable wormhole meant that when Scott tried to return to Destiny, it sent him back in time, and that’s how the “real” team found the recording device.

Back to the present, the disease isn’t from the planet, it’s from the water the team brought back two episodes ago. Now the team has to go back to the awful snake planet to capture one of them and extract its venom to cure everyone else.

Things don’t go well, but that’s all the time we have for today. Tune in next week for the dramatic conclusion.

I don’t like all of these multi-part episodes, but it’s progress. It’s already late in the season, but I can sense that we’re getting closer to “good” here in SGU.

As I’ve said before, if we were at this point a month ago, things would be a lot cheerier in the SGU world, especially among fans of SG-1 and Atlantis. If the setup wasn’t so awful leading up to this, I don’t think I’d have said a negative word about the show so far.

In news news, CNN quickly replaced Lou Dobbs with the king of the touchscreen, John King. King will host a weeknight political show at 7 p.m.

Spike has a new cars show called “Unique Autosports: Miami,” starting February 28 at 10:30 a.m. There will be eight half hour episodes combining cars, celebrities and beautiful Miami. Guests will include LeBron James, Diddy, and players from the Yankees.

A bunch of news out of SyFy today. The network formerly known as Sci-Fi has a comedy series coming out called “Outer Space Astronauts” starting December 8 at 9:30 p.m. The show is about eight quirky soldiers who travel the stars looking for adventures. It’s basically making fun of Stargate, and it shows how much the network has changed in 10 years.

SyFy got good ratings on the premiere “Ghost Hunters Academy” on Wednesday, drawing 2 million total viewers, the best ratings for a reality series on SyFy since January 2008’s “Ghost Hunters International.”

Famed author Ray Bradbury will executive produce a six-episode miniseries about six of his short stories. “The Bradbury Chronicles” hasn’t been picked up by a network yet.

In the news today, ABC made some moves, giving an order for five more episodes of “The Forgotten,” and canceling the new series “Eastwick,” which nobody watched.

ABC also nixed “Let’s Dance,” on news that Kathy Griffin was to host and celebrities weren’t flocking to join the show, according to reports. ABC will use a filler reality series in that time slot, instead of “Let’s Dance,” which was set to debut November 23.

“Lopez Tonight” scored 3.2 million viewers on TBS, TNT and truTV when it premiered Monday, beating Conan O’Brien and David Letterman in the 18-34 demographic.

truTV will launch a new reality series about professional football, going behind the scenes from draft day to the Big Game in “NFL Full Contact” produced by NFL films.

The CW will premiere “Life Unexpected” January 18, tagging in for “Gossip Girl,” until that mega-popular show returns with 12 more episodes later in 2010.

Finally, Nielsen has reported that Americans are watching more television than ever before, with an average of four hours and 49 minutes per day, per American. This is a 20 percent increase from 10 years ago. We have more choices than ever, and we can DVR anything we want. Life is good, right?

The inclusion of Richard Dean Anderson in this episode of “Stargate Universe” was a happy anecdote. He’s now a 3-star general.

Totally changed is the senator’s wife, role from a raging alcoholic who’s emotionally out of control to this oddly grounded matron who has to comfort and reassure her daughter. I guess grief is a process.

Oh wait … HEY! A sex scene! Col. Young, (Justin Louis) millions of light years away, used one of the ancient communications stone devices to take over a soldier’s body on Earth to communicate with everyone back home. And he has sex — in that soldier’s body — with his wife. I’ll leave that one out there for you to comment on. We also learned that Young had an affair with Johansen (Alaina Huffman) before any of this all happened. It might has also been the reason she has decided to leave the Stargate/Icarus program shortly before the attack that forced them to evacuate through the Ninth Chevron.

And then, two of the other characters, in two other people’s bodies, get drunk and go clubbing. Elyse Levesque plays a decent drunk. Not great, but decent.

We do learn more about these characters. The senator’s daughter role (Levesque) gets a back story that’s not too surprising. She was a shallow, rich, bitch, whose boyfriend is dating her best friend now. She didn’t have real friends, and she’s beginning to learn that her happy little life wasn’t so great. This is all good stuff. This is character development. There remains much work to do on the three fronts of character development, writing dialog, and acting it out.

The Eli character (David Blue) was also improved. We knew he was an underachieving misfit with a sick mom, but we saw more of his inner monologue. We gets to take over the body of an attractive, fit man and gets to be popular with the ladies for once.

