SciFi Weekend: Arrow; Agent Carter; Under The Dome; True Blood (vs. Sarah Palin); Utopia; Sleepy Hollow; Doctor Who (and flirting); Big Bang Theory;Allison Williams as Peter Pan

Arrow Selfie

This picture of the cast of Arrow might very well be the best selfie to come out of Comic-Con last weekend. The latest news on Arrow is that Charlotte Ross  has been cast as Felicity’s mother. Last week Collider asked Stephen Amel about topics including the Justice League and Oliver’s true love at Comic-Con:

Are you happy you don’t have to answer any more Justice League questions?

Stephen Amell: Yes — and by the way, there’s a The Flash show, we have Firestorm, we have Canary, we have The Atom… The actual Justice League film — I don’t know when that’s coming out. You can watch The Justice League on television now. But the reason I’m happy to not have to answer the question anymore is because I think it undersold what we did on TV. I would put our degree of difficulty – having to produce twenty-two episodes of television every year, spinning off the show, giving people the confidence to green-light other DC properties — up there with producing a two hundred million dollar film. They’re very different things. I never want to feel as though our existence is only going to be justified by being part of the cinematic universe. That has nothing to do with anything. We are stamping out our own spot.

[What is the romantic situation like for Oliver this season?]

Stephen Amell: There’s one lady in Oliver’s life.

Just one?

Stephen Amell: Just one. There’s one woman in Oliver’s life this year.

Is that his sister?

Stephen Amell: No — it’s Felicity.

It just seems he’s got Sarah out there and Laurel…

Stephen Amell: The ship has sailed on those romances. I don’t think we’ll ever see Oliver & Sarah or Oliver & Laurel together again. I mean – they’ll be together but just not ‘together-together’. They’ll be teammates. We discover in the premiere the way that Oliver feels about Felicity. Because of that — if we just introduced random love interests, it would undersell what we do in the premiere.

How aware are you of the direction of the character throughout this season and for future seasons as well?

Stephen Amell: I really do think we are moving to a spot where we will refer to my character as ‘The Green Arrow’. We are moving to a spot where we will continue to embrace the fundamental classic elements of the character. Because we have that license now. We’re 46 episodes in. People like it. They buy into it. But unless this character is evolving — The Hood to Arrow to The Green Arrow — then people are going to lose interest. So I always want there to be a journey for him. And this year’s journey is really interesting.

Does that evolution involve the goatee?

Stephen Amell: No.


There’s more information on Agent Carter in the above interview with Hayley Atwell. The show is being described as being like Fargo or True Detective in being like an eight hour movie, and it sounds like it takes place before the formation of SHIELD. It might also contain one major Marvel villain who is unnamed. Also above is the full Agent Carter panel from Comic-Con.

Under the Locker

After True Blood, Under the Dome has to be the worst show I watch. Among its many faults, anything can happen with no apparent rules. In one recent episode there was reason to have a character get a message from outside to propel the plot so for an unknown reason email briefly went through, and then stopped again. Last week they checked out the locker at the site of the death of a character and found that there was a tunnel coming out of the locker. Does it go deep enough underground to get under the dome?

I’ve also wondered since the start of the show why there is not major activity going on outside the dome to try to both figure out what it is and how to get through it, including an effort to tunnel underneath from outside.

Despite all the implausible things which happen, the show somehow remains interesting to watch. On the other hand, I primarily stick with True Blood because I’ve gone on this long and want to see the ending. I had hoped that with this being the final season they would come up with a better storyline to end the series, but so far they have not done this. I can’t even blame Sarah Palin for her snub of the show in response to attacks such as calling her type of people (even if more monstrous than many of the characters on True Blood) Republic*nts.

Utopia has been the best summer genre show on, but as it has not aired in the United States I will avoid any spoilers. I was concerned by the end of the first season whether they could keep up the quality of the show once they began to reveal the secrets behind the conspiracy. They are pulling this off well in the second season. The first episode was a flash back which fills in may of the details about the conspiracy and how the major characters are interconnected. From there, instead of being a mystery about what is going on, the series has done an excellent job of moving on with the story now that we understand the full setup.

New trailer for season two of Sleepy Hollow above. More videos here.

Doctor Who Entertainment Weekly Capaldi

Back in July, 2012 Doctor Who made news by being the first British television show to make the cover of Entertainment Weekly. The show has returned several more times as it has become a bigger hit in the United States, including this week as we head towards the introduction of a new Doctor.

On August 23, Peter Capaldi will begin his first season starring in Doctor Who when the long-running British science-fiction show returns to BBC America. But it wasn’t so long ago that the Scottish actor and lifelong Who fan was certain he would never get his hands on the controls of the Time Lord’s TARDIS. “I wouldn’t have thought I would be the guy,” Capaldi says. “I wouldn’t have thought it would be me.” Why not? “Because of my age. I would have thought they were automatically heading younger.”

It was a reasonable assumption to make. At 56, Capaldi is roughly the same age as William Hartnell when he originated the role of the two-hearted, monster-battling alien way back in 1963. But since the BBC relaunched Doctor Who in 2005 after a lengthy hiatus, the actors playing the lead role have all been younger than Capaldi—and have gotten younger over time. The first of the new Doctors, Christopher Eccleston, was 41 when he first appeared on the show, while his successor David Tennant was 34. Capaldi’s immediate predecessor Matt Smith was just 26 when he was cast in the role.

But what Capaldi saw as a barrier to him playing the Doctor was actually an asset as far as Doctor Who executive producer and head writer Steven Moffat was concerned. “I did say, ‘No, we probably won’t end up with another quirky young man,’” says Moffat. “I didn’t think there was any space around Matt to have another Doctor of that kind, because he sort of sums up what you could do with that. I very very quickly, very quickly just thought about Peter. There is no right age to be the Doctor.”

Capaldi agrees. “I’m technically too young for the part,” chuckles the actor. “Because he’s over 2,000 years old.”

In contrast to Matt Smith and David Tennant, Peter Capaldi will not be flirting with his companion:

Incoming Doctor Who Peter Capaldi has revealed there will be no flirting with co-star Jenna Coleman in the new series.

The previous Doctor was engaged in a close relationship with his sidekick Clara that even led to a passionate kiss.

But Capaldi, 56, insisted his Time Lord would not be following in Matt Smith’s footsteps by getting intimate with 28-year-old Coleman’s character.

“There’ll be no flirting, that’s for sure,” he told the Sunday Times Magazine. “It’s not what this Doctor’s concerned with. It’s quite a fun relationship, but no, I did call and say, ‘I want no Papa-Nicole moments’. I think there was a bit of tension with that at first, but I was absolutely adamant.”

The Papa-Nicole comment relates to a series of 1990s Renault Clio car adverts which hinted at a romance between an older man and a younger woman, before they were revealed to be father and daughter.

Capaldi also had good news for those Doctor Who purists who believe the show’s storylines have become over the top.

“It’s going to be a bit different from what we’ve seen over recent years. A bit more gravity,” he said. “Some situations are more sombre and I think there are more rooted dramatic scenes. Over the past two or three years, which I’ve loved, there has often been a breathless vigour; we still have that attack, but we have another level of drama, another tone. And the scenes are longer.”

Big Bang Theory Cast

There’s optimistic news that the contracts will be settled with the cast of The Big Bang Theory. While filming has been postponed due to the lack of a contract, I don’t think anyone doubts that it is has just been a matter of haggling over exact dollar amounts and this will ultimately be settled, whether or not the stars get the full one million dollars per episode they are demanding. Both sides have have good reason to eventually come to an agreement.

Allison Williams

NBC is following up their live broadcast of The Sound of Music with Peter Pan. Allison Williams of Girls has been cast in the title role. She says she has wanted to play Peter Pan since she was three years old. While she very well might have obtained the role without any help, it might not have hurt to have some major connections with NBC. While excited about the role, Williams wonders, “what could go wrong in a live televised production with simultaneous flying, sword fighting and singing?”

