Sci-Fi Storm

BBC America’s Dirk Gently series added a slew of new cast members this week, joining series stars Samuel Barnett (Gently) and Elijah Wood (Todd).

Neil Brown Jr. (Straight Outta Compton) and Richard Schiff (The West Wing) will play Estevez and Zimmerfield, missing person detectives operating increasingly off book as they follow the trail of a complex and mystifying case; Jade Eshete (Shades of Blue) plays Farah Black, a bad-ass Security Officer for a billionaire; Mpho Koaho (Falling Skies) plays Ken, a nerdy, friendly-faced tech trapped in increasingly difficult and bloody circumstances; Fiona Dourif (When We Rise) will play Bart Curlish, the terrifying “Holistic Assassin”; Michael Eklund (The Call II) is Martin, violent ring leader of the Rowdy 3; Miguel Sandoval (Medium) plays Colonel Scott Riggins, beleaguered CIA head of a defunct secret bureau investigating the paranormal; Dustin Milligan (Schitt’s Creek) is Sergeant Hugo Friedkin, Riggin’s subordinate, unpredictable, wildly ambitious and dangerous moron; and Aaron Douglas (Battlestar Galactica) portrays Gordon Rimmer, an enigmatic loser with an impressive series of horrible secrets.

Over on Syfy, Franka Potente (Copper) will have a recurring role on the second season of Dark Matter as Commander Shaddick, Chief Inspector of the Galactic Authority Serious Crimes Division. She is described as “cool, calculated and determined to prove the crew of the Raza were involved in the destruction of Iriden 3.”

Some Trek tidbits from the weekend…first, the second trailer for Star Trek: Beyond was released during a fan event marking the 50th Anniversary of the original series, which also paid tribute to the late Leonard Nimoy. You can see the trailer below.

Also announced at the time was that attendees of San Diego Comic-Con this summer will have the chance to attend the world premiere of the new movie – at a first-of-its-kind outdoor IMAX event that will even include a full orchestra! The event will take place on July 20th, with the movie being widely release two days later.

Lastly a followup to a story we have been following: Back in December, CBS/Paramount sued Axanar Productions about the crowdfunded film Axanar. While we believe that CBS/Paramount actually may have been on the right side of things, how they went about it drew a lot of ire from the fans in general and cooled way down the many other fan productions that they had previously tolerated.

At the fan event, producer JJ Abrams said that Paramount will be dropping the lawsuit, saying “This wasn’t an appropriate way to deal with the fans.” Apparently Justin Lin, who is directing Star Trek: Beyond and is himself a fan, played a big role in getting the studio to call off the lawyers. Things are still in process, so fans appear to be treating the news with cautious optimism so far.

WARNING – spoilers for the season finale of Legends Of Tomorrow ahead!
(continue reading…)

While others are just teasing their new shows, CBS decided to give a whole trailer to MacGyver, after it was picked up for series earlier this week. Interestingly, all this footage is from the pilot, but there is some chatter that the pilot might not make it to air, since they are dropping the supporting cast outside of George Eads. If the do show the pilot there would be a “what happened” issue, but it wouldn’t be the first time this has happened – it’s happened on many shows in the past. Even the original Star Trek aired the second pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, which had a different doctor, some other crew members, and set differences (the snake-armed communicator from the first pilot is still on the captain’s chair, and the forward viewer was shaped differently for instance.) Even weirder in that case, it was shown as the third episode, which made for a continuity issue.

[Video no longer available]

Come on, you knew this was being planned as soon as they made the move official…now that Supergirl will join her sibling superhero shows on the CW in the Fall, she’ll also be part of the December crossover event between the shows.

Right before their upfronts, CW chief Mark Pedowitz said, “Just imagine what our superhero crossover episode is going to look like come December.” Then, during the upfront presentation he officially said that she’d be part of it, calling it “our biggest ever.”

There will now be four shows for the crossover…Arrow, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow, with the latter two having spun off from the former, will get to play with their otherworldly sister. How will it happen? Well, it’s a long way off yet, but with it being established that Supergirl is on a different Earth from Flash (and not Earth-2 either – there were no metahumans on her Earth), it would seem likely that Kara will make the trip to their side this time…

Yesterday at the CBS upfront presentation in New York City, and for one of the presentations they revealed a teaser trailer for the upcoming CBS All Access Star Trek series, which includes the latest version of the logo. You can watch it below.

It doesn’t say much, other than there will be a new crew, new villains, new heroes and new worlds…still no plot, or actors have been announced.

