J J Abrams

The boisterous applause of hundreds of admirers echoed through Palisades Charter High School's newly refurbished drama classroom on Saturday as Rose Gilbert steadied herself in a walker and made her way to a ribbon-cutting ceremony at its entrance. The diminutive English teacher of 63 years smiled at the crush of people around her, many of them former students from 18 to 66 years of age, and said: "Gilbert Hall is now open. " In recent years, Gilbert, who retired three weeks ago at age 94, achieved celebrity status for being the oldest full-time teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District and one of the oldest in the nation.

Here's a challenge: How do you implant a potentially lethal alien organism into a body that desperately needs the help but might die if things don't go just right? No, it's not the plot of an old "Star Trek" episode, it's the back story of the new "Star Trek" motion picture. It's no secret that director J.J.

"MISSION: Impossible III" is more than the latest version of the small-screen espionage drama that has been a pop culture icon since its premiere in the 1960s. It's also a big-screen version of "Alias," with Tom Cruise taking on the Jennifer Garner role. "M:i:III" director J.J. Abrams has acknowledged that "Alias," his ABC series about a graduate student living a double life as a secret agent, was inspired in part by the "Mission: Impossible" TV show.

The low-slung motel looked like the sort of place Norman Bates might open as a north-of-the-border expansion of the old family business. The roadside sign promised "TELEPHONES" in every room but the brownish-orange carpeting and peeling paint were nothing to call home about. The radioactive Russian cosmonaut in the parking lot, however, was something you don't see everyday. "Who comes up with this stuff?" asked a smirking Joshua Jackson, one of the stars of the Fox series "Fringe," which returns tonight with the premiere of its second season of conspiracies and codes, parallel worlds and evil corporations, mad scientists and con men. "Seriously, who are these people?"

To reignite its creaky "Star Trek" movie series this weekend, Paramount Pictures must beam up young moviegoers who may have never heard of Captain Kirk, Spock or the starship Enterprise, and international audiences who have been indifferent. Paramount, despite having one of the most recognizable titles in entertainment, must overcome a perception that its new movie in the decades-old franchise will appeal only to aging Trekkies and not younger Twitter fanatics.

The crossbow-toting adventurers on the post-apocalyptic TV drama "Revolution" are fighting to restore power to a blacked-out world. It's a goal NBC executives can identify with. Last fall's top-rated new series, "Revolution" has been looking energy-deprived since late March, when it returned from a four-month hiatus. The two most recent episodes tied for series lows, with 6.3 million tuning in - a 46% slide from the September premiere, according to Nielsen. "Certainly the longer hiatus didn't help," said Helen Giles, director of national broadcast at Detroit-based ad firm Campbell Ewald.

"Person of Interest," the new thriller from Jonathan Nolan and J.J. Abrams that premieres Thursday on CBS, proves, once again, that a great idea for a television show is not at all the same thing as a great television show. The central conceit of "Person of Interest," which smartly mines post-9/11 anxieties, is that crimes can now be detected before they are committed, as in 2002's "Minority Report," only without the damp and distressing pre-cogs. In their place is a computer program, designed by the mysterious Mr. Finch (Michael Emerson)

NBC's lineup needs some extra voltage. But can "Revolution"be the show that will give prime-time dramas a much-needed jolt? Electricity-related puns aside, this costly, after-the-lights-go-out drama is probably NBC's biggest bet this year, not to mention the most-anticipated new fall show, according to Facebook and Twitter data. "Revolution" is so key to the beleaguered network's hopes that executives are plugging it into the high-visibility 10 p.m. Monday spot opposite a pair of popular-but-somewhat-vulnerable crime shows, CBS' "Hawaii Five-0" and ABC's "Castle.