23 years of this site still chugging along...
Catch the Rogue One: A Star Wars Story sizzle reel from Celebration!
by Doc on Jul.16, 2016, under Movies
I wish I was in London this weekend for Star Wars Celebration! Lots of cool things coming from across the pond. One of which is this sizzle reel for Rogue One! Enjoy!
2016 Emmy nominations genre roundup
by Doc on Jul.14, 2016, under Television
The primetime Emmy nominations are out…so how did our favorite genres fare?
Naturally Game Of Thrones leads the pack by far, with 23 separate nominations (which led all shows), including three for Best Supporting Actress and two for Best Actor. It was good to see Tatiana Maslany still on the list for Orphan Black, hoping she finally gets what she deserves. Walking Dead was still noticeably absent, with two minor noms.
Here is the list of all the genre nominations (apologies for omissions…)
(continue reading…)
Fox looks to add another Marvel X-Men series to stable
by Doc on Jul.14, 2016, under Television
Fox already has a Marvel/X-Men-based TV series in production for it’s FX cable network in the form of Legion, but they aren’t standing pat, with comic book series starting to take over the airwaves of broadcast nets…Fox has ordered up a put pilot for another show, untitled at the moment, that will focus on two ordinary parents who discover their children possess mutant powers. Forced to go on the run from a hostile government, the family joins up with an underground network of mutants and must fight to survive.
The same production team for Legion and the X-Men franchise of Lauren Shuler Donner, Bryan Singer, and Simon Kinberg will executive produce, along with the Daredevil/Jessica Jones team of Jeph Loeb and Jim Chory. Matt Nix (Burn Notice) is the writer/creator and will also executive produce.
Ian Gomez joins Supergirl might mean Flockhart demotion; Kid Flash look
by Doc on Jul.12, 2016, under Television
Interesting news coming through the grapevine…with Supergirl moving to the CW, it almost certainly would include budget cuts, likely with some concessions in the cast especially with the move of the production to Canada. One possibility is that Callista Flockhart, who plays CatCo head honcho Cat Grant, may be seen less, as apparently Ian Gomez (Cougar Town) has been signed to play Snapper Carr, who Cat hires to be the editor-in-chief at CatCo.
Meanwhile, the CW released a pic of Kid Flash/Wally West, who will debut with the third season of The Flash and played by Keiynan Lonsdale (Allegiant)…looks pretty slick…
Syfy cancels Hunters
by Doc on Jul.08, 2016, under Television
Syfy has canceled Hunters, one of two shows that just concluded their freshman runs on the network.
The series, which starred Nathan Phillips, Britne Oldford, and Lewis Fitz-Gerald and is based on the Whitley Strieber novel Alien Hunter, followed FBI agent Flynn Carroll (Phillips) as he tries to find out about the disappearance of his wife, and gets involved with the Extra-Terrestrial Unit (ETU), which is tasked with dealing with the threat posed by the alien Hunters, who have taken on human disguises. He befriends Regan, an ETU agent, who is herself a Hunter.
The show languished in the ratings, despite the high hopes the network had when it gave a straight-to-series order for 13 episodes. The premiere episode only landed a 0.54 audience, lost 20% the second week, and by episode 6 dropped below 0.3 and never recovered. Critics were harsh, and on Rotten Tomatoes it has a 0% tomatometer score.
Personally I didn’t enjoy the show as much as I did its freshman sibling, Wynonna Earp. I think the show was alright, but it felt like it was yet another police procedural ala CSI but with an alien twist, and visually I thought it lacked something – it’s hard to describe, but I’ve seen this with a lot of shows where the color palette seems to tend towards darker, muted but at the blue end of the spectrum. I don’t know if this is due to new video equipment, specific stylistic decisions, or perhaps in some ways a reflection of trying to keep the budget down – I just don’t like it. I’ve seen it in other shows that I otherwise enjoy immensely, like Killjoys, but they mix in more colorful scenes as well (Episode 2 is airing right now, and the sunrise with the bright primary colors is an example).
