If you walked through Times Square this past Tuesday, then you probably noticed American magician Criss Angel suspended in midair. Angel was enclosed for 24 hours in a clear box that was encased in cement as fans and reporters watched. The box was then hoisted 40 feet above the ground in a parking lot just off Times Square.

Hundreds gathered to watch his escape, and a big screen showed Angel inside the box, kicking at the walls and dejectedly holding his head in his hands. When a countdown clock hit zero, the box was sent plunging to the ground.

As organizers called for paramedics and fans went quiet, Angel appeared atop the screen’s nearby scaffolding, waving to the crowd and with his hand across his heart.

While much of the crowd cheered, several people were heard asking: “Was he actually in the box?”

“Well, I was in it when I fell — that’s the truth,” Angel told Reuters, adding that people should be asking how he got from the fallen box to the scaffolding.

The stunt was meant to draw attention to the third season of his show “Mindfreak,” which started airing on A&E this week. Angel said the first episode would reveal how he escaped.

[Source: Hollywood Reporter]

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American broadcast network, NBC, has removed the shroud of secrecy around their new controversial reality dating series called Age of Love.

The series centers on Melbourne tennis champion Mark Philippoussis (age 31) as he’s wooed by a group of 13 special ladies. What Philippoussis doesn’t know is that these women range in age from 21 to 48. Will he go for one of the younger gals (Kittens), or will he become smitten by someone more mature (Cougars)?

Age of Love’s “Kittens” will feature six young, enthusiastic women in their 20’s who could probably better keep-up with Philippoussis’ fast-paced lifestyle, while the “Cougars” will consist of seven women in their 40’s who are more sophisticated and thus probably better equipped to deal with his fame as a tennis pro.

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Similar to the manner in which the “geek versus hunks” twists on NBC’s Average Joe reality dating shows played out, Philippoussis will initially be introduced to his older “Cougars” suitors. Later, he will learn that the younger “Kittens” — who will also initially be unaware of the “Cougars” and vice versa — will also be attempting to vie for his affection.

Once the “Cougars” meet the “Kittens,” the claws come out and all the bachelorettes will try to win him over. From there, the field of suitors will be narrowed until Philippoussis picks his final bachelorette.

I guess “Age of Love” just sounds better than “Primetime Catfight,” though I would argue the latter is a more fitting title.

Age of Love premieres on Monday, June 18 at 10PM ET. You can see a preview clip of Age of Love on Vmix.com or get more info about the show at nbc.com.

[Via TV Squad]

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As its fans have feared, Sci Fi’s Battlestar Galactica will end its run after this, its 4th season. Executive producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eik (Bionic Woman) said they will wrap up the show’s storyline with these 22 episodes. The fourth season is in production in Vancouver and will premiere in November. The official announcement, planned for Friday, ends months of speculation from the show’s core group of dedicated fans.

“We respect the producers’ decision to end the series and are proud to have been the home of this groundbreaking show,” said Sci Fi Executive Vice President of Original Programming, Mark Stern in a statement.

“This show was always meant to have a beginning, a middle and finally, an end,” said Eick and Moore in a joint statement. “Over the course of the last year, the story and the characters have been moving strongly toward that end and we’ve decided to listen to those internal voices and conclude the show on our own terms.”

[Via broadcastingcable.com]

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Between the psychedelic animation, goofy photo-flipbook effect, saccharine-sweet music, and the all-around goofy news team, this local news promo is everything the movie “Anchorman” should have been.

I guess in the 1970s, even the local news teams were on drugs.

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No longer are our magnificent Monday night ‘Heroes’ going to be confined to merely mortal NBC TV (and SciFi Channel reruns). Our favorite Heroes and villains are coming to DVD this August with tons of bonus features.

The 7-disc set, available on DVD and HD DVD on August 28, 2007, will include the never-before-aired 73-minute premiere episode and over 50 deleted scenes.

The Heroes Season 1 DVD set is priced at $59.98 and is available for preorder on Amazon.com for $38.99 until July 24, 2007.

Here are some of the Heroes Season 1 DVD extras:

• Unaired Pilot: The Tim Kring cut with audio commentary — A full 73 uninterrupted minutes of the original, unaired, extended pilot episode, as Heroes’ creator Tim Kring first envisioned it, with a character never seen.

