John Billingsley co-stars in the Sci-Fi Channel original movie "Dead & Deader," written and produced by Mark A. Altman of "Free Enterprise" fame. Armin Shimerman also has a role in the horror flick. The story is about a soldier, played by Dean Cain, who turns half-zombie when he is bitten by an infected beetle, then returns home and finds that all his former comrades-in-arms have become walking dead. The movie premieres Saturday, December 16, at 9 p.m. ET/PT, 8:00 Central. It will repeat the same night four hours later, then again on Thursday, Dec. 21, at 9/8c. As always, rely on your local listings!

G4 to Launch "Next Generation 2.0" January 15

Following the success of its interactive "Star Trek 2.0" since April, cable network G4 will launch a similar presentation next month for the Captain Picard clan. "Star Trek: The Next Generation 2.0" will premiere January 15 in the Monday-Friday 9 p.m. (ET) slot — where plain-ol' TNG is currently running — and will feature on-screen live chat, behind-the-scenes info, trivia games, and other interactive features including an extension of the "Spock Market" with ticker symbols for the Enterprise-D crewmembers. We will bring you more about this when the time draws nearer.

Award Nominations: Coto, Abrams & Lindelof, Moore, Fuller, Lips

'Tis the season for just about every trade organization in Hollywood to start announcing their award nominations. This week the Writers Guild of America (WGA) announced their nominations for outstanding achievement in television and radio writing during 2006, and several former and future Trek people are on that list. Manny Coto, Enterprise writer/producer, is among the writers named for 24, which is nominated in the "Dramatic Series" category (24 won the Emmy for Best Drama earlier this year, after Coto joined the creative team). Competing with 24 is Lost, with "Star Trek XI" producers J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof listed among those writers.

In the "New Series" category, Bryan Fuller — Voyager writer/producer — is one of the nominees for Heroes. Ronald D. Moore — writer/producer for The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine — has a solo nomination under "Episodic Drama" for his season premiere script this fall on Battlestar Galactica. The WGA Awards will be handed out on February 11, simultaneously in New York and Los Angeles.

In other recent awards news, we congratulate The Flaming Lips for their three Grammy nominations, announced last week. Lips bassist Michael Ivins and the band's manager Scott Booker and his wife were special guests on the set of Enterprise's "Demons," playing background miners in the underground Moon scenes (related story). The group was nominated for "Best Rock Instrumental Performance," "Best Alternative Music Album" and "Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical." The Grammy Awards will air Sunday, February 11, on CBS.

Trek Fan Set for Third Spacewalk in a Week

Speaking of Trek fans who have visited the set of Enterprise, one of them is in space right now. Captain Robert "Beamer" Curbeam is on the Space Shuttle Discovery getting ready for a third spacewalk in a week, planned for Saturday, to rewire the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the ongoing construction of the orbiting laboratory. In January 2004, Curbeam visited the set of Enterprise as a guest of Terry Matalas, assistant to executive producer Brannon Braga, and had his picture taken with Jolene Blalock (at left). This is Curbeam's third excursion into the final frontier, the first in 1997 also on Discovery, and the second in 2001 on Atlantis. He and his six crewmates are halfway through their 12-day mission, which launched last Saturday, Dec. 9.

UPDATE 12.18.06: On Monday Curbeam set a record for the most spacewalks completed on a mission by a single crewmember, taking his fourth EVA on the (extended) 13-day Discovery flight, in order to fix a jammed solar panel on the ISS. Visit Space.com for all the latest details.

New Shows: Fuller, Begley

And speaking of Bryan Fuller, he may have yet another new show on the air soon. ABC has committed to producing a pilot episode he's written called Pushing Daisies, which is being described as a "romance-tinged procedural" that follows a man who can touch dead people — and bring them back to life. Fuller knows a thing or two about dead people, having created Showtime's Dead Like Me, along with Wonderfalls.

Ed Begley Jr., who played "Henry Starling" in Voyager's "Future's End," will star with his wife, actress Rachelle Carson, in an environmentally-themed reality show starting in January on the Home & Garden network (HGTV) called Living with Ed. A press release describes it thusly: "Rachelle often struggles over living green with her eco-obsessed husband ... The show is set in the couple's modest, two-bedroom Studio City home that is entirely solar-powered and off the power grid." A minimum of six episodes will explore "the extraordinarily funny, contentious chemistry of the couple, living their lives and sharing their experiences with the audience to create an eco-friendly lifestyle." HGTV will preview Living with Ed on New Year's Day at 1 p.m. ET/PT, immediately following the Rose Parade. The show takes its regular timeslot on Sunday nights at 10 p.m. beginning January 7.

Videos to Watch; Beagle's "Last Unicorn"; Reddick

If you haven't done so already, visit the website of "Star Trek: New Voyages" and download the newly completed episode of the independent production, called "To Serve All My Days," featuring Walter Koenig as a suddenly aged Chekov. The one-hour webisode was written by venerable Trek scribe D.C. Fontana. Be prepared for some serious surprises!

Koenig and most of the other Original Series cast members — including James Doohan — are featured in a British TV documentary from 2002 that has recently been posted on YouTube.com. "Star Trek: After They Were Famous" can be found in four parts at this link.

On February 6, the classic animated fantasy "The Last Unicorn" will be re-released in a 25th anniversary special edition DVD. "Unicorn" was written by Peter S. Beagle — who also penned the TNG episode "Sarek" — and features Rene Auberjonois in the voice cast. Based on Beagle's immensely popular novel of the same name, the film is a tale of a unicorn who sets out on a quest to find her lost brothers and sisters. You can pre-order a copy of the DVD, autographed by Hugo Award winner Beagle, through ConlanPress.com.

An Indianapolis publication called INtake Weekly has published an interview with our resident cartoonist David Reddick, describing why he draws "The Trek Life" and why he enjoys attending conventions, such as the recent Starbase Indy where he emceed. "Star Trek fans, and I'm one of them, are people who like to have fun. They are great people," Reddick says. Besides, "The conventions are great fodder for the sketchbook." You can find the article at this link.

Celeb Briefs: Picardo, Alley, Damon

Robert Picardo will drop by a computer store in San Jose, Calif., on Saturday, January 6, to sign autographs and maybe "perform a song or two from his CDs." He will be at Mac-Pro Systems & Software on 1160-A Blossom Hill Road starting at 10 a.m.

Stop the presses: Kirstie Alley ("Saavik" in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan") has declared that she will wait six months before hitting the sack with any potential partner. That's right ... take a breath, calm down, we know this is a lot to absorb ... but Alley recently told Ladies' Home Journal, "When I find someone who I'm really, really interested in, I am not having sex with that person for at least six months. I take sex seriously, and if you think you might want to spend the rest of your life with someone, six months is a drop in the bucket." You tell 'em, girl.

Matt Damon, the movie star most popularly rumored to be first in line to play a young James T. Kirk in the upcoming "Star Trek XI," has said that the talk is premature, but he's open to the idea of taking over the iconic role. "If the script was good, I'd do it," Damon told SCI FI Wire. "But, yeah, I heard that [rumor]. I think J.J. Abrams or somebody said that at [a] press junket or something, and it got picked up [by the media and Star Trek fans]." Abrams has said recently that work is on track to release the new "Trek" movie in 2008, but that work is primarily in the script development stage right now.