Sci-Fi Storm

Actor Robin Sachs, who has played many different roles across the board, often in prosthetic makeup, passed away last week at the age of 61.

Fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer might recognize his face as that of Ethan Rayne, but he did a lot of voice work (most recently in the game Mass Effect 3) and acted frequently in prosthetic makeup, including the role of Sarris in the Tim Allen comedy Galaxy Quest, four different roles in Babylon 5 (two Narn and new Minbari), and General Valen in (Star Trek: Voyager).

Author Peter David, well known for his works in comics and the Star Trek universe, suffered a stroke several days ago and is in the process of recovering.

Peter David has been prolific in the comics and SF genres, writing for several comic titles including an incredible 12 year run on The Incredible Hulk. He’s written episodes for several TV series including Babylon 5 and Crusade, and co created the kids show Space Cases with Babylon 5 and Lost In Space star Bill Mumy – which in the first season starred a young girl with rainbow colored hair, played by Jewel Staite, more familiar to fans as Kaylee in Firefly and Dr. Keller in Stargate Atlantis. He also did a number of Star Trek comics and novels.

Here are some of the big and our favorite stories we covered in 2012…

In January, rapidly rising British actor Benedict Cumberbatch joined Star Trek: Into Darkness, while CW’s Arrow dropped “Green” from the name and named Stephen Amell the lead actor.

We lost actor Ian Abercrombie and the voice of the Robot from Lost In Space Dick Tufeld.
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I just learned a short time ago via a Facebook post from JMS that actor Michael O’Hare, who played Commander Jeffrey Sinclair in the first season of Babylon 5 (and reprised the role in the two part “War Without End”) among various other TV appearances and a New York stage career, passed away today at the age of 60, after having suffered a heart attack on Sunday and remaining in a coma since.

Our condolences to the O’Hare family.

Overbrook Entertainment, the entertainment company set up by Will Smith and James Lassiter, and Georgiaville Television, which just made news with their Blake’s remake landing at Syfy, are teaming with Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski on a “pandemic” drama for ABC.

The project doesn’t currently have a title, but is described as a thriller that combines closed-ended procedural and serialized elements.

Lassiter and Jada Pinkett Smith will executive produce for Overbrook, with JMS writing the pilot and executive producing. Georgiaville is financing, and like the Blake’s 7 project, ABC has given this one a script-to-series commitment, which means if ABC likes the script it will be given a 13 episode order immediately.

I was just posting the previous article talking about the new STARZ series that were in development and what JMS has been teasing about for Comic-Con, and Deadline broke this news: he is announcing Studio JMS, a new multi-platform media company to handle all of his output under one roof. JMS develops and writes projects for all sorts of different platforms, including comic books, TV, and movies.

Studio JMS will be co-run by Patricia Tallman, who starred in JMS’s series Babylon 5 as telepath Lyta Alexander among many other acting and stunt roles, and also ran her own business, Talent To Go.

Among the things under development: The Flickering Light, to be directed by JMS, about Nazi propaganda director Leni Reifenstahl and the film she made using concentration camp prisoners; The Adventures Of Apocalypse Al, a web series for MTV.com; Living Dead The Musical, another web series; Epidemic for Overbrook Entertainment; Vlad Dracula for Starz; and a revival of his Joe’s Comics imprint with Image Comics.

Fancy the idea of taking up arms against some of your favorite heroes from SF film and television? Or fancy a blaster fight with a squad of Stormtroopers led by General Motti? (Hey, at least that last one should be easy…we know how well Stormtroopers shoot!)

Well, you might have your chance at Comicpalooza, in Houston May 25-27!

“The next best thing to being a sci-fi or action hero has to be shooting a sci-fi or action hero with a gun. Or maybe being shot by one,” says John Simons, founder and Chairman of Comicpalooza, the Texas International Comic Con. At least that’s the premise that led to the Badass Celebrity Smackdown, in which fans attending Comicpalooza May 25-27 will get their chance to pit themselves against stars of some of the biggest sci-fi and action franchises in Hollywood while helping US veterans at the same time.
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I am hearing the sad news from the Star Wars: The Clone Wars cast: Actor Ian Ambercrombie, who was the voice of Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious, passed away yesterday at the age of 77.

Abercrombie was also most recently a recurring character in Disney Channel’s Wizards of Waverly Place as Professor Crumbs, and appeared in the final episode aired a couple of weeks ago. An accomplished stage actor, SF fans may also remember him for his role of Alfred in the short-lived Birds of Prey series, guesting as Correlilmurzon in some memorable comedy moments in the Babylon 5 episode “Acts of Sacrifice”, and the role of Wiseman in Army of Darkness, among other guest spots and smaller roles.

I feel like I’m being teased (I wrote the Babylon 5 Encyclopedia in the 90s as one of my first personal web projects), but Walter Koenig, who played the Psi-Cop Bester on the show (and is better know for his role of Pavel Chekov on the original Star Trek) was at the big Las Vegas Star Trek convention earlier this week, and he told TrekMovie.com that JMS is negotiating the rights back for Babylon 5.

Now, recently JMS posted on Facebook that there were some plans for Babylon 5 with Warner Bros (who own the rights), but that it didn’t seem to be moving. But, “At this point, I’ve told the studio that if this isn’t going to move ahead, there’s something else they need to consider and there’s a very informal negotiation going on now in that regard. We’ll see where it goes from there.” That seems like he might be asking for them to sell the rights to him so that he might be able to take it in a new direction. Seems like an unusual move, but we’re certainly not against more B5 in any form…

Well, JMS tweeted in the wee hours (well, probably late hours for him), and it’s not happening: “Walter misspoke: I am not in negotiations with WB to develop more Babylon 5.” So perhaps the “something else” fell through.

[The following is a submitted article]

On the weekend of August 13 and 14, a new science-fiction event will be splashing down in London, and it will be presided over by Claudia Christian, who starred in “Babylon 5.”

The event will allow fans unrivaled access to all the genre stars that will be attending, many of whom are some of Claudia’s personal friends.

Proceeds from ClaudiaCon will go towards helping out BlESMA, that provides war veterans with prosthetic limbs and Guide Dogs, which provide seeing-eye dogs for the blind. Both of these are UK-based charities.
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