• The Making of “Heroes”: From concept to pop culture phenomenon, a behind-the-scenes look at the hottest new series on television.
• Special Effects: The secrets behind the eye-popping visuals that give the Heroes their amazing powers.
• The Stunts: A backstage look at the show’s hair-raising stunts.
• Mind Reader: Matt Parkman’s mind reading abilities reveal your inner Hero with a series of simple tests.
• Profile of Artist Tim Sale: A look at the Eisner Award-winning comic book artist (Spiderman, Batman, Daredevil) behind much of the Manga-influenced artwork used in the show.
• The Score: Go behind the scenes with Wendy Melvin and Lisa Coleman (of Prince’s The Revolution) as they create their ASCAP Award-winning musical score.
• Extra Scenes: 50 deleted and extended scenes.

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After months of hype, we finally get to see Michelle Ryan in NBC’s new remake of the Bionic Woman. In this clip from Vmix.com, we get to see Jamie Sommers (Michelle Ryan) find out she has bionic parts and freak out. Those are some sexy bionic toes by the way.

It’s tough to tell from just a few scenes, but Bionic Woman looks like it’s going to be a fun show. With the success of sci-fi shows like Heroes and Lost, Bionic Woman might just be the next big hit. Plus David Eick from Battlestar Galactica is the Executive Producer. Here’s another clip of Eick talking about the strong women characters in his shows.

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Did you watch the 2007 season finale of The Office (US)? Want to print out your own Schrute Bucks?! A $1,000 Schrute Bucks will you get an extra 5 minutes for lunch. I wonder how many Schrute Bucks it takes to get the Dwight bobblehead from nbcstore.com?

The Schrute Buck gfx was made by Digg.com user dawgma.

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There was a bit of a surprise when Katee Sackhoff told reporters that her time on the new NBC series “Bionic Woman” went from “one episode” to “recurring.” But all of that can be explained in one simple sentence: Sackhoff simply wowed network executives.

“She absolutely steals the screen in ‘Bionic,’” Angela Bromstad, president of NBC Universal Television Studio, told TV Week’s James Hibberd.

Some of the clips featuring Sackhoff, best known to genre fans as Kara “Starbuck” Thrace in SciFi Channel’s “Battlestar Galactica,” have been released to the Web by NBC Universal as a way to promote the series, which will make its debut this fall. In it, Sackhoff plays the original bionic woman who gets in a rooftop bionic battle with Jamie Sommers, played by series tar Michelle Ryan.

Sackhoff’s character originally was slated to be offed in the pilot, but executives liked her so much that she is now going to be pulling double duty between both shows which are filmed in Vancouver and produced by NBCU.

Sackhoff apparently isn’t the only BSG alum to be making the show either… two more actors familiar to “Battlestar” fans who have some type of role in the pilot.

[Via syfyportal.com]

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Less than a week after American broadcast network, CBS, pulled the plug on its post-Apocalyptic sci-fi series “Jericho,” fans have apparently been making contact with the network in droves, demanding that if nothing else, CBS find closure for the cliffhanger left at the end of Season 1.

That campaign has included letter writing and even the delivery of peanuts to the network, highlighting one of the final words of the series when Skeet Ulrich’s character of Jake Green tells the sheriff of the neighboring town of New Bern that is at war with Jericho, paying homage to a World War II story by his grandfather.

The campaign may have paid off, with CBS making an announcement on the official “Jericho” message boards that there could be plans in the works to at least wrap up the story.

“We have read your e-mails over the past few days and have been touched by the depth and passion with which you have expressed your disappointment,” wrote Nina Tassler, president of CBS Entertainment.

“Please know that canceling a television series is a very difficult decision. Hundreds of people at the network, the production company and the incredibly talented creative team worked very hard to build and serve the community for this show — both on-air and online. It is a show we loved, too. Thank you for supporting ‘Jericho’ with such passion. We truly appreciate the commitment you made to the series and we are humbled by your disappointment. In the coming weeks, we hope to develop a way to provide closure in the compelling drama that was the ‘Jericho’ story.”

While the series had a strong run of episodes early in the season, by the time it returned several weeks after its first part of the season, “Jericho” had stiff competition against “American Idol”- fueled programming on Fox among other places, but was still generating decent ratings for CBS.

