From Spinner: We love a good crossover, especially when our favorite TV stars pick up a microphone and belt out some tunes.



The good folks over at Spinner have compiled a bunch of videos of TV celebs from Joey Lawrence to Zooey Deschanel as they showcase their vocal chops. Though a number of singers have moved from music to television, this list features stars who made it big on the small screen before picking up a microphone, to varying degrees of success.

Every time Wil Wheaton makes an appearance on 'The Big Bang Theory' (Thu., 8PM ET on CBS), it's been a blast. He seems to have embraced the notion of him being Sheldon's mortal enemy, which actually made this week's episode almost strange.

First, he invited Sheldon and Leonard to his place for a party, where we kept waiting for him to dig into Sheldon in some way. But maybe we've misunderstood him all this time. He's crazy-competitive in bowling, but he doesn't have anything personally against Sheldon.

He even fulfilled the broken promise that sparked Sheldon's anger all those years ago by giving him a signed Wesley Crusher figure in the packaging. It was a genuinely nice moment. But what's 'Big Bang' without a 'Star Trek' nemesis for Sheldon? Enter Brent Spiner.

A Thursday panel at Comic-Con International announced a new animated project about space that packs a stellar voice cast.

TV stars like William Shatner, Brent Spiner and Mark Hamill will join movie big shots like Chris Pine, Samuel L. Jackson and James Earl Jones in Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey.

Producer -- Dr. Larry "Doc" Kloor (scientist science fiction writer and the only human in history to earn two doctorates simultaneously) -- led the panel with special guests Bob Picardo, Doug Jones and a call-in by Pine.

According to Kloor, Pine plays Dave -- "a photon who lives in Sun City, at the core of the Sun. He's forced from the Sun and drawn into an epic battle between The Core (Shatner -- right) and The Void -- the embodiment of nothingness (Hamill)."

I made it my business to catch the episode of Family Guy which guest-voiced the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and I have to say I was somewhat disappointed.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed some parts of the episode. The "shut up Wil" line by Patrick Stewart had me in stitches, as well as the sudden death of Denise Crosby (obviously, the writers are ST:TNG fans). Hell, Patrick Stewart is a recurring guest on Seth McFarlane's other series American Dad.

It just seemed to me that after the brilliant Star Wars parody from last year, they would do something more with such a line-up of talent than simply "Stewie gets to hang out and go bowling with the cast." It was even relegated to the "B" plot, with the "A" plot being Meg's sudden faith in God as a result of watching Kirk Cameron on TV.

I was hoping for something more akin to an episode of The Next Generation done Family Guy-style. Or would that have been redundant of the Star Wars episode? What do you think? Was the episode decent or could it have used improvement?

There is life after Star Trek. Jonathan Frakes, Star Trek: The Next Generation's former "Number One," has moved on from sci-fi stardom to a successful career as a TV and film director. He's helmed four feature films, countless hours of Star Trek and Roswell, plus the two latest entries in TNT's Librarian telemovie franchise. Now, he's joining one of TV's most critically acclaimed new shows.

Frakes directed tonight's episode of Leverage, TNT's hit heist drama starring Timothy Hutton. The episode is a Star Trek reunion of sorts with Frakes behind the camera and his former Star Trek co-stars Brent Spiner (Data from TNG) and Armin Shimerman (Quark from Deep Space Nine) guest starring.

I spoke to Frakes by phone for a few minutes this week and, somehow, I was able to hold back from asking him a million geeky Star Trek questions. (Now I'll never know if "Tom" Riker ever escaped from the Cardassians!) We discussed his love for Leverage, his friendships with his former cast mates, and the possible return of "Number One" Will Riker.

Tonight at dinner, a friend of mine mentioned that he recently met Brent Spiner at an event. He then proceeded to tell me about how a particularly annoying Star Trek fan spent the entire evening bothering Spiner with questions about his character Data.

It reminded me of an episode of Joey where a similar thing happened, except in the episode, Spiner was more than happy to reminisce about his Star Trek days. He even went so far as to take Joey's nephew out to his car to show him his actual uniform from the show.

I'm reading this review of the Threshold DVD set in the New York Times (yes, The New York Times - glad to see they actually have a review of the set), and while I knew that the set includes the final four episodes that weren't shown on CBS last year, I didn't realize that the creators found out about the cancellation before the final episode was filmed and actually had a little time to put a little closure on the show.

The paper describes the finale as "slapstick comedy," and an episode that will remind viewers of Three Men and a Baby, Rosemary's Baby, and Night of the Living Dead.

Wow, with that description, I might have to get this set after all. Though the Sci-Fi Channel is currently showing repeats of the series (including a mini marathon tomorrow night at 8) and the run will include the final four episodes.

According to ComingSoon.net, Brent Spiner, who played Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation and associated theatrical movies, has ruled out a return to the role in the new Trek movie, which will be directed by J.J. Abrams. It's not that he doesn't think the movie, tentatively titled Star Trek XI, is going to be any good. He just thinks he's too old for the role.

"There certain characters that I think work in a youthful way and I think I really skated along the edge in the last couple movies as it was," he tells Simon Thompson of BANG Showbiz. Of course, he also jokes that he'll play the android again if the money is right. I think that's the same joke Leonard Nimoy made before Star Treks III through VI, and we all know how that turned out.

Was it me or did it seem like there was an incredible number of commercials during this two-hour premiere? Everytime I started getting into the plot, something dramatic would happen and they'd go to a commercial.

The first episode of Threshold was half X-Files, half The Invaders. It was half good, half oh-will-you-please-just-get-on-with-it. Let's start with the latter first.