CBS has been wanting to bring MacGyver back to television for a while, and they finally will. The network gave the green light to a series, but we understand that MAJOR changes will happen after the pilot. Stars Lucas Till and George Eads will remain, as will the basic plot, but the supporting cast are all leaving, as are original pilot writer Paul Downs Colaizzo and Brett Mahoney, who helped with the pilot shooting script. Peter Lenkov, who is the showrunner for Hawaii Five-O, will write a new script and is also tagged as the showrunner here as well.

NBC wants to join the time travel bandwagon, picking up Timeless from Eric Kripke and Shawn Ryan. The show stars Matt Lanter, Abigail Spencer and Malcolm Barrett, is about a mysterious criminal who steals a secret state-of-the-art time machine, intent on destroying America as we know it by changing the past. Our only hope is an unexpected team: a scientist, soldier and history professor who must use the machine’s prototype to travel back in time to critical events. While they must make every effort not to affect the past themselves, they must also stay one step ahead of this dangerous fugitive. Can this handpicked team uncover the mystery behind it all and end his destruction before it’s too late?

Lastly, one show we expected to see but won’t is Marvel’s Most Wanted, the spinoff of Agents of SHIELD that was to follow disavowed agents Morse and Hunter, played by Adrianne Palicki and Nick Blood. Apparently the pilot only received mixed reviews. AS they already had done some work last summer to spruce up the show, it seems unlikely it will receive any further attention.

It seems like today was deadline day on the pickups, and ABC swung the bat both ways. In my despondency over the loss of The Muppets and Castle, I was saved by the news that the network at least picked up Time After Time the series we’ve been reporting on based on the Karl Alexander novel and previously made into a 1979 feature film. We have high hopes for this one.

To no one’s surprise, ABC officially canceled Marvel’s Agent Carter after two seasons, given a nearly 50% drop in ratings and star Haley Atwell getting a new series pickup by ABC with Conviction.

Also on the plus side is that Supergirl will make the giant leap from CBS to sibling network The CW, rather than being sentenced to the Phantom Zone at least. There it will join three other Berlanti Productions-made superhero cousins: Arrow, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow. It will also join them physically, with production officially relocating to Vancouver, as we expected would happen. This is a cost-cutting movie that Warner Bros TV was already planning regardless which network picked it up. We expect there may be some additional cuts as well before production picks up. How this could also affect planned storylines remains to be seen as well. The CW also picked up three new series: Riverdale, based on the Archie Comics characters; No Tomorrow, about a straight-laced distribution center manager and a freewheeling man knocking off items on their bucket list because they believe the apocalypse is coming; and Frequency, a series adaptation of the 2000 feature film, with a female police detective who discovers she can communicate with her deceased father in the past via a ham radio.

As of Tuesday’s haul at the domestic box office, Captain America: Civil War has reached over $206 million, in just 5 days. This, coupled with Disney’s Jungle Book holding as the #2 movie after four weeks and passing $300 million soon, you would think Disney would be up on the news – but after an earnings report that didn’t meet expectations, owing in large part to the television business, especially ESPN, softening, saw stock its stock prices take a 4% hit, and Disney announcing it would close down its console gaming business, primarily the Disney Infinity line, and taking a $147 million charge to do it.

So how was the movie? [very minor spoilers perhaps ahead] On a rare occasion that I was able to see it opening weekend, I enjoyed it overall. It relied less on the incessant barrage of fighting action that was the hallmark of Avengers: Age of Ultron, and more on the story. However, some of the justification for what was ripping apart the team seemed contrived, and I think a lot of people may generally dislike the idea of friends taking differing sides and fighting each other, and at times be jovial about it. But that joviality also lightens the movie up, which otherwise be a major downer. It does, however, seem to be setting the stage for Infinity War, which is sort of expected…

Breaking Bad‘s Bryan Cranston will join as executive producer and appear in an episode of Electric Dreams: The World of Philip K. Dick, a 10 episode anthology series based on the works of Science Fiction Hall of Fame writer Dick, commissioned by Channel 4 (UK) and Sony Pictures Television.

Dick’s vast body of work has already led to many productions that enjoy a cult following, including Blade Runner (based on “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”), Total Recall (based on “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale”), A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, Screamers, The Adjustment Bureau and The Man in the High Castle.

“This is an electric dream come true,” said Cranston. “We are so thrilled to be able to explore and expand upon the evergreen themes found in the incredible work of this literary master.”

Writing and also executive producing are Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica, Outlander) and Michael Dinner (Justified, The Wonder Years), with a whole host of executive producers. The plan is for each stanadlone episode to be written by a team comprised of U.S. and British writers.

Sony Pictures Television will distribute the show outside the UK. No word on a U.S. outlet at this time.