Sci-Fi Storm

The new Doctor will make his U.S. debut on April 17th on BBC America, as Doctor Who hits the airwaves again, not long after it does in the U.K. (anyone have an exact date on that?). The first two episodes, “The Eleventh Hour” and “The Beast Below”, were written by new exec runner Steven Moffat (who previously wrote some of the best at creepiest episodes) and the third is “Victory of the Daleks”, which as you might think features some Daleks, written by Mark Gatiss. See below for the full press release, and also check out the trailer – you’ll see some familiar enemies (including the weeping angels from “Blink”), but it ends with an interesting reptilian skull – a foreshadow of a major enemy?

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As an unfortunate followup to a previous story, it appears that Andrew Koenig’s body has been found in a Vancouver park. A police conference is set for 5pm PT (8pm ET). Our condolences to the Koenig family. Update: Walter Koenig confirmed in a press conference. “My son took his own life,” he said.

The Fourth Realm trilogy, written by John Twelve Hawks and deal with parallel universes, secret organizations and population control, has been optioned by Fox for adaptation into a movie, with Alex Tse (Watchmen) adapting the screenplay and Gil Netter (The Blind Side) and Andrew Tennenbaum (The Bourne Identity) producing. Can anyone provide a good overview or even better a review of the books?

Interested in a more unusual piece of Doctor Who history? How about the EMS VCS3 synthesizer used by John Baker at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop to update the Doctor Who theme song in the 70s? You can find it on eBay, with the current high bid of £3,877.00 (about $6000 right now).

The 2010 Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention is taking place this year in Maryland from Sept 23-25. Mark Goddard from Lost in Space will be one of the many guests, and there will be lots of science fiction stuff on the menu.

To check out videos from previous conventions (a radio re-enactment of a sci fi ep, and Martin Grams Jr. giving a talk on the Twilight Zone) check out: http://dailyspace.blogspot.com/2010/02/theater-of-mind-old-time-radio-at-2010.html

Some random news items today: Andrew Koenig, actor/producer/many other things (best known as “Boner” on Growing Pains) and son of Star Trek‘s Walter Koenig, has been missing since February 14th. See Walter’s official site for information and a contact if you know anything; Battlestar Galactica’s Katee Sackhoff has a role in a new, unnamed ABC crime drama pilot; and Steven Moffat, who updated [sfs=743]Jekyll[/sfs] with a modern take and is now in charge of Doctor Who, is also modernizing Sherlock Holmes for the BBC and PBS;

“Evil” Wil Wheaton is set to make his return to Big Bang Theory, as an “arch enemy” to Jim Parson’s Sheldon. No details as to the plot of his return – Wil ain’t talking, but he told BBT exec Bill Prady, “You could have me do nothing more than eat Chapstick the entire episode,” and now says, “it’s a lot more awesome than just eating Chapstick.” Bazinga!

The official Star Trek Magazine has a sensational prize up for grabs for one lucky winner – two gold tickets to the official Star Trek convention on August 5-8 in Las Vegas.

The soon to be sold out gold tickets entitles holders to a host of sensational perks, including complimentary in-person autographs with guests and exclusive access to the Saturday night gala party.

Guests at the official Star Trek convention include: WILLIAM SHATNER (Captain James T. Kirk), JERI RYAN (Seven of Nine), JONATHAN FRAKES (William T. Riker), CONNOR TRINNEER (Charles “Trip” Tucker), NANA VISITOR (Major Kira), RENE AUBERJONOIS (Odo/ Curzon Dax/ Douglas Pabst), ARMIN SHIMERMAN (Quark/ Audrid Dax/ Herbert Rossoff), with many more to be added…

To enter, visit:
http://competitions.titanmagazines.com/startrek-convention/

The Thunder Child sf & fantasy webzine is not a fan of horror per se, but we’ve some interviews with various horror movie folks, and writers of Call of Cthulhu role playing games, etc. We’ll also be adding a regular horror review column thanks to Matt Sanford. To that end, we’ve just released two comics (out of a four comic set) from the movie The Crazies which is to debut Feb 26. Matt will be reviewing the comics shortly, but if you want to take a look at the covers, and head off to your local comic store to reserve your copies on the strenth of ’em:
http://dailyspace.blogspot.com/2010/02/crazies-comic-books.html

Yup, this is one of “those” posts…

Periodically, I look into the amount of work for this web site, and the amount of income it generates, and start to run through possibilities in my head. We’re closing in on 10 YEARS. That’s a long time for a web site without formal commercial support – but it also started at a time where I could not formally make money from it anyways. I solved that problem, but still, this is operates more like a hobby blog site than what I really envisioned – a news and discussion source. But what little income the site made over the years is WAY down now – no one is buying things from Amazon through our links, etc. Occasional free DVDs don’t pay bills.
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