The descent into animated madness begins on Wednesday, February 8th. The “members” of the Simpsons (the voice actors or just people dressed in costumes?) are expected to arrive at 3:30pm PT to get things underway. Then it goes until either they run out of episodes or the last surviving person with verifiable brain activity drops (Feb 12th if they want to break the record).

I think the only thing that’s missing is the occasional blips and bleeps from various consoles, but I imagine that would just be something you’d hear on the bridge. Still, this is probably the closest you’ll ever get to closing your eyes and getting a real sense of being aboard a Federation starship. And, yes, these sounds are specific to Star Trek the Next Generation. Different shows from different eras actually do sound different.

I may be more of a fan of the original Trek, but I’m going to space out to this sometime soon…

Spartacus: Vengeance premieres on Starz! on Friday, January 27th, 2012 at 10pm.

Below is your first chance to catch a glimpse of the first 3 minutes of the new season along with an introduction from Liam McIntyre. Be warned, it’s bloody brutal.

In response to this tragic turn of events where Community may not be seen on television for potentially 9 months, the gang at Greendale Community College put together this video via College Humor:

For longtime fans, this set has got to be the holy grail of Farscape goodness. This complete series Blu-Ray set is comprised of 20 discs packed with all 4 seasons and more than 15 hours of extras, including 31 audio commentaries, 3 archival documentaries, 90 minutes of deleted scenes, video profiles and behind-the-scenes interviews with the cast and crew of Farscape. But the crown jewels of bonus features has to be Farscape Undressed, the rarely seen behind-the-scenes special, and Memories of Maya: An Epic Journey Explored, a brand new documentary that revisits the cast and crew as the reminisce on their experiences and the legacy of this sci-fi cult classic series.

Unfortunately, there are parts of this set (In the Beginning: A Look Back with Brian Henson) that I dared not watch, because they contained spoilers for the entire series (which, again, I haven’t watched entirely yet). A big thanks goes to A+E Networks Home Entertainment for putting that spoiler warning right on the disc packaging or I would have been severely pissed off (I hate spoilers).

Yes, some of the characters look a bit “puppety”, but I don’t mind that a bit. They ARE puppets, after all. I grew up on the works of Brian Henson‘s father, Jim, and even though Farscape is more along the lines of Dark Crystal puppet technology than Sesame Street (oh so very far from Sesame Street!), it is still amazing to see the actors performing against actual physical creatures. But most of all, for me, it’s FUN! For example, I don’t recall any of the Muppets farting helium (well, maybe that one time).

But how does it look all cleaned up and highly defined for modern television viewing? It may only be less than 10 years since it went off the air, but that’s eons in technology years. The people behind the visual upgrade took painstaking measures to give the series the best look possible, using the highest quality source materials available to them and polishing it until it could live up to their fans’ high expectations. It may not be widescreen, but it’s definitely clean. If you’re still suffering along with rough VHS copies, you’re due for an upgrade.

Whether you’re a die-hard fan or brand new to the series like me, I expect you, me, and John Crichton are in for the interstellar ride of their lives. Farscape: the Complete Series Blu-Ray is available now in stores and online.

At the time of this post, Amazon currently has the complete series on Blu-Ray for only $96.99, which is more than $100 off the MSRP for a limited time. Get it while you can by clicking below!

This, to me, feels a bit like cheating on Adult Swim. So, to make it feel less weird, I am watching the as-yet unaired episodes at night, under the covers in my bed, with my pants off/boots on, as usual. No, not weird at all.

However, to up the weird quotient, I dug into the DVD extras to find it chock full of goodies, including some ditched sketches still in animatic format, a bunch of promos that include a series of top 10 episode intros made by Seth Green, Matt Senreich, and Tom Root for New Zealand Comedy Central, and lots of behind-the-scenes footage from the voice-over sessions. There’s even a teeny little extra featuring Mr Nathan Fillion and his wacko conspiracy theories on how Robot Chicken gets all of these amazing people to lend their voices to this creepy little stop-motion puppet show.