Improvement was made in this episode, but I still can’t help but wonder if this much progress could have been made in three episodes instead of seven. We are also having all of these “good” moments on Earth, instead of on the ship the show is set in.

We learned in previous episodes that the ship, “Destiny” recharges its power by flying through a sun, but each pass doesn’t recharge the batteries to 100 percent. Earth has a master plan to fire the ship’s weapons, to lower the ship’s power, to force the ship to further recharge its batteries entirely by flying through another star, hopefully giving the ship enough power to dial the Stargate back to Earth. We know this fails, because that would essentially end the show. A nice twist is the fact the plan might have worked — or it might have blown up the ship — if Dr. Rush (Robert Carlyle) hadn’t staged the whole thing to fail.

Rush showed me something in this episode. He’s spiteful and arrogant, but we’re finally seeing clearly that his goal is to study the ship and learn more about the universe. The ship might be very well able to get everyone back home, but Rush’s experiment is ongoing.

On a side note, it’s so refreshing to continuously see the talent that Carlo Rota brings to the table every time. The man who played Morris O’Brianon in “24″ added something to “Stargate Universe” in his brief appearance as a member of the International Oversight Committee.

This was the best episode of “Universe” yet, but it came six weeks and seven episodes later. You get the feeling we’re an an impasse here. They’re stranded. Earth tried to intervene/interfere and failed, and now they have to figure things out for themselves. If this were week four, I think people would be more drawn in to the suspense.

Those will all get lost in the shadow of Game 6 of the World Series at 8 p.m. on FOX where the Yankees will hope to close it out against the Phillies.

In other news, CBS ordered five more episodes of “Accidentally on Purpose,” giving it an 18-episode season run so far. The show averages 8 million viewers per episode.

In an effort to draw viewers to “Lopez Tonight,” TBS announced that both TNT and truTV will simulcast the episode, which will feature guest stars Ellen DeGeneres, Eva Longoria-Parker and Kobe Bryant. Afterward, “Lopez Tonight” will air Monday through Thursday at 11 on TBS.

It was announced recently that Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin will serve as dual hosts for the 82nd Academy Awards in March. That should be a treat. Martin hosted the 73rd and 75th ceremonies previously.

The FX comedy “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” will enter syndication on at least 23 local affiliates beginning in Fall 2011. The list includes local Boston affiliate WLVI-TV, CW-56.

Kathy Griffin will host the latest new dancing reality show, “Let’s Dance,” where celebs will reenact famous dance routines. This one premieres November 23 after the “Dancing with the Stars” performance finale.

Finally today, A&E will launch a documentary series about Kirstie Alley and her continuing struggles with her weight and live as a single mom. No title or air date yet.

Michael Shanks is an actor, and while it’s easy to get lost in the character he has played on, off and on again for a dozen years, there’s a lot under the surface.

Born in Vancouver and raised in small town British Columbia, Shanks began his acting career playing Charlie Brown in the fourth grade play. He witnessed his first television production in college while taking a beach break from trying out for a play. Ironically, it was “MacGyver” that shanks saw being filmed, not knowing of course that he would one day star beside Richard Dean Anderson in “SG-1.”

He made his television debut in a 1993 episode of “The Commish,” a popular ABC crime drama. He landed a lot of minor roles before getting his big break on “Stargate SG-1″ in 1997, staring in 196 episodes in the series as an adventurous archeologist named Dr. Daniel Jackson. Since the end of “Stargate SG-1″ in 2007, Shanks, 38, has been trying to remake himself as an actor

“Well its a double-edged sword, I will say this,” Shanks said in his interview with Blast. “The things that come down the pipe, career-wise, that are offers to pay the bills are sort of sci-fi related projects.”

But, humbly, Shanks admits that all he can do is keep trying to land roles — hopefully roles that aren’t nerdy archeologists. “You just have to get back in a line as if you’re starting all over again,” he said.

We saw some of this. Shanks left “SG-1″ after season 5 and landed a few small roles, including two episodes of “Andromeda,” where he met his wife. It’s possible we may never have seen Daniel Jackson again if Shanks was offered another starring role (pure speculation). But Daniel’s was a popular role, and Shanks returned to “Stargate,” first as a guest, and then in his everyday role.

After “Stargate,” Shanks got to show some range by playing a pseudo-villain in the popular USA series “Burn Notice.” He played Victor, a rogue secret agent taking revenge on the shadowy intelligence agency that killed his family. He also recently landed a role that could bring him more into the mainstream by appearing in The CW’s “Smallville,” as comic book hero Hawkman. It’s still in the realm of sci-fi/fantasy, but the show has a wider following.

