Sci-Fi Storm

Amanda Tapping, who’s current series Sanctuary started as a web series and she also narrated the recent web series Riese: Kingdom Falling, hopes to again help the success of a web series. She will join William Shatner as a voice on the animated web series The Zenoids, which will be featured on Shatner’s MyOuterSpace social networking site. As such she’ll also be the “Captain” of the Starship Orion, the section of MyOuterSpace who’s mission is to produce The Zenoids through social collaboration.

[This was meant to be posted on Friday, but I wasn’t able to get to it]

January 28th, 1986. I remember right where I was.

I was in my senior year of high school. I grew up like a lot of boys wanting to be an astronaut. Never actually shook it off later on. I followed the space program with rapt attention – given free choice of a book report or term paper, it invariably turned towards space. I had a large amount of materials, books, etc.

I watched intently with my class as the Enterprise test flights took place in grade school. Followed each mission as I could through the years.
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A copy of the reportedly original pitch for Star Trek made by Gene Roddenberry has been found online. Although some of the things revealed are generally well known (the ship was originally the Yorktown, the captain was Robert April – who was later canonized as the captain of the Enterprise before Pike in the animated series, etc.) you can see that as early as 1964 several of the ideas for stories that were eventually produced.
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News is is spreading through the universe this Sunday that the new Man Of Steel has been named for the upcoming re-reboot of Superman being done by Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan. Henry Cavill, currently seen in the U.S. as Charles Brandon in The Tudors and stars in the upcoming The Immortals, beat out a long list of rumored Supes, and is no stranger to this or other comic-based roles – he was up for the role in the McG/Ratner-led Superman film before that project was taken over by Bryan Singer, and also auditioned for the role of Batman – for Christopher Nolan (but lost out to Christian Bale).

So, at the moment three of the premiere American comic book superheroes are currently being played by British actors – Cavill, Bale, and Andrew Garfield (Spider-Man in the yet-to-be-titled reboot).

Saoirse Ronan, the 16-year-old Academy Award-nominated actress (for 2007’s Atonement), has reportedly joined the cast of The Hobbit in an unknown role. IMDB lists here as rumored for the role of Itaril, which is as far as I know an invented role for the movie, but is likely one of the Silvan elves of the Mirkwood.

In case you missed it or just want a quick refresher, we’ve got a 1-minute recap video for you below of “There Goes The Neighborhood, Part 2”, and then following that is the sneak preview of Episode 3, “Some Thing to Watch Over Me”: Aidan and Josh decide to invite the neighbors over to what appears to be a house-warming. Sally informs them that they have officially invited all of her least favorite neighbors to their house for a neighborhood watch party, but too bad she can’t tell the neighbors to their face. Josh thought it was merely a get-together and enters his usual unnerved self when he hears it’s a neighborhood watch party. Aidan tries to explain that if they want to be normal they have to get involved, and this is getting involved. Be sure to tune in to see if they are able to play nice with the guests on Monday at 9/8c on Syfy.
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Syfy seems to have found an audience for what I’m now calling “creature feature” movies – those of you who grew up in the 70s, at least in Boston, will know what I mean by that, but it was those weekend morning monster movies, primarily dubbed Japanese ones like Godzilla, Gamera and the like and the US mutant monster flicks of the 50s, that ranged from pure camp to very creepy. I truly miss Creature Double Feature on Saturday mornings on WLVI…

Perhaps the most anticipated one yet, Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, premieres this Saturday at 9PM ET. But perhaps the anticipation isn’t so much for the creatures as it is for the cast – 80s pop icons Tiffany and Debbie Gibson, who did battle in the music charts, get more physical this time – an all out cat fight…catch a sneak peek below.

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I’m not totally surprised he has an ulcer with all the drama about getting The Hobbit off the ground, but director/producer Peter Jackson’s perforated ulcer resulted in him being admitted to the hospital for surgery. Due to his recovery time, filming which was to begin next month will have a “slight delay”, but otherwise is not expected to have any other impact on production.

Syfy announced today two actors signed to appear on the upcoming Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome series, including the highly anticipated role of William Adama. Luke Pasqualino (Skins) will play the young Adama, while Ben Cotton, who has appeared in Caprica, Stargate Atlantis and also as Herrick in Riese: Kingdom Falling, will play Adama’s commanding officer Coker, who is a battle-weary officer near the end of his tour.

It’s pretty normal for a new show to lose a few viewers between the first and second episodes. However, Syfy’s version of Being Human seems to have been an exception. The second part of the “There Goes The Neighborhood” reached 2.14 million total viewers last night – a 9% increase over last week’s impressive premiere.