At any rate, I don’t like to see shows get canceled, but I’m not surprised at this one and I’m not hearing a clamoring of fans screaming at Syfy like with other shows. And that’s probably why.
Killjoys sneak peek: “Wild, Wild Westerley”
by Doc on Jul.07, 2016, under Television
Here’s a sneak peek of tomorrow night’s new Killjoys episode, “Wild, Wild Westerley”…tune in a 9/8c!
Sulu is gay in Star Trek Beyond but Takei doesn’t like it
by Doc on Jul.07, 2016, under Movies
UPDATED 7/8: See below.
Actor John Cho, who plays the character of Hikaru Sulu, the helmsman of the U.S.S. Enterprise in the rebooted Star Trek movie franchise (which has been officially dubbed the “Kelvin Timeline”), revealed while on a promotional tour in Australia that his character will be revealed to be gay in an upcoming scene in Star Trek Beyond. The revalation will be muted – “I liked the approach, which was not to make a big thing out it, which is where I hope we are going as a species — to not politicize one’s personal orientations,” according to Cho.
However, in an interview with THR, the original Sulu George Takei says he is unhappy with the decision to take an established character rather than present a new character. When Cho called him to tell him the news, “I told him, ‘Be imaginative and create a character who has a history of being gay, rather than Sulu, who had been straight all this time, suddenly being revealed as being closeted.'”
Takei, who came out of the closet in 2005 and has since become a vocal supporter of LGBT rights, had a discussion with director Justin Lin, and believed that they had rethought the decision. But when Cho had emailed him about the promotional tour and that the revelation would likely come out, Takei was disappointed.
The character of Sulu as originally depicted appeared straight although it never was formally established outside of secondary sources like novels. What was established is that he had a daughter, Demora Sulu, but whether she was adopted or not isn’t necessarily canon. However, given his occasional targeting of women including Uhura, if he was actually gay that would seem to indicate that he was “in the closet” during the original mission – which would raise the question as to whether there was a closet in the 23rd century to be in.
Update 7/8: Simon Pegg gave a very reasonable counter-argument.
CW to air first season of Supergirl ahead of second season
by Doc on Jul.06, 2016, under Television
If you need to get caught up with Supergirl now that Season 2 is a go with a move from CBS to the CW, here’s your chance – the CW will air all twenty first season episodes starting August 1st, with two episodes a week until the Season 2 debut on October 10th. So get caught up!
Harry Potter alum Tom Felton joins The Flash
by Doc on Jul.03, 2016, under Television
Tom Felton, who played Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, is joining the cast of The Flash for the upcoming season in a new regular role. No magical or super powers though, at least not yet – he’ll be playing mere human Julian Dorn, a fellow CSI in Central City who suspects there is more to his colleague Barry Allen.
The upcoming season will be taken from the “Flashpoint Paradox” storyline in the comics, where Barry’s actions trying to save his mother result in drastic changes across the DC universe.
Killjoys Season 2 starts July 1st – watch the first four minutes!
by Doc on Jun.30, 2016, under Television
KILLJOYS — Season:2 — Pictured: (l-r) Thom Allison as Pree, Sarah Power as Pawter, Aaron Ashmore as John, Hannah John-Kamen as Duth, Luke Macfarlane as D’Avin, Morgan Kelly as Alvis — (Photo by: Steve Wilkie/Syfy/Killjoys II Productions Limited)
Killjoys is at the top of the list. It does what I like in a drama – tell a serious story, but do so with enough humor to lighten things without distracting from it. You’ll get a taste of that in just the first few seconds of the video below.
Season 2 picks up with Dutch (Hannah John-Kamen) and John (Aaron Ashmore) trying to rescue D’avin (Luke Macfarlane) and figure out what Khlyen’s (Rob Stewart) plans are. And this time they get a little help from unlikely sources – Pree the bartender (Thom Allison) and rival Killjoy Lee (Sean Baek).
Everything you liked from Season 1 is back, and amped up! Tune in tomorrow with me!
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