Sci-Fi Storm

Apparently viewers weren’t all that impressed with the first two hours of The Prisoner on AMC Sunday night…after gaining 2.2 million viewers that night, Monday night’s second two-hour set averaged only 948 thousand viewers – and I’m not surprised. The remake really didn’t have any of the things that made the original quirky or interesting (except Rover, and a few other nods to the original). I think Ian McKellan could have made an excellent Number 2, but it seemed like the whole point of his job, and of the Village itself, was muddled – although by the end of the second part it started to become obvious what was happening – it just wasn’t interesting, and very confusing. It seemed to be going for an abstract feel and a thought provoking ending, but it failed on both.

ABC has announced that Lost will move to Tuesday nights at 9PM, with its final season premiere on February 2nd. NBC has also revealed that Chuck will finally return on Sunday, January 10th, with a double episode starting at 9PM, and then will air on its normal night on Mondays the next night at 8PM.

Long before CGI basically replaced all sorts of model-based visual effects, some work was still done with computers. /Film has an article and video about the making of the original computer effects used in Star Wars – and we aren’t talking about what George Lucas did with the “Special Edition”. Larry Cuba shows how he created the computer-generated image of the Death Star and the trench run, including real-time manipulation (very hard to do back then, even for the simplistic graphics), and using pictures of models and a digitizing pen.

Disney has apparently scuttled its planned remake of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea with the removal of McG as director. The movie is still in the studio’s plans, but has been put on the back burner for now. No explanations have been forthcoming so far…

Caught this via SCI FI Wire – Wikipedia has put up a list of the top 50 grossing films of the decade – and the interesting results is that at least for a very broad definition of Science Fiction and Fantasy, 48 of the top 50 fit, with the obvious exceptions being Mamma Mia! and Meet The Fockers.

I didn’t find this out until this evening, but the mayor of Boston has declared today, November 14th 2009, Leonard Nimoy Day. And for some reason, they have to bring up that Bilbo Baggins song again…

The zany scientists at Cool Cosmos have been making interesting yet educational videos based on information coming from the Spitzer Space Telescope. The latest is a mockumentary about making a show on colliding galaxies – featuring a rather smart Felicia Day having a difficult time with the way the subject is being presented, with a little (VERY little) help from Sean Astin. Read More to watch the video, then head over to IRrelevant astronomy for more of their videos.

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I remember being told that there were in fact three pilots for the original Star Trek – “The Cage”, with Jeffery Hunter, and “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, that we are all familiar with. But I never really heard what the missing third pilot was. Apparently it has been found, and will be included in the upcoming Blu-ray release of Season 3, due out on December 15th. Apparently this third pilot was merely an alternate version of “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, with a different opening and music, and edited differently. This more than likely is the actual pilot, which was later re-edited into an episode (interestingly, the third aired episode) which was then called a “pilot” as well. Read More for some clips – the video is not great (the film was 40 years old after all) and the audio level is unstable…

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Two hopeful announcements at least…the sequel to Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog appears to be moving along, with Nathan Fillion saying a title has been chosen and now co-writer Zack Whedon saying that they will be able to get seriously underway after production wrap for Dollhouse – and it looks like everyone is on board. On the other side of the Atlantic, Russell T. Davies says that despite the recession hitting British TV, he believes that more Torchwood would likely get under way in January.

Fox has canceled Dollhouse. It isn’t totally unexpected – the second season was actually a surprise to most – and Joss Whedon is setting up a proper, big finale as they are currently in production of episode 11 of 13. Fox currently plans to air all episodes, which will pick up again in December. Update: Joss has commented on it…