SciFi Weekend: Arrow; The Flash; Agents of SHIELD; Gotham; Doctor Who; Hannibal; Daredevil; True Blood; The Leftovers; The Last Ship; 24; Penny Dreadful

Arrow Oliver Felicity

TV Guide interviewed Andrew Kreisberg about the third season of Arrow:

Can Arrow‘s consummate hero have it all?

The third season of The CW series will dare to answer that question when Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) attempts to have his cake and eat it too — in this case, that means being a superhero that the residents of Starling City actually respect while also trying to have a personal life. It’s harder than it sounds — something that Ollie will learn fairly quickly into the season.

But Oliver’s love life won’t be the only thing that’s complicated this season, especially since two of his ladies will actually be getting love interests of their own! TVGuide.com tracked down executive producer Andrew Kreisberg to get the scoop on the new season, including a surprising return from the dead, the future for Team Arrow and new villains ahead:

Will there be a time jump when the show returns?
Andrew Kreisberg: 
We’re going to jump the same amount of time that we did last year. It’ll be real time. It’ll be seven or eight months later. For Oliver, things are good. As we like to say, everything is coming up Arrow. Crime is down. At the end of last year, there was victory. A lot of this season is about what happens when you win and how winning isn’t always as easy as it looks.

What does it mean for Oliver now that the city actually accepts him?
Kreisberg: 
In the premiere, Lance (Paul Blackthorne) actually disbands the anti-vigilante task force in his new role as Captain. The Arrow is free to do his thing and it’s different for Oliver. He spent the first two years being hunted and distrusted. Now, he’s starting to feel like he has this under control. And then, of course, as Joss Whedon taught us all, you let your characters have a moment of happiness and then you take it all away from them.

You seemed to be setting the stage for Ra’s al Ghul to be the villain in Season 3. Is he actually the villain? Can you say anything about the new villain?
Kreisberg: 
It’s big. I can say that he’s big and he’s bad. We’re still figuring that stuff out. As far as the Big Bad, there will be Big Bad. Even last year, everybody was a subset of Slade’s (Manu Bennett). Slade was the Big Bad. We will meet other villains along the way, as always. We’ll have recurring villains and new villains we’re starting with this year and people who are coming back from the previous two seasons.

Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) and Oliver are going on a date in the season premiere. How do you avoid the TV trope that a hero can’t be with the woman he loves just because of his duty?
Kreisberg: 
When you see the premiere and you see how things shake out, you’ll come to a very sympathetic understanding of both of their positions. The premiere last year was a microcosm of what was happening for the whole year. In the same way that the premiere of last season was really about Oliver struggling with whether or not he should be the Arrow, in this season premiere it’s, “Can I have everything I want?” That quest is going to take up his entire year, and hers.

How much of a foil will Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh), Felicity’s new rumored love interest and head of Queen Consolidated, be to Oliver?
Kreisberg: 
A big foil. It’s Season 3, and Season 3 is typically when you add that game-changing character like Buffy did in adding Faith or Everwood did with adding Scott Wolf. First of all, getting Brandon — he couldn’t be nicer, he couldn’t be sweeter. It’s just such a different energy that he’s bringing to the show. A lot of what’s funny about Felicity and Oliver is that he’s so straight and she’s the funny one. With Brandon, you get somebody who’s as tall, square-jawed and handsome as he is [and] he’s a really funny comedian. He and Felicity can have that verbal repartee that we haven’t typically had on the show. As much as the show is getting darker, it’s gotten a lot funnier. It’s just such a different energy. He and Felicity are really cute together.

The second season ended with the Black Canary giving her black jacket to her sister Laurel. This fed speculation that Laurel will become the Black Canary as in the comics. Kreisberg has a good point that she is not ready for this  yet: “As always with all of these things, you can’t just put on a mask and go running around. You’ll get killed. Laurel is still just an attorney. She’s an attorney with a jacket. I think Katie Cassidy fans are going to be very, very excited about her trajectory this year. Laurel is going to have a new love interest this season.” Caity Lotz will be returning for three episodes next season. One of the many good things about Arrow is that there is now a huge supporting cast, and even more characters are to be introduced. This allows them to have a variety of characters for parts of a season as opposed to having exactly the same characters from week to week. There will also be a cross over with The Flash next season in the eighth episode of each show, and Felicity will appear in the fourth episode of The Flash.

There has been contradictory information as to whether The Flash and/or Arrow will cross over with the DC cinematic universe in the manner in which Agents of SHIELD does with Marvel. The latest story is that DC Entertainment Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns says the television shows and movies will be kept separate. Presumably this will mean that the Flash seen in the Justice League of America movie would be a different character than on the television show. While it would be entertaining to have the television and movie universes combined, there are advantages of keeping them separate. This allows for greater flexibility with the television shows not being confined by the movie universe, avoiding the problems faced by SHIELD most of its first season.

BRETT DALTON

Agents of SHIELD executive producers Jeffrey Bell, Jed Whedon, and Maurissa Tancharoen were interviewed about plans for the second season, now that the show is no longer constrained by waiting for Captain America: The Winter Soldier to reveal HYDRA’s infiltration of SHIELD.

Will there be consequences for Grant Ward for all that he had done last year?

“I would assume so,” Maurissa Tancharoen said. “Let’s put it this way: They’re not gonna just drop him on a farm and let him run wild.” Jed Whedon added. “When last we left him, he was in our custody. What does that mean? You’ll have to see,” Maurissa teased.

What are you specifically excited about for Season 2?

“I think the fact that when we left them, S.H.I.E.L.D. had completely crumbled… so just the idea of Coulson and our team, sort of left with nothing, or limited resources… I think we’ll be rooting for them to rebuild S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Tancharoen said.

“It’s a lot harder to protect the world when you don’t have any resources. Last year we saw how giant and all-consuming S.H.I.E.L.D.’s reach was, and they don’t have that anymore, so it’s much more of a struggle. They’re much more the underdog this year, which we’re really excited about that, and the tone that it sets, and what it does to our characters.” Whedon added.

This “ragtag team” has Maria Hill as a contact and she’s working for Tony Stark. Couldn’t she talk to him to hook them up with some money?

“We hope so! That’d be so cool!” Whedon responded. “Maybe so,” Tancharoen said. “That’s a good question.”

“Tony Stark doesn’t know Coulson’s alive, so it might be really awkward. It’d be weird,” Jeffrey Bell chimed in. “They could set up a Coulson Memorial Fund and channel that into S.H.I.E.L.D.,” he joked.

So with Phil Coulson now being the head of S.H.I.E.L.D., the Avengers still don’t know he’s alive?

“That’s a complicated question. One might assume, but you can’t assume anything, and they have their own movie that exists…” Whedon said, with his brother, of course, directing Avengers 2: Age of Ultron to come out next year.

“At least on screen so far, that hasn’t happened,” Bell said.

Will we be seeing Fitz (Iain de Caestecker) sooner rather than later?

“That’s a good question. When last we left him, we didn’t know exactly what happened to him. We just know he’s alive,” Tancharoen teased.

Gotham

TV Guide has more information on Gotham:

There will be no cape. There will be no cowl. Nevertheless, Fox’s Gotham intends to stay true to the Batman comics that fans have come to know and love over more than seven decades.

Based on DC Comics characters, Gotham explores the origin stories of the Caped Crusader’s eventual ally James Gordon (Benjamin McKenzie), a detective with the Gotham City Police Department, and his battle with the villains who made the city famous.

“What we won’t do is break the canonical iron truths of the mythology,” executive producer Bruno Heller told reporters at the Television Critics Association’s fall previews on Sunday. “It’s not a whole new mythology. But issues of chronology, we will play with in a fun way.”

Instead of Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) taking center stage in the effort to save Gotham, James Gordon will be the central focus as he fights the ever rampant corruption and crime alongside his partner and mentor Det. Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue). “Gordon is the lynchpin of the show,” Heller explains. “He’s the guy who creates Batman or gives permission for Batman to exist in this world. Gordon will still remain at the central, but it’s very much about [the origin stories of every character], but Gordon is the moral center that you can identify with.”