Still though, we can’t forget what Shanks and the “SG-1″ crew did in making the Sci-Fi/SyFy channel what it is today. A new Stargate show, “Stargate Universe” began this year, even as a rumoed “SG-1″ straight-to-DVD movie is on the shelf.

“Stargate Universe” is a much younger, more melodramatic, almost juvenile take on the franchise, and fans are conflicted. Shanks is too, even though he’s slated to appear in at least four episodes this season.

“It is really slick and pretty,” Shanks said. “[But] from what I’ve seen I’m not on board. … I’m not hooked in.”

Shanks said the drama and conflict seems forced. “They’re creating tension, pathos and angst,” he said. “The conflict with the characters seems a bit forced.”

One thing I did not dig deeply into was Shanks’ relationship with Christopher Judge. At the San Diego Comic-Con International in 2008, Judge boasted that he and Shanks started their own production company. We later heard about a production about the archangel Michael. But Shanks said the production company was off. He didn’t discuss his relationship with Judge, and I didn’t press him any further on the matter.

BLAST: So you and Christopher Judge are best buds. You have a production company you’re putting together? What’s happening with you guys?

MICHAEL SHANKS: Yeah. Let’s just say the production company’s not happening anymore, and I’d rather not go down that road and talk about Christopher Judge at this particular junction.

Shanks lives in Vancouver with his wife, the beautiful British-Filipina-Canadian actress Lexa Doig (Jason X), whom he got to work with when she played a doctor in 11 episodes at the end of “SG-1’s” running. She is also known for her sci-fi/fantasy work. The couple has two children, and Shanks has an 11-year-old Daughter, Tatiana, born in 1998 to then girlfriend Vaitiare Bandera, who played Daniel Jackson’s wife, Sha’re on “SG-1.” Shanks also said he’s been known to enjoy a good game of Hockey — like any true Canadian.

Editor’s note: After readers called out Blast — and called us liars — for not including the audio of the Christopher Judge portion of the Michael Shanks interview, we are posting it in the interest in full disclosure. We wouldn’t lie about or improperly quote an actor who agreed to give an interview to Blast.

“General Hospital” is on Wednesdays at 3 p.m. on ABC, but that’s not what we’re talking about.

I’ve been holding back so far in my “Stargate Universe” episode reviews. I’m a fan. I keep hoping they’re going to bust out with “the big one,” and everyone is going to be happy.

We noticed later on in the “Stargate SG-1″ and “Atlantis” runnings that the powers that be would put together a fantastic opening plot, fraught with unimaginable danger and peril, only to hastily wrap it up when they ran out of time. We saw this when SG-1 “fought” Ares. How about “Red Alert?” That’s what’s happening so far in “Universe,” only it’s happening at the beginning of the series. And it’s happening on two fronts. The makers are building up this fantastical plot in every episode, complete with certain death. Only each episode spends 40 minutes building up a 5 minute plot. And each episode is building up to what we assume is going to be something, but we’re deeply into the season without any hint of the endgame.

In this episode, “Water,” Lt. Smith (Brian J. Young) nearly dies on an ice planet only to not die. This is maybe the third time this has happened to him.

Oh and an alien bug that may or may not be benevolent was flushed out of the ship via the Stargate. I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of that.

And that’s it. That’s all that happened on this week’s episode of “Stargate Universe.” It was 43 minutes of “oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, what are we gonna do?” and no substance. We know little more about the characters, and, frankly, I am starting to care less and less about each one to the point where I’d like to see someone killed off just to make things interesting. Do the producers forget what happened when Daniel Jackson died/ascended to a higher plane of existence on “SG-1?” People went nuts. People created “Save Daniel” websites. People were truly in love with these characters. To a slightly smaller extent, the same applied to the now-abandoned characters on “Atlantis.”

“Universe?” No one gives a shit about these people. Even Ben Browder has a proper introduction to “SG-1″ that made us care about him. And he’s a better actor than anyone on this new show. Even Robert Carlyle is beginning to let down (though, to his credit, it’s mostly the writing that’s making him look bad).

The producers are acting like they have a three-season order in place already from SyFy. All seven episodes have been garbage so far. They have done nothing to build a community feeling for the viewers. In the past two shows — and on any good sci-fi show — the audience is naturally brought in somehow. They feel included. In “Universe” we feel like the outsiders. We’re the nerdy kids watching the high school football game. There are aspects of a good sci-fi series that make people go apeshit and dress up in full-on cosplay costumes — that they make themselves, spending sometimes thousands of dollars on — to attend conventions.

