Sci-Fi Storm

Terminator star Linda Hamilton, who most recently had a couple guest stints on Lost Girl and had a recurring role as Chuck’s mother in Chuck, will now appear in Season 2 of Syfy’s Defiance in a recurring role as Pilar, the mysterious and long-separated wife of Rafe McCawley (Graham Greene) and mother to their three children.

Premiering its second season on Thursday, June 19 at 8PM ET/PT, the ambitious series delivered an average of 1.5 million viewers 18-49 and 3.2 million total viewers in its first season, based on Live +7 data.

Separated from her family for a number of years, Pilar has now returned home. Pilar suffered from serious mental illness and in the aftermath of the Votan arrival and subsequent war, did not have access to her medication. With her mental state unchecked, Pilar snapped and tried to murder her children. Fearing for the family’s safety, Rafe sent her to an institution and told their children she had died. Now Pilar is back with both a steely resolve and a warm, maternal love for her family. But the motives for her return are unclear, and soon Rafe and others in town begin to question where she’s actually been these past years.

Trained at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, Hamilton triumphed in her breakout role as the iconic Sarah Conner in James Cameron’s action/sci-fi masterpiece The Terminator, followed by the blockbuster sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day. She is also well-known for her popular role on the television series Beauty and the Beast opposite Ron Perlman. Her additional film credits include Mr. Destiny, Silent Fall and Dante’s Peak.

Hamilton joins the previously announced James Murray, William Atherton and Anna Hopkins as new cast additions to season two of the series. Murray will portray the integral role of Pottinger, the new mayor of Defiance. Atherton portrays high-ranking Earth Republic official Viceroy Mercado and Hopkins is Earth Republic soldier Jessica “Berlin” Rainier.

Grant Bowler will return as Nolan, along with Julie Benz as Amanda Rosewater, Stephanie Leonidas as Irisa Nolan, Tony Curran as Datak Tarr, Jaime Murray as Stahma Tarr, Graham Greene as Rafe McCawley and Jesse Rath as Alak Tarr. The cast also features Dewshane Williams as Tommy, Trenna Keating as Doc Yewll, Justin Rain as Quentin McCawley and Nicole Munoz as Christie McCawley.

As the story of Defiance resumes, the lives of the townspeople are in drastic turmoil. The Earth Republic has assumed control of the town, with far-reaching consequences including a new mayor. Nolan traverses the badlands to find a lost Irisa, Amanda has an unexpected new role in the town as she searches for Kenya and the Tarr family desperately tries to keep control of their criminal empire in the midst of dramatic changes.

Kevin Murphy (Desperate Housewives, Caprica) resumes his role as executive producer and showrunner. Smallville’s Darren Swimmer and Todd Slavkin return as executive producers for season two and Michael Taylor serves as consulting producer. Michael Nankin (co-executive producer) is set to direct the season two opener. Defiance is produced by Universal Cable Productions.

Defiance is an unprecedented partnership between Syfy and Trion Worlds and the first-ever convergence of television and online gaming, featuring an interconnected world and storylines that co-exist on both platforms.

It appears the Intersect includes an amazing evasion skill, as perennial bubble show Chuck apparently avoids the axe yet again as more shows fates are being sealed. Looks like it will get another short-season order at this point. Maybe Subway upped their ante for in-show ads…

Update: And now for the bad news – the next season will also be the last.

Today is pick up day, with ABC announcing announcing a full season order (9 additional episodes) of The Event, and NBC following through as well with steady Chuck (11 additional episodes, for a total of 24).

But ABC also is apparently cutting back on V, which has already had a delayed return until January 4th, dropping the original 13-episode order down to 10. It could be just to fit within the programming window available, but we’ll see what happens when we get closer to airing.

Two of the “hot girls of the Whedonverse”, Eliza Dushku and Summer Glau, will each have a guest spot on two popular broadcast network shows. Dushku, who last week could be briefly spotted watching boyfriend Rick Fox dancing on Dancing With The Stars, will appear in an episode of Big Bang Theory, playing an FBI agent interviewing the gang so Wolowitz can get a security clearance – I’m wondering if we’ll see Eliza show her skills after an inappropriate comment from him. Then Glau, who already did a guest stint on BBT will turn up on Chuck as one of a series of rotating undercover agents manning the Buy More, specifically in the 8th episode. Fret not one the one shot for Glau though – she’ll be appearing in the mid-season NBC series The Cape.

A couple more tidbits (probably the last, until the chaos is digested): Chuck is gonna get a mom – and she is more than a match for his Dad, Scott Bakula – none other than Terminator-killer Linda Hamilton. Gone-toting bad-ass mercenary mom, anyone? Also, the “Guess who (or Who) is now over, with Mark Ruffalo getting the role for the upcoming The Avengers feature. And finally, Ronald D. Moore spoke about what Starbuck was: although intentionally left nebulous (the more specific he got when writing, “the less interesting she became”) Moore saw her as a godlike entity but didn’t like to be called God, having gone through a resurrection of sorts.

Just in: as expected, Chuck and V have been renewed, with the expectation of 13-week orders each for now. Flash Forward, however, appears to be not so lucky.

Update: Heroes has also been canceled, although there may be some sort of conclusion later on.

It’s 2010, and its time to get back to new TV episodes. SCI FI Wire has a nice roundup of what’s coming up in the next week…notable the return of Heroes tonight, and we see the other side of things on Battlestar Galactica: The Plan on Sunday…and would the upgraded Chuck on Chuck next Sunday be considered an “Up-Chuck”?