Though Heller said that Batman won’t appear on the series, he doesn’t believe that will drive the fanboys away. “I don’t think so because the really interesting parts of the stories is the origin stories,” Heller says. “As soon as you’re into the capes and the costumes, it’s less interesting than how the people got there.

“If there is a superhero in this show, it’s Gotham,” he continues. “That’s a larger than life character that’s a central part of the show. To me, heroes are more interesting than superheroes because precisely the difference is superheroes do the impossible, and drama is really about the physically possible. This is about people and people trying to overcome real problems as opposed to trying to learn how to fly.”

But where do Gothamites find hope when the city’s villains of are running free with nary a hero (or the hope of one) to stop them? After all, Bruce Wayne hasn’t even started shaving yet! “That’s the situation that the show is all about,” Heller says. “How do you deal with crime of this level when there are no superheroes? It’s as much about the hope and the struggle that they’re engaged in… It’s about men and women, not about superheroes.”

And those men and women truly will be overrun. Though the first season delves into the rise of the Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor), the series pilot introduces a fair amount of villains for the show to play with, including Catwoman (Camren Bicondova), The Riddler (Cory Michael Smith), Poison Ivy (Clare Foley) and Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith). “You have to front-load the pilot with the best that you’ve got because that’s the way that you’ve got to open big,” Heller says of introducing so many villains. “As the show rolls on, we’ll be far more … careful with how we roll out the villains and in what way.”

Trailers for the upcoming season of Doctor Who above (one official and one from a fan).

With Laurence Fishburne having a roll on a new show next season, Black-ish, there has been speculation that this might mean that he did not survive the massacre in the second season finale of Hannibal. Fishburne says he is returning, and will do both shows part time. He also says the third season of Hannibal will be very dark–as if the first two seasons were so light and cheerful.

Looking back quickly on some genre shows of the past week, I was happy to see True Blood end some of its weak plot lines and get rid of some of the superfluous characters. This almost gives them yet another fresh start going into the final episodes of the series, and I hope they take advantage of this to end with a better story line.

The_Leftovers_65223

The Leftovers dealt with Christopher Eccleston’s character. As we know that it will not deal with any sort of explanation of what  happened to the missing people, to be successful the show will need to get viewers interested in the characters and how they responded to the other people disappearing. So far they have not done the greatest job of introducing the characters and adequately explaining their motivations. Earlier episodes dealt heavily with the police chief and his family, but it is not clear why his family is so affected considering that nobody in their family disappeared. Entertainment Weekly compared The Leftovers to Battlestar Galactica in the way in which both shows dealt with a loss of a portion of the population. Both the disaster and the manner in which the response were handled was greater on BSG.

While The Leftovers does have that in common with Battlestar Galactica, The Last Ship has far more in common in dealing with a ship of people surviving after mass deaths. It remains more of an action/adventure show than hard science fiction, but remains entertaining summer television.

Under the Dome remains weak (to put it gently), yet somehow remains interesting to watch. The same problems persist with the Dome having powers with no apparent limits but no clear motivations for those using the power. Now it was able to bring a girl who died years ago back to life. Plus Junior’s mother was also confirmed to be alive after her reported suicide.

24: Live Another Day concluded its short season. A shorter season was a plus, but it would have been even better if it ended a few episodes earlier when the main terrorist plot was tied up. In the past, full seasons suffered from the need to move from one plot line to another to keep things going for an entire twenty-four episodes. Now that they were freed from those constraints it would have better to tell one single story well, regardless of how many episodes it took. Then they had to tag on yet another quick story at the end to put Chloe in danger to set up Jack’s fate. The producers of 24 have not yet said whether the show will return. I’m sure that depends upon a lot upon the ratings.

Extant remained interesting in its second episode. I still fear it will turn out to be a network television rehash of old science fiction (and Spielberg)  troupes but I’m willing to give it a chance to prove me wrong.

Penny Dreadful Eva Green

Penny Dreadful ended earlier this month and I should note that after seeing the entire first season that it was well worth watching. The plot was not the strong point but it did excel in creating its characters and a world where fictional characters including Dr. Frankenstein, Dorian Gray, and others interacted. The show had a strong cast including Timothy Dalton, Josh Hartnett, and Billy Piper, but by far the strongest was Eva Green. The actual story such as fights with vampires weren’t terrible significant except as ways to introduce the characters and set up future events. Early episodes showed some violent deaths and, while there were some clues, the probable identity of the killer wasn’t revealed until the finale, undoubtedly influencing the second season. The show also made good use of episodic television, both having continuing stories and using some episodes to reveal character back stories or past events.

James Gardner, star of shows including The Rockford Files and Maverick, died yesterday at 86. Reports from Variety and The New York Times.

SciFi Weekend: Continuum; Arrow; The Flash; Doctor Who; Community; Masters of Sex

Continuum Last Minute

Last Minute, the third season finale of Continuum, was an even bigger game-changer than the previous finales. I thought the season dragged for a while after they set up the situation of two Alec’s, but the addition of Brad and the changes in the time line added considerably to the second half of the season. The final three episodes certainly made up for any slow moments earlier in the season.

At the start of the episode, the couples of Kiera and Brad, along with Alec and Emily, appeared happy to just live quiet lives together and drop out of all the action. Events such as the attempt by Piron Alec to kill Time Travel Alec prevented that from occurring. Earlier episodes dealt with Kiera’s awakening as she realized that the Orwellian future she came from was not worth preserving.  Initially I thought this would lead to her working with Liber8 to prevent the Corporate Congress from taking over. Instead the future has been changed so instead she had to prevent the even worse Terminator-like future which Alec’s time jump ultimately resulted in. If not for her awakening, and other events in recent episodes, we would not have reached the point where Kiera and Liber8 could work together so easily to prevent Piron Alec from accelerating the time line which caused mass destruction rather than tyranny. Ideally they could change things so that neither future has to come about.

While the replacement of Piron Alec with Time Travel Alec, with Time Travel Alec ultimately killing his other self, was the heart of the plot of the episode, it is not clear if it mattered in the end. Kellog already had events in motion to replace Alec as head of Piron. I found this a little unrealistic, thinking that while it was certainly plausible that others in the company would have problems with Alec, they more likely would have replaced him with someone on the inside rather than this outsider. This might also shed a little light on how time travel works on Continuum. Initially the beacon appeared to do nothing, suggesting that Brad’s time line might have been obliterated. It wasn’t until after Kellog took over Piron that the space marines appeared from the future. This suggests a variable future, but also raises the question of whether the future is the same future Brad came from. If so, was it setting up Kellog to control Piron, and not Alec taking over Piron, which really set us on a course towards that future?

With Alec out at Piron, presumably this means he will return to SadTech. While Piron starts out with greater financial resources, and would benefit from Kellog’s knowledge of the future, SadTech has the advantage in scientific knowledge with Alec, along with potential help from others such as Jason and even Lucas. Perhaps a battle between Piron and SadTech starts out the corporate wars of Brad’s future. In Brad’s time line Kellog was the winner, but the third season demonstrated that the future can be rewritten. As we learned two weeks ago that, “No one controls the future. It is an ever-evolving organism, free to change as it sees fit.”

The roles of other characters have also changed this season, and it is not certain how much they will matter (assuming everything is not changed again with a jump to another time line). Having Carlos in charge of the police was instrumental in the effort to switch the two Alecs but Dillon remains alive and may or may not return to his position. Julian knows about the time travelers and his role in fighting the original future, but where does that leave him in this new time line? Characters such as Escher, Sonya, Betty, and most of the Freelancers appear dead after this season, but death might not be a permanent change.

The appearance of the space marines raises a number of questions. Are they from the same future Brad came from, considering his reaction was to run rather than make contact with people who might have been sent back to assist him? Even if from the same future, perhaps another faction got control of time travel and received the message from the beacon. If Kellog is now the puppet master, what is he up to? Is future Kellog trying to change the time line he lives in or bring it about? He sent Brad back with vague instructions including to neutralize the zealots, stabilize the “incursion site” and “salt the God-saved Earth.” If the space marines have the same mission, I can see why Brad’s reaction would be to run.

