The nominee list for the 84th annual Academy Awards was the usual mix of gratification, head-scratching, and hair-pulling.

Hugo, the delightful fantasy film from Martin Scorsese, actually led the nominations with 11, including Best Picture, Directing, and Adapted Screenplay. And Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris is also up for Picture, Directing, and Original Screenplay.

But not a single performance in any of the dozens of sci-fi/fantasy films released in 2011 was deemed worthy of a moment's attention. And thanks to the Academy's grudge against motion capture, The Adventures of Tintin was missing not only from the Best Picture and Directing categories, but even from Animated Feature--only its score (by Howard Shore) was nominated.

And some might consider it the greatest crime of all that Transformers: Dark of the Moon was actually nominated for three Oscars. Read on...

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Although its title suggests that the cowboys gave up and Harry Potter stepped in (or perhaps Harry Dresden?), Aliens vs. Wizards is actually a children-oriented series about a fight to control Earth's magic that happens to be the next endeavor for star writer-producer Russell T. Davies.

The 12-episode series, created by Davies and his frequent writing partner Phil Ford and produced at BBC Cymru Wales, will air on the BBC's children's channel, CBBC.

Davies has spent a good deal of his career developing children's series like Dark Season, Children's Ward, and The Sarah Jane Adventures, and strove to make his reboot of Doctor Who as family friendly as possible—though the same could hardly be said for some of his other efforts, like Casanova and Queer as Folk. Nonetheless it's clear that offering intelligent entertainment for youngsters is of longstanding importance to him.

"Writing for children is the biggest challenge of all," Davies said, "and I think CBBC stands right at the heart of broadcasting. We're joining genres too—the show's a wild, funny, thrilling and sometimes scary collision of magic and science fiction."

Aliens vs. Wizards, slated for a debut this fall, depicts the clash between young wizard, Tom Clarke, and aggressive aliens, the Nekross. It's being backed by BBC and the growing international drama and reality series producer FreemantleMedia Enterprises; FME, which also handles Merlin internationally among many other titles, will distribute the show outside the UK.

What Davies isn't working on right now, apparently, is Torchwood, which is "still very much on hold" according to star Eve Myles. (Good news and bad news: it's not active but it's also not dead.) Davies was in LA to oversee Torchwood: Miracle Day, but returned to the UK to be with his partner, who's reportedly been diagnosed with cancer; Aliens vs. Wizards represents the kind of project that can keep him close to home.

That said, both Myles and co-star John Barrowman are willing and ready to make another Torchwood season whenever the stars align. "John is very much on the same page as me," she said, "in that if and when they need us, they can just pick the phone up and we will be there before they've even put the phone down, because it's something we love doing."

"Every series we've changed our format," she added. "We've always had a gap in between, so fingers crossed, because we've got such an outstanding loyal fan base. They deserve Torchwood to go ahead with something else to draw a line under it, for the fans to have a bit of closure.
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He may have a lot of credits--a regular on Alias for the whole run of the series, Moonlight, Clerks II, a long string of guest spots--but when I see that mug my brain goes straight to Larry, the nosy amateur ufologist who witnessed Liz's shooting in the pilot episode of Roswell (and who later returned for the convention episode, even more wound up in his hobby/obsession), asking sheriff Valenti the telling and inconvenient question, "Where's the bullet?"

It's Kevin Weisman we're talking about, and my interest in Awake is now boosted by the news that he'll be joining the cast as a cryptic recurring character known as "Mr. Blonde."

According to an exclusive EW report, the sinister Mr. Blonde will haunt Detective Britton (Jason Isaacs), playing a role in both of his parallel worlds. It's not clear what he's after, but he seems to have revealing information about the car crash that brought about the jarring split in Britton's life.

On his fanpage, Weisman expressed enthusiasm for the show he's joining: "Looking forward to working on NBC's midseason show, AWAKE next week. I just watched the pilot, and it is fantastic. The cast is frakking stellar." Gotta love an actor who's geeky enough not to be afraid to regularly use the word frakking.

Meanwhile, another familiar face: Frances Fisher is guesting on A Gifted Man, says TVLine. Your least favorite Eureka character will play a meddling mother to one of Michael Holt's friends. Hmmm--one of the passengers on the Titanic guesting on A Gifted Man. Coincidence? (jk!) Also soon to guest on the same show: actress and singer Christina Milian, as a spoiled pop star with a mysterious malady.

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