Sci-Fi Storm

Park Entertainment has announced that the new Doctor Who spinoff, now just called K9, is in production. SCI FI Wire has has a trailer for it, but it doesn’t seem like the author of the article cares…the show is aimed more at children, probably at the same level as The Sarah Jane Adventures or even a bit younger. To deal with the fact that he is in the “present” time involved (if not seen regularly) in The Sarah Jane Adventures, the new series is set in the near future. And now he has ears!

Stargate Universe brought in 2.4 million viewers for its 2-hour premiere, which is the best viewership in the franchise in several years, but it fell short of the debut of Warehouse 13 (3.5). It did however beat its direct competition in Dollhouse, which set a viewership low of 2.1 million, which does not bode well at all for Joss Whedon’s sophomore show.

Heads up warning: Star Wars: The Clone Wars picks up its second season Friday on the Cartoon Network at 8PM ET with a one-hour episode, with a repeat at 9PM, and Stargate Universe starts off with a two-hour episode at 9PM ET on Syfy, with a repeat at 11PM.

Day One, which NBC has been saying may simply be a one shot 13 episode series as opposed to a continuing series, may not even make it that far – NBC is reportedly cutting the order to four episodes and will bill it as a mini-series instead, to bow after the Olympics.

Despite having been canceled in June, British series Primeval will return to the present – for two runs for a likely 13 total episodes. BBC America and pay channel UKTV have stepped in to provide funding. The new episodes should be ready by 2011. Akiva Goldsman and Kerry Foster are also still adapting it for the big screen for Warner Brothers.

ABC is going to split the episodes of the upcoming V, showing 4 episodes starting November 3rd, and the rest being held back likely until March. This and the “creative hiatus” shutdown of production has led to speculation that perhaps the show is in serious trouble and ABC might stop production altogether and turn what they have into a miniseries, but ABC and Warner Bros. deny that, and insiders point to the upcoming Winter Olympics and American Idol as a potential ratings “dead zone”.

This is an interesting review – I had not watched the ITV production Primeval at all at this point. I intended to when it was on BBC America, filling the void of Doctor Who and Torchwood at the time. Unfortunately various things got in the way and it fell off the radar. So, what to do when I have Primeval Volume Two in hand, without having seen the previous episodes? Throw it in the DVD player and hope I can follow what is going on…
(continue reading…)

OK, so for 2 minutes and 17 seconds, everyone on Earth gets a glimpse of their lives (if they have one) 6 months into the future. But did it also give us a sideways look at Lost? It appears that a billboard seen on the show touts Oceanic Airlines “perfect safety record”. This parallel view of what may happen at the start of Season 6 of Lost does not appear to have affected the Oceanic Airlines web site yet…

Head’s up warning…Heroes returns tonight at 8pm ET with a two-hour premiere.

As usual, SF genre shows didn’t get a lot of recognition in last night’s Emmy broadcast, but they did get some airtime at least, with Battlestar Galactica figuring in several spots. As for the awards themselves, some of the notable genre winners include Michael Emerson for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in Lost and Kristin Chenoweth for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in Pushing Daisies. It also saw the return of Dr. Horrible…the winner’s list from the broadcast is available here, along with an creative arts Emmys given out earlier, for which Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog won “Special Class – Short Format Live-Action Entertainment Program”.