With all the factions we have seen, other than for the space marines we know the least about what the Traveler and Curtis Chen are up to. What does it mean when the Traveler announced, “It has begun.” It no longer appears that their goal is the old Freelancer goal of keeping the future on track and, as it appears that the time line has been altered many times, it is questionable if there really is one correct future to protect. There is no indication whether the original time line can ever be restored, which might mean it is impossible for Kiera to ever return to her family (which she is now realizing). I also fear this means we might not ever find out the specifics of old Alec Sadler’s plan in sending both Liber8 and Kiera back in time.

Continuum-3x13-10

Simon Barry discussed some aspects of the finale with  TV Guide Canada:

TV Guide Canada: Let’s talk about a scene fairly early on in the episode, with Kiera kissing Brad. Some would view that as a betrayal of her husband Greg and son Sam, regardless of the timeline we’re in.

Simon Barry: Yeah. I think at a certain point we have allowed Kiera to make her decision that she’s not going home in this season. That protecting the world that she came from is a bad idea because she’s changed her mind on what the right future is. After that moment, she’s made that sacrifice of her husband and her son. That kiss, I think, is indicative of her decision to embrace the life she now has in the present. And Brad can relate to her because he’s had a very similar experience.

TVGC: There were a lot of fun scenes in the finale. I actually yelled ‘What?!’ when the camera cut to Kiera turning to Travis for help.

SB: That was one of those wonderful moments that we discovered in the editing room as opposed to something that I had written. I had written that they had gotten together, but the reveal was in a different place. It just worked so much better revealing him at the end of the scene than the beginning, which was how it was originally written. I have to give major props to Jamie Alain, who edited the episode and came up with that.

TVGC: Speaking of things written into the script, was it written in there that Garza, Travis and Kiera would arrive at Piron’s headquarters walking slow motion and ready to fight?

SB: Yes, you can thank me, that was all me! [Laughs.] Will Waring, who directed it, did a bang-up job with it. Sometimes in the script I’ll put things like, ‘This should be a “holy shit moment in slo-mo.”‘ That was a scene in the script where I wanted the audience to realize that this was a big deal. I wanted it to have the impact that it did.

TVGC: The fight between the two Alecs was pretty impressive. It must have been a difficult shoot, what with making sure the stand-in and Erik Knudsen with coordinating, as well as the CGI.

SB: That whole sequence with Alec on Alec, from a directorial view, was an amazing challenge for Will Waring. He really had to think of every shot in specific terms because this was not a typical fight sequence where you can line up the actors and shoot from different angles. You had one actor playing both sides of the fight. A really specific plan had to be drawn up and also, there was some camera trickery where we had to see both Alecs at the same time, which meant technical challenges as well. And we were doing all of this on the 35th floor rooftop of a building made everything that we were doing even more challenging. Wind, the elements and just a very small space to work in. It was an unbelievably tall order for Will and he really did his homework so that it could be shot.

TVGC: Let’s jump ahead to the big reveal of the episode. The Traveler said, ‘It has begun,’ and Kiera and Brad realized what they did had affected the timeline after all when the soldiers from 2039 arrived.

SB: Yeah. The idea was that they could check the result of what they had done. And of course, Brad’s future is still intact otherwise these guys would never have come back. We wanted to suggest that there was a layer of success.

TVGC: Those were pretty cool suits, but they’re going to stand out on the streets of Vancouver.

SB: Yeah, I wouldn’t want to be standing around looking at them though.

TVGC: Kellog has made his power play and unseated Alec at the top of Piron, suggesting his future turns out the way it is supposed to in 2039.

SB: Yeah. The fact that the soldiers came back and we saw Kellog at the beginning of the episode as this powerful guy was an indication that his control of the future is an important one.

Sacrifice

John Barrowman will be returning as a regular on the third season of Arrow and there is news on four new characters, which also give an idea about the direction of the upcoming season:

‘DANIEL’ | Though Daniel could be a fake name to throw off spoilerholics, this 20something gent — a major recurring character for Season 3 — is a handsome, enigmatic and highly intelligent entrepreneur developing groundbreaking technology. (Picture a business magnate in Ryan Gosling’s body.) Though exuding charm and confidence in public, he privately harbors a tragic past that will drive him to become a tech-powered superhero. Watch for this formidable fella to be a love interest for Felicity and a rival of Oliver’s – both personally and professionally.

‘SETH’ | A well-educated criminal with grand ambitions and a knack for chemistry, this potentially recurring character gains power over his enemies by exposing them to a drug that drains their willpower. Oh, and he is very much a physical match for The Arrow.

TOSHI | Majorly recurring in (at least) the Hong Kong flashbacks, Toshi will serve as Oliver’s teacher and handler, and eventually become a friend. A well-trained operative, skilled in weaponry, combat and intelligence gathering, he is also a devoted father and husband.

AKIKO | Toshi’s wife is another of Oliver’s Hong Kong caretakers, and is herself highly skilled in martial arts.

The Flash

The pilot for The Flash leaked out on line and reportedly included plot elements which could have ramifications for the entire DC television and movie universe. I have heard that The Flash will be appearing in the planned Justice League of America movie but Oliver Queen will not. Here is one report on The Flash pilot:

Earlier today, the first episode of CW’s The Flash leaked online and remained there for an hour, months ahead of the pilot’s planned Fall 2014 release. While several fans are already covering the overall episode, let’s focus on the bombshell within the very last scene.

At the very end of the episode, Harrison Wells — previously mentioned in Arrow, a now-wheelchair bound physicist who helps Barry access his powers and is at the helm of The Flash project — slinks into a hidden room within STAR labs, where a small podium-style projector sits in front of him. He then rises out of his wheelchair, steps forward, and turns on the projector to display the front page of a newspaper from 2024. The headline details: The Flash going missing during a crisis. Oh, also, creepy physicist, are you suddenly a bad guy?

For fans of the DCU, this points directly at the Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline, more famously known by the name of it’s 2005-2006 incarnate, Infinite Crisis. With that in mind, could this mean something huge for the DC Cinematic Universe — or will the Crisis storyline be regulated to TV?

What this could spell out is a wild ride for the cinematic universe, with The Flash already lined up for a team-up movie alongside Green Lantern, and the Justice League already on schedule for 2016. But with such an expansive storyline, this writer doesn’t think DC will go the Crisis route right off the bat.

Still, it’s incredible to imagine that plans are already this big for the DCCU. If they’re preparing for Crisis, they’re pulling out the big guns against Marvel, which — almost ironically — is currently unable to pull all of it’s entities together between production studios for a movie adaptation of one of their most incredible multi-universe crossovers, Civil War.

Doctor Who returns August 23. Steven Moffat also admitted that he knows the biggest secret of all, the Doctor’s real name, but he isn’t telling:

Discussing the situation in a recent interview with The Metro newspaper, Moffat revealed: “No-one can know the Doctor’s name, except each successive showrunner.

“We’re taken into a special room far beneath the BBC and given the ancient and special runes that spell his true and awful name.

“We’re commanded never to reveal what we’ve learned.”

He jokingly added: “Because then the show would have to be renamed Mildred…”

community, season 4, episodic photos, episode 411, still photos, unit photos

The cancellation of Community was the most disappointing news regarding the decisions of the networks. The talks to revive the show have broken down with Hulu. If we are to still get six seasons and a movie, Sony will probably have to find another home for the show very quickly as the cast currently only remains under contract until June 30.

Masters of Sex, one of the best new shows of the 2013 season, returns on July 13. The second season trailer is above.