What you never saw, was someone dressing up as their favorite Gilmore Girl. It’s a different fanbase, people.

Sadly, “Universe” fails both as a sci-fi show and a teenage melodrama, because the elements that attract sci-fi fans religiously aren’t there and the writing just sucks.

So we’ll see what happens next week.

NBC is canceling its brand new drama, “Trauma,” with the production stopping after the initial 13-episode order. NBC has not said whether or not it will even air the remaining episodes. NBC did order six new mid-season episodes of “Chuck,” so it’s not all bad news. This expands the season to 19 episodes. “Chuck” was originally going to open after the Winter Olympics, but it may come sooner.

ABC announced that “Scrubs” will premiere with two episodes on December 1 at 9 p.m. The regular time period will be Tuesdays at 9. “Better Off Ted” will premiere December 8, and will regularly follow “Scrubs” at 9:30.

Syfy ordered 13 new episodes of “Being Human,” an American port of a British series based on three roomates — a ghost, vampire and werewolf — who lead double lives. The show will premiere in the summer.

Finally on this Friday, we know that NBC is working on a “Monk” ripoff with a few twists. Variety reported that a washed up magician with agoraphobia will be approached by an elite law enforcement group to use his talents to solve the hard cases.

And for people who have been loyal to Stargate and Sci-Fi Channel and now SyFy, this isn’t our Stargate either.

What’s left is for us to decide if that’s a bad thing or not.

Through the first four episodes? Yeah. It’s a bad thing.

Now we get to the fifth episode of the series. Once again, the crew is facing imminent demise.

Only 15 people will fit aboard a shuttle that can leave the “Destiny” for another planet. The melodrama unfolds but becomes difficult — actually impossible — to believe when half of the main cast of the show is not picked in a lottery to decide those 15 shuttle-mates.

Oh my god, MacGyver, how can you possibly get out of this one??

Of course, they do. Everyone lives to die another day.

The ship was on a collision course with a sun. What happens? Instead of crashing into the sun and dying, the ship’s tiny remaining shield power protects it while the ship flies directly into the sun, which recharges the ship’s power. All is well.

Yay.

This whole experience — after more than a month of episodes — unites this crew of misfits. Now they’re all friends. Or are they? Another cliff hanger at the end of Episode 5: “Light.”

This month has taught us definitively that “Stargate Universe” is absolutely not “Stargate SG-1.” In the second episode of SG-1, the crew was already out visiting new planets and encountering new civilizations. SG-1 and Atlantis were shows about societies and groups of people. Universe is a show about a few people. The main problem so far is that I don’t give a damn about these people. There’s no depth to them, except maybe Dr. Rush (Robert Carlyle) who is easy to single out as the bad guy or just a pure Machiavellian.

But there’s too much build up and anticipation and not enough performance. Every episode of “Stargate Universe” is prom night with chevrons.

Thinking outside the box here, maybe they should have brought back Ben Browder for this one? Or Joe Flanigan? There’s a lot of inexperience on this show. It’s already written like The CW’s version of Stargate

I’m not saying that we need a new episodic adventure every week. SGU is obviously tied into this main story for survival far from Earth. I get it. All I’m saying is we don’t need an hour to realize that the crew isn’t going to die for the fifth time. Let’s explore a bit. Let’s have some adventures.

The show has two elements that can be used to make a few interspersed episodic adventures work: When the ship stops in a solar system, there’s a ticking clock until it will jump back into “faster than light speed.” The crew can disembark on an adventure. You can leave the ticking clock at the bottom of the screen and let then get into all sorts of mischief, trying to make sure they can get back in time.

You also have a love triangle emerging with Chloe (Elyse Levesque) and the muscular hero Matthew Scott and the lovable nerdy genius Eli. The Stargate overlords skirted (totally ignored) the love triangle in “Stargate Atlantis,” but now you can use it. There are more ways to make drama than “death at every possible turn.”

The show is still getting better ratings than “Dollhouse” though.

We get it. They’re in space. It’s dark. It’s a big freaking void.

But I’m so sick of the “Stargate Universe” crew facing imminent death at every foreseeable turn.

Can we start watching the show now? Please?

We’re three weeks and four episodes in, and they’re already recording the “Dear Home, If we die out there…” messages. They didn’t get to that until the end of the first season of “Atlantis.” Although we knew they would go there, because Brad Wright and company stopped writing new show ideas sometime around 2001.

