Sci-Fi Storm

I’ve been thinking about what to say all weekend, and I’m still at a loss for words, so let me start with this.

Adam West IS Batman.

The original Batman TV series was one of those shows that occupied my most early memories of entertainment, along with Star Trek and Lost In Space. It was campy, and bizarre at times. All these strange guest villains with the same incompetent henchmen, and sometimes those villains had different actors portraying them…but I didn’t care about that. Something about the show fascinated me. Probably something about all those high tech, extremely well labeled goodies in the Bat Cave and a car with a built in rocket motor.

Sure, other actors have since played Batman, with varying degrees of success…but I could never buy any of them as the “face” of Batman. I don’t know why, really. Michael Keaton always had a look of incredulity to me. Val Kilmer was too smug. George Clooney was, well…George Clooney – it’s always a version of himself. I didn’t care much for Christian Bale, and as for Ben…I like him in general (yes, I said it), but not as the face of Batman.

No one is the face of Batman other than Adam West. He looked smart, he looked wealthy, but not in a smug, I’m-better-than-you way. He was always thoughtful. And he took it all seriously despite the campyness of the show.

Unfortunately as was not uncommon at the time after playing such an internationally famous role, West had trouble landing starring roles after Batman, having been typecast. He spent several years just making personal appearances, and wherever he went he was instantly recognized as Batman. Things picked up again years later, and he made many guest appearances on shows, and then starting in 1999 he became a recurring character on Family Guy, voicing “Mayor Adam West”, a crazy caricature. He never seemed to lose his humor about it all, and continued making personal appearances on the convention circuit along side his longtime friend Burt Ward.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to catch up with him when he was most recently in this area, but he was to return for Boston Comic Con this August. A few weeks ago his schedule was updated as “postponed”…West passed away this past Friday at the age of 88 after a brief fight with leukemia. I’m sad that I’ve missed the chance to meet yet another major part of my childhood.

RIP, Batman.

Netflix is lining up a new set of guest stars for the upcoming season season of Lemony Snicket’s A Series Of Unfortunate Events. We don’t know yet who they are playing, but Nathan Fillion (Castle, Firefly), Tony Hale (Veep, Sara Rue (Impastor), Lucy Punch (Bad Teacher), and Roger Bart (Desperate Housewives) have all signed on.

The second series, is expected to be 10 episodes, covering books five through nine – The Austere Academy, The Ersatz Elevator, The Vile Village, The Hostile Hospital, and The Carnivorous Carnival.

The dark comedy series follows the unfortunate lives of the Beaudelaire children, Violet (Malina Weissman), Klaus (Louis Hynes) and baby Sunny (voice of Tara Strong) after their parents are killed, and their constant escapes from the evil plans of their uncle, Count Olaf (Neil Patrick Harris), who will stop and nothing to gain the children’s inheritance. Patrick Warburton plays the eponymous author Lemony Snicket, who narrates through the depressing tale.

Yeah, they blow stuff up…and it’s fun! Killjoys returns June 30th on Syfy!

Less than a month after the release of the second season of Sense8, the sci-fi series from Lana and Lilly Wachowski and J. Michael Straczynski, Netflix has announced there will be no third season.

In a statement, Netflix’s Vice President of Original Content Cindy Holland said, “After 23 episodes, 16 cities and 13 countries, the story of the Sense8 cluster is coming to an end. It is everything we and the fans dreamed it would be: bold, emotional, stunning, kick ass, and outright unforgettable. Never has there been a more truly global show with an equally diverse and international cast and crew, which is only mirrored by the connected community of deeply passionate fans all around the world. We thank Lana, Lilly, Joe and Grant for their vision, and the entire cast and crew for their craftsmanship and commitment.”

Sense8 had a lofty budget and long production time, with Season 2 release almost two years after the original premiere. In fact, the options on the actors had lapsed after filming on Season 2 so while editing was being done they started to negotiate for a potential third season, with about half the leads having already climbed on board, but apparently Netflix decided against moving forward.

Pack your passport and grab a chainsaw, because Sharknado is going global! Taking the world – and unsuspecting celebrities – by storm, the movie event of the century blows into town this summer, and today, SYFY and The Asylum revealed its chilling title: Sharknado 5: Global Swarming. The latest installment in the hit pop culture franchise premieres on SYFY Sunday, August 6 at 8/7c and will air in more than 100 countries.

Sharknado 5: Global Swarming and the film’s official tagline, “Make America Bait Again!,” are the result of a fan-sourced social initiative launched this April. Calling on fans for inspiration, SYFY invited Facebook users to submit their most creative and outrageous ideas via an interactive bot.

In Sharknado 5: Global Swarming, the mission gets personal for Fin Shepard (Ian Ziering) and his bionic wife, April (Tara Reid) when their young son gets trapped in a traveling ‘nado and transported all over the world. From London to Rio, Tokyo, Rome, Amsterdam and beyond, our globetrotting heroes will seek assistance from a highly-skilled squad of royals, scholars and Olympians, enlisting famous faces from news, entertainment, and sports in their most epic battle yet.