SciFi Weekend: Continuum; Orphan Black; Fargo; Game of Thrones; Sin City; DC Movie Schedule Rumors; HBO Passes on American Gods; Casey Kassem Dies

Continuum_3.11_image

Continuum, Orphan Black, and Fargo are all heading towards their season finales and all had major events this week. Continuum had a real game changer with 3 Minutes To Midnight. While the most significant revelations happened at the end, a lot also happened earlier in the episode. The storyline about Halo raises further questions about both the abuse of technology and as to whether Kiera chose the right Alec. We saw the other Alec still alive in one of those Freelancer glass cages. They make for interesting scenes, but they don’t look all that practical for long term incarceration. How do the prisoners even go to the bathroom? Jason went out in search of the time travel device from the Alex from the original time line, but how did he know where to look? Julian, now the Vice President of Social Responsibility at PIRON, finally learns about all the time travel going on. I loved how Kellog thought Brad was a car jacker when it turned out that Brad was turning to Kellog for help–as it turned out that a future Kellog had sent Brad back in time. Kiera ultimately caught up with Brad when he went to a hiding place at an old home and saw his younger self, apparently with no negative repercussions. He did confess to Kiera how he shot the other Kiera, and was fortunate that at this point she didn’t really seem to mind.

The climax was set up with, as Travis described it, “It’s like Wylie Coyote finally catches the roadrunner.”  There are further comparisons to the Terminator series. It is not clear as to why Liber8 was going after capturing Kiera at this point, or if they even knew about Brad. Once captured, Brad’s story did become the main matter of interest. Liber8 learned that they were successful in preventing the development of the Corporate Congress, but the result was worse in the time line which Brad came from. They also found that they were all pawns. Garza was working for Sadler, Kellog had his own agenda, and Chen was working for the Freelancers.

Simon Berry gave a clue as to what this might all mean in this interview with the Canadian TV Guide. The second paragraph is essential in considering  how time travel plays into the story:

TV Guide Canada: Last week you told us this Sunday’s episode was going to have people talking and you were absolutely right. When did you guys decide you were going in this direction and have no one able to control the future?
Simon Barry: When we were breaking Season 3, the idea that this new timeline–were it to be exposed beyond just Kiera and Alec to Liber8 would kind of create an existential crisis–was something we loved the idea of as a concept. We realized as Kiera was coming around and waking up about her reality that at the same time she was able to sort of come to terms with the truth about where she came from, we could also allow Liber8 to learn the truth about their circumstances so that everyone would at the same time go through this mental reality check. Here’s what the rules really are, here’s what is actually going on.

In terms of time travel, when you believe that you’re the last time traveler, you have this assumption that you’re in control of the situation. When you discover that someone else has actually time-traveled after you, you realize you’re a pawn in someone else’s game. It can be a profound and very disturbing realization that your efforts have been trumped essentially. The time travel trump card is whoever has traveled most recently. [Laughs.] For Liber8, it was important for them to have a catharsis and for reasons that will be revealed in Episodes 12 and 13, this moment of realization fundamentally shifts Liber8′s perspective.

So where do we go from here? Does Kiera and/or Liber8 try to fix this time line? Can that even be done? If it is the last time traveler who is in control of the situation, it is not clear if Kiera or Brad is the last. Will next season move on to yet another time line where Kiera or someone else is in control of the situation? This week’s episode opened up so many possibilities.

Orphan Black Bone Marrow

On Things Which Have Never Yet Been Done, Orphan Black advanced the story lines for most of the clones (although no sight of Tony, who was introduced last week). It appears that Alison watched Dexter but not Breaking Bad when she discussed the disposal of Dr. Leekie’s body. She rejected Donnie’s idea of dumping him under water (“Do we have a boat?! Have you ever seen Dexter? Random scuba divers are finding everything!”). She didn’t consider destroying the body with acid. She decided upon burying him in their garage, but this does mean that the evidence will always be around and there should also be a difference in the concrete the shape of a burial plot. Just when it looked like Donnie was of little value, he suddenly grew up and took on both Vic and Angie.

Helena remains a psychopathic killer, but this season has been a psychopathic killer for the good guys/clones. I almost feel sorry for Henrick, and we don’t know the fate of most of the people at the Prolethian compound. Helena certainly would not have left the kids to die, and reportedly there was a scene which was cut for time in which she did help them escape. We also don’t know for sure whether Helena, Gracie, or both really are pregnant, and if they will keep the babies if they are.

Back at Dyad, Rachel continues to manipulate Delphine (the new Leekie) and Cosima. Poor Delphine tried to help Sarah but turned out to have been manipulated by Rachel (who has an awesome media room). There was yet another scene in which one clone impersonated another–this time Rachel playing Sarah to kidnap poor Kira following the bone marrow donation. In a way the penultimate episode placed us where we incorrectly assumed we were at the end of season one with Kira captured by Dyad.

John Fawcett answered some questions for Entertainment Weekly heading into the season finale:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: This episode was very heavy on insemination and people in stirrups. What’s up with that?
JOHN FAWCETT: It wasn’t something that we were purposely trying to do, but there is a nice mirroring thing of Helena at the beginning and then kind of matching that and having Gracie have the same procedure happen. It just gets to this creepy ongoing saga of the Proletheans and their grand plans for Helena.

EW: Speaking of people in stirrups, I suppose it’s time to offer a eulogy for the dearly departed Henrik. Why decide to take him out and in such a painful fashion?
FAWCETT: He kinda got what we deserved, don’t you think? Listen, it’s a fun and a sick way to dispatch one of your villains. And I think Helena has had a little revenge on her brain for a while.

EW: The Proletheans have been such a big part of this story for the first two seasons. With Helena torching that place and taking out their leader, are they now not going to be a big part of the show? Are we sort of done with them, or will they continue to be a part of this saga?
FAWCETT: We have not seen the last of the Proletheans. What this represents is a kind of a win for our team. But it’s definitely not a “we’re done with them.” It’s not the end of the empire. Darth Vader’s still spinning off into space.

EW: Is this kidnapping a case of Rachel trying to recreate her lost childhood and have the family unit she felt she never did?
FAWCETT: Rachel’s a little creepy, there’s no question. That could be an aspect of it. It seems to me from all the conversations that Kira is very important to Dyad, from a biological point of view. But also, this has become personal between Rachel and Sarah, and we begin the season with a war between Sarah and Rachel and this war is basically coming to a head with Rachel taking Kira. So you can imagine that this is not going to go well at this point. Especially considering that this ongoing war is really the framework and A story of season 2.

EW: Okay, now’s your chance to tease the finale. We still have a lot of balls in the air. What can we expect next week?
FAWCETT: Sarah is obviously going to have to deal with Rachel. We know who took Kira. It’s not like we’re trying to figure out who took her. We know who took her. So this is going to come to a bit of a showdown between Sarah and Rachel and that’s going to be the exciting thing to watch next week.

EW: There are some people we have not seen in a while. We haven’t seen much of Paul, who is off somewhere. Might he pop back up again?
FAWCETT: We’ve done a lot to bring all the storylines all together for the season finale, so there’s a chance you might see him.

Fargo s01e09 Malvo

Fargo’s penultimate episode, A Fox, A Rabbit, and a Cabbage, sets up what is billed as a bloody finale. Lester both remain foolish and ethically descends into a full Heisenberg. Flashbacks brought us up to date on why Malvo was pretending to be a dentist in order to track down the brother of a dentist in witness protection. His plan was disrupted when Lester appeared, insisting he knew  him. Malvo gave him the same choice he gave him in the first episode: “Yes or no?” Lester showed he learned nothing in answering “Yes,” leading Malvo to kill everyone else in the elevator. “That’s on you.” Lester made another foolish mistake in making a dangerous enemy out of Malvo by hitting Malvo but leaving him alive. This led  Malvo to warn him, “See you later, Lester. See you soon.”

Until this point it appeared that Lester could get away with everything he did a year earlier. Of course, unknown to him, there was again danger from Molly solving the case now that the two FBI agents were taking her seriously. Plus there were new suspicions with Lester having been in Las Vegas at the time of the murders in the elevator.

