Most people know the recently-knighted Patrick Stewart from his movie and TV roles, many of which are of the sci fi / fantasy variety. Of course, there's Jean-Luc Picard of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation,' but there's also Charles Xavier in the 'X-Men' series and the voice of Avery Bullock on 'American Dad.'

But back in his native England, Sir Patrick is just as well known for his Shakespearean work, both on-stage and on the screen. Some of that work will be on display on April 28, when he reprises the role of Claudius (he first played the role on TV 30 years ago) in PBS's production of 'Hamlet' on 'Great Performances.' As Nick mentioned yesterday, the production, with David Tennant in the title role, mixes the classic dialogue with modern dress and settings to give the play a more contemporary feel.

Stewart will also perform in the title role of 'Macbeth' for a similarly-staged production airing on PBS later this year. I sat down with Sir Patrick in January, when he presented at the TCAs; we spoke about the two productions, what his classic training brought to his 'Star Trek' role, his guest turn on 'Extras' and how his first ever IT guy was none other than Wil Wheaton.

All amateur 'Star Trek' videos and movies possess a certain visceral tone that can make even the most nerve damaged human being cringe in pain. This one, however, might just kill them.

The not-at-all terrible people from the "Everything is Terrible" blog uncovered a video from some unidentified church group (can't say I blame them) who produced an absolutely awful Christian-themed 'Star Trek' parody that attempts to teach their flock the morals dangers of producing their own badly acted 'Star Trek' tribute.

It's so bad that it's either making Jesus laugh or God cry in that order. Jesus just always struck me as a bigger Trekkie than God.

No, you aren't looking at the world's most accurate model of the U.S.S. Enterprise done in dust bunnies. It's actually much smaller than that.

You are looking at a one-billionth scale model of the Enterprise (the one from 'Star Trek: The Next Generation,' not the original 'Star Trek') made from "30 kV Ga+ focused-ion- beam CVD using phenanthrene gas."

The model won the 2003 "Best Ion Micrograph" award at The 47th International Conference on Electron, Ion and Photon Beam Technology and Nanofabrication. And if you think that's enthralling, you should see the models they put together for their 'after dark' show. Let's just say you should bring your wide angle lens for your electron microscope.

[via Discover Magazine]

Apparently, someone has gone to the trouble to cram Star Trek into the holiday season because why should Star Wars fans be the only ones who have to suffer?

Christmas may have come and gone as fast as Santa on his dilythium crystal powered reindeer, but that doesn't mean you still can't enjoy the unintentional hilarity of A Klingon Christmas Carol. The sci-fi io9 found a clip of the show from a morning show interview they did on Fox 9 in St. Paul. Here's a bit of a spoiler: it's hard to tell that Scrooge has been rehabilitated in the end since all Klingon-speak sounds like an anvil has been stapled to their tongue.

The "Ask TV Squad" column, published every Wednesday, answers your questions about current and past TV shows, as well as about the celebrities appearing on TV. Every week, I will pick a question (or more) sent to us and provide answers in the column. If your question is not picked for a column, it may be answered in a subsequent column or in TV Squad's APB Podcast.

To submit questions to the "Ask TV Squad" column, you can post them below in comments or email them to asktvsquad@gmail.com.

This week, I follow up on the last "Ask TV Squad" about TV shows on DVD and answer a question about which TV DVDs you should own.

(S03E05) What a dick. It turns out that former Squadder Wil Wheaton, who guest-starred on tonight's episode as himself, is totally the Jonny Fairplay of fantasy role-playing card game tournaments, who broke Sheldon's poor little heart not once, but twice. I love the fact that Sheldon has this vendetta against Wheaton in the first place, because of course Sheldon Cooper would consider the guy who played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: TNG to be his mortal enemy. The only thing that surprised me about that is that Sheldon's complaint was due to a slight that happened in the real world, and not some scientific inconsistency in the show, or Crusher's anachronistic hair.

When Sheldon and Wil are skirmishing to the death, there's a part of me that was thinking that the story of Wil's grandma was a lie, but he's Wil Wheaton! They wouldn't actually make him evil, would they? But they did, and poor Sheldon nearly had the big aneurysm that Wolowitz had been wishing on his mother.

Wil Wheaton's guest appearance on The Big Bang Theory airs next week, and neither he or CBS has had much to say up to this point about his character. I speculated that he could be a rival for Penny's affection, but it looks as though he may be a rival of a different kind. We now know who Wheaton is playing in this episode, and it's not Penny he's after.