One thing to note is that this entire 2 disc DVD collection is very uncensored, so if you’re sensitive to such things, well, you’re probably not much of a fan of this show, because they censor very little. But if you don’t like naughty words, you might want to cover your ears when you watch this or just mute the whole thing. Of course, that would be sad because a lot of good people worked hard to swear on this show for your amusement, including Kevin Bacon, Elijah Wood, Megan Fox, Jon Hamm, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mila Kunis, Bryan Cranston, Christopher Lloyd, Katee Sackhoff, the aforementioned Captain Tightpants, Jeremy Renner, Brian Austin Green, JK Simmons, Jena Malone, Macaulay Culkin, and tons more that will shock and surprise and possibly even make you shrug your shoulders with indifference and/or confusion.

I won’t spoil any of the surprises, but here are a few teases on the skits that stood out.

• Ever wanted to see Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Veronica Mars team up and/or beat the holy hell out of each other? Robot Chicken‘s got that. Except it looks more like a bake off gone bad.
• Marty McFly figures out a better option than going back to the future.
• The first thing you learn at Hogwarts should be enunciation.
• Precious Gone Wild (this sentence was not meant to sound sexy in any way).
• Loving a vampire and a werewolf is not a game (thank god).
• The Nerd and the talking car of his dreams.
• Thank God Clark Kent never became an EMT.
• Babies are jerks.
• Hal Jordan and Frodo choose to accessorize in fun new ways.
• The true secret origin of the Robot Chicken with a toy battle royale to end all toy battle royaleseses!

The 2nd half of Robot Chicken season 5 premieres this Sunday, October 23rd at 11:30pm on Adult Swim.
The complete Robot Chicken season 5 is available on DVD and Blu-Ray in stores October 25th.

Obviously, that’s already happened with the departure of Frank Darabont early in the production of the second season, but when it comes to the cast, I guess we shouldn’t worry about when someone will get killed off, but how and when… because it’s going to happen to most of them. Seriously, I wouldn’t want to be caught yawning or complaining about craft services on that set, because you know that any problems you may have as an actor will result in your character getting offed using the bitey end of a walker.

So to be clear, I just don’t want to get my heart broken. No, I’m not worried about the quality of the Walking Dead‘s sophomore season. From what I can see, it will be even more intense than the first, but in order to remain vital, thrilling, and appropriately gut-wrenching, someone we love has gotta die. And that means they better make us love that character up to the very end and beyond the moment they’re torn to shreds by the walking dead. And I don’t want to see it coming. I read the comics religiously, so I know who’s still kicking in Robert Kirkman‘s comic zombie universe. And as much as I don’t want to see beloved characters get munched before their time, the show has to have some level of unpredictability to it. And while the television show will go far to bring us the goriest, most gruesome deaths possible, they’ll never reach the debauched depths of the comic book series. Standards and practices won’t allow it. Plus, the comics don’t have to worry about putting actors out of a job (not that Hollywood is that sympathetic to the common actor’s employment plight in the first place).

From what I can see, the Walking Dead has the gore down pat, especially with Greg Nicotero manning the practical effects throne. No qualms there. The cast and crew will have to do everything in their power to make us care for these people, put us among them, terrify the audience in the way that the comic book does me (I often have trouble sleeping even after reading issues WITHOUT a zombie attack in it). And when it comes for that character to die, I want to feel like MY guts are being ripped out. Breaking Bad does that to me (also on AMC) and there’s not one zombie in it.

So here’s to a brand new season of the Walking Dead on AMC. May the most terrifying thing on tv for years to come be a Sunday night full of zombies and the desperate, weary, and broken people who try to kill them…

By the way, the cast and crew of the Walking Dead were a part of the yearly PaleyFest earlier this year and shared a few thoughts on what what they were thinking season 2 might have in store for us…

I’m not kidding. This is not like one of the 50 or so previous news bits on how that Arrested Development movie is really possibly maybe kinda sorta coming to theaters sometime soon. I completely understand if you harbor a healthy dose of skepticism regarding all things Arrested Development, but it’s really happening… in 2013*. Well, the tv episodes should be appearing in 2012*, possibly on Showtime, IFC, or even Netflix, each of whom have shown interest in hosting the fan-favorite series’ return. There’s even a slim chance that the network that cancelled Arrested Development could bring back the Bluths on sister network FX. While its new home is still up in the air, we know it will happen regardless. If no one bites, I’ll offer up my living room for ’round-the-clock showings. I’ll provide the snacks. BYOB. Blue body paint optional.

Attack of the Show will have an exclusive interview with Ron Howard airing this Thursday night on G4 at 7pm ET/PT.

* All dates subject to change. If you’re an AD fan, you know how this works…