Sci-Fi Storm

It’s still a long way off from hitting the airwaves still, but /Film has some of the first images from the Fox/Dreamworks series Terra Nova, being produced by Steven Spielberg.

Terra Nova stars Jason O’Mara (Life On Mars) as Jim Shannon, the father of a family who travel into the prehistoric past to escape the doom of civilization. From the press release:

From executive producers Steven Spielberg, Peter Chernin, Brannon Braga (24, “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and David Fury (“Lost,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) comes an epic family adventure 85 million years in the making.
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The Torchwood team is getting bigger. Michael Ausiello broke the news that Alex Havins (All My Children) is joining the cast as a regular, playing Ester Katusi, a CIA Watch Analyst, and will reportedly have a crush on Rex, played by Mekhi Phifer. In addition, Dichen Lachman (Sierra, Dollhouse) will guest on the season premiere, although her role hasn’t been specified, other than working for the CIA.

Seems the CIA is going to be involved a lot…

10th Doctor David Tennant and girlfriend actress Georgia Moffett are engaged to to be married, with a wedding planned for New Years Day 2012. The two met on the set of Doctor Who during Tennant’s third year, where Moffatt played the titular and ironic role of “The Doctor’s Daughter”, also known as Jenny. Moffett is in fact the daughter of Peter Davison, the 5th Doctor, with whom Tennant appeared in the 2007 Children In Need special short episode, “Timecrash”. Davison has already given his blessing, along with Moffett’s mother, actress Sandra Dickinson (best known in the genre perhaps as Trillian from The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy mini-series). Davison and Dickinson split in 1994.

I found the headline from this article a bit humorous though: “Harry Potter’ Star David Tennant Engaged to Georgia Moffett” As popular as Harry is, I’m not really sure Tennant’s popularity really stems from the limited screen time he had in one movie… 🙂

I already tweeted about this, but it bears repeating – if you are planning for your DVR to automatically record the final five episodes of Caprica on Syfy (in a single block starting at 6PM ET Tuesday), double check your recording schedule. Several data sources, including Tribune (used by TiVo), do not have the episodes marked as “new” or “first run”, so if your settings for Caprica only include new episodes, it may not record be default. This may be due to the data having the originally scheduled air date…

I never really watched the Ghost Hunters shows until the live Halloween episode – now the whole family is hooked on them. But it’s a good idea not to watch them right before bed 🙂 Some are just creepy.

I got a rough cut of the upcoming season premiere of Ghost Hunters International, which airs this Wednesday, January 5th, at 9PM ET, where they investigate Kronborg Castle in Denmark, the inspiration for the location of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
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With BBC America debuting the 4th series of Primeval on the same day as in the UK, 5 “prequel videos” to the 4th series (yes, it is technically the 4th…the first two were short and combined in to one DVD release, with the 3rd series billed as Volume 2 – confused me as well). Find out what happened in the present after Connor, Abby and Danny get stuck in the past…see below for all 5. Primeval Series 4 premieres on BBC America January 1st at 9PM ET.
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/Film has the first trailer for Falling Skies, the alien invasion TV series from Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks Television, which will air on TNT beginning in June 2011. Here is the press release:

FALLING SKIES is an exciting new series from DreamWorks Television and executive producer Steven Spielberg. Noah Wyle (ER, TNT’s The Librarian movies) stars as a former college professor who becomes the leader of a group of soldiers and civilians struggling against an occupying alien force. Moon Bloodgood (Terminator Salvation) co-stars as Anne Glass, a therapist who works with the surviving children to help them cope with the traumatic situation. The series also stars Drew Roy (Lincoln Heights) as Hal and Maxim Knight (Brothers & Sisters) as Matt, Tom’s two sons; and Seychelle Gabriel (Weeds) as Lourdes, an orphaned teenager who helps run the group’s commissary. Will Patton (Armageddon, TNT’s Into the West) will play a recurring role as a fierce resistance fighter.

Nothing new here in terms of plot, but at least from the trailer the production quality looks interesting. I wonder if TNT gives Steven notes on how he should change things… 🙂

I’m hearing from various sources that the unofficial overnight figures show 10.3 million viewers in the UK tuned in for the Doctor Who 2010 Christmas episodes, “A Christmas Carol”, finishing second for the night behind EastEnders and getting a 39.8% share of the total audience. Last year’s special, which was also David Tennant’s last, hit 10.4 million. It will be interesting to see the US numbers with BBC America showing it the same day.

The episode was both fun and far-fetched, but also a good compelling story – not exactly a retelling of the Dickens story, but borrowing partly from it and other stories. Not without some plot holes, but it is Doctor Who after all…

Missed it? It is available for pre-order now on [sfs=1092]Blu-ray[/sfs] and [sfs=1093]DVD[/sfs], with a release date of February 15th.

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.