JJ Abrams warned fans that his Star Trek would not be their Star Trek... in fact, he pretty much said he was going to take the mutilated carcasses of the franchise and play Frankenstein because THIS IS NOT A REBOOT. Which seems fairly stupid - the franchise was worn out and something entirely new may well have been to the benefit of it, rather than simply going out and making the cast younger and edgier.

Much was made of the teaser trailer released some time ago, where people are seen spot welding the Enterprise together, on the face of a planet... which - surprise! - vexed a lot of Trek fans who pointed out that we don't even weld modern ships together these days and that it's pretty stupid to build a ship on a planet... presumably because all previous instances of construction have been shown in orbit... which makes sense, given that the majority of ships in Star Trek have never shown any great affinity for landing on planets.

As one might imagine, the release of the new trailer has provoked a new round of concern and speculation. The greatest concern seems to be pretty obvious. This looks a LOT like a Star Wars trailer. A great deal of action, explosions and fisticuffs that put it more in the territory of summer blockbuster/popcorn movie than in traditional Star Trek territory.

Of course - if anything - this addresses what must be one of the main failings of the franchise to date... that they're prone to be ponderous introspection and a pretentiousness that often led them to be rather boring... only die hard Trek fans could really sit through the seemingly endless hours of tedium that are Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Even with the now infamously misleading editing of trailers, it seems unlikely that the new Trek film will have to worry about a dearth of action and in many ways, the fact that it was so easy to equate the Next Generation films with episodes was oft to their detriment - especially in terms of general appeal.

The other questionable decision is naturally the fact we have scenes with young Kirk and young Spock. No, not the 90210 aged types. We're talking Anakin podracing age. The opening shot is Kirk in a car (AN ACTUAL CAR) driving toward a cliff, before leaping out at the last minute and proclaiming his name. Little is ever really gained by showing bad ass protagonists as kids.

Terminator 2 got away with it because we'd really only HEARD about John Connor. He was never introduced as an adult character... and as a teen, he was actually pretty decent - and we're just ignoring that Sarah Connor Chronicles happened because it's canon defilement of the 1st degree.

It's not fair to judge a film on the basis of a trailer but Trek fans are already foaming at the mouth that this seems to be action, action, action. Perhaps what set Star Trek apart from much of what came before and what came after was the fact it wasn't predisposed to that. Oh, yes - even the original series had its fair share of fisticuffs and space battles but that was never the thrust of the show... and depending on what you like to believe, it was the necessity of fisticuffs and space battles that led to the prosaic, formulaic blandness of Voyager and Enterprise.

Trek fans are... often rather undiscerning - the fact some will still defend Voyager tooth and nail should be proof of that - but this seems to have irked those who are beyond the "any trek is good trek" mob. This was a fairly predictable moment from the time Abrams came on-board, he likes pretentious pseudo-intellectual stuff (just look at Lost)... which suits Trek down to a tee... but at the same time, he likes lots of big explosions and Mary Sues (just look at Alias).

What will the 11th Star Trek film be? Only time will tell... and whether it'll be a good or bad film remain to be seen... but it seems likely to be far more popcorn that Star Trek.

Good TV shows are fleeting things... to be treasured while they last... even seemingly untouchable shows like Lost, Prison Break and Heroes can quickly succumb to the high bar their own first seasons sets.

The easiest way to explain True Blood without giving too much away is...

It's a world much like our own... the only difference being - vampires are real and have revealed themselves to the world at large after the advent of a synthetic blood product called "Trublood", which allows them to be sustained without feeding on humans. As one might guess, this leads to a number of tensions - which form the backdrop for the story.

Much of the story focuses around Anna Pacquin's character - Sookie - a psychic girl, waiting tables in the deep South and the events surrounding her friends and family... To say more would be saying too much...

The show effortlessly balances drama and humour, with liberal helpings of suspense (the kind of fairly regular cliffhangers Heroes had in it's first season) and sex and violence and all that jazz. The vampire aspect is pervasive but not overwhelming... in fact, there's something of a magical realism here... this IS a world where things considered supernatural dwell but - much like Heroes - it's never to play second fiddle to the subject of interest... although, often the two are interwoven wonderfully.

The show masters magical realism in a way that few others can dream of... and in many respects, you can see this as being a suitable rebuttal to the notion of the ass kicking girl fantasy - namely Xena and Buffy and the imitators as numerous as they were unmemorable - where one felt that the comedy and slapstick of everything was upped to a point where it was clear that it was all rather tongue in cheek.

True Blood is... rather more mature - which isn't to say it lacks humour, far from it... but it's a rather more serious animal. Not that Buffy didn't love to indulge in endless vampire wangst but with True Blood it feels like something more than fodder for fangirls. There is a depth to the characters that means, they're not just "troubled vampire" or "psychic southerner"... and really, that's what puts this show a country mile above anything else to do with vampires.

Bender's Big Score was... a pretty good addition to Futurama... it fitted together nicely as a story and didn't get the "this is really just 4 episodes glued together" feeling that some of the Family Guy "movies" have had... although, one could argue that Family Guy episodes play like a dozen gags and pop culture references glued together...

Beast With A Billion Backs was considerably less enjoyable. The latest effort, Bender's Game, is in some ways better and in some ways worse than it... but they average out to be about the same and both short of Bender's Big Score by some distance.

The basic premise of the story is a parody of Dungeons & Dragons and Lord of the Rings... it's Futurama does fantasy, essentially. Which in itself works fine but it takes so LONG to get to what feels like the ACTUAL story, that you're halfway through the film by the time the set up is out the way.

The set up is that Mom is jacking up the price of dark matter... which leads to some fairly uninspired exposition and the paper thin reason for Futurama goes fantasy... a MAGICAL D-12! Given that it's hugely contrived - it seems a shame that they took so long to get around to the fantasy realm, which is quite interesting and not used enough.

Fans of the show will probably enjoy it but really, it should have been a lot better.

Dead Set - the name a play on words... with one being the literal situation of the show and the other, meaning motivated toward an objective - is a zombie show that falls somewhere between Sean of the Dead and 28 Days Later. Comparisons to both are inevitable as the show has some humour in it and of course, the increasingly popular track and field zombies.

In five instalments, the show catalogued your average track and field zombie outbreak - the twist being that the protagonists are all in some way involved with the infamous reality TV show Big Brother... because the writer is a well known loather of these shows, there was an expectation of satire... but beyond a few references and zombies dully staring at screens of the show, there isn't much... there is certainly some humour but for the most part, this is played as a fairly straight horror film.

Things kick off on eviction night... as one might expect, someone does ol' stupid act. It's really 28 days later because the infection is nigh on INSTANT. Cue track and field zombies. Including Davina McCall having her throat ripped out...

This sets into motion the dynamic of the things... the witless non-entities of Big Brother (and some of the production staff) stuck in a zombie apocalypse. There are some jokes but mostly straight horror.

The real problem with running zombies is... they kill tension. You have a bunch of people lumbering toward you? That's slow and intense. Running, it's a bit - oh, it's all over! Especially when they're magical zombies. The regular kind, they can run forever. No real need to eat, sleep, drink...

As it goes, the show is pretty good. It's fair to say, while it's not even tipping the scales at 90 minutes, at times - it feels like it's stretching the material a little thin but that's only at the low points... When the show is on form - it's firing on all cylinders and it DOES build momentum. The times it feels weak are toward the start.... overall, it's a fun zombie film.