Sci-Fi Storm

We now have the last (known) member of Robinson family. Mina Sundwall (Maggie’s Plan, Freeheld) is set to play Penny Robinson in the upcoming Lost In Space remake for Netflix.

Just recently announced was Ignacio Serricchio as Don West. Both are joining Toby Stephens (John Robinson), Taylor Russell (Judy Robinson), Max Jenkins (Will Robinson), Molly Parker (Maureen Robinson) and Parker Posey (Dr. Smith).

The remake is set to take off sometime in 2018, and will take cues from the original, but it remains to be seen if they try to adhere to the seriousness of the early episodes, or the pure camp of most of the series – or somewhere in between.

It seems Doctor Who isn’t the only SF program in a festive mood this holiday season…Netflix has announced that a two-hour Christmas Special of Sense8 will debut globally on the streaming service Friday, December 23rd at 12:01am Pacific Time.

In addition, the second season will debut on Friday, May 5th, at 12:01am PT. Season 2 will pick up where Season 1 left off, with the Sensates on the run from the Whispers while learning how to come together mentally and physically to live with and protect each other.

Just a few TV tidbits to mention today…first a couple casting items…

We have a Maureen Robinson! The Netflix remake of Lost In Space has cast Molly Parker, who played Abby McDeere in House of Cards and will be in the upcoming David E. Kelley Amazon series Goliath, as the mother and scientist who joins her husband John (Toby Stephens) in taking their family into space to colonize another planet. Also cast at this point are Taylor Russell (Judy Robinson) and Max Jenkins (Will Robinson).

Syfy’s second installment of Channel Zero, called The No-End House, has Jeff Ward (Manson’s Lost Girls, Holly’s Holiday) taking on the male lead opposite previously announced Amy Forsyth, on the creepypasta story-based anthology. Channel Zero: The No-End House will air in 2017 and the first installment, Channel Zero: Candle Cove, starts on October 11th.

Another Netflix pilot, a reboot of The Tick, has been picked up for series to release in 2017. Peter Serafinowicz (Guardians of the Galaxy) will play the title character, his sidekick Arthur will be played by Griffin Newman (Vinyl), while Valorie Curry (The Following) will play his sister, Dot.

Lastly, NBCUniversal, Sony and the creators of NBC’s Timeless, which kicks off next Monday, have been hit with a lawsuit claiming that the show was stolen from the Spanish language series El Ministerio del Tiempo (“The Department of Time”) from Onza Entertainment. Follow the link for more details over the claims.

The Lost In Space remake at Netflix has its father/son combo…Toby Stephens, who plays pirate captain Flint in Starz’ Black Sails which will be concluding with its upcoming fourth season, will play astrophysicist and commander John Robinson, the role famously played by Guy Williams.

Max Jenkins, who played the young Will on Sense8, will take on the role of Professor Robinson’s youngest child Will, originally played by Bill Mumy. They both join previously announced Taylor Russell (Falling Skies) who will play oldest child Judy.

No word yet on the details of the characters and how closely they will follow the originals.

It’s finally happening! The long, long developing (and awaited) reboot of Lost In Space looks like it will finally take off…we last reported in November that Netflix was at the head of the line for the rights and eyeing a straight-to-series order, which Netflix has now given, ordering up 10 episodes.

The show comes from Kevin Burns, who has been trying to re-launch the Jupiter 2 for years, and his partner Jon Jashni of Synthesis Entertainment, along with Neil Marshall and Marc Helwig of Legendary TV. Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless (Dracula Untold, Last Witch Hunter) wrote the script and Zack Estrin (Prison Break) has joined as showrunner. Marshall will direct several of the episodes. No casting has been announced yet.

The original, which starred Guy Williams, June Lockhart, Mark Goddard, Marta Kristen, Angela Cartwright, Bill Mumy and Jonathan Harris, and the voice of Dick Tufeld as the Robot, ran for three seasons. Starting out as a serious take on a family stranded on a strange planet in deep space, the character of Dr. Smith, originally a heartless saboteur, evolved into a bungling, inept buffoon character, and stories started to emphasize a campy element and the relationship between Smith, Will and the Robot.

