Sci-Fi Storm

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.

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.

Syfy made the Krypton pilot green light official today, and gave a few more details on the upcoming production, the much-anticipated Superman prequel set two generations before the destruction of the legendary Man of Steel’s home planet. Krypton will follow Superman’s grandfather — whose House of El was ostracized and shamed — as he fights to redeem his family’s honor and save his beloved world from chaos.

Krypton will be executive produced by David S. Goyer (Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, The Dark Knight trilogy) through his Phantom Four banner. Damian Kindler (Sleepy Hollow) will serve as executive producer/showrunner; Colm McCarthy (She Who Brings Gifts, Peaky Blinders) is set to direct and co-executive produce the pilot. The pilot teleplay and story is written by David S. Goyer & Ian Goldberg (Once Upon a Time, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles). Krypton will be produced by Warner Horizon Television and is based on characters created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, published by DC Comics.

“Krypton is one of the most iconic stories in the comic book universe,” said Bill McGoldrick, Executive Vice President, Scripted Content, NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. “In the talented hands of David S. Goyer and the DC Entertainment/Warner Horizon Television team, this exciting Syfy project will take viewers back to Superman’s home to show how the timeless legend began.”

CBS has still been tight-lipped on the fate of Supergirl, and that could be due to negotiations between the network and the studio to reduce the costs of the show.

Deadline reports a new possibility from the various scenarios we’ve been hearing this week that production could actually move from Los Angeles to Vancouver as a cost-cutting measure – partly spurred by the denial of tax credits for the production from the California Film Commission.A move to Vancouver would also bring the show to the same area as Greg Berlanti’s two other DC Universe shows, Arrow and The Flash, the latter of which already did a crossover to Supergirl.

If CBS ultimately doesn’t bite, there are apparently various outlets that might take the show on. Our money is on it joining its cousins on the CW, which is co-owned between VBS and Warner Bros, which could lessen license fees. However, the budget in general for the show is probably too high for the CW to take as-is, and additional cost cutting might be needed, as it would also be likely for any other outlet beyond the Big Four networks. That would likely mean production cuts – which would likely be most scene in some loss of the cast.

It still remains to be scene where we go from here. We are still pretty confident that Supergirl will go on…somewhere.

As NBCUniversal continues to consolidate management among its cable properties, two more senior vice presidents have elected to leave. Paul Shapiro, SVP Original Content and Erik Storey, SVP Original Programming, have both left after Bill McGoldrick, now the Executive Vice President for Scripted Content across Syfy, USA, Bravo and E!, announced his management team last week, mainly consisting of people McGoldrick worked with at USA before he came to Syfy in 2014.

Shapiro, who was in charge of scripted programming development, had been with Syfy for 12 years, while Storey, who managed current scripted programs, was a 15 year veteran of the network. With the exception of Syfy President Dave Howe, most of the executive team has changed in the years I’ve known them.

Sorry for the lack of updates lately…we had to attend to a family emergency this past week and returned home late last night, and we have a lot of decompressing to do while attending to an event this week with its own bit of drama attached…but here is a bit of catch up for this past week…

The big news yesterday is that we know who the next companion is on Doctor Who. West End stage actress Pearl Mackie, most recently appearing in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time for the National Theatre, will play a character named Bill in the 10th season, which will not air until 2017. This will be Mackie’s first major role on television.

While we await renewals for a few shows (notably Supergirl), some others did get the nod this week. Grimm will return for a sixth season on NBC, but the network ordered a base of 13 episodes instead of 22 – but that could still increase. NBC has a lot of shows competing for the schedule next Fall, several of which are serials done in 13-episode chunks, and the shorter order will allow them to have more options in scheduling them. If things don’t work out for one of the other shows, Grimm could see the order increase. Also on the renewed list is MTV’s freshman fantasy series Shannara Chronicles, which had so-so live ratings, but picked up heavily in the L+3 and L+7 rating plus lots of social media buzz and digital downloads making it their best new show.

Syfy has given a green light for a pilot for the long-in-development David S. Goyer project Krypton. The series intends to see what life was like on Superman’s home planet years before its destruction, and follow the house of El and in particular Kal-El’s grandfather who seeks to bring hope and equality to a planet in disarray.

And finally moving from the small screen to the large one with a couple of Marvel tidbits…it appears that Iron Man/Tony Stark will be making an appearance in the upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming film starring Tom Holland as the webslinger in Sony’s reboot of the franchise. Whether this is an attempt to bring Spider-Man closer to the Marvel Cinematic Universe following his upcoming appearance in Captain America: Civil War, or it is just a courtesy crossover for Sony allowing Spidey in the Avengers universe, who knows. But it can only be a plus.

And lastly, Marvel’s Inhumans film, planned for 2019, has been taken off the release slate – at least temporarily. While this could put the production in doubt, it may just be a scheduling matter – the new Indiana Jones movie was scheduled to release just a week later which would have a Disney/Lucasfilm likely overshadowing a Disney/Marvel film. Plans are still in place for the movie, but they just don’t have a release window picked out yet.

I have seen the future – and it is changing.

What started out as a Syfy TV series remake of the Terry Gilliam movie of the same name, where a traveler from the future goes back to the present day in an attempt to stop the release of a deadly virus that wipes out most of humanity by a mysterious group called the Army of the 12 Monkeys, 12 Monkeys the series appears to be on the verge of bursting out of it’s original bubble.

Season 2, which starts tonight at 9/8c, shifts gears to place more focus on the time travel, and the consequences of altering the timeline. With James Cole (Aaron Standford) changing things at various points prior to the plague being released, those changes have repercussions on the future where Project Splinter and the time machine exist – and things are changing even for Katarina Jones (Barbara Sukowa), in rather unexpected ways. And lots of people want to control the time machine.

While all of this time-twisting is going to be hard to keep a head around, it does fortunately hold together enough for a compelling story for its characters. We will also learn more about the blue guys called the Messengers, and it looks like we’ll find out that some of the incoherent rambling of Jennifer Goines (Emily Hampshire) might have more meaning.

Welsh actor Gareth Thomas, best known among genre fans as rebel leader Roj Blake in the BBC series Blake’s 7, passed away yesterday at the age of 71.

Thomas trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, after which he became an associate member. He made many television appearances, receiving two BAFTA nominations. He also appeared on stage in several Royal Shakespeare Company productions, including Twelfth Night and Othello, and many other productions, including 2010’s Desire Under the Elms.

On his Blake’s 7 role, he’s often said that he never watched an episode, and even left the show after the second season, apart from a couple of guest appearances. However, he would later turn back to the role in several Big Finish audio productions.

However, I remember him most from a role just prior to Blake – from a series called Star Maidens. While staying a few weeks with family in England I caught this series, and the memory of it stayed with me for a long time…you can read my Retro Review of the show from 2008.