[Via syfyportal.com]

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If you are a regular reader of Entertainment Weekly, then you might have seen the first photo of the upcoming Iron Man film they published last week. The picture got such a huge fan reaction in the blogosphere that Paramount decided to release a high resolution version of the photo.

Jon Favreau (Swingers) will direct Iron Man. Robert Downey Jr. (Less Than Zero) has the lead role of Tony Stark/Iron Man. Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges have also been cast in the film. Iron Man is slated to hit theaters on May 2nd 2008.

The high rez photos are definitely worth checking out.

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In the May 10th season finale of American sitcom My Name is Earl, Joy’s future lays in the hands of deaf lawyer as her trial finally arrives. It’s “baby cooking crazy”!

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Spider-Man 3 made a record breaking $148 million this past weekend. The film now holds the top spot for the most successful movie opening of all time. Sony Pictures, the studio who produced the film, was so happy with the North American box office results they announced that Spider-Man will return for at least three more movies.

Sony Pictures chief executive Michael Lynton had this to say to the BBC on Sunday night:

“Everybody has every intention of making a fourth, a fifth and a sixth and on and on.” There would be “as many as we can make good stories for…”

According to BoxOfficeMojo.com, Spider-Man 3 now holds the record for the most successful opening weekend in history, making $148m (£74m).

Here are the other films that round out the top ten:

1. Spider-Man 3 ($148m)
2. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest ($136m)
3. Spider-Man ($115m)
4. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith ($108)
5. Shrek 2 ($108m)
6. X-Men: The Last Stand ($102m)
7. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ($102m)
8. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban ($93m)
9. The Matrix Reloaded ($91m)
10. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone ($90m)

Michael Lynton went on to say: “When everybody comes up for air, we can think about how to make the next [Spider-Man film]” The box office results “way exceed our expectations.”

I just hope they stay with director Sam Rami. Most superhero franchises are already ruined by the 3rd film (Batman, X-Men, Superman, etc.), but Rami seems to have found a good balance between between story and special effects to keep the franchise fresh and entertaining.

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Maybe it’s something in the air. Maybe they were just having a bad day. Or maybe it was the handful of painkillers they swallowed moments before going on air (right Paula?). But whatever the explanation, weird, awkward interviews seem to be occurring at an ever more frequent rate. The website Double Viking has gathered the top 10 most awkward interview moments of all time.

The list includes such gems as Barbra Walters asking Katherine Hepburn what kind of tree she’d be and Tom Cruise attacking Matt Lauer about Scientology. But by far, my favorite moment is when Vanilla Ice grabs a baseball bat, destroys part of a TV set and makes Jon Stewart crap his pants.

Want to watch these YouTube clips on your iPod? Then check out this tutorial: How to Copy Files Off YouTube and Convert them for your Video iPod

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Sci Fi.com and Sci Fi Magazine are asking Internet users if they should pick up a new sci-fi comedy called Outer Space Astronauts.

Visitors are given access to 5 vignettes from the show on the SCI FI Pulse Broadband Network and asked to fill out a survey explaining what they think. Sci Fi says it will also take traffic into account when deciding whether or not to pick up the show.

Think you know how to program the American Sci Fi Channel better than NBC Universal? After they started airing wrestling on the Sci Fi Channel… who doesn’t.

You can watch the Outer Space Astronauts clips here.

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Recently Bob Garfield, from AdAge, got to interview Bill Gates during the Corbis Creativity 2.0 panel in Manhattan. Garfield asked Gates about a number of topics from Vista to IPTV. He also tried to get Gates to comment on a very sensitive topic… Apple’s “Get a Mac” advertising campaign. The campaign features actor/author John Hodgman who looks like Bill Gates and personifies a PC.

As you can imagine, Bill Gates is not amused by the ads. Here’s the portion of the interview transcript where Garfield asks Gates about the ads. Enjoy:

GARFIELD: I want to ask you one more thing: Those Mac ads — how do you feel about the John Hodgman character?

GATES: I can’t comment on someone else’s ad.

GARFIELD: OK … but he’s you.

GATES: Yeah, I’m not gonna comment on someone else’s ad.

GARFIELD: OK, well, Bill Gates, thank you so much for joining us.

(Silence)

GARFIELD: Can I just have a clean goodbye?

(Silence)

GARFIELD: OK, can you just say goodbye? Thank you or goodbye or something like that?

GATES: Goodbye.

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