mini-series

Get it? Sleeper Cell "wakes up?" That's a pun... fine, make fun of me later.

Showtime has ordered up a second season of it's acclaimed mini-series Sleeper Cell. Here's a question though. Why did they call it a mini-series? Wasn't it ten episodes long? Shouldn't that make it just a season? Last I checked, ten episodes wasn't very "mini." Anywho, the second go around will have eight episodes, and according to the press release both stars Michael Ealy and Oded Fehr will be back. Last year's two-hour finale will set the stage for the coming events. Production is set to start later this summer.

Survivors of the 2004 tsunami that killed more than 216,000 people in 12 countries are uncomfortable with the mini-series being filmed about the disaster by HBO and BBC. Filming began last month in Phuket and Khao Lak, two places among the hardest hit in Thailand. People are particularly unhappy with the casting calls for actors to play corpses. Reportedly, some of the fliers had pictures of a tsunami and, on the bottom, said 'Victims Needed'. Understandably, living victims find it completely insensitive. HBO and BBC insist the mini-series is meant to be educational and to bring to light some serious issues that have arisen since the December 2004 disaster. The film includes actors Tim Roth, Sophie Okonedo, and Toni Collette. It will air on HBO and BBC2 later this year.

Hey there, X-Files fans! Do you miss Dana Scully? Me too. And Mulder. They may be reuniting sometime in the future, but in the meantime you can get your Gillian Anderson fix soon on PBS. And it may be your last chance to see her in a television series. In interviews for this new six-part, Masterpiece Theatre program called Bleak House, Anderson says she's happy with her career in London as a stage and film actress (she lives there with her husband and daughter, Piper, who is now eleven!). In London, she says, she's considered an actor. She's done a lot of theatre there since leaving The X-Files in 2002. In America, she says, people think of her as a one-hit wonder.