Whats this, another special edition of Film Score Friday? That’s right, with the massive summer season beginning in just a few short weeks I wanted to spend a little time now on a topic I have long wanted to write about, famous film composers who have written classic TV Themes.

Many famous film composers have taken their talents to the small screen, writing music for pilots or crafting original main themes. Unfortunately a lot of that really great work goes under valued in the overall catalog of these talented musicians. In this week’s Film Score Friday I aim to make up for some of that oversight, and spend some quality time focusing on some of the great TV work these renowned film composers have done.

-John Williams-

The best place to start is with the most famous of all film composers, John Williams. Back in his earliest days Williams, then known as Johnny, wrote music for TV shows. He did music for the pilot episode of Gilligan’s Island, The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants, but his most famous early TV work was writing for Lost in Space.

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He may have his hands in half a dozen TV projects, and Zach Quinto may want to quit acting, but that isn’t stopping J.J. Abrams from continuing in his reimagined world of Star Trek with a second film.

First, Abrams announces that he wants She’s Out of My League starlet Alice Eve to have a juicy role in the upcoming sequel. This is the first hard confirmation of new casting news, seeing as the deal with Benicio del Toro has yet to solidify. From Variety.

As is common with Abrams, secrecy has surrounded the pic since the helmer officially announced he would be back — including which characters the new actors will play. Sources say Eve’s character is new to the “Star Trek” universe, unlike del Toro, would insiders believe will be playing someone familiar to Trekkies.

As if that isn’t juicy enough for all you diehards out there, an official date has also been announced, which will make it hard for actors like Quinto to continue to drag their heals.

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If you’ve never read Brian K. Vaughn’s comic series Y: The Last Man, you’re really missing out. It’s very well written and has enjoyed tremendous popularity.

So much so, in fact, that it’s one of the reasons Vaughn ended up as a writer for ABC’s LOST for several seasons. Now, it looks like Vaughn’s TV writing career is going to continue.

According to Deadline, he has been signed to write Showtime’s drama series adaptation of Stephen King’s 2009 novel Under the Dome, from DreamWorks Television. According to the report, Vaughn was chosen after a long search by the show’s producers and will begin writing the adaptation immediately.

In case you’re not familier with the story, the supernatural thriller concerns locals at a Maine vacation spot who battle one another when a force field suddenly surrounds their town and cuts them off from the rest of the world. Yes, it takes place in Maine. Try to contain your surprise.

To be honest, this is not my favorite Stephen King novels. However, Vaughn is one of my favorite writers so hopefully he will bring his trademark wit and style to the project. The series expects to begin filming early next year for a debut sometime next Fall.

There is one major rule when it comes to casting a TV series that one plans on continuing past 3 years: stay away from creating “ageless” child characters. In just about every series, that character type seems to be the main downfall of the realism of a series, from LOST to Saved by the Bell.

That’s where Glee showrunner Ryan Murphy has decided to pull some strings. It seems that the decision has been made to not have the show’s stars, Chris Colfer, Lea Michele and Cory Monteith, return for the fourth season. Here’s the breakdown from THR.

Murphy tells THR: “You can keep them on the show for six years and people will criticize you for not being realistic, or you can be really true to life and say when they started the show they were very clearly sophomores and they should graduate at the end of their senior year.”

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As one of the great modern TV writers of the current time, Damon Lindelof has certainly gotten into the hearts and minds of science fiction fans everywhere with both LOST and several other projects with J.J. Abrams. That coveted spot didn’t come without work, however, and that’s just what we have today.

Back before the show was a hit, Lindelof wrote a short play about a young time traveling boy genius and his awkward dinner with Nazis who were setting out to kill him and his family. The screenplay was then turned into a short last year, and had some pretty impressive guest appearances. Here’s the premise:

When Dade Klublershturf (Samm Levine) brings home his new girlfriend Daniella (Rachel Nichols), it’s as awkward as you’d expect any meet-the-parents dinner to be. However, events take an unexpected turn when Dade’s brother Ollie (Super 8‘s Zach Mills) reveals that Daniella, along with a couple of other last-minute dinner guests (Chris Hemsworth and Norman Reedus) are actually secret Nazis trying to steal Ollie’s time travel machine for sinister purposes. Jack Axelrod, Lainie Kazan, and George Segal also star.

Check out the full short after the jump, in all of it’s dialogue-heavy drama, and be sure to comment below as to how you can see why showrunning partner Carlton Cuse decided to pick up this young writer Lindelof after a simple play about a dinner party.

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Even though it kinda ended poorly, ABC’s Lost was still a pretty great show. One of the reasons we liked it so much was the terrific work of one of its stars: Terry O’Quinn.

You may remember he played the enigmatic John Locke for the show’s entire run and played it to the hilt. We’ve always hoped he would return to the island for some more action and now it seems we are getting our wish. How?

Well, according to TV Line, O’Quinn is heading back to the island for a protracted guest arc on the CBS show Hawaii Five-O. The gig not only brings the Emmy winner back to the island, it also reunites him with Lost castmate and Five-0 regular Daniel Dae Kim.

On the show O’Quinn will play a Navy Seal Lt. Commander who trained Alex O’Loughlin’s McGarrett in Coronado, and served with his father in Vietnam. Described as strong, stubborn and a man you want in your corner when things go south, the character holds some of the answers to the mysteries surrounding the respective murders of McGarrett’s mother and father.