Lester returned home, hoping to leave the country with his wife Linda. After hearing Linda tell Lester how she always loved him and felt like Cinderella, it was obvious that she was doomed. Suspecting that Malvo was waiting for him at his office, where their passports were stored, Lester had Linda wear his parka with hood up. I doubt that Malvo really confused Linda for Lester when he shot her. If there was any doubt that Lester deserves to either be captured by Molly or killed by Malvo, this resolved it.

In comparing the television adaptation with the movie, I initially saw Lester as more being the victim of circumstances and, despite killing his wife in a fit of rage, not being evil in the sense that William H. Macy’s Jerry Lundegaard was. While things got totally out of hand for both Lester and Jerry, the difference was that Jerry had planned a crime from the start. Lester, like Walter White, became more evil as the series went on, previously framing his brother for his wife’s murder, and now setting up poor Linda.

Lester’s fate might have been determined by the poor decision he made in this episode. Poor decisions often wind up influencing the direction of television shows. For example, tonight we will probably learn the fate of Tyrion on tonight’s season finale of Game of Thrones. He has been sentenced to death after Oberyn was killed by the Mountain in the trial by combat two weeks ago (but I wonder if he gets off on a technicality if both are dead). It was clear that Oberyn would be killed when he made the terrible decision not to kill the Mountain when he had him down, instead demanding a confession. While Oberyn was a fool in that episode, it was good to see Sansa mature, and finally act in control of her fate (somewhat similar to how Donnie acted on Orphan Black).

The above trailer has been released for Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.

Current rumors regarding upcoming DC superhero movies:

May 2016 – Batman v Superman
July 2016 – Shazam
Xmas 2016 – Sandman
May 2017 – Justice League
July 2017 – Wonder Woman
Xmas 2017 – Flash and Green Lantern team-up
May 2018 – Man Of Steel 2

HBO decided that an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s book American Gods was too much to take on:

I think we’re all huge fans of the book, and I think the script just didn’t — we couldn’t craft the script as good as we needed it to be. I think we knew going in that it would be a challenge; every good book is a challenge to adapt it and find the level you need for it. The bar is high now for great dramas. And to find that bar — we tried. So it was a huge disappointment […] We tried three different writers, we put a lot of effort into it. Some things just don’t happen. We have to trust at the end of the day, if you don’t have a star with a great script, you’re just not going to go through with it.

In other entertainment news, Casey Kasem has died at age 82.

SciFi Weekend: Hannibal; Sleepy Hollow; Arrow; SHIELD; DC Movie Plans; The Americans; The Blacklist; Scarlett Johansson Gets Superpowers; Groundhog Day;Death of the Rani; How I Met Your Mother Finale

Hannibal Murkozuke

This week’s episode of Hannibal, Mukozuke, had Jack Crawford viewing Beverly’s sliced body. Bryan Fuller described Hannibal breaking her down as being like how Beverly would break down a crime scene. Her murder had major effects on several characters, especially Will Graham who was driven to have Hannibal killed in revenge. He found a clever way to attempt this despite being incarcerated, finding his admirer who killed the bailiff (in an attempt to provide evidence that Will was not the Chesapeake Ripper) using Freddy Lounds.

This was a dangerous move on Will’s part as it could reinforce the idea held by others that Will is the murderer and Hannibal has been the victim of his slurs. I suspect that Will’s vision of dripping blood might represent realization that he was wrong to attempt murder. At least he was unsuccessful and does not actually have blood on his hands. Will didn’t even bother to tell others this week that Hannibal killed Grace, even when viewing her body in the restraints we were more accustomed to seeing Hannibal wearing in Silence of the Lambs,  presumably preferring that they figure it out for themselves. The preview from next week’s episode does suggest that Jack is starting to investigate Hannibal, and we saw in the season premiere how that will turn out.

I wonder if Hannibal will actually have more respect for Will for taking this action, and if he will take pride in being successful in driving Will to attempt murder (even if it had to be by proxy).

I was fearful that having Will in the asylum all season would limit his role, but episodes such as this show how he can remain fully part of the show. Having Abel Gideon as his asylum mate now presents yet another way for Jack to have significant dialog beyond being limited to FBI visitors.

There have been accusations of racism and sexism raised against Bryan Fuller due to the manner in which Beverly Katz was treated as an expendable character. Hetteinne Park, who played Beverly, defended Fuller here.

Sleepy Hollow Cast

News on the second season of Sleepy Hollow from PaleyFest can be found here. Among the news, it sounds like one of the cliff hangers at the end of the first season will not  be settled quickly:

There’s a New Sheriff in Town: Literally Orci teases, “There’s a new sheriff in town. Obviously, Irving has been discredited and now he’s been taken Upstate, so the Sleepy Hollow Police Department still has to be run by somebody and that person may not be as open as Irving was by the end of the season with Abbie and Crane. So somebody may be making their life very difficult.”

Orlando Jones is definitely not down with the new Sheriff, even making his own t-shirt, which said, “Free Frank Irving.” (Yes, he’s the best.)

There will also be fifteen or more episodes next season.

Arrow Birds of Prey

Jessica de Gouw returned as Helena Bertinelli/The Huntress on Arrow, tying up the storyline of the relationship between Helena and her father, leaving the character free to move in other directions. Caity Lotz was a second Bird of Prey as the Black Canary.

It appears that Laurel’s drug use has affected the powers of observation in Katie Cassidy’s character. Despite the two speaking while sitting as closely together as in the picture above, Laurel did not recognize that Black Canary is her sister Sara. It is a theme taken from the comics to have a tiny mask be enough to hide a superhero’s identity, but this was hard to believe in this scene. I also wonder if having the two meet is a first step towards Laurel ultimately becoming the Black Canary as in the comics, or if this something which the comics and television show will always differ on.

The episode also ended with quite a cliff hanger. More here, including why they killed off Helena’s father:

On why they killed Helena’s father:
Guggenheim: We definitely went into this with, “We’ve got to wrap up the whole Helena and her father storyline.” The one thing we were agreed upon in the writer’s room from the get-go was that Frank could not survive the episode. We had to end that story and close that chapter of Helena’s life so we could start a new chapter for her. … We definitely have an idea for a season 3 episode with the Huntress.

De Gouw: I think how this episode ends just puts her into a completely different headspace…and I think it’s opened up a whole new set of possibilities for her because she was so set on one path and now that it has been realized that that’s not what she wanted, it just frees her up for an entirely different life.

On whether The Huntress is redeemable:
De Gouw: I think most people are. And I think the place she’s at at the end of this episode, she’s certainly in a place where she can be redeemed…I think that it will be very interesting to explore her fighting for good or for very different reasons. But I think [she] definitely [is].

Amy Acker SHIELD The Cellist

The addition of Amy Acker as a regular has greatly strengthened Person of Interest, including on this week’s episode. Hopefully her presence, even if more limited, can also help Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. improve. Acker has been cast as Agent Coulson’s former cellist girlfriend, Audrey.

DC might have the best superhero television series on the air, but is far behind Marvel in big screen success. The New York Times interviewed Warner CEO Kevin Tsujihara, who wants to be more aggressive in taking on Marvel:

The studio has been painfully slow to establish a slate of films based on DC Comics characters like Wonder Woman and the Flash, watching as Disney’s Marvel Entertainment churns out one superhero hit after another…

As for DC Entertainment, cross-studio collaboration to make better use of its comic book characters appears to have accelerated considerably since Mr. Tsujihara took over, in part because he eliminated some management layers. (He has not named a chief operating officer and did not replace Mr. Rosenblum and Mr. Robinov, choosing instead to divide up their duties and assume some himself.) Two new television shows are coming to the CW and Fox, including one based on the Flash and another on a young Batman, and a film series will be announced in the near future, Mr. Tsujihara said. It is expected to include a “Justice League” movie.

