SciFi Weekend: Torchwood, Merlin, Hot Actresses Dig Star Trek, Rumors Karen Gillan Leaving Doctor Who, Sex and the City

 Torchwood: Miracle Day episode 6, The Middlemen, showed the aftermath of Vera’s incineration. The episode also  explored the conspiracy behind the miracle without providing any answers. Jack encountered a PhiCorp  executive who was suspicious but knew very little. He’s only a middleman in the whole matter.  One reason he didn’t know much was that an investigator he sent out wound up leaping from a building to create permanent unconsciousness–the closest thing left to suicide. The conclusion of the episode put Gwen in a situation where she had to betray Jack to save her family, with the U.K. preview of episode 7 , Immortal Sins, above. Rumors has it that the seventh episode starts to reveal what is going on.

There have been complaints in the U.K. about the Americanization of Torchwood. John Barrowman says the show is still true to its British roots:

“Yes, it’s a bit more glossy. We have other actors in it. We’re filming over there so we have to have other American actors in it. But it’s still 100% core, the heart of it is still British,” he told the Daily Star.

“It’s now partly made in America and partly made in the UK. Throughout the entire series we always return to Wales or some place in the UK. Anyone can turn it on and know exactly that they’re watching Torchwood.”

“The global success… I’m just as bowled over by it as everybody else.”

He added: “I’m never going to give up the roots and the core that I have in the UK. UK’s home. This is where I got the start, this is where my doors were opened. And I’ll never turn my back on it.”

Merlin has been picked up for a fifth season, with the fourth to air on the BBC this fall, and later in the United States. In the upcoming season, Arthur will be taking a leading role in place of Uther.  Here are some additional spoilers as to season 4:

-We can expect series 4 to be darker and to see the return of Excalibur.

-New series of Merlin looks great! Much darker, lots of action and a hint of the sword in the stone!.

-With Uther a broken man, Prince Arthur has the emotional dilemma of either taking charge or waiting for his father to recover.

-Uther is a brokem man this series. This leaves a power vaccum in camelot which leaves arthur with a choice .

-Knights are proper knights now, Morgana looking after an injured Morgose, The return of “old Merlin”, lots of sword fights!.

-We’ll see a lot more from Arthur’s knights as their characters are explored.

-The creator said they have a specific mythiological end point for s5 which they have always been working toward.

The very last shot of series 4 has been filmed already (plenty of scenes to be filmed yet though.

While some authors have been trying to keep them off the internet, spoilers are not necessarily bad.  The BBC reports on a study which showed that knowing the ending of a book can enhance enjoyment as opposed to ruining it. The experience would often be different, but not necessarily better or worse. Instead of reading a mystery trying to figure out who did it, readers instead might instead enjoy watching to see how the author gets to the ending they know is going to happen. Rather than worrying about spoilers leaking out on the internet, it would make more sense to encourage web sites to clearly label major spoilers to enable the reader to decide whether or not they want to know the ending.

It looks like hot actresses dig Star Trek. Karen Gillan recently said she is a Trekie during an interview at the San Diego Comic Con. Now Olivia Wilde says she’d do anything to be in a Star Trek movie:

While promoting her latest film Cowboys & Aliens, actress Olivia Wilde professed that she would be willing to paint herself outlandish colours to star in Star Trek XII.

“[Paint myself] green? That’s fine, I’ll do anything!” Olivia laughed to Cover Media.

Olivia grew up watching sci-fi television and films and finds the characters very inspiring.

“I grew up watching Star Trek with my family,” Olivia recounted. “There have been great female characters in Trek over the years.”

“Captain Kathryn Janeway, she did it well,” Olivia explained. “She’s got that voice I could never compete with.”

Karen Gillan also stated during Comic Con that she will be returning to Doctor Who next season but now there rumors that she will be leaving at the end of this season.

SyFy has cancelled Eurkea.

Sex And The City was  an enjoyable television show on HBO, but the movies have been rather lame.  I think they are figuring that out. Sarah Jessica Parker might produce a new television series (with new cast) before going ahead with a third movie.

S&P More Explicit In Blaming Tea Party For Credit Downgrade

The original report from Standard and Poor’s made it quite clear that it was actions by the Tea Party and other far right Republicans which precipitated their decision issue their downgrade for the United States. Of course Tea Party supporters have a very weak grasp of public policy issues (as well as problems with reading comprehension) and immediately started trolling liberal sites with claims that it was liberal policies which caused this. Late last week Standard and Poor’s was even more explicit that it was the far right which brought this on:

A Standard & Poor’s director said for the first time Thursday that one reason the United States lost its triple-A credit rating was that several lawmakers expressed skepticism about the serious consequences of a credit default — a position put forth by some Republicans.

Without specifically mentioning Republicans, S&P senior director Joydeep Mukherji said the stability and effectiveness of American political institutions were undermined by the fact that “people in the political arena were even talking about a potential default,” Mukherji said.

“That a country even has such voices, albeit a minority, is something notable,” he added. “This kind of rhetoric is not common amongst AAA sovereigns.”

The statement seems likely to bolster one Democratic line of attack, that it was tea party intransigence — not a shortcoming of leadership by President Barack Obama — that is to blame for the U.S. downgrade, from AAA to AA+. Obama himself called on Republicans to “put country ahead of party” Thursday — a dig at conservatives in Congress who are blocking his agenda.

I imagine this will also be beyond the reading comprehension levels of most Tea Party supporters.