I don’t mean to be bitter. I’m still glad that some semblance of Stargate is back on the air, even if it is just a semblance.

This week’s episode, “Darkness” felt too similar to the first three episodes. Maybe frustration is a good thing? I admit that I’m really looking forward to whatever enemy or actual plot will start to develop.

There’s also just — I never thought I’d actually say this — there’s too much sexual tension. It seems like any 10 characters are just going to drop down and bang at any given moment. Stargate Orgy, anyone?

We do have a genuine McKay/Zelenka between Rush and Volker.

Nothing else happened in this episode. They were dying before “Darkness,” and they’re still dying. They found some new planets, but now they might crash into the sun. They’re out of power. Etc.

“Darkness” could have been a 10 minute intro to a real episode.

Kinda waiting on one of those…

Tonight’s lone finale is “Hell’s Kitchen” on FOX at 8.

There’s going to be a new premium channel soon. Epix will launch on October 30, with several movies including “Iron Man” and “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” There will also be a two-hour Madonna concert live from Buenos Aires.

ABC gave the full season order for the new drama “FlashForward” joining “Cougar Town,” “The Middle” and “Modern Family” with full seasons. No word on “Hank.”

SyFy’s debut of a new season of “Sanctuary” on Friday delivered 1.9 million viewers.

Finally, the Gilmore Girls’ Lauren Graham is joining the NBC drama “Parenthood” taking the place of Maura Tierney, who was dropped after the pilot.

SyFy jumps in at 10 with the season premiere of “Sanctuary,” the Amanda Tapping post-Stargate project. DIY Network premieres “Kitchen Impossible” at 10, and we can’t forget “Dog Whisperer” at 9 p.m. on NatGeo.

The only big finale this weekend is MTV’s “Making His Band” at 9 p.m.

On Monday, you can expect premieres of “Little People, Big World,” on TLC at 8 p.m., “100 Mile Challenge” on Planet Green at 9 p.m., and “Gone Too Far” on MTV at 10.

Southland is D E D dead, even though it never was officially alive. NBC pulled the plug on the drama before its anticipated season debut on October 23. No reason has been given, and six episodes were already finished and ready to air.

Southland was going to be aired on Fridays at 9 p.m., which has been a dead zone for television lately, with Dollhouse dying there.

ABC has ordered the full seasons of “Modern Family,” “Cougar Town” and “The Middle.”

The three shows have done well in the ratings, but no news has been announced on the Kelsey Grammer comeback “Hank” or the new show “Eastwick.”

Showtime announced a new webisode about Dexter called “Dexter: Early Cuts.” The series will premiere on October 25 on sho.com.

CBS may be bringing back “Hawaii Five-O” with a plot commitment for a revival of the series, written by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and CSI: New York executive producer Peter Lenkov. The original ran from 1968-1990.

Finally, Ellen Page is working with HBO to both write and produce a new comedy series called “Stich N’ Bitch” about two cool girls who move from New York to Los Angeles to try and become artists — and kind of artists. Page is working with actresses Alia Shawkat and Sean Tillmann, both of whom stared with her in “Whip It.”

ESPN starts up “30 for 30″ at 8 p.m. Discovery opens new seasons of “Dirty Jobs” and “Ghost Lab” at 9 and 10 respectively. SyFy has “Scare Tactics” at 9, and A&E has “Parking Wars” at 10.

CBS has new episodes of “NCIS” and “NCIS Los Angeles” tonight, and we expect the network to carry the night.

MTV will air the Adam “DJ AM” Goldsten hosted/created series “Gone Too Far” starting October 12 at 10 p.m. The network had to get consent from the entertainer’s family. Goldstein died from a drug overdose in August.

Showtime has renewed “Californication” for a 12-episode fourth season in 2010.

Sony and Mark Barnett are re-booting “Fantasy Island” and developing a new hour-long elimination reality show involving 12 contestants at an exotic island resort, battling to become the next “Mr. or Ms. Roarke.” The contestants will battle to best fulfill the fantasies of the guests arriving on the island.

Lifetime has “Sherrie” at 7 p.m. and Rita Rocks at 7:30. Logo has “The Decorating Adventures of Ambrose Price” at 10 p.m., and BET has “The Mo’Nique” show at 11.

The two-hour season premiere of Ugly Betty will be pushed back a week from October 9 to October 16 on ABC. Then it will settle into every Friday at 9 p.m.

