Star Trek

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart. This Christmas, I give you a précis of news from other sites.

Doctor Who

• There’s an interview with Graeme Harper, director of various episodes in the third series, about his work on last season’s Doomsday on Ain’t It Cool News.
• The Guardian talks to Russell T Davies about writing The Runaway Bride. He also says that if he had to revive another classic TV show, he’d go for Survivors.

Books

• The seventh (and final?) Harry Potter book is to be called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Film

• There’s another trailer up for the forthcoming 300 (QuickTime required).
• Keith Richards is to be Johnny Depp’s dad in Pirates of the Caribbean 3. Not news. The pictures are.

British TV

• Gordon Brown’s insisted on a sub-inflation licence fee increase.

US TV

• Kim Cattrall has confirmed that talks for a Sex and the City movie are back on.
• All episodes of 30 Rock and Friday Night Lights so far broadcast are now available on the NBC web site for free (US readers only).
• Rules of Engagement, which has been drastically recast since the pilot, is to air from February 5th on CBS. Please don’t watch it.
• ABC, clearly inspired by Dove soap, is launching a “Be Ugly ’07” campaign to promote Ugly Betty. The purpose — aside from drumming up new viewers — is to promote a positive message for young women: “Be real, be smart, be passionate, be true to yourself and be ugly.” Okey doke.
• Studio 60 is the number one rated show on Nielsen’s Timeshifted Primetime TV Program list. If you include people who watch it within seven days of broadcast on their TiVos, the ratings go up 11%. Also, all but one of the Top 10 product placement programmes are reality series, except for number eight, King of Queens.
• George Takei and Masi Oka both speak fluent Spanish. And apparently the guy who plays Ando in Heroes can’t actually speak Japanese: he learns it all phonetically from Oka, who translates it on-the-fly for him.
• There are now shooting dates for the concluding Stargate SG-1 movies (spoilers at the end).
• I knew that Dexter was getting fewer than a million viewers, but its finale has beaten the Showtime records, with 1.1 million tuning into the season finale.