Fox hasn't exactly canceled "Futurama" — it just isn't going to make any more episodes. But because of a backlog of some 14 episodes (some completed, some in various stages of production), the show will continue to air on the network in the fall.
A Fox spokesman said there's still a chance that new episodes could be ordered, but in the meantime everyone from the show's writers to the animators are out looking for other jobs. So the odds of anything beyond those 14 episodes aren't high.
This is just the latest in a long line of indignities Fox has foisted on the show. Mis-scheduled and misused, it deserved better.
"QUANTUM" REUNION: "Enterprise" star Scott Bakula will have a reunion of sorts on an upcoming episode of that show — his former "Quantum Leap" co-star Dean Stockwell guest stars in an episode that will air in April.
He'll play an alien military commander with whom Bakula's Capt. Archer comes into conflict.
And it will be pretty close to sci-fi geek nirvana.
SIN IN SIN CITY: There's something incredibly appropriate about the fact that the next season of MTV's "The Real World" — the show's 12th, believe it or not — will be shot in Las Vegas.
The seven strangers picked to live in a house and have their lives taped won't actually be living in a house. MTV will put them in an off-the-Strip resort hotel, where they'll take over an entire floor.
CROSSING OVER TO DRAMA: John Edward, the star of "Crossing Over" — the Sci Fi Channel/syndicated show in which he talks to dead people — is developing a prime-time drama about a psychic. He'll both produce and star.
The show will feature Edward as a guy who struggles with his "gift" and leaves a career in medicine to do so.
You'd think he'd have plenty of people (or whatever) to ask whether something like this will work.
DATING MATERIAL: The title character on "Frasier" will be dating some familiar faces in an episode coming up on March 5.
The plotline has Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) going on a series of blind dates — and the women include Allison Janney (who stars as press secretary C.J. Cregg on "The West Wing") and Bridgette Wilson-Sampras (the actress/model who's married to tennis star Pete Sampras).
In real life, someone like Frasier could certainly attract the string of gorgeous women he dates, couldn't he?
SCRUBBING IN: Big-time movie star Brendan Fraser will guest star in two upcoming episodes of the NBC sitcom "Scrubs" — he'll play Dr. Cox's (John McGinley) former brother-in-law.
The episodes will also feature the return of Christa Miller (of the "Drew Carey Show") as Cox's mean-spirited, vindictive ex-wife. Which would make her Fraser's fictional sister (and, in real life, she's married to "Scrubs" creator/executive producer Bill Lawrence).
Well, after "The Mummy" and "The Mummy Returns," Fraser will at least be familiar with bandages.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com