Cameos announced today include:

• Fabio (Model) as the Pope
• Tony Hawk (Professional skateboarder) as a masterful weapons operative strategist
• Clay Aiken (Musician) as Llewelyn, a cutting edge technology genius
• Olivia Newton-John (Musician) and daughter Chloe Lattanzi as Orion and Electra, two brilliant scientists who help defend Australia from a looming Sharknado
• Bret Michaels (Musician) as a visiting artist that gets trapped in the storm
• Margaret Cho (Comedian) as a fussy bride whose honeymoon is interrupted by sharks
• Charo (Musician, Comedian) as The Queen of England
• Gilbert Gottfried (Comedian) as storm chaser Ron McDonald
• Today hosts Al Roker, Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb as themselves
• Olympic diving medalists Greg Louganis as Zico, a high-end art thief, and Tom Daley as himself
• Olympic freeskiing medalist Gus Kenworthy and NBC News investigative correspondent Jeff Rossen as themselves
• Porsha Williams (The Real Housewives of Atlanta) as Andromeda, an archeologist and member of the elite “Sharknado Sisterhood”
• Tiffany “New York” Pollard (Flavor of Love) as Vega, a Brazilian black market artifacts dealer
• Chris Kattan (Saturday Night Live) as The Prime Minister of England
• Cat Greenleaf (Talk Stoop) and Dan Fogler (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) as themselves
• Ross Mullan (Game of Thrones White Walker) as Dr. Wobbegon, a scientist who has made breakthroughs in meteorological studies to track Sharknado storms

and many more…

Also reprising their roles from previous installments are Cassie Scerbo, Masiela Lusha and Cody Linley.

Sharknado 5: Global Swarming, a production of The Asylum, is directed by Anthony C. Ferrante based on an original screenplay by Scotty Mullen.

Syfy’s Channel Zero extended anthology series has a third installment (and a fourth), and a cast, although it doesn’t have a title yet.

Brandon Scott (Blair Witch, Guerrilla) and Holland Roden (Teen Wolf, Bring It On: Fight to the Finish) have signed on as leads for the third installment of the show. I haven’t seen plot details, but Scott will play a cop with a “world-weary” exterior, but a fierce commitment to justice, and a deep love for his troubled community. Roden is Zoe Woods, a sharp, tough young woman whose struggles with mental illness have worn her down over the years. She hates that her younger sister Alice has to take care of her and she’d give anything to go back to the way things used to be.

The second series, No-End House, airs in October and follows Brian Russell’s story of Margot (Amy Forsyth), a young woman who, along with her friends, visits the No-End House – a bizarre house of horrors consisting of a series of increasingly disturbing rooms.

We are VERY excited about this!

Netflix has ordered 10 episodes of The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance from the Jim Henson Company. The series is a prequel to the 1982 film The Dark Crystal, where Jim Henson brought his puppet-making prowess to bring to life an entire fantasy world full of Gelflings, Skeksis, Mystics and more.

Louis Leterrier (Now You See Me, The Incredible Hulk), Lisa Henson (CEO of the Jim Henson Company) and Halle Stanford will executive produce, with Rita Peruggi (long time Henson collaborator) as producer and Blanca Lista as co-executive producer. Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews (Life in a Year) and Javier Grillo-Marxuach (The 100) will head up writing, with Addiss and Matthews also co-executive producing.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched The Dark Crystal. Back in the early days of having cable, it filled a void in TV of fantasy content for me. And to see the familiar puppet styles but so much more advanced was fascinating. I can’t wait to see how they take this some 35+ years later.

CBS dropped some info on the upcoming CBS All Access series Star Trek: Discovery – not a lot, mind you, but some – and more importantly, the trailer for the show.

Today at the network’s upfront presentations, they announced that they ordered an additional two episodes, bringing up the first season to 15 episodes. In addition, there will be a companion “Talk” series called Talking Trek – a strategy that is becoming increasingly popular with off-broadcast genre shows.

And then there is this…

I still have fears that limiting this series to the CBS All Access pay-streaming service will limit the audience too much to support such an expensive show, but I’m not sure what the All Access subscriber numbers look like currently.

Wow…in a rare reversal, NBC – which canceled Timeless 4 days ago – did an about face and yesterday made the decision to renew the show for a second season of 10 episodes.

Star Matt Lanter broke the news in a Facebook video:

Co-creator Shawn Ryan also added that they aren’t yet sure when it will be back.

A lot of info flying. Initially thought #Timeless would be on next summer, now it may be 2018 spring. Who knows? Just know we're back!

— Shawn Ryan (@ShawnRyanTV) May 13, 2017

Not really surprising, given the sudden change – NBC will need to find a slot in the schedule now.

We thought that is was in the “more likely than not camp, and we were right – ABC has renewed Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for another season. ABC had previously told producer Jed Whedon to write a “season finale”, not a series finale, so odds were pretty good.

The current season of S.H.I.E.L.D. is reaching its conclusion of the “Agents of Hydra” storyline, where some of the team were entrapped in a virtual reality called the Framework where Hydra was in control and the agents all lead very different lives. The season has been averaging about 4.3 million viewers.