NBC Photo by Gene Trindl

Hide the hamsters...the Visitors are baaack!

Hoping to do for V what the Sci Fi Channel did for Battlestar Galactica, ABC has given the go-ahead on a reboot of the hit 1980s franchise about alien lizards from another planet who take over Earth.

Scott Peters, the brain behind The 4400, will write and executive produce the update with Warner Bros. TV, per Variety. Warners shepherded the 1983 NBC TV movie, its sequel and a standalone series that ran during the 1984-85 season.

The new version will completely revamp the original, including changing the allusions from the Holocaust to 9/11.

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Cartoon Network; NBC

Star Wars: The Clone Wars premiered big. Friday Night Lights premiered…well… Anyway, it premiered. 

When The Clone Wars bowed in theaters in August, it was called a glorified TV pilot, and sure enough it brought glory to Cartoon Network—4 million viewers for Friday's back-to-back episodes, a new record for the cable network.

Friday Night Lights' third-season opener was watched by, um, 400,000, The New York Times reported, down, um, 6 million viewers from last fall's premiere. But don't punt the football yet: FNL is running exclusively right now on DirecTV, the subscription-only satellite system that helped save the series.

Possibly in need of saving soon: NBC's Heroes , which hit another new low last week (9.5 million) and was down again last night. So no one's watching, right? Not quite.

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DC Comics

Holy origin story, Batman!

The Caped Crusader's No. 2 is stepping out from the shadows of his Gotham-saving friend and into the limelight, with the CW announcing plans for The Graysons, a pilot centering on comicdom's top sidekick, Robin, in his pre-Bat-partnering days.

The Boy Wonder-centric show will follow Dick "DJ" Grayson before he donned the cape, according to Variety, much like Smallville centers on a pre-Superman Clark Kent.

The hourlong series, which will be set in present day, will follow Grayson as he navigates through family dramas, first loves and rivals.

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Marvel Comics

It's good to be a geek with a popular TV show.

Skrulls-conversant Stephen Colbert is living the life after being immortalized in what's billed as the Comedy Central star's "first full" Marvel Comics appearance: an eight-page, web-swinging adventure placing the Emmy-winner alongside the Webslinger.

The Colbert-Spider-Man teamup, as featured in The Amazing Spider-Man No. 573, is due to go on sale Oct. 15.

In certain editions, Colbert won't only be inside the book, he'll be on the cover.

While Colbert's getting the A-list treatment this time around, he's hardly a stranger to comics.

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Marvel.com, Evan Agostini/Getty Images

Flowing locks. Tights. Well, yeah, Thor kinda could pass for a Renaissance man…

If comic-book fans squinted real hard, today's news that actor-filmmaker Kenneth Branagh was in talks to direct Marvel's upcoming Thor movie looked not so bad. And pretty good even.

"I think it's kinda cool," said Rob M. Worley, editor of Comics2Film. "[But] he's not anybody I would have thought of."

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Paramount Pictures; Warner Bros.

It's a good time to be a fanboy...or girl.

Tuesday sees the release of the two-disc Iron Man DVD, chock full of goodies like deleted and extended scenes and a history of the metalheaded hero. (Paramount, $40.)

Meanwhile, Warners just announced that The Dark Knight will be disc-ified on Dec. 9, just in time to stuff your favorite Caped Crusader's stocking. The two-disc special-edition DVD includes a half-dozen scenes shot specificially for IMAX and plenty of behind-the-scenes action. (Warner Bros., $35.)

Holy geek out!

galacticruise.com; Robert Roux/WireImage.com

Actor Richard Hatch isn't the first person to celebrate a 30th anniversary with a cruise. Now a Battlestar Galactica cruise…

Monday in Los Angeles, Hatch and nearly 100 other Galactica-friendly travelers, from stars of the original show to fans, will set sail on a five-day, four-night round-trip cruise to Mexico, and, along the Pacific Ocean way, mark the sci-fi series' 1978 premiere.

"Cruises are nice," Hatch says. "For me, the X factor is that I happen to be a people person."

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Mark Holzberg/FOX

So far, so good for Fringe.

The new Fox series from J.J. Abrams and the writers of his upcoming Star Trek reboot averaged 9 million viewers for its 90-minute premiere last night, Nielsen Media Research estimates said.

Over on the CW, 90210 fell significantly from its own premiere, but did its duty for the woman-courting network.

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Warner Bros.

Aaron Eckhart has had a good summer. He can take credit for some of The Dark Knight's awesomeness, with his Harvey Dent/Two-Face baddie getting almost as freaky as Heath Ledger's Joker. But $500 million later, we have to ask him: Two-Face could survive that deadly fall at the construction site, right?

"No," Eckhart told E! News at the junket for Towelhead yesterday. "He is dead as a doornail. He ain't comin' back, baby. No."

The fans want him back, and the actor wants to come back, but ultimately director Christopher Nolan is the bad parent.

"I asked Chris that question. He goes, 'You're dead.' Before I could even get the question out of my mouth, 'Hey Chris, am I...' 'You're dead.' "

But death has never been a problem for comic book characters! "I'm not coming back," he said. "Unfortunately, Heath was supposed to go along."

Eckhart knows, too, that there are plenty of Batvillains waiting for spots in the sequels. He's even jealous about one rumor. "I heard Angelina Jolie was going to be Catwoman," he said. "I thought that was a great idea. I'd like to be in that one."

Oh, but sorry. Didn't you hear? You're dead.

Universal; James Devaney/Getty Images; MGM

As if Hellboy and Hobbits weren't enough to keep him off the streets, Guillermo del Toro has literally scared up some more work.

The fantastical filmmaker has been tapped by Universal to helm remakes of Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, per Variety, along with a big-screen adaptation of Charles Dickens' final novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood simply titled Drood, and a new take on Kurt Vonnegut's cult novel Slaughterhouse-Five.

The Oscar-nominated helmer, who is currently prepping the Hobbit films with Peter Jackson, will most likely begin with Drood, a murder mystery that Dickens never completed.

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