Underscoring his aggressive approach to the DC Comics universe, Mr. Tsujihara and Dan Fellman, Warner’s domestic film distribution chief, recently moved the studio’s untitled Batman-Superman movie — a hotly anticipated follow-up to last year’s “Man of Steel” — to a release date in May 2016 previously claimed by Marvel for one of its own films. It created an industry dust-up, and Marvel retaliated with a date change of its own. But the move sent a blunt message: Warner takes a back seat to no one.

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In other notable television moments of the week, Philip seemed really evil on The Americans when he sent the poor physicist home while Elizabeth did a great job smoothing over things with Martha. I do think that Phillip and the Mossad agent did have mutual respect for each other as each did what they knew they would do if in the position of the other.

On The Blacklist I was glad to see that once they revealed to the audience what we already suspected about Tom, they didn’t wait long to have Lizzie also figure out the truth about him.

Lucy

Scarlett Johansson gets superpowers in Lucy. From Entertainment Weekly:

Don’t do drugs, kids…unless said drugs transform your neurological makeup to give you superhero-level mind powers. That’s what happens in Luc Besson’s action thriller 
Lucy (out Aug. 8), starring Scarlett Johansson as a young woman who turns the tables on those exploiting her when experimental drugs give her hyperpowered ass-kicking abilities. “I love to see a woman as a very strong character,” says Besson (The Professional and La Femme Nikita). “It’s like cooking: sugar with a 
 bit of salt, and Lucy definitely can get salty.” Keep your eyes peeled for the trailer, which is scheduled to hit iTunes on April 2.

Groundhog Day

I don’t agree with all of Charles Murray’s Advice For A Happy Life, but I do agree with watching Groundhog Day:

The movie “Groundhog Day” was made more than two decades ago, but it is still smart and funny. It is also a brilliant moral fable that deals with the most fundamental issues of virtue and happiness, done with such subtlety that you really need to watch it several times.

An egocentric TV weatherman played by Bill Murray is sent to Punxsutawney, Pa., to cover Groundhog Day. He hates the assignment, disdains the town and its people, and can’t wait to get back to Pittsburgh. But a snowstorm strikes, he’s stuck in Punxsutawney, and when he wakes up the next morning, it is Groundhog Day again. And again and again and again.

The director and co-writer Harold Ramis, whose death last month was mourned by his many fans, estimated that the movie has to represent at least 30 or 40 years’ worth of days. We see only a few dozen of them, ending when Bill Murray’s character has discovered the secrets of human happiness.

Without the slightest bit of preaching, the movie shows the bumpy, unplanned evolution of his protagonist from a jerk to a fully realized human being—a person who has learned to experience deep, lasting and justified satisfaction with life even though he has only one day to work with.

You could learn the same truths by studying Aristotle’s “Ethics” carefully, but watching “Groundhog Day” repeatedly is a lot more fun.

Kate O’Mara, The Rani, died today. There was no regeneration. Above is a scene from Doctor Who: The Mark of the Rani from 1985. Besides her role on Doctor Who as a renegade Time Lady, she is also known for her roles on Dynasty and Absolutely Fabulous. She has had other cult television appearances on two British shows,  The Avengers and The Saint.

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Barney and Robin actually did get married last week and tomorrow we will find out if the fan theories about Ted and the Mother are true. I suspect we are in for a different surprise, which will be legendary. Above is the video of the cast of How I Met Your Mother on Inside The Actors Studio with the series finale airing tomorrow night.

SciFi Weekend: Sleepy Hollow & Other Cliffhangers; Doctor Who & Sherlock Win At National Television Awards; The Americans; Arrow; Wonder Woman; Revolution; Hannibal; SHIELD

SLEEPY-HOLLOW-FINALE

Sleepy Hollow ended its first season with several cliffhangers, placing virtually all the major characters in some sort of danger. If they had known how successful the show would be, perhaps they wouldn’t have had to resort to such gimmicks. Get the viewers to return the next season based upon the quality of the show rather than ending with cliffhangers for the sake of cliff hangers. With all the shows now on, people aren’t even likely to recall all the cliffhangers, especially with the longer wait following a show with only a thirteen episode run.

This isn’t to say I oppose all cliff hangers. Back when Dallas first ran the Who Shot JR? storyline, this was somewhat unique for network television, and the buzz around it was a major television event. Star Trek The Next Generation had a great cliffhanger in Best of Both Worlds with Riker ordering the Enterprise to fire on Borg Picard.  The buzz over that summer helped make the show. Most cliffhangers are not this good and do not provide comparable benefits.

An alternative to the cliffhanger which I prefer is for a show to tie up the major story lines at the end of a season and then foreshadow what is coming next. Once Upon A Time did an excellent job with this. The show has been mixed quality-wise, but the old Lost writers on the show manage to keep things interesting by changing things every season. The Peter Pan story from the fall season was drawn out too long, but if you take out the middle episodes where everyone seemed to just wander around Neverland, it did end well. After concluding the story, there was a great final scene taking place a year later which sets up the show when it returns. They got the benefit of favorable publicity and talk about what is happening next without making the viewers wait to see the current story tied up.

Sleepy Hollow didn’t need a bunch of cliffhangers in the finale to create discussion among the fans. Without putting everyone in immediate danger, there was a major revelation and change for the show via John Noble’s character. It was like having him change from Walter to Walternate on Fringe but remain the same person. I was happy to see Captain Irving’s wife find out what is going on so he will no longer need to make lame excuses for not being home, but now we have to see him get off on the charges he confessed to to protect his daughter when processed. On top of all this, we got a flashback to see Zombie George Washington!

Doctor Who did well at the National Television Awards. The show won as Best Drama, beating Broadchurch, Downton Abbey and Call the Midwife. Matt Smith won for Best Drama Performance, beating  Miranda Hart (Call The Midwife), Martin Clunes (Doc Martin) and Maggie Smith (Downton Abbey). He was not present to accept the award in person. Instead it was accepted by Steven Moffat and Jenna Coleman (video above). Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock) won the award for Best TV Detective.

russell-americans_opt

The Americans returns February 26. Here’s some information released about the second season during a panel at the Television Critics Association press tour:

This season will turn the focus back on the family.
“We felt like [season 1] had been so focused on the marriage,” says EP Joe Weisberg, “and the natural place to go next was the family.” Particularly with Philip (Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth’s (Keri Russell) marriage on more solid ground, they wanted to move on to exploring “the next point of fracture” — the family unit.

Paige’s curiosity continues
At the end of the first season, the Jennings’ teenage daughter started to show signs of increasing curiosity about her parents and their ongoings, and this season, questions will start being asked and “it’s not going to go great,” says EP Joel Fields. “Teenagers are hard,” adds Weisberg. “They’re all tough on mom and dad.”

Margo Martindale returns
The actress will be back for several episodes this season as KGB handler Claudia. The fate of her CBS comedy The Millers will not determine what comes next for that character, as The Americans will be done filming the second season in March — well before broadcast network renewals are typically announced. That said, if Martindale finds herself available full time and the show gets a third season, “It’s hard to argue with more Margo Martindale,” says Fields. “We love that character and we love her.”

Martha will get a backbone this season!
Martha’s faux-marriage with Philip will actually serve to strengthen the character, who is widely thought of as insecure, the producers said. “Who she was was extremely lonely and extremely vulnerable and she’s less lonely this season, so it’s allowing her to grow,” says Weisberg. “It’s a law of unintended consequences,” adds Fields.

There’s a racy scene in the premiere
Without giving away too much, a racy scene in the season premiere had critics buzzing. According to Weisberg, the purpose was to depict a show of love between Philip and Elizabeth that was “powerful, shocking, and funny.” You’ll see.

Stan is in a power struggle.
“He’s got such an interesting season coming up,” says Weisberg. “Nina is getting ahead of him. You see that at the end of the first season, and that’s such an interesting place for him to be in and so true and so real for what happens to people when you’re playing this back-and-forth game. People who are smart and good can have people get ahead of them because they are also smart and good at what they do too.” And while Stan is a man who is used to a certain amount of pressure, what it does to him will be “great” to watch, he says.

