Sci-Fi Storm

Syfy has announced that Graham Greene (Dances with Wolves among many roles) will join the cast of its upcoming drama series Defiance. Greene will portray Rafe McCawley, a self-made success who owns and operates the largest mine in the territory. However, Rafe’s status as the richest and most powerful human in the town of Defiance comes with a price, as he struggles to navigate both familial and political alliances in this precariously assembled new world.
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Check out the first preview for the upcoming Doctor Who series, focused on the Wild West-themed episode which guest stars old friend Ben Browder!

The final season of Eureka is just a few weeks away, and it promises to be exciting, funny…and sad at at the same time.

I was fortunate enough to receive the press kit that previews the final season, which is itself as well done as the show (see above). It’s a solid, thick town sign that says, “THANK YOU FOR VISITING EUREKA”. It opens up to reveal the preview DVD, along with booklet with pictures, and the cast answering some questions.
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The Hunger Games simply demolished the weekend box office, with an expected $155 million total domestic take for the weekend which places it third all time behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 ($162.2m) and The Dark Night ($158.4m), while eclipsing both of The Twilight Saga‘s recent issues, New Moon ($142.m) and Breaking Dawn, Part 1 ($138.1m), as well as Spider-Man 3 ($151.1m). This also means it is the biggest opening all time for a non-sequel. Go Katniss!

Update 3/26: The actuals from the weekend placed it slightly lower, at $152.5 million, but still safely in 3rd place.

Don’t forget, Eureka‘s [sfs=1199]Season 4.5 DVD set[/sfs] is out this Tuesday…there is still time to order it and get it on it’s release day! And the [sfs=1125]Season 4.0 set[/sfs] is already out. Order either now and help us out!

Eureka returns for it’s fifth and final season on Monday, April 16th at 9/8c – and I’ll post more about that a bit later…

It appears that The Hunger Games is poised to be a massive blockbuster, even beyond expectations. With an audience that is now drawing from not just the young, female audience but all ages and males as well, it has already set the bar for the highest midnights gross for a non-sequel at $19.75 million, and the 7th highest all time. And some analysts are now looking it it possibly exceeding the recent weekend take of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1, which took in $138 million.

SciFiAndTvTalk has an excellent article on Andrew-Lee Potts and his crossover role between the original Primeval and the upcoming Primeval: New World.

It seems there are still white knights out there…or at least White Wizards. Gandalf himself, Ian McKellan, along with The Hobbit co-star Stephen Fry, both stepped in to pay the licensing fee for a Southhampton, England pub that for twenty years operated under the name The Hobbit.

It seems that the forces of Mordor let loose the orcs-I mean, Saul Zaentz Company, which has held various rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit since the 70s, sent in the lawyers to force The Hobbit to change their name. The pub also uses character likenesses as well as having drinks named after characters. Zentz then also offered the pub to pay a licensing fee instead.

In step McKellan and Fry, along with their followers on Facebook and Twitter, asking the company to “stand down”, with Fry calling the action “self-defeating bullying” and McKellan saying it was “unnecessary pettiness”. They then told the pub that they would pay the licensing fee.

The pub is still cautious though…the terms haven’t been worked out just yet. “Until everything is in black and white, on paper, we’re going to be a bit reserved because it could be $100 this year and $20,000 next year,” according to the owner, Stella Roberts.

In next week’s episode of Lost Girl, Dyson’s apparent murder of a Dark Fae is complicated by his lack of memory and apparent links to Vex. Bo and Kenzi try to figure out what exactly happened to Dyson and attempt to figure out who the real killer is. Tune in on Monday, March 26th, at 10/9c.
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On the heels of a an apparent trailer (which as it turns out was really a demo reel) for the long-developing Battlestar Galactica prequel series Blood & Chrome (followed by NBCU getting it pulled from YouTube), Syfy finally announced a decision on the series, after a long silence – and it’s not good for those hoping to see it on TV.

Deadline is reporting that the network has decided not to go forward with a full TV series. It took over a year from getting the green light to start production on the 90-minute pilot to being delivered to the network in at least a rough cut, due to all the digital effects and post-production work required, and Syfy said little afterwards, except for President of Original Programming Mark Stern saying they were “trying to figure out the economics right now,” back in January. With such a long and expensive production cycle it looked more and more like it wouldn’t be doable as a series.

All is not lost, however. First, the pilot will be aired at some time in the future. And as the series was originally envisioned as a web series, it looks like they will return to that idea, with Stern saying, “We are actively pursuing it as was originally intended: a groundbreaking digital series that will launch to audiences beyond the scope of a television screen.”