Sci-Fi Storm

Camelopardus! I’ve been wanting to do a retro review for quite a while – it’s been a while. But I’ve dug out some of my old DVDs that I purchased but never got to watch…and for this, I’m going back into my childhood (way back…) in the 70s world of Saturday Morning Television.

Back in the days where you had just a handful of channels and had to adjust antennas to point in the right direction depending on the weather, Saturday mornings were the domain of kids programming. Primarily cartoons, occasionally there would be a live action show as well. In the cartoon universe, there were the major players like Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros, there was also Filmation, who was firmly entrenched in Saturday morning programming since the 60s, working on early DC Comics shows featuring Superman and Batman as well as the Archie comics. In 1973, they produced Star Trek: The Animated Series. By the mid 70s they had quite a few cartoons in heavy rotation…but then they decided to break out into live action shows. Shazam! (which is being developed for a feature film) and The Secrets of Isis, but the two I remember most were Ark II and Space Academy, being the science fiction-crazed kid I was. Both shows only lasted 15 shows, but they were repeated often and I would watch any chance I could get. Both were released on DVD in 2006. Neither are currently in production, but you might be able to pick them up from resellers. Check out [sfs=698]Amazon[/sfs].

Space Academy was my favorite. It was like Star Trek for kids, featuring kids – well, primarily teens and young adults playing teens. It is set on board a traveling academy built on an asteroid founded in the year 3272 (it is never specified when the series itself is set), where the best and brightest gathered to study and explore the mysteries of space. The show focuses on the Academy’s “Blue Team”.

Starring in the show were:

• Jonathan Harris, best known for Lost In Space as Commander Gampu, the 300 year old head of Space Academy
• Ric Carrott as Chris Gentry, the captain of Blue Team. Ric also played the original Chuck Cunningham, Ritchie’s older brother, on the episode of Love, American Style that served as a backdoor pilot for Happy Days.
• Pamelyn Ferdin as Laura Gentry, Chris’s younger sister with which he shares a psychic bond. She made many appearances on shows in the 60s and 70s, and starred in Lassie.
• Brian Tochi as Tee Gar, the medical officer of the team and also has super-human strength through his martial Arts. Brian may best be known for his run as Takeshi in the Revenge of the Nerds movies, Nogata in the Police Academy movies, and the voice of Leonardo in the Teenage Mutant Nija Turtles movies.
• Maggie Cooper as Adrian Pryce-Jones, third in command of the team and the team’s technical expert. This was Maggie’s first role, but she would later star in the Chuck Norris film An Eye for an Eye and had a recurring role on Falcon Crest.
• Ty Henderson as Paul Jerome, a transfer from the Red Team, his introduction shows him as a tough loner but he warms up to the team quickly and his high intelligence aids the team. Ty would later guest star in a number of shows, including recurring roles in Madame’s Place and Santa Barbara.
• Eric Greene as Loki, who was found as a lone orphan on the planet Zalon. He joins the team, which vows to find where he came from (although this is largely forgotten after the first few episodes.) Eric went from acting to get a law degree and works in civil rights and is also an author.
• Erica Scheimer as the voice of Peepo the robot, who gets into as much trouble as Loki. Erica is the daughter of Filmation founder Lou Scheimer, and did many voices on Filmation shows.

The show is probably what you’d expect for a Saturday morning kids show. The budget wasn’t enormous, although they did well with what they had – the visual effects were good but often relied on stock footage. Planets were obviously on small soundstages redressed in different ways. To avoid needing expensive spacesuits, they simply had “life support” devices that presumably provided an invisible energy barrier to protect the wearer, like the life support belts used in Star Trek: The Animated Series. But the model of Space Academy was decent, and I really liked the overall design of the Seeker, their primary ship. Occasionally, the effects were laughable, such as the stop-motion creature in the second episode. In a “long shot”, you’d see the worm-like creature with arms flailing about – but the create had an ability to be invisible – coincidentally whenever the actors were shown…

Being kid oriented, stories were somewhat simplistic. The show was in 30-minute episodic format, with little carrying through from episode to episode – normal for the time. And since it was aimed at kids, so there would be some sort of lesson or moral to each. Heck, I think there was more to learn from these shows than the so-called “E/I” tagged shows these days.

The acting wouldn’t win any awards, but again this was Saturday morning kid stuff and an early venture into live-action programming for the studio. I suspect it was perhaps more at the production level plus the inexperience of some of the actors. I didn’t care at 10 years old though, and I . The late, great Jonathan Harris, as he generally did, performed every scene with an all-in attitude regardless of the material, and could make everything work. Pamelyn and Brian, having the most experience, did seem to excel at delivery more than most.

