Sci-Fi Storm

This week we lost two great British actors, David Warner and Bernard Cribbins.

David Warner played a number of memorable roles, from pure villains like the brutal Pomponius Falco in Masada (for which he won an Emmy) and the Evil Genius in Time Bandits, to sympathetic enemies like Chancellor Gorkon in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Always a memorable actor in every role, he did guest spots on many shows including Babylon 5 and Star Trek: The Next Generation and many animation voice roles. He was also a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and played many classic roles on stage.

When I first had access to cable and the movie channels, there were a few movies I would watch over and over – two of them were Time Bandits and Time After Time, where he played Dr. John Stevenson, who in fact was Jack the Ripper, who escapes from 1893 London in H.G. Wells time machine to 1979 San Francisco. They were followed by Tron, where he played the dual role of Ed Dillinger/Sark – END OF LINE.

Bernard Cribbins is perhaps best known for his role as Wilfred Mott, Donna Noble’s grandfather, during David Tennant’s run in Doctor Who. He originally appeared in the Christmas episode, “Voyage of the Damned”, and was later retconned as Donna’s grandfather when he became a recurring character. His emotional pleas in Tennant’s final episode could really be felt. Cribbins also appeared in the 1966 theatrical movie Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., a film adaptation of the William Hartnell episode The Dalek Invasion of Earth” which starred Peter Cushing as wholly human Dr. Who. He even interviewed for the part of the Doctor in 1974…but lost to Tom Baker.

An actor since he was 14, he is also well known in Britain as the most frequent storyteller in the children’s series Jackanory, as well as appearing or narrating many other children’s programs, and received a special award from the British Academy Children’s Awards in 2009 and in 2011 received an Officer of Order of the British Empire (OBE) honor for services to drama. In 2014 he received the J.M. Barrie award for contribution to the children’s arts.

We are very saddened to learn of the passing of actor W. Morgan Sheppard, father of fellow actor Mark Sheppard, yesterday per an instagram post by his son.

View this post on Instagram

We went to spend some time with my father today. Though he couldn’t speak, we held hands, he laughed and was so happy to see us. We left and came home. A good day. He was rushed to hospital and passed at 6:30pm, my mother by his side. I am so grateful that he didn’t have to suffer any longer. Thank you for all your kind thoughts, love and prayers.

A post shared by Mark Sheppard (@realmarksheppard) on Jan 6, 2019 at 8:16pm PST

Sheppard appeared in many genre shows…I first saw him that I recall in Shogun, but what I most remembered him from originally was in the role of Blank Reg, the mohawked pirate radio operator in Max Headroom. He also played the memorable and eponymous “Soul Hunter” on Babylon 5, and even played the older version of his son’s character of Cantor Everett Delaware III in the Doctor Who episode “The Impossible Astronaut”. More recently he appeared in an episode of The Librarians. His jovial face and white beard also earned him the the title role in Farewell Mr. Kringle, and he voiced “The Big Guy” in the Prep & Landing specials.

Happy Holidays everyone! I planned an article about “our favorite things” this year, but by the time I got to it it was too late to buy anything for the holidays 🙁 But in case you are looking for some belated gifts, here are some of our favorites, and also a few that will be out in the New Year!

[Disclaimer: we are an Amazon Associate site – it’s one of the few income sources we have to keep this site going…so if you could be so kind to follow some of these links and make purchases – ANY purchases, that would help TREMENDOUSLY…hosting costs, etc. have gone up while revenues are, well, nearly non-existent these days…]

First up is the upcoming release for [sfs=1672]Killjoys season 3[/sfs] on January 22nd – one of our favorite shows of the recent crop on Syfy (along with [sfs=1656]The Magicians[/sfs] and [sfs=1670]The Expanse[/sfs] , both of which had their 3rd seasons released this past summer)!

And for both old and young Doctor Who fans, there are both classic and new releases! For 5th Doctor fans like me, Peter Davison’s first series was [sfs=1682]released on Blu-ray this month[/sfs], and will be followed by Tom Baker’s [sfs=1683]final season on March 29th[/sfs] – say goodbye to Romana and K9, while companions Adric, Nyssa and Tegan join for the regeneration and lead in to an all new set of adventures…confession…while Jon Pertwee was the first Doctor I saw, and Tom Baker was the one I saw the most, watching the show was sporadic for me because of random scheduling and it wasn’t until the regeneration to Davison that I was able to watch regularly and was forever hooked – so Davison became MY Doctor…

Current Eleventh Doctor Jodie Whittaker sees her first series released on [sfs=1676]January 29th[/sfs], followed by the upcoming New Year’s Day special released on [sfs=1676]February 19th[/sfs].

As for some of our favorite things this year, if you are still looking for ideas for that SF fan, gamer, etc…

On the video game front, especially for Marvel fans, the Playstation 4 Spider-Man game is currently our favorite in-house – we love the open-world games like Skyrim and the Fallout series, and this gives us a new world to explore with great graphics and gameplay. And if you like the game check out the Art of the Game book!

Speaking of Fallout, Fallout 76 is out for PS4, XBox One and PC, and finally adds a multi-player element to the game. We’re still evaluating this one, as we really loved the single-player experience in the previous installments without the necessity of coordinating a play night or playing with random people…

Another game we’re liking is Detroit: Become Human, which is sort of a choose-your-own adventure with spectacular visuals – see the world – and humans – through and android’s eyes as you play through three different characters seeing the world change around them. Unfortunately, like Spider-Man it is a Sony exclusive.

