SciFi Weekend: Daleks; Starbuck Joins CTU; Virtuality; and Whedon on Dollhouse

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When Doctor Who returns next season we will have both a new Doctor and a new companion for the first time since the series was revived. Steven Moffat, the new show runner, reportedly plans to handle thist by having the first episode with Matt Smith playing The Doctor feature the Daleks to at least give viewers a familiar enemy for The Doctor. An anonymous source has been quoted as saying, “Fans may take a while to get used to Matt as the Doctor so it makes sense to have him fight his most famous enemies.” Perhaps, but only if they can come up with a good story. The Daleks have become so overused that this could be a challenge.

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I’ve read of plenty of weddings based upon Doctor Who and other science fiction shows but this is the first time I’ve heard of a Doctor Who themed funeral. From Slice of SciFi:

Wales’ Sebastian Neale loved “Doctor Who.”  How much you ask?

Enough to have a “Doctor Who” themed funeral.  The 26-year old fan recently passed away.  But instead of the standard funeral, Neale had a “Doctor Who” themed one, including having his casket look like the exterior of the Doctor’s TARDIS.

Attendees to the funeral were greeted by the a line from the fourth Doctor story, “Pyramids of Mars,” saying, “I’m a Time Lord, I walk in eternity.”  And the usual comforting words from scripture were replaced with William Hartnell’s first Doctor speech from “Dalek Invasion of Earth” and later re-used in the prelude of “The Five Doctors,” saying, “Someday I shall come back, yes I shall come back.  Until then there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs, and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.”  (The original clip is include below)

It is a shame Sebastian can’t regenerate.

Katie Sackhoff

Katee Sackhoff, who played Starbuck on Battlestar Galactica, will be on 24 next season:

When the Fox thriller returns, Sackhoff will play data analyst Dana Walsh, who works at the brand new Counter-Terrorism Unit (CTU) in New York City. According to the EW story, her character will be involved with Cole Ortiz, the field operations leader played by Freddie Prinze Jr.

Other cast members of the show’s eighth season, which kicks off Jan. 17, include Mykelti Williamson, John Boyd, Chris Diamantopoulos and Jennifer Westfeldt. Returning cast members include Cherry Jones (as President Allison Taylor), Mary Lynn Rajskub (Chloe) and Annie Wersching (Renee Walker). “Slumdog Millionaire” star Anil Kapoor will make his American television debut as a Middle Eastern leader in the U.S. on a peace mission.

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Io9 interviewed Michael Taylor about Virtuality, a made for television movie which Ronald Moore hopes will be picked up as a television series:

So you mentioned that you got involved with Virtuality to do something to for the genre similar to what BSG did. What will Virtuality change, what does it have to offer to the world that BSG did?

For Virtuality, I think our focus is more technological. It’s more about the technology we are already dealing with and how that will change our lives. I would say that, that reality is the internet. The technology which enables us to communicate with other people. We conduct a lot of our lives though websites dating sites, facebook, email, phone links that allow us to get in contact with people on the other side of the world. But there’s no physical contact. In other words we’re already living our lives in a kind of virtual reality. This is what the show Virtuality looks to explore. How that kind of technology will change us… In that sense, it’s a very different kind of show than Battlestar, a very new show. But with a cultural reference that is just as profound… It’s looking ahead.

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EW has interviewed Joss Wheden about the next season of Dollhouse.

“I’m really proud of the second half of season 1, and we’re just expanding on that in a huge way: Finding out the different things that Eliza [Dushku] can be, at the same time as extending our mythology,” Whedon says. “Really, just every meeting is like, ‘What’s the most fun we can have with this actor?’ about the whole cast. All I can say — ’cause I’m gonna be Mr. Un-Spoiler — is that we’re having a crazy amount of fun, and usually, that tends to translate onto the screen.”

Speaking slightly spoilery, Whedon tells us that season 2 won’t pick up right with “We’ve got to find Alpha!” but a little bit later. Alan Tudyk has a role on ABC’s midseason series V, but Whedon hopes he’ll be able to use the character sparingly: “Alpha will always be a part of the equation.” Whedon’s also hoping to work out a similar loan with the producers of ABC’s Happy Town, who nabbed Amy Acker, aka Dr. Saunders/Whiskey…

Whedon says that Echo’s last word in the finale, “Caroline,” was the beginning of her season 2 quest. “Echo wants to find not just Caroline, but what’s going on behind everything. She doesn’t have all of the skills. [Laughs] But she does have this weird super power of becoming a different person all the time, so she might start using that more specifically to find out who Caroline was and what happened to her and why this place exists.” So she still has all those past imprints in her? “Well, they’re supposed to have wiped them out of there. But we’ll see how well that went…”

4 Comments

  1. 1
    Michael says:

    Well, the Troughton years started off with the Daleks for the same reason, so why not?
    And I think there are still fresh Dalek stories out there–so long as RTD doesn’t write them.

  2. 2
    Ron Chusid says:

    A lot more Dalek stories have been done since the Troughton years. If they come up with a fresh story it is fine to use them.

  3. 4
    Paxie says:

    I… I… I have no words. http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=8867

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