Speaking of Pamelyn Ferdyn and Brian Tochi, a bit of trivia – the two had previously worked together in the episode “And the Children Shall Lead” in the original Star Trek, where they were two of the children who took over the ship. And I have to say, I had a crush on Pamelyn back then – she had such a cute face and I recognized here across her many guest appearances on various shows, including The Odd Couple and The Brady Bunch.

Guest appearances were hit-and-miss. Not because of the performances but the characters were a bit…odd. Again because it’s a kids show, it seems like they would choose a guest character to be visually interesting to a kid, but not necessarily in a way that fits the role the character is in – I want to say more clownish/comical, but not really that. Just as an example, in the episode “Johnny Sunseed”, the eponymous character is there to inspect the Academy, but the portrayal and dress of the character is more like someone who would be panning for gold in the Old West with a twist of pirate including a parrot on his shoulder. He’s also a technophobe inspecting one of the most advanced space stations…

If some of the voices sound familiar, you’ve probably heard them many, many times on other Filmation shows. Even Lou Scheimer himself is uncredited as a voice in a couple episodes. I recognized the voice from other cartoons, but never realized it was Lou! Even some of the live action guests were better known for their voice work, such as the aforementioned Johnny Sunseed, played by Dal McKennon, who’s voice work includes Lady and the Tramp, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and over a 100 others.

And in the spirit of “don’t build a new one if you can re-use what we have”, not only does a heavily modified Robby the Robot make a guest appearance, but all the sounds and incidental music were recycled, mainly from Star Trek and Star Trek: The Animated Series. And then ultimately, after the show ended the sets and models got re-used in a sequel series, Jason of Star Command – which should show up in a Retro Review soon as well!

Despite it showing its age and probably not appealing to a modern science fiction fan, I still LOVED this show. I’m so glad I finally took the time to watch it again. I miss being a kid.

For the first time, classic episodes from the Tom Baker years of Doctor Who will be released on Blu-ray in the U.S.!

Tom Baker’s entire first season, Season 12 of the classic series, will be released as a single unit as [asin=1652]Tom Baker Season 1[/asin], consisting of 6 discs. All the episodes, plus all the extras that were on the individual DVDs will be included. In addition, all new extras will be added, including an all new candid interview with Tom Baker; “Behind the Sofa”, watching various clips with Tom Baker, Philip Hinchcliffe, Louise Jameson, Janet Fielding, Sarah Sutton and Sadie Miller; new “making of” for “The Sontaran Experiment” and “Revenge of the Cybermen”, and more!

If this sells well, we can expect more such releases of the classic series!

Yes, my friends…we will see more chainsaws and sharks and Ian Ziering…SYFY has given a green light to a sixth and final entry in the camp movie franchise…and this one will have time travel!

Finn (Ziering), left in a world devastated at the end of Sharknado 5: Global Swarming, will apparently travel back in time in an attempt to stop the very first Sharknado – and if successful it will be as if it never happened…some may wish it never had. 🙂

Ian Ziering, Tara Reid, Cassie Scerbo, and Vivica A. Fox will all be back as will director Anthony Ferrante. I’m sure in the coming weeks we’ll start hearing the list of guest stars and cameo appearances.

SYFY’s untold Superman series Krypton, premiered to an audience of over 2.6 million people in the Live+3 ratings, the best new series premiere on the network since Ascension in 2014. Krypton debuted on March 21 and was the #1 entertainment program on cable for the night.

The show was the #1 entertainment program on cable in total viewers on its premiere night, beating Riverdale in all key demos, and was the best cable genre series premiere in key 18-49 demo since Legion on 2/8/17.

Set 200 years before the destruction of Superman’s home planet, Krypton follows Seg-El (Cameron Cuffe), the legendary Man of Steel’s grandfather, as a young man who is faced with a life and death conflict – save his home planet or let it be destroyed in order to restore the fate of his future grandson. He must redeem his family’s honor and protect the ones he loves while being challenged by familiar DC characters Brainiac (Blake Ritson) and Earthly time-traveler Adam Strange (Shaun Sipos).

Krypton is from Warner Horizon Scripted Television and is executive produced by David S. Goyer (Man of Steel) through his Phantom Four banner, alongside Cameron Welsh, who serves as showrunner. In addition to Cuffe, Sipos and Ritson, the show also stars Georgina Campbell (Black Mirror), Elliot Cowan (Da Vinci’s Demons), Ann Ogbomo (World War Z), Rasmus Hardiker (Your Highness), Wallis Day (Will), Aaron Pierre (Tennison) and Ian McElhinney (Game of Thrones). Based on the DC characters created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

At WonderCon this weekend CBS released a deleted scene from the finale of Star Trek Discovery that shows the return of a group suspected to be behind the “black badge” Starfleet members, and show where the show is heading in its upcoming second season.

