Sci-Fi Storm

It looks like the news outlets have already started their holiday, so unless something major comes up you probably won’t hear much from me either – so Happy Holidays everyone! And don’t forget – BBC America has the Christmas special Doctor Who episode, “A Christmas Carol” (don’t worry, there is more than just a retelling of the same old Dickens story) at 9PM ET on Christmas Day, and Matt Smith will appear on The Graham Norton Show immediately afterwards.

Hoping Torchwood lasts more than the current series being co-produced in the US jointly by the BBC and Starz? Apparently so are the networks, according to Captain Jack himself. John Barrowman, in an interview with the Scottish Sun newspaper, talked about turning down plenty of roles (including Grey’s Anatomy, which would have made him an untouchable heartthrob to women on two continents), to do Torchwood: The New World, where he said, “”They’re planning to make it for the next seven years. So I’ll be spending six months a year in Hollywood and six back in the UK.” Networks usually seem to have more grounded expectations – but this is a good sign.

Starz will air its new take on the King Arthur tale starting April 1st, 2011 at 10PM ET. Camelot, which stars Joseph Fiennes (Flash Forward) as Merlin and Jamie Campbell Bower (The Twilight saga, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows) as King Arthur, is a 10-episode drama show on location in Ireland and will provide a new version of the classic tale. Read on for the press release.

Interestingly, this places it’s debut on the same day that Merlin‘s Series 3 finale should take place on Syfy.

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If you’ve watched both shows, you’ve seen the similarities – not just because of Steven Moffat being in charge of both, but also that you could picture Benedict Cumberbatch as the Doctor playing Sherlock Holmes for fun. So there was the natural question of the possibility of a crossover. But Moffat isn’t amenable to that. In a NY Times interview mostly about the upcoming Doctor Who Christmas special, “A Christmas Carol”, he answers about being asked about the two characters meeting: “I think everyone who’s passing me in the streets is suggesting that at the moment. I think there are problems of doing that, because then you would say that Sherlock Holmes lives in the same world as the Doctor, and there are Daleks and all sorts of things. If a Sherlock Holmes story depends on time travel being impossible, it’s quite hard if he’s a personal friend of the Doctor’s, isn’t it?” All true, but it could work – if the Doctor puts aside the advanced technology and plays along for the adventure. But then, it would be like identical twin Sherlocks solving a mystery…maybe that’s not so good.

I’ve been hearing many polarized opinions about Tron: Legacy, from a special effects-laden visual spectacular with zero plot to a thousand-fold better story than the original – alas, my own opinion won’t be formed until after the holiday weekend due to scheduling. But regardless of opinions, the facts show that people are watching it – to the tune of $43.6 million domestic over opening weekend, including a record 25% of that coming from IMAX showings. This was far over the #2 debut of the hybrid live action/CGI Yogi Bear, which took in $16.7 million on what is being considered a soft weekend at the box office.

Probably not safe for work – not because of any bad language or anything, but the horrible, horrible singing – but here are Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill giving their rendition (or butchering) of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”. Thanks, BBC…I think.

Having actually met and spoken with at an informal level the management at Syfy, I have a new found respect for the tough decisions they have to make.

That doesn’t mean I like the decisions. I can just understand them. I can’t understand why the cast weren’t informed properly, but that’s a different issue.

I keep seeing the same questions – why don’t you take into account digital downloads, DVD sales, etc. The fact is they just don’t count. A network does not make any money on those things – those go to the production company, which is NOT the same as the network. It’s like this:
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The winner in our BBC America DVD pack giveaway is Republibot! Congrats and thanks to everyone who participated! I only started using Twitter recently, and it’s becoming such an important news distribution system where followers and retweets are very important. Hopefully we can continue to build it and grow that way…its given me renewed interest in continuing and I’ve got some interesting ideas for the future…is there another 10 years here?

Stay tuned for future giveaways!

Shock is raging across the galaxies as Syfy has canceled Stargate Universe, which just broke out on Twitter via Deadline.com and was confirmed by Syfy. The Twitterverse is going to burn down, methinks…I was liking SGU more and more this season. The final 10 episodes will still be aired next Spring. Given no announcement of another Stargate series, this will end an 8 year unbroken run of Stargate on Syfy, and THIRTEEN years since the debut of Stargate SG-1 on Showtime.

Multi-platform network Ovation will air the entire series of Firefly on its cable network starting January 3rd for a limited run, with three episodes shown a night starting at 8pm ET/5pm PT, and then a marathon on Saturday, January 8th. Read below for the full press release – note that it says 15 episodes, but there are 14 full episodes, one of which is two hours. Ovation is available on DirecTV and Dish networks, and at least most if not all Verizon FiOS systems – check the Ovation web site to see if it is on your cable system.

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