BONUS BURNING QUESTION: Is the show ever heading to Russia?
The producers said they have “half-joked” about having a season that takes place in Russia, later admitting that such a task would require heaps of funding. But, they said, “I think we’re going to eventually have some storylines there,” teases Weisberg. In fact, he added, there will, like season 1, be some material set in Russia. But filming in the country remains on their to-do. “It would basically be a budget question,” he said.

Tremors

Arrow star Stephen Amell says that episode 15, The Promise, is “grandest, most challenging and most difficult episode” of the series:

“Episode 15 that we have coming up – and this is breaking news – it’s an island-centric episode,” he revealed to Entertainment Weekly Radio. “We take our usual format of 75% of the time in Starling City and 25% of the time on [the island], and we flip it upside down.”

He continued: “[In this episode], there is a shot where we establish where we are and it’s the biggest shot that we’ve ever done on the show. There’s people getting blown up. There’s people getting thrown overboard.

“There are all of these incredible things happening, and then the camera zooms from way, way, way out and it comes in to end on a close-up of me. And all I had to do was evade a punch and bang a guy’s head into the wall. I was super nervous!”

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Gal Gadot has been signed to appear as Wonder Woman in three movies: the Superman vs. Batman movie, a Justice League movie, and a Wonder Woman standalone movie. Presumably this might be extended further if the character does well.

I don’t know if this is the official final storyline, but this synopsis  (spoiler) of the Fantastic Four reboot leaked out from casting calls:

“The Fantastic Four’ will tell the story of two very young friends, Reed Richards and Ben Grimm. After an event transforms the boys, they find themselves empowered with bizarre new abilities. Reed becomes a scientific genius who can stretch, twist and re-shape his body to inhuman proportions. Ben becomes a monstrous, craggy humanoid with orange, rock-like skin and super strength. However, the two end up being owned by the government and used as weapons. But after they mature, two others with powers come into the picture – Sue Storm “The Invisible Girl” and Johnny Storm “The Human Torch.”

I’m glad I stuck with Revolution. The show still has its flaws, but when it gets away from the daddy issues of major characters, the current story lines are getting better. (Along these lines, when will they reveal that Miles is Charlie’s father? This is so obvious, even if it isn’t intended by the writers.) One good thing about the show from the start has been that the story does advance and they are not constantly repeating similar stories. Now there are the Patriots who are getting into eugenics. I thought the story line with Aaron and the nanobots was pretty dumb last fall, but suddenly that is becoming interesting. Of course any storyline with Giancarlo Esposito has hope due to the quality of his acting. Currently Tom and Julia Neville/Doyle are in Washington, D.C. but unfortunately for Tom his plot has been exposed. I’m sure he will recover from his current setback, but should they ever decide to end his time on the show, I hope he goes out in a scene where half his face is blown off, as happened with his character Gus on Breaking Bad.

A longer trailer for Season 2 of Hannibal, which starts February 28, has been released–video above.

Two characters will be killed in the first episode when Under the Dome returns. I’m having a tough time getting down to only two characters who I would like to see get killed. Maybe they can kill two characters every week. That might help the show.

HBO has renewed The Newsroom for a third and final season. I’m glad that Aaron Sorkin’s show will be returning, but wish there would be more than one season to go.

CHLOE BENNET

Maybe I’m getting softer, but I also think Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has improved. I am glad to hear that there will be more than has been revealed so far on the mysteries surrounding two of the characters according to an interview with Chloe Bennett:

Though “Seeds” and its “SHIELD Hogwarts” storyline was one of the series’ more playful episodes, Bennet says that the end of episode 13 “TRACKS” is “f***ing crazy” and will leave viewers “very worried.” Henstridge backs her up, saying that the rest of this season gets very serious and very intense.

“The thing about the next few episodes that we’re about to film and that are about to be shown, it starts getting very serious and the tone goes a lot darker,” Henstridge says. “There’s less kind of comedic things for us to do. The stakes just go through the roof. With Coulson having been kidnapped, things start to get very scary. So I think it’s more focused on the mission and there’s a lot of mystery around Skye, and that starts to be explored. So that’s kind of the main mystery.”

In terms of the mystery surrounding Coulson’s death, Bennet also acknowledges that there is a lot left fore viewers to find out — and that she thinks we’ll find out those answers before the end of Season 1.

“We found out what Tahiti was — or lack thereof — but we didn’t know why. Why is it a huge secret?” Bennet asks. “There’s a couple big question marks. There’s: What am I? Where am I from? Why the f*** are they not telling Coulson why he died? And then there’s: Who’s the Clairvoyant? Who’s the head of Centipede? What is happening? Basically starting next episode, it’s bam bam bam bam bam from here on, so it will be a lot of answers and a lot of drama.”

Jamie Alexander will be appearing on an upcoming episode reprising her role as Lady Sif from the Thor movies. There are also upcoming guest appearances from Stan Lee and Bill Paxton.

Parks and Recreation has been renewed for a seventh season, and it is looking hopeful that Community will return for a sixth season.

Colin Jost has been named to replace Seth Meyers as the anchor of Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live.

Mr. Selfridge returned last week for a second season on ITV. It picks up four years after season one, but the events of the end of the season still have ramifications.

SciFi Weekend: Star Wars; Batman; Battlestar Galactica; Who Killed JR?; Mad Men and Other Returning Shows; S.H.I.E.L.D.; Doctor Who Meets Inspector Spacetime

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The big science fiction news of the week is that J.J. Abrams will be directing the next Star Wars movie. I think it is a good idea for J.J. Abrams to direct the Star Wars movie. His tendency to destroy entire planets (Romulus, Vulcan) fits in better with Star Wars and Death Star than Star Trek.

There are reports that they might wait until 2017 to reboot Batman. There is also speculation that the cast of Justice League of America, scheduled for a 2015 release, will be cut down to five, leaving out Batman until he is rebooted in his own movie. Other rumors say that plans continue to reintroduce Batman in Justice League but possibly leave out Aquaman. Incidentally, if anyone is interested in getting the Michael Keaton Batman movies on Blu-Ray, I found they were much less expensive when purchased as part of a Michael Keaton Collection (recently discounted even further on Amazon) than as stand-alone Batman movies.

Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome was turned into a web series after SyFy decided against picking it up as a weekly series. They will be televising this as a movie on February 10.

Dallas returns tomorrow night, starting with the final episodes filmed before the death of Larry Hagman. Considering all the publicity the show obtained in its original run with the mystery of Who Shot JR?, it only makes sense that JR Ewing will leave the series by being murdered as opposed to dying of natural causes. They should be able to keep this mystery, and other references to JR Ewing, part of the show for quite a long time.

Colin Morgan won the award for Best Drama Performance at the National Television Awards for his portrayal of Merlin.

Doctor Who returns on March 30 with Game of Thrones returning the following night.

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Mad Men returns on April 7 with a two hour season premier. More pictures like above here. The upcoming season will include more of Betty Draper but January Jones will not be returning as Emma Frost to X-Men Days of Futures Past . Elisabeth Moss was surprised her character left Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce last season and cannot say what Peggy will be doing in the upcoming season.

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While January Jones won’t be returning to X-Men, Anna Paquin (Rogue), Ellen Page (Kitty Pride) will be returning in these roles.

I was initially concerned that Person of Interest would be about independent stories every week, but over time an increasingly convoluted back story has developed. If you are having as much trouble as I am keeping track of everything, the chart here will either help or confuse matters further.

Filming is starting on S.H.I.E.L.D. Cobie Smulders will be reprising her role as Maria Hill despite continuing on How I Met Your Mother for another season.

Downton Abbey is casting for a new suitor for a character in Season 4. If you saw Season 3, or heard how it end, you will know who. If you do not know, don’t follow this link.

Office Documentary Crew

After nine years the documentary crew is being introduced into the cast of The Office. Will they have a plausible explanation as to why they have been covering this office for nine years?

Emma Stone Nearly Naked.

Doctor Who meets Inspector Spacetime:

Doctor Who Meets Inspector Spacetime