Note: The scene may present spoilers if you’d rather wait, or if you haven’t finished watching the first season…so stop reading now.
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SYFY’s jump into the DC universe takes a jump back in time to explore not really the origin story of its most famous superhero, but of his ancestors instead. An ambitious move, to eschew the draw of having a well known character to revolve around, instead developing a backstory for the world he ultimately came from.

We know the planet Krypton explodes, and we know Jor-El sends his only son Kal-El to Earth just before that, where he grows up to become Superman. But this isn’t about that exactly – we’ve seen that in a few different versions of the Superman mythos.

Instead, we are set a couple generations before those events, focusing instead on Kal-El’s grandfather, Seg (Cameron Cuffe), in his younger days. Seg’s own grandfather, Val-El, is declared a heretic and banished to the Phantom Zone, leaving the House of El disgraced and nameless. Seg becomes one of the Rankless – the lowest class of Kryptonians. He gets the chance to rejoin the ranks, but learns about his grandfather and what may happen after an Earth man from the future named Adam Strange (another DC comics character, played by Shaun Sipos), warns that someone is coming to change the course of history to prevent Superman from being born.

The show is set in the domed city of Kandor, the capital city of Krypton and one of nine city-states that exist in the remaining inhabitable areas of the planet after a previous catastrophe. In recent years, the democratic government has been overthrown by a theocratic form that revolves around the worship of the sun god Rao, who is embodied by the Voice of Rao, a mysterious figure who wears a six-faced golden mask. All other religions have been banned. Several guilds exist to maintain the functioning government and the members live the “high life”, literally, while the Rankless occupy the streets.
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Nightflyers follows eight maverick scientists and a powerful telepath who embark on an expedition to the edge of our solar system aboard The Nightflyer – a ship with a small tightknit crew and a reclusive captain – in the hope of making contact with alien life. But when terrifying and violent events begin to take place they start to question each other – and surviving the journey proves harder than anyone thought.

Eoin Macken (The Night Shift) is set to star as Karl D’Branin alongside Sam Strike (EastEnders) as Thale, Maya Eshet (Teen Wolf) as Lommie, Angus Sampson (Fargo) as Rowan, Jodie Turner-Smith (The Last Ship) as Melantha Jhirl, Gretchen Mol (Boardwalk Empire) as Agatha, David Ajala (Fast & Furious 6) as Roy Eris, and Brían F. O’Byrne (Million Dollar Baby) as Auggie.

Coming this Fall to SYFY

For those who were holding out hope for Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency to find another outlet after being canceled by BBC America, officially the road is over…there will be no Season 3 after it was unable to find a new network.

Executive Producer Arvind Ethan David tweeted heartfelt thanks:

An update for all of you working to #SaveDirkGently

— from all of us who made #DirkGently

with much, much love. #Dirktectives pic.twitter.com/FozJgKHUH4

— Arvind Ethan David (@ArvD) March 10, 2018

The wonderfully quirky show, as only a show from the mind of Douglas Adams should be, followed the adventures of the “holistic” detective Dirk Gently (Samuel Barnett) and his reluctant assistant/friend Todd (Elijah Wood) as they investigate a series of seemingly random events that all tie together into an insane mystery.

NO! From producer Dean Devlin:

Just got the official call. TNT has cancelled #TheLibrarians – I will immediately begin the process of trying to move the show elsewhere. Please keep your fingers crossed for us!

— Dean Devlin (@Dean_Devlin) March 9, 2018

This saddens me a great deal. Watching the show was just pure fun and we loved all the characters. I really hope another network is willing to pick this up.

Lucasfilm announced that Jon Favreau, who helped usher in the era of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for Marvel Studios, will now take the reins of the upcoming untitled live-action Star Wars series that will be part of Disney’s direct-to-consumer video service.

“I couldn’t be more excited about Jon coming on board to produce and write for the new direct-to-consumer platform,” says Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy. “Jon brings the perfect mix of producing and writing talent, combined with a fluency in the Star Wars universe. This series will allow Jon the chance to work with a diverse group of writers and directors and give Lucasfilm the opportunity to build a robust talent base.”

Favreau is familiar with the Star Wars universe as well, having voiced Pre Vizsla in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and will appear in the upcoming Solo: A Star Wars Story. “If you told me at 11 years old that I would be getting to tell stories in the Star Wars universe, I wouldn’t have believed you. I can’t wait to embark upon this exciting adventure.”

Favreau was nominated for an Emmy in 2005 for producing dinner for Five, and and won the Saturn Award in 2009 for Best Director for Iron Man. He directed both Iron Man and Iron Man 2, and executive produced the Iron Man and Avengers movies, and also appeared as Tony Stark’s assistant Happy Hogan in many of them. He’s currently working on The Lion King for Disney.

No release date for the Star Wars series has been announced.