As the fall release date for the J.J. Abrams Star Trek DVD closes in, Star Trek merchandising is making a comeback.

Everything Trek made a huge bull rush earlier this summer when the first major run of merchandising took hold. Everything from bottle openers to iPod got the final frontier treatment. Now the DVD is shaking the space trees again.

The long-rumored Star Trek colognes beamed their way into stores last week -- immediately becoming a product that folks might want to try as curiosity without ever admitting they bought it.

The merchandise opportunities for classic shows like Star Trek has been outlandish, to say the very least.

You can show your financial love for Star Trek by buying Star Trek toys, Star Trek apparel, Star Trek cell phones, Star Trek Pez dispensers, Star Trek burial coffins, Star Trek living room furniture
and even Star Trek erotic theme art. Don't click that last link if you're at work, school or don't really want to know what James Doohan would look like spread eagle on a Tribble skin rug.

Now the folks at Genki Wear, a geek themed jewelry manufacturer, have helped the Enterprise explore a strange new world of merchandising and seek out new lifeline accounts and financial liquidations with a line of Star Trek-inspired cologne and perfumes.

Being a nerd, I'm very familiar with Jeri Ryan's career. She helped make Star Trek: Voyager watchable for a while as a self-aware Borg and recently starred in CBS' Shark alongside James Woods. But it was her work on the David Kelley shows Boston Public and Boston Legal that has me thinking she'll be a good fit for Leverage.

The actress handled Kelley's sharp dialogue like a pro, and I'm guessing she'll bring the same confidence to her role as a "smart-ass, street-wise con woman" on the second season of Leverage. Ryan has signed on for a recurring role on the TNT heist drama. Her character will be a friend of Sophie's (Gina Bellman), Leverage's sexy grifter with a bag full of tricks and foreign accents.

And it might open just in time for ... one of the eventual sequels to J.J. Abram's new movie? Maybe. We're not sure.

Details about the re-opening of Star Trek: The Experience in Las Vegas are sketchy at best. TrekMovie.com reported that Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman said part of the new Experience would open this week, just in time for the new Trek movie. We're still waiting on that.

The latest news is that the new Experience -- the original closed last year – will open in 2010 at Neonopolis in downtown Vegas. Here's the cool news: It will feature more elements and props from the original 1960's Star Trek series and from the new movie.

Can you remember how it all ended? ...

With finale season underway, we're taking a look back at some of television's best show-stopping moments.

Can you remember Hunnicut's final message to Hawkeye on 'M*A*S*H'? Or what happened to the 'Seinfeld' gang?

Test your knowledge with our end-all series finale quiz.

TV Squad man-at-arms Brad Trechak already filed his disappointment at last night's Family Guy episode, but I had a question of my own after I watched the it:

Was that the first time a network show actually endorsed atheism?

I mean, I've seen Bill Maher throw his anti-religion grenades, but that's HBO and that's Bill Maher. To my knowledge no network -- even a network like Fox, which once had a line-up made up entirely of World's Scariest Alien Autoposies -- had ever come down this hard on the beliefs of its viewers...

It's not easy winnowing more than 50 years of small-screen gems into a list of 50.

But AOL TV's picks of the top TV dramas include the most brilliant doctors and lawyers, the angst-iest teens, sci-fi series that transcend their genre molds, family dramas that both warm and break your heart, terrorist- and mobster-fighting heroes ... and a show that combined the best of family and gangster drama into one unforgettable series.

Click through to see all 50 of the best TV dramas of all time.

Yesterday, Latino Review got our nerd hearts aflutterin' with a report about some possible Star Trek: The Next Generation cameos in J.J. Abram's upcoming Trek film. It would be great to see Picard, Data or even Riker rubbing elbows with Spock in the new flick, but sadly it's not happening says TrekMovie.com.

Here's how the confusion apparently started: There's currently an IDW Star Trek movie prequel comic series out called Star Trek: Countdown that mostly takes place in the Next Generation era. That comic is billed as a direct prequel to Abrams' film and it features TNG favorites like Picard and Data interacting with Bana's character, Nero, and Nimoy's Spock. Apparently, the new movie will start out with Spock and Nero living in the TNG era and time traveling back to the era of Kirk, Scotty and young Spock. But, according to TrekMovie's sources, no TNG cast members will show up in the film.