In late March HBO CEO Richard Plepler made my Game of Thrones-loving, non-cable having heart go pitter patter when he suggested HBO might, at some point, bundle their online streaming service HBO GO with Internet service, meaning that even if one doesn’t get cable one could still pay to get HBO shows legally online.

Now Time Warner’s CEO has stepped in to say “Not so fast!” It was a nice dream while it lasted.

NBC’s spent quite a lot of money filming the pilot to Bryan Fuller‘s Munsters remake Mockingbird Lane, but is disinclined to pick up the show. The good news, however, is that they are going to show us the pilot! As, naturally, a Halloween special. This clip doubles as a promo for the airing, and our first look at any footage from the adaptation.

Things that should qualify someone for directing an episode of a TV show: Experience working with actors. A good director’s reel. Proven ability to come in on time and budget.

One thing that should not serve as a prerequisite: Being a man. We think that goes without saying, but director Barbara Stepansky found that that wasn’t the case when a director/producer outright told her that she wouldn’t be hired because “The lead actor hates female directors.”

Last week we posted about our rage over the utterly ridiculous (and unfounded) complaints circulating the web over Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas‘ hair. As we wrote it we were kind of secretly hoping that we were blowing it out of proportion, that it was a small enough story that it would never get back to Douglas herself. No such luck. Douglas has most certainly heard about the unflattering attention her hair has been getting by some, and she’s responded in kind. Click through the jump to see what she has to say, along with some other Olympic athletes who have been receiving some less-than-flattering attention based on their appearance.

Everyone on the Internet is mean. Seriously, every single person who has ever booted up a computer is a total jerk, and that is the only plausible explanation for the vitriol of YouTube users, the violent comments hurled at feminist pop culture critic Anita Sarkeesian, and just the general garbage spewed on Twitter all of the time. At least, that would be the easy explanation behind our culture’s predisposition to online flame wars. As it turns out, the answer to what makes us all so mean on the Internet, and what to do about it, is fairly nuanced, and a difficult problem to fix.

This 15-minute video proves something really special: Lt. Worf (played by Michael Dorn) was the Rodney Dangerfield of the starship Enterprise. He probably never got the takeout he wanted, he probably never got to watch the TV shows he wanted, and he was never taken up on his brilliant strategies for saving the crew and/or multiverse. Oh, well.

(via io9)

Previously in Star Trek

After the controversial revelation that only two songs were nominated for the Best Original Song award at the Oscars, despite plenty of other good songs being perfectly eligible for a nod, Deadline is now reporting that neither of the two nominated songs — “Man or Muppet” from The Muppets and “Real in Rio” from Rio — will be performed during the telecast. So, if you were planning on tuning in for the sole purpose of seeing a Muppets musical number, you can go ahead and make other plans. We’d like to thank the Academy for making their awards show even more boring than it was going to be.

While this is not an unexpected turn of events, iconic director and writer of zombie movies George Romero revealed that he was asked to direct a few episodes of AMC‘s The Walking Dead but turned it down. In fact, while he had other reasons, he turned it down in favor of shooting The Zombie Autopsies. Even though this undead match-up would have been one for the ages, it’s understandable why the Godfather of Zombies wouldn’t be interested in The Walking Dead — his zombies are all his own.

Christopher Nolan has taught him well. The hosts of Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review could probably waterboard Cillian Murphy about his role in The Dark Knight Rises and he’d still have nothing to say.

(via Bleeding Cool)

Those in charge of such things in the UK are calling for stricter regulations on scientific research into human-animal hybrids, saying that some of it is getting too weird to be morally acceptable. While it is actually not that uncommon to incorporate animal DNA into solving a human health problem — such as hemophilia — some scientific researchers think that there aren’t enough regulations to stop the more wily scientists from trying to do things that should only happen in science fiction. So, all of you Brits who were hoping to fuse your DNA with the super-healing powers of dolphins, start your Twitter campaigns now.