The Versus network opened its fifth season of NHL game coverage with about 830,000 total viewers total watching the Bruins vs. Capitals and Avalanche vs. Sharks. Versus is the only cable channel that airs NHL matches.

The first two-hours of the three-hour/two-week premiere of Stargate Universe did well for itself, drawing 2.35 million total viewers, beating Dollhouse on Fox, though some will argue that these numbers represent live views only and not DVR views. This argument holds that Sci-Fi nerds have nothing better to do on a Friday night than watch Stargate, while Dollhouse’s stalwart fanbase is out clubbing on going on dates.

NBC will cut back its drama “Day One” from 13 episodes to a meager four-part miniseries after budget issues.

Comcast is continually trying to take over the digital world. The company is in talks to buy NBC Universal and it’s also working with Hulu to try and get that company to charge for its online video service.

FOX’s second episode of the Joss Whedon show finished fourth on Friday night, just above The CW.

The CBS premiere of “Ghost Whisperer” carried the 8 p.m. hour Friday.

But it was the 9 o’clock hour that was really interesting. NBC won the hour with, of all things, “Dateline.” CBS was second for “Medium,” ABC’s “The Forgotten” was third. “Dollhouse came in fourth, raking in just 2.1 million viewers and its lowest ever 0.8 rating for the second new episode of the season. Last week’s premiere drew about 2.75 million viewers.

“Stargate Universe” did premiere Friday night, and we’re sure that hurt “Dollhouse,” but the numbers aren’t out yet form SyFy.

If this keeps up, “Dollhouse” could go the way of Joss Whedon’s “Firefly.”

Then there was a flashback, followed by an old 80s movie plot line where a young, ingenious nerd beats a video game that the government set up.

Then Jack O’Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) shows up to beam the nerd aboard a spaceship. Then there’s a appearance by Dr. Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks). The first reaction was simple: I really miss Stargate. I miss the characters I’ve become familiar with and watched struggle through every imaginable enemy

That comes to an apex when our young teen (David Blue) is beamed to a space ship called the “George Hammond” named for the late commander of the Stargate program, General George Hammond, played by the late, great Don S. Davis, who gave his last media interview to Blast before his death in 2008.

Even Gary Jones, an SG-1 series regular, makes an appearance on the two-hour opener of “Stargate Universe.” It’s a reminder that Stargate is back, but not in the way fans have known for the past decade. This is a new Stargate. It’s younger, edgier. There’s even a sex scene, which we don’t think we’ve seen in either of the previous shows or the movies.

Robert Carlyle plays a brilliant yet frustrated scientist trying to solve the mystery of the Stargate’s “ninth and final” chevron. A secret off-world military base has a special stargate on it that is tapped into the planet’s core for power. It’s purpose is to dial that ninth chevron. His character, Dr. Nicholas Rush, the scientist who has endeavored for years to solve the riddle of the last Ancient stargate secret. He’s got some work to do. I’m still seeing Renard from “The World is Not Enough” at times.

When the base comes under attack by an old enemy, the Lucian Alliance, the base is forced to evacuate through the ninth chevron address, which lands them on a massive ship built by The Ancients, the old and advanced race that built the Stargate System. The ship has been traveling faster than light for hundreds of thousands of years. It’s several billion light years from Earth.

Nerd moment: There’s a little plot hole that old Stargate fans will catch. When the base is attacked, its only real defense is The Hammond, a brand new Earth ship with all kinds of amazing gear and weapons. It’s attacked by three “motherships,” an antiquated enemy vessel that the Hammond could dispatch easily with a single blast from its Asgard weaponry. But that moment is not important to the rest of the show.

The ninth chevron leads to the ancient ship, which can travel faster than light without using hyperspace technology. The life support is failing and people are injured and dying.

That completes the first hour of this two-part episode.

In the second part, the team is floating along on the ship trying to get things in order, doing the usual sci-fi stuff.

David Blue plays the math whiz, Eli Wallace, and he sells his part well like a television Jonah Hill.

The producers know that they have to do a lot to make us fall in love with these brand new characters, and halfway through the second part, they come as close as I would have thought possible. A gut-wrenching scene of self-sacrifice involving one of the main character’s fathers draws the viewer into the show.

There’s conflict. Much like the first few episodes of Stargate Atlantis, there are scientists and soldiers and even some politicians jockeying for position, trying to figure out who knows best. Meanwhile, the ship is dangerously high on carbon dioxide.

The show has all the elements to get us interested and leave us wanting more. There’s even a mini cliffhanger ending where we learn that the ship’s autopilot brings it to a planet every so often.