Sounds good to us. Guess we’ll have to start watching Hawaii Five-0 again.

You may know her best as Trudy Campbell on Mad Men, or recently as the neurotic publicist in Scream 4, but for fans of NBC’s Community she will always been Annie Edison. Taking time out of her busy schedule shooting a movie, Alison was kind enough to sit down for a press interview to give us the scoop on what we can expect from the upcoming two-part Community season finale.

The episode centers around an end-of-the-year picnic where the dean announces plans for a “small, quick, safe, game of paintball.”  What follows is an epic battle in which alliances are formed and broken, and friendships are put to the test.

The finale will include a very special cameo from Josh Holloway, most famous for his role as Sawyer on Lost, who arrives as a mysterious character in the game.  TV spots and online clips have already begun to hint at a certain chemistry that will form between Holloway’s character and Annie.

Alison herself confirmed that there were sparks on set that the writers wanted to play up in the final episode.  And yes, she also hinted that there were to be a few Sawyer-esq lines for the Lost fans.

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Hands down, one of the best shows to come out of last year’s TV season was NBC’s Community, and inside of that far-too-brief season, one of the best episodes was Modern Warfare in which the entire campus partook in a massive paintball game. References to The Warriors, Die Hard, and John Woo’s The Killer were all brilliantly mixed into a solid 30-minute show, and made it an incredible season.

Now, they’re going back to the game this season with an epic two-part season finale in which a new paintball game is taking over the students of Greendale. This time, the stakes are raised, as LOST star Josh Holloway is making a guest appearance in the game to balance things out. From NBC:

In the episode, Holloway guest stars as a mysterious figure, who emerges on the Greendale Community College campus when another game of paintball breaks out.  The two-part finale finds the students of Greendale taking on another round of paintball warfare as a follow up to last season’s acclaimed “Modern Warfare” episode, in which students battled it out for the ultimate prize – early registration.

Not much else is known about the episode, but without Holloway, you would expect a return to the paintball storyline to be epic. Things are only going to get “Epicer” with Sawyer joining in the festivities.

Community airs every Thursday night at 8:00 PM ET/PT on NBC.

Last night’s Super Bowl brought in a few pretty great commercials, but two that stood out above the rest were the first trailer for Captain America: The First Avenger, and the brand new J.J. Abrams sci-fi thriller Super 8. On both counts, we got some of the very first footage of the film, getting us even more excited for it.

Written and directed by Abrams, the film’s plot has been kept pretty close to chest until now. From what we’ve gathered, a group of kids in 1979 catch something inexplicable emerge from a train wreck on their home video camera.

The big deal here is that this is the first joint venture between Abrams and master of extraterrestrial cinema, Steven Spielberg, who brings his experience and belief in unknown casting to the project.

Now, we get the first glimpse at this new film, and you will too, right after the jump.

Super 8 is set to hit theaters on June 10th.

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While things are a bit shaky in terms of what we’re calling the newest Mission: Impossible film, one thing is for sure: the cast is going to kick ass. Hawkeye himself, Jeremy Renner joined the cast a few weeks back, which was already headed by returning Cruise, Ving Rhames, and Simon Pegg, and the newly added Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Maggie Q.

Now, a brand new face of awesome is jumping in, as LOST star Josh Holloway has been signed to join Cruise’s new team of super spies. This marks Holloway’s first major role since leaving the island, or dying, or staying in purgatory, or however you want to interpret that ending.

Between this cast, Incredibles director Brad Bird taking the helm, and J.J. Abrams supplying the story, there is very little room for this film to fail, or at least we hope. Megastar Cruise even took a pay cut in order for this film to get made, so it has that going for it.

The movie is set to go into production before the end of the year, with a release date of December 16th, 2011. Expect to hear plenty more news coming out of this camp in the coming weeks as we lead up to principal photography.

You know her best as Sayeed’s hot yet ill-fated love interest Shannon in Lost and as a daughter who’s father “has a particular set of skills” in Taken. Now, Maggie Grace is set to jump into another role: a vampire who threatens Kristen Stewart’s Bella in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn.

According to the report, Grace will play the role of Irina in the final installments of the Stephenie Meyer novel, which Bill Condon is directing as two separate films. In case you don’t know or haven’t read the books, Irina is a member of the Denali coven of vampires who are considered cousins to the Cullens as they are the only others who don’t prey on humans.

Sadly, things go wrong as they often do and when Irina blames the Cullens for the death of her lover, she plots revenge. . . and things go downhill from there.

Part one of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn will be released by Summit Entertainment on November 18, 2011. The second will hit theaters late in 2012.

This week on The Flickcast Chris and Matt dive into a whole bunch of topics for your listening pleasure. Among these are the new Netflix movie deal, the first pictures of Green Lantern’s mentor, the awesomeness of Gamefly, the original Star Trek pilots, the leaked final episode of Lost, the last season of Entourage, new True Blood info, Fringe season three and much more.

The boys also made some new picks this week including Matt’s pick of Rob Corddry’s Children’s Hospital and Chris’ pick of the Showtime series Dexter, featuring Michael C. Hall, Julie Benz and James Remar.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, at Facebook and MySpace or via email.