I do not like this Darth Maul foolery...

They're going with the premise that he's been kept alive by the Dark Side of the Force and his hatred. Which is not so totally far fetched for the Star Wars universe. After all Anakin gets burnt to a crisp by lava and still survives. With Darth Maul the wound would have been cauterised by the lightsaber strike so he wouldn't bleed out, as long as vital organs weren't hit he could possibly survive.

Basically this will be in part at least inspired by the EU story where Darth Maul comes back as a cyborg with robotic lower half which looked pretty cool. Obviously it is also influenced by the fact Episode 1 is on at the cinema. If handled right it could be pretty cool, if a little pandering to the fans who feel Maul was a classic villain wasted by killing him off too soon. If they do a good job with it this could be a classic series finale. We'll see I guess.

Yeah, that's the fear isn't it? That they take a character that was cool and left the fans wanting more, and then on expanding that character only go and bugger it up. Hopefully they'll approach the character with the respect it deserves and positively build on the character rather than doing anything to damage it.