Plans are for the new show to take some of cues from the original, although it is uncertain if they will adopt the campiness of the original, describing it as “a survival story for the ages.”

Cindy Holland, VP of Netflix Originals, said of the show, “The original series so deftly captured both drama and comedy, and that made it very appealing to a broad audience. The current creative team’s reimagining of the series for Netflix is sure to appeal to both fans who fondly remember the original and to create a new generation of enthusiasts around the world.”

Well, we can’t wait!

Jessica Henwick, who was Nymeria Sand in the last season of Game of Thrones and Jess Testor in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, will play Colleen Wing, the female lead in the upcoming Marvel series Iron Fist for Netflix.

Colleen Wing is the daughter of a professor of Asian history in New York, but after the death of her mother at a young age is brought up by her maternal grandfather in the mountains of Honshu, Japan, and trained in the ways of the samurai. Her father learns that Iron Fist (Finn Jones, who was also in Game of Thrones as Loras Tyrell) would return from another dimension to exact revenge on his father’s killer, and sends Colleen to meet him. The two them became allies.

Speaking of Netflix and Marvel, the second trailer for Marvel’s Daredevil was released today, and seeing as how I didn’t post the first one, here are both for your viewing enjoyment…

Netflix has ordered futuristic drama series Altered Carbon, based on the 2002 [asin=B000FBFMZ2]Richard Morgan novel[/asin], from Laeta Kalogridis and Skydance Television.

The book (and two sequels) are set 500 years in the future, after mankind has managed to colonize some extra-solar planets, as well as conquering death by learning how to digitize human personalities (their “soul”) and can download them into new bodies, called “sleeves”. Not everyone can afford a new sleeve, however. The rich can also afford to keep backups of their mind in storage and update them periodically, in case something happens to them before they can be downloaded.

The story follows Takeshi Kovacs, a former Envoy, an elite form of soldier for the U.N., trained to deal with the problems of interstellar warfare. Since FTL travel is only possible via data transmission, an Envoy is specially trained in more mental techniques than physical, since they could be transmitted into a new sleeve on another planet.

In Altered Carbon, on Kovacs home world called Harlan’s World, he is hired to investigate the suicide of a Meth (short for Methuselah, one of the long-lived rich people who can afford replacement sleeves) named Laurens Bancroft – by Bancroft himself. He believes his suicide was actually a murder, but his backup was 48 hours old, so he has no recollection of the events preceding his death.

Kalogridis (Avatar, Shuttered Island) optioned the books four years ago, and wrote a screenplay (with David H. Goodman, Once Upon A Time), which Netflix wants adapted to a series. Kalogridis will serve as executive producer/showrunner, with Skydance’s David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Marcy Ross serving as executive producers. Kalogridis’ partners in Mythology Entertainment Brad Fischer and James Vanderbilt will produce along with Russel Friend, Garrett Lerner, Mike Medavoy and Arnie Messer.

It looks like Legendary TV’s planned reboot of Lost In Space has found an outlet in Netflix. Deadline reports that with multiple suitors in the mix, Netflix came out on top, with an eye to a straight-to-series order. Development is still taking place, with Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless (Dracula Untold) writing and Neil Marshall likely to direct. Sazama, Sharpless and Marshall will executive produce along with Kevin Burns and Marc Helwig.

Netflix announced today on Twitter that they are renewing Sense8 for a second season:

Birthdays are just the beginning. #sense8 is reborn. https://t.co/tmMV66gKhm

— Netflix US (@netflix) August 8, 2015

(not sure why that doesn’t seem to embed in the right style 🙁 )

I also just found out about a new 25-minute behind the scenes video for Sense8…check it out!

No details on the renewal yet, but I’m sure we’ll get that in the coming weeks.