Sci-Fi Storm

Here is a little preview of what to expect on tomorrow’s premiere episode of Face Off the special effects make up competition on Syfy. Hosted by McKenzie Westmore (Passions), the competition will be judged by Ve Neill (Pirates of the Caribbean, Edward Scissorhands), Glenn Hetrick (Heroes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X-Files) and Patrick Tatopoulos (Underworld, Independence Day, Resident Evil: Extinction).

Take a look at how the contestants will work in pairs and draw inspiration from animals in order to build a never seen before creature. However, some teams start to see their creations are similar to others. Will they have to build something new from scratch, or simply beat out the others?

As an added bonus, you can also see video from the live event at The Grove mall in Los Angeles.

Face Off premieres Wednesday, January 26th, at 10PM ET.

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Here’s a quick look at the science fiction and fantasy-related Oscar nominees, announced today, in no particular order:

How To Train Your Dragon – Best Animated Film, Original Score

Iron Man 2 – Visual Effects

Toy Story 3 – Best Picture, Best Animated Feature, Sound Editing, Adapted Screenplay

Alice in Wonderland – Costume Design, Visual Effects, Art Direction

Tangled – Original Song (“I See The Light”)

Tron: Legacy – Sound Editing

Inception – Best Picture, Original Screenplay, Original Score, Cinematography, Art Direction, Visual Effects, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 – Visual Effects, Art Direction

The Wolfman – Makeup

Colin Firth, who is considered a likely winner for an Oscar for his role in The King’s Speech, reported said in a Twitter interview that he’d like a role in Doctor Who – and he’d like to be a bad guy. “I’d never rule out a part in Doctor Who or Torchwood – especially Doctor Who,” he said. Now, I haven’t found an authenticated account for him on Twitter, so I don’t know how true it actually is…but to me, I could see him actually playing the Doctor himself…

In the next all-new episode of Merlin, Arthur takes part in battle with swords being swung, horses hooves roaring in the arena, and danger on the verge for Arthur as Merlin stands as a mere spectator. Merlin quickly sees that Arthur is being pursued and if he is not aware of the knight just over his shoulder he will soon see his death. Will Merlin have to use some of his power to save him or will Arthur be able to show his own survival skills?
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The Thunder Child SF & Fantasy webzine has a new sponsor, the online role playing science fiction game, Reborn: The Invessi Chronicles.

The creator, Gary Allen, also gave us an interview, and you can read all about the game at thethunderchild.com/Games/Reborn.html
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With Syfy’s upcoming make-up competition series Face Off ready to start this Wednesday (January 26th at 10PM ET), Syfy is hold a Fan Face-Off Challenge on syfy.com. If you think you have what it takes, you can enter to have a chance for your make-up masterpiece evaluated by Face Off‘s judges and possibly win a prizes which include a MacBook Pro professional makeup tools.

If you are more make-up challenged but like to play around, you can transform yourself and your friends into frightening works of art right online, with the Facebook Face Off Challenge application.

The NBC Universal-Comcast merger appears to be having an effect on programming already. Despite NBC’s interest but ultimate passing just two weeks ago on David E. Kelley’s spec script for Wonder Woman, new president Bob Greenblatt revisted that decision and elected to pick up the show.

With The Hulk turning (ahem) green at ABC, could we see dueling comic heros – and comic book studios?

Craig Charles (Dave Lister), in an interview with the Daily Mail, confirmed that there will be another series of Red Dwarf – but Robert Llewellyn (Kryten) says he wasn’t supposed to, but “it just sort of slipped out.” And it’s a “full” series, but that means 6 half-hour episodes – but also to go back to filming in front of an audience – something that they haven’t done since 1998, although the producers are afraid that too much information might get leaked out on Twitter, Facebook, etc. during the long post-production time – something that didn’t exist in 1998.

The last Red Dwarf was the mini-series “Back To Earth”, which had mixed reviews – including my own.

Craig Engler from Syfy wrote an excellent article about the reality of television ratings, online viewership, DVRs, DVDs and even piracy – and why shows get canceled. I think it should be required reading before anyone complains about how “their” shows get canceled.

Now, I have questioned at times how Nielsen selects its 20,000 “families”. A long time ago we were selected as a test family. We had to fill out the logs manually for a week. At the end of that, we were told we were not the “type” of family they were looking for. Um…we watched plenty of TV that week, so I don’t know what they were looking for, but it sounded fishy. If the families are not selected truly randomly, then I think at some level the ratings will be skewed. 20,000 also seems like an awfully small number – but the TV networks, Nielsen and the advertisers seem to think it is enough, and we have to live with it.
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Teh Kitteh is in! Anne Hathaway (Alice In Wonderland, The Princess Diaries) will be the next Catwoman in the next installment in the Christopher Nolan Batman franchise, The Dark Knight Rises, Warner Bros. announced today. Hathaway beat out Keira Knightley, Jessica Biel and others who tested for the role opposite Christian Bale. She joins a pantheon of previous kitties: Julie Newmar, Eartha Kitt and Lee Meriweather from the 1960s Batman TV series (and movie), Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns, and Hally Berry in the failed Catwoman spinoff movie.

WB also identified the role that Tom Hardy (Inception) will play – Bane, a more recent villain created in 1993 for the comic and is best known for breaking Batman’s back in the Knightfall serial.