News Bullets

• The Sci-Fi Wire reports that William Shatner (James T. Kirk) will voice the character Ozzie the Possum in the upcoming DreamWorks animated film Over the Hedge. "Ozzie has to show that when a possum is threatened, you pretend you are dead," director Tim Johnson told the Wire. "He explains to his daughter [voiced by singer Avril Lavigne] how you have to die, and of course, 'You die! DIE! DIE!' in the only way William Shatner can say it."

• Edenborn, the second novel from former Next Generation and Voyager writer Nick Sagan, is now available in paperback from Amazon.com. An excerpt from the book, which was awarded 5 stars and described as "one of the best post-apocalyptic novels you will ever read" by the British SFX Magazine, can be found on Sagan's official web site.

• As of Monday, Full Members of the Royal Shakespeare Company can now book tickets for the Complete Works cycle, including the plays Antony and Cleopatra and The Tempest, starring Patrick Stewart (Jean-Luc Picard). For Associate Members, booking opens on August 15, and for the general public, on September 5. Thanks go out to the PSN for this!

• Holly E. Ordway at DVD Talk was not impressed by the second-season DVD release of Star Trek: Enterprise. "My overall impression of Enterprise is, I have to admit, that it's very bland," she wrote. "As it stands right now, I'm in the position of thinking something I wouldn't have expected: that perhaps it really is time for the Star Trek franchise to take a good, long rest. Enterprise has a generous handful of faults, but the main one is that it lacks energy. Star Trek either needs to shake things up radically (and that means more than just issuing a new ship and crew) or call it a day."

• Similarly underwhelmed was Chris Beaumont at BlogCritics, although he admitted the second season also included interesting episodes such as "Minefield" and "Dead Stop."

• 11th Hour, the upcoming British thriller in which Patrick Stewart (Jean-Luc Picard) plays a physics professor specialising in tackling disasters caused by modern science, has gained a cast member. According to the News & Star, Ashley Jensen, currently appearing in the comedy Extras, will play Stewart's Special Branch bodyguard.

• And Jim Pappas at The Trades awarded new Trek novel "Vanguard: Harbinger" a B, calling the story compelling, but criticising the writing style.

• Sev Trek has a new page outlining just which cartoons you will be able to see if you're a paid subscriber to the site.

• Just in time for the World Championships, Decipher has updated the Current Rulings for the Star Trek Customisable Card Game.

• Walter Koenig (Pavel Chekov), Dominic Keating (Malcolm Reed) and Keegan De Lancie (Q2) will all be signing autographs at the Memorabilia in Birmingham, England this weekend. Many of the cast members of the original Battlestar Galactica will also be present. Thanks go out to 'Ned' for this!

• The Malaysian newspaper The Star suggests that the best solution to bad hair days would be to just shave it all off. Writer S.S. Yoga recalls Persis Khambatta starting this trend in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

• This Sunday, George Takei (Hikaru Sulu) will be the keynote speaker at the summer commencement exercises for the University of Hawaii at Manoa. More details can be found in the Star Bulletin.

• An X-Men 3 set report on SuperHeroHype includes a tale of a brief encounter with Patrick Stewart.

• Ian McCullen at the Sci-Fi Pulse has posted the first review of "To Boldly Go," a collection of classic Trek comics. "I'd recommend this collection of comic book stories to anyone who is interested in Star Trek, and of course comic books," McCullen wrote. "The collection just shows and illustrates just why Star Trek has such a diverse following, and the stories and art work contained within the pages are very true to the spirit of the TV series which was envisioned and lovingly conceived by the late Great Bird of the Galaxy Gene Roddenberry ."

• And satirical site The Spoof uncovers evidence that Michael Jackson is a Klingon.

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