But the 80 minutes of footage in the first two parts of the opening episode was either poorly edited or made to purposefully leave plot holes. At some point, Dr. Rush uses an ancient (and reusable) communications device to contact Earth, but no footage of his contact with Earth is shown, and the team inexplicably never uses the device again. I guess they have to be able to contact Earth sometimes, and that does leave open the possibility of cameos from old SG-1 and Atlantis characters, but it’s a bit gaping. We’re pretty sure this gets closed up in the third part of “Air” which airs next Friday.

The big issue is that one or two of the characters need to separate themselves. They need to stand out in the way Sheppard and McKay did on Atlantis. I didn’t quite get a feeling for who would take the lead here, though it’s possible that Blue will stand out, while Brian J. Smith, who plays the number two military guy, Lt. Scott, has potential. But Sheppard and McKay stuck out from the first few minutes of “Atlantis.” Not so in “Universe.”

Next week will be big in terms of the show’s success or failure. The season is tentatively scheduled for 20 episodes, and we’ll have to see what happens. Right now I’m left wanting more, but I’m not sure why.

CBS has the most premieres tonight with “The New Adventures of Old Christine” at 8, “Gary Unmarried” at 8:30, “Criminal Minds” at 9, and “CSI: New York” at 10. The drama continues on NBC with premieres of “Mercy” at 8 p.m. and “Law and Order: SVU” at 9.

ABC offers the series premiere of “Modern Family” tonight at 9 p.m., which is Ed O’Neil’s return to primetime. Blast will be running our interview with O’Neil later today, and we’ll continue to talk about our time on-set with ABC.

ABC also has premieres of “Cougar Town” at 9:30 and “Eastwick” at 10 tonight.

FX is starting a new comedy show about fantasy football. “The League” follows a bunch of guys in the suburbs and their shenanigans. That will start-up on October 29 at 10:30 p.m. following “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” FX has ordered six episodes of the new comedy show.

MTV continues the reality shows with “Disaster Date,” a hidden-camera show about people who set up their friends on a blind date with an actor who makes things disastrous for them. The fun times begin September 28 at 6 p.m.

Nielsen says that SyFy’s season finale of “Eureka” gained 2.3 total viewers last Friday at 9 p.m., which is impressive for the cable network.

Syfy’s season three finale of Eureka last Friday at 9p averaged 1.1 million A18-49, 1.2 million A25-54 and 2.3 million total viewers. HBO’s return of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” Sunday night gained 1.1 million viewers on Sunday night. A new show followed, “Bored to Death,” to the tune of about 1 million viewers.

Finally for you Melrose Place fans, Heather Locklear will join The CW’s version of the show on November 17, reprising her role as Amanda Woodward.

These are two that we’re excited about since the finale in the sixth season left us with a cliff hanger for the ages. Plus, the two-hour spin-off into “Los Angeles” that occurred toward the end of last season left us wanting more, and it gave us another cliff hanger whereby one of the main characters was the victim of a drive-by shooting.

CBS also has “The Good Wife” premiering at 10 p.m, competing with ABC’s premiere of “The Forgotten.”

On cable, Oxygen has “The Naughty Kitchen with Chef Blythe Beck” on at 10 p.m., and TLC starts “Table for 12″ also at 10.

Two finales to keep in mind tonight: SyFy ends the season “Warehouse 13″ tonight at 9 p.m., and Discovery Channel reality show “The Colony” has its finale at 10.

FOX announced Monday that it has given “Glee” the thumbs up, ordering a full season of the new comedy. It’s the first new show of the fall TV watching season to get picked up for the full season.

Reality network MTV is moving “The Hills” to 10 p.m., and putting “The City” at 10:30 starting September 29, which is also the premiere date for season five of “The Hills.” MTV has also said that a new season of “The Real World/Road Rules Challenge” called “The Ruins” will open September 30 at 10 p.m. This season is set in Thailand.

On Sunday, HBO restarts “Curb Your Enthusiasm” at 9 p.m. The popular show from the “Seinfeld” people is back. CBS is also airing the Emmy Awards at 8 p.m. Sunday.

Spike TV’s 10th season premiere of “The Ultimate Fighter” on Wednesday is the most watched episode of the fighting series ever, and the most watched original show ever on the Spike TV Network, drawing g4.1 million total viewers — almost wholly male, according to Nielsen.

The History Channel had some success with its “MysteryQuest” series, which also premiered Wednesday, drawing 1.2 million watchers.

