Sci-Fi Storm

Remember that story about the Desilu Studios name being revived when someone acquired the name rights and was going to reboot V?

Well, we now doubt it is going to happen.

Apparently Charles B. Hensley, who announced he had acquired the Desilu Studios name earlier this year, apparently has a shady past including a conviction for selling a bird flu vaccine that was never approved by the FDA. And now CBS has accused him in a lawsuit for using the Desilu name to dupe investors into his shell companies, and not actually using the name for legitimate purposes, as well as creating a false valuation letter claiming the company was worth $11.2 billion. His Desilu Studios and Desilu Corporation did not obtain the catalog of original Desilu productions, which are wholly owned by CBS through it’s acquisition of Paramount.

This might be interesting to see how it pans out.

The 1983 NBC mini-series V is getting another reboot – and the studio behind it is rebooting as well.

Desilu Studios – a revival of the name of the studio created by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz that was one of the largest independent studios in the 50s and 60s and later became the television division of Paramount, announced a feature film version of the show to be written by original creator Kenneth Johnson, and currently using the title V: The Movie.

The original 1983 mini-series starring Marc Singer, Faye Grant and Jane Badler (and who could forget a pre-Freddy Robert Englund as the meek Willie) told the take of the arrival of the Visitors, seemingly friendly humanoid aliens looking for some resources for their ailing world and in return would share their advanced technology with the people of Earth. However, it turns out that they are reptilians in disguise, and really plan to take all of Earth’s fresh water supplies – and use the humans themselves as a food source. A resistance gains momentum to fight the Visitors.

The mini-series proved popular and spawned a sequel mini-series in V: The Final Battle, which concluded the main storyline, and a TV series that was (mercifully – I swear I did a review but now I can’t find it) canceled after 13 episodes. These productions were very 80s in style, with a thinly veiled (and later more explicit) Nazi allusion. In 2009, a reboot of the series aired on ABC for two seasons.

The new Desilu Studios was formed by Charles B. Hensley when he acquired the name. All the original Desilu productions were owned by Paramount and now CBS, including the original Star Trek.

Bubbles are being popped everywhere in the past 24 hours…the latest to burst is The Event according to TV|Line’s Michael Ausiello. I’m not really surprised -although I’ve been following it from the start, it seems like the show changed early on from a somewhat supernatural/alien start, to much more about political intrigue/conspiracy. The aliens could easily have been any sort of organization attempting to take over the government by internal/external means, with the only exception that they have a weapon that can collapse buildings. The extraterrestrial motivations seemed secondary. And it just seemed to take forever to tell the story.

Update: ABC just burst V‘s bubble as well, canceling the show.

Marc Singer, who starred as Marc Donovan in the original V mini-series, will appear in the 10th and final episode of the second season of the rebooted V series on ABC. He is playing an all-new character by the name of Lars Tremont, a member of a top-secret global organization consisting of military and government officials who do not believe what the Visitors are saying.

Marc’s V co-star Jane Badler is already joining the show, playing Anna’s mother, named Diana – her character’s name in the original. She debuts in the season premiere, which airs January 4th. However, the two do not share and scenes, so if you are hoping for an on-screen reunion, watch the second season to get the ratings up and hope for a third season…

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.

Diana from the original V, Jane Badler, has just been announced to join the new series. And her name will be – ta da – Diana. This time Diana is the mother of Anna. It looks like they are taking a page from the Battlestar Galactica redo – the last series kinda happened (the original Centurions and Vipers), but really didn’t. At least if they throw some more homages in, like the old symbol, or a uniform, or something…

A little old, a little new: for those waiting for old standards, the original [sfs=1042]Bionic Woman: Season One[/sfs] will be released on DVD on October 19th. For the new visitors, the first season of V is available on both [sfs=1043]Blu-ray[/sfs] and [sfs=1044]DVD[/sfs] on November 2nd. And don’t forget to check our Sci-Fi TV Store for the original V or the new Bionic Woman, both available now!

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.

The ratings for V improved 14% this week with the strong lead-in from Lost, perhaps lifting it from the renewal bubble that a lot of shows are hanging around – including its sibling Flash Forward. So perhaps one of ABC’s serialized SF shows can survive to fill the Lost void?

I haven’t watched it yet as I was out trying to prevent Lake New England from encroaching further into my house, but I’ve seen from friends on Facebook that many Lost fans were not happy that ABC kept putting up a big red “V” and a countdown clock during the show, blocking some key information. It also didn’t help that the Boston affiliate ran a crawler about the weather situation, blocking the English translations…but even producer Damon Lindelof wasn’t happy. Update: Stephen Colbert had a funny take on it…see below.
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