Do you have a young Marvel Cinematic Universe fan looking forward to Captain Marvel and the many other female superheroes finally getting their due? Check out the book Marvel Fearless and Fantastic! Female Super Heroes Save the World co-authored by our friend Sam Maggs!

Lastly, if you are a electronics tinkerer and know about Raspberry Pis, stay tuned as I’ll be putting something together about a little project I’ve been working on…a touchscreen weather station…

Everyone can put down their sonics…despite rumors that 13th Doctor Jodie Whittaker might take a quick exit ala Christopher Eccleston after only one series as the Time Lord, she put those rumors to rest in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter:

“I really can’t wait to step back in and get to work again,” Whittaker told The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s such an incredible role. It’s been an extraordinary journey so far and I’m not quite ready to hand it over yet.”

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jodie-whittaker-confirms-return-doctor-who-season-12-116738

So now we can all continue enjoying this fresh take, and don’t forget – she’ll be returning on New Years Day!

It’s official – there will be no Doctor Who Christmas episode this year. A tradition since the show returned in 2005, it will not happen this year, and the reason is simply they seem to have run out of ideas.

After all, we’ve had alien invasions, a Spaceship Titanic, cybermen, evil snowmen, and more – and even said goodbye to the last two Doctors all on Christmas Day.

“I sort of think we might have mined, and possibly over mined, every single thing we could about Christmas in Doctor Who and the last time we more or less ignored it,” according to new showrunner Chris Chibnall.

But don’t fret too long – there will still be an extra episode, it will just happen on New Years Day instead, with a storyline that will help ring in the 2019. So maybe a new tradition is born?

Just wanted to give a bit of an update…I know there hasn’t been a lot of news from me lately, and I apologize. Life has been extremely busy, and as part of that I’ve started a new project – not really related to anything here, it’s actually a technical project involving turning a Raspberry Pi computer into a weather information system and hopefully a home “integration” system. I haven’t even posted anything about that yet because I’ve been too busy…but it has lights, a touch screen, and it even talks.

In the meantime Sci-Fi Storm turned 18 years old, and I’m at least hoping to make it old enough to drink 🙂

I do have an interview coming I did with an old friend, which I hope to have out this weekend – but transcribing is a slow process for me, and that whole busy thing…and I’ll be heading to Super Megafest in Framingham, MA Sunday to meet up with my childhood, personified by Lost In Space stars Mark Goddard, Marta Kristen, Angela Cartwright and Bill Mumy…I’ve met the former two before, but this will be the first time I’ve met the latter two.

In the meantime – hey, look, it’s the news!

Jodie Whittaker made her Doctor debut in Doctor Who on Sunday as did new showrunner Chris Chibnall, and by all measurements it was a rousing success. We found her portrayal wonderfully manic, and we accept her totally. I can see where her fast Yorkshire speech might be some trouble to understand for some viewers though. And we like the new ensemble of companions as well. Can’t wait to see where it goes…in the U.S., it scored 1.4 million viewers and a 0.5 rating in the 18-49 demo for BBC America, up 48% from the Series 12 premiere, Peter Capaldi’s last, 18 months previous. It also beats David Tennant’s and Matt Smith’s debuts.

And some interesting news – James Gunn, after being unceremoniously expelled from his Guardians of the Galaxy chair by Disney after revelations of some old controversial tweets, appears set to join the other comic universe – in this case the DC universe, and in particular write and perhaps direct Suicide Squad 2. Gavin O’Connor was set to direct but is now working with Ben Affleck on a non-DC film at Warner Bros. This would seem to mean any possible reconciliation between Gunn and Disnwy is over, although who will take over for Guardians is still up in the air.

Hot off the presses! Premieres Sunday, October 7th…

The Doctor is going to appear in Star Wars! Well, not exactly, but DWXI himself, Matt Smith, is reportedly joining the cast of Star Wars for the final epic installment. We have absolutely no information on his role other than it is “key”, and hopefully not in prosthetic makeup, total costume, or CGI…

HBO has given a straight-to-series order (Deadline) for a series based on author Audrey Niffenegger’s 2003 best-selling novel The Time Traveler’s Wife from former Doctor Who head writer/producer Steven Moffat. The story follows a romance between Henry, a man who has a disorder that results in him randomly traveling through time, and his wife Clare who has to deal with his disappearances and the danger he is often in.

In fact, Moffat said that the Doctor Who episode “The Girl in the Fireplace” was a result of him reading the novel – and apparently Niffenegger took notice. “When, in her next novel, Audrey had a character watching that very episode, I realized she was probably on to me,” he said. “All these years later, the chance to adapt the novel itself, is a dream come true. The brave new world of long form television is now ready for this kind of depth and complexity. It’s a story of happy ever after – but not necessarily in that order.”

Moffat, Sue Vertue and Brian Minchin will executive produce for Hartswood Films in conjunction with Warner Bros Television. The novel was previously adapted into a film in 2009 starring Eric Bana and Rachael MacAdams.

Also from San Diego Comic Con, we have the full trailer for Series 11 of Doctor Who!