BLAST: So “Bundy” is coming out on DVD soon, and we have to ask: How did you prepare for playing a character like that?

CORIN NEMEC: Well, you know, really it’s about research. The thing that helped me out most was watching certain videos that he did. Namely the big interviews that he had — he did several of them. What caught me most was in some of the video footage of him by news teams when they were filming them, and he was not necessarily aware that he was being filmed. He would get these looks on his face. These really jarred, sardonic looks … He would kind of break character as I call it. He would go from his social Ted Bundy to whatever is going on inside. That was kind of my peep hole … and I’d think, “this guys has got a serious dark side.”

Not that it wasn’t obvious in the first place, but that’s what was helpful to me. His motivation — and this I can’t confirm — it’s what I discovered in my research and what Mike Feifer had discovered in writing this script — though we don’t address it in the film — when he realized that he was an illegitimate child, but his father still claimed to be his father. What dawned on me was him possibly being a child of incest. And this was a discovery he’d made after college. And so that to me was the catalyst for his so-called insanity. I thought it was that point that he just completely lost it and went over the edge and really embraced all the dark fantasies that he had.

BLAST: And what attracted you to the script and the character for this role?

CN: Well, Mike Feifer and I worked on “Chicago Massacre,” where I played Richard Speck, and I had a great time working with him as a director, and I think we really gelled and work well together.

I hope to work with him again in the future. He also worked on “Boston Strangler,” and I played a small role in that, the Boston Strangler’s lawyer. And when Ted Bundy came up, and we got the green light on that and he asked me I jumped at that chance because I had the opportunity to work with Mike Feifer.

BLAST: Did you ever find it difficult or chilling to get into the mindset of the character?

CN: You know, not necessarily, but I definitely found moments; about halfway through it — which is rare for me, because I’m not a method actor and I don’t take things home with me — where I really felt nauseated by the guy. It wasn’t when it was necessary for me to be the character but those in between moments. I was like, “Wow. I just feel so creepy.”

BLAST: Speaking of acting and technique, we heard you were very much influenced by “The Goonies.” Is this true?

CN: Well yes, in many ways. My father was the art director in that movie and when it came out — although the characters were about two years older than I am — when it came out I was about the same age. My father told me it was something I would really love. I came from an artistic family … so I had been around theater and music and then film and TV. So I knew that film and TV, there was a process that went into making it. And I understood that these people were acting and that they were on sets and all this stuff and then at the end they would put it all together and these people would have this life outside of it … and I was such an imaginative kid, and I realized that, you know, it was an opportunity to do that same thing but on a much more dynamic level. And be able to watch it back. That was what blew me away the most. I can go pretend to be someone else in a real setting, someone will film that, and put it together. And then you can watch the experience that you had back, in the order its supposed to be in! And I was just ten or eleven years old and thought, “Wow! This is incredible.”

And that’s what struck me about it and inspired me to become an actor.

BLAST: So what genres attract you the most? Adventure? Sci-fi? Horror?

CN: No, I’m not really specific with what I look for in a project. Is there something I can bring to the character? Is there an arc? Do I think I can bring something to the project that is going to possibly make it better than what it already is? And if I can answer yes to those questions, then … its really about what character am I playing.

BLAST: But you have worked in sci-fi before, correct?

CN: Oh yeah, I did “Stargate SG-1,” the series. And then have done numerous of these sci-fi oriented movies for the SyFy Channel but, outside of that, my previous work before that was drama and comedy. The first time I got to do anything outside of the box was “The Stand,” playing Harold Lauder, which was my first step into that sci-fi horror kind of world.

BLAST: What character would you love to portray in a film?

CN: Well again, I don’t know what I’m looking for in a character until I read it. Its not like I’m pursuing a type of character out there that I’d like to play. If the character is something exciting for me to play that I can bring something to,then I would go for it.

BLAST: So, what are your aspirations for the future?

CN: Well, I have a production company with David Faustino. We’ve had a production company for a few years now. It’s opened up a lot of doors. We’ve been working on some reality shows and fully scripted shows and feature films. We have a lot of things in development and in the meantime I pursue my other acting projects on the side. But that’s what is exciting to me right now with the production company; it gives us the ability to write our own stories … instead of being at the whims of Hollywood.

BLAST: What is the series that your production company worked on?

CN: Star-Ving. (The series was released in January 2009)

Nemec will star in “House of Bones,” set to be released later this year, along with Charisma Carpenter (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel”). “Bundy” comes to DVD July 21.