FOX PHOTOS

• Joss Whedon is a busy boy. Dollhouse starring Buffy the Vampire Slayer alumna Eliza Dushku (pictured, left) is shaping up for Fox and now comes a trailer for an online project called Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. The sci-fi musical will star Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Howser, M.D., and How I Met Your Mother) and Nathan Fillion (pictured, right, of Firefly and Serenity). Whedon fans who remember the musical Buffy episode “Once More, With Feeling” will want to give Doctor Horrible a look.
• The new direct-to-DVD Futurama movie, The Beast With a Billion Backs, is now available. WARNING: This toon is not for tots. Hot tentacle lovin’, here we come!
• If you’re just not feeling geeky enough, try this:

THINKGEEK

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Welcome to Geek in Review, a look back at the last seven days or so in the work of all things geeky.

This week we had the release of the long-awaited fourth Indiana Jones movie and a Nintendo game meant to get us potatoes up off our couches. (more…)

• For those of us without BBC America, the raucous Doctor Who spinoff Torchwood is now available on the iTunes Store. Excuse me while I hunt down those gift cards … (Outpost Gallifrey)
• As expected, Sir Ian McKellen will reprise his role as Gandalf in the two films based on The Hobbit to be directed by Guillermo del Toro. (Empire magazine)
• The CW confirms that Michael Rosenbaum is leaving Smallville, but guest appearances may be in the works. Replacing our beloved Lex Luthor as the major villain on the show: Doomsday (who killed the Man of Steel in the Superman comics) and an unnamed female foe who “will be familiar to many fans.” (Sci-Fi Wire)
• Star Wars: Betrayal, the first book in the soon-to-end Legacy of the Force series, is available for free as a PDF, eBook or audiobook download now through May 13. (Del Rey)
• Many of Charles Darwin’s manuscripts are now available online for your free perusal, just in case you can’t make it to Cambridge. (NPR’s Morning Edition)
• Marvel Comics is launching a comic book series based on the cult sci-philosophy novel Ender’s Game. Also, a long-awaited movie based on the book is in pre-production but has lost Wolfgang Petersen as director. (Story)
• A series of comic books based on The X-Files is out there. Or soon will be. (Story)
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles will be back! (Story)
• Free Comic Book Day is this Saturday, May 3. (Free Comic Book Day 2008)

Clear your schedules: George Lucas’ CGI Star Wars epic The Clone Wars will air on Friday nights along with Batman: The Brave and the Bold, which will feature the Caped Crusader teaming up with Green Arrow, Aquaman and other superheroes. Cartoon Network made this announcement in their upfronts Thursday night.

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Geek in Review picks up a month later with a roundup of news from the far corners of the science fiction and fantasy universe we like to call Nerdvana:

1. Battlestar Galactica’s Tahmoh Penikett (Karl “Helo” Agathon) has signed on to the latest Joss Whedon-Eliza Dushku venture. He’ll play an FBI agent in Dollhouse.

2. Officially canceled: Bionic Woman by NBC and Jericho (again) by CBS. But don’t be surprised if Jericho emerges from the brink of destruction to find a new home on cable. It’s not the end of the world.

3. Sir Ian McKellen blogs that he is eager to reprise his role as Gandalf the wizard in a big-screen version of The Hobbit, and will do so “if Peter Jackson and I have anything to do with it, he being the producer and me being, on the whole, a very lucky actor.” Although Guillermo del Toro is widely expected to direct, nothing is official.

4. The truth is out there once more.

First, the latest news:

• There’s trouble in Middle-earth - again! The Tolkien estate is suing New Line Cinema for profits from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. This may cause yet another delay in the long-awaited production of The Hobbit.

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• WoW! The ubiquitous MMORPG is getting physical. Upper Deck (take that, jocks!) will produce a miniatures game based on World of Warcraft. It’s due out in the fall.
• There are rumors that the new animated series Clone Wars will premiere in UK theaters before its small-screen debut. George Lucas has betrayed America for the last time!
• After just one season as a regular cast member on Stargate Atlantis, Amanda Tapping is leaving the show to focus on a series called Sanctuary that she has sold to the Sci-Fi Channel. She’ll be replaced as commander of the Atlantis base by Robert Picardo, who played the annoying Coach Cutlip on The Wonder Years and the equally annoying holographic doctor on Star Trek: Voyager.

Looking into the crystal ball:

• It’s the bomb! The post-apocalyptic drama Jericho returns to television Tuesday. Fans went all Star Trek on the network and brought it back from the brink of annihilation. I’ll stop with the nuclear jokes now. (Boom!)
• Finally! The first teaser trailer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will debut in theaters this week with The Spiderwick Chronicles, according to Variety. It will, of course, hit the Web shortly thereafter. UPDATE: Early risers can catch the teaser first on the Valentine’s Day edition of Good Morning America.
• The CGI phenom Beowulf will be available on DVD Feb. 26.

• It’s official: The Hollywood Reporter reports that Guillermo del Toro will direct The Hobbit, the long-awaited prequel to Peter Jackson’s epic Lord of the Rings trilogy. Jackson will stay on as producer. Del Toro’s genre credits are impressive: Blade II, Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy and its forthcoming sequel and an expected adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s chilling short story At the Mountains of Madness.

• A Los Angeles Times interview reveals that the fourth season of Doctor Who will probably premiere here in April on The Sci Fi Channel, and with it The Sarah Jane Adventures. David Tennant returns as the Time Lord known as the Doctor, and for the premiere (always a Christmas episode) he is joined by British pop star Kylie Minogue. Comedian Catherine Tate then begins travelling full time in the TARDIS, a time ship in the shape of a police box that is bigger on the inside than on the outside. Sarah Jane, a spinoff starring former traveling companion Elizabeth Sladen as investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith, is a more kid-friendly take on the Whoniverse than previous spinoff Torchwood, which airs on BBC America. Pictured above: David Tennant and Elizabeth Sladen in Doctor Who.

• Speaking of Sci Fi, the network announced it has picked up Sanctuary, a scripted (!) high-def Web series starring and co-created by Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis star Amanda Tapping. Filming is set for March.
• Also speaking of Sci Fi, that network and The History Channel both debuted dueling ‘UFO Hunters’ shows - on the same day and in the time slot. Spooky!
• Lego turned 50.
• Last weekend, thousands of comic book fans, cosplay enthusiasts and many celebrities descended upon Mesa Convention Center for Phoenix Cactus Comicon 2008.