Torchwood Comic Con Preview

While the third episode airs later tonight, a special preview for the entire season of Torchwood: Miracle Day was presented at the San Diego Comic Con. Video Above.

SciFi Weekend: Torchwood: Miracle Day Episode 2; Ricky Gervais In A TARDIS, Dexter Trailer, Friday Night Lights Movie Proposed, Kinky Sex From The Girls of Community

Torchwood: Miracle Day Episode 2, Rendition, continued where the first episode ended. Major spoilers for UK readers who won’t receive the episode on the BBC until Thursday. (I wonder how many really wait as opposed to downloading. Despite talk of different scenes in each version, the first episode was the same on both Starz and the BBC. The only difference is that the BBC had a longer trailer for upcoming episodes.)

While the first episode had bigger movie-type action scenes, possibly using up more than its share of the show’s budget, this episode had more  of the feeling of a television show such as 24 (although not limited to twenty-four hours). The episode established that the same group which was after Torchwood, and presumably behind the “miracle,” has infiltrated the CIA. They handled the attempted poisoning of Jack by Dichen Lachman from Dollhouse very well, requiring some ingenuity to come up with an antidote. This helped make up for some of the other junk science introduced in the episode.  I’ll let them get away with this because, face it, the show would not be possible if they stuck to established science.

The episode also introduced Jilly Kitzenger, played by Lauren Ambrose of Six Feet Under.  So far it looks like Oswald Danes is doing fine on his own without her help. I did not find it realistic that one appearance on television would have been so effective in changing public opinion of him.

Best scene of the episode was seeing Gwen Cooper explain that, “I’m Welch.”  (Included in the extended trailer above). Rex Matheson also did well, after warned about the conspiracy by Esther Drummond, using some bullshit to distract the rogue CIA agents in order to set Jack and Gwen free. The episode made it clear how the four will turn into the new Torchwood (at least for this season) while being on the run.

The first episode raised the question of how they investigate intangible such as nobody dying, which is like investigating nothing. I would assume that the conspiracy involving the CIA would provide something to begin investigating. In  order to investigate “nothing,” they might check out a character who previously appeared in a show about “nothing.” The conspiracy at the CIA is led by Wayne Night, who played Newman on Seinfeld

Following is the synopsis released for Episode 3:

Torchwood goes on the run – and finds a new enemy. But as they launch a raid on PhiCorp headquarters, Jack must confront the mysterious Oswald Danes.

Episode three includes guest stars Wayne Knight (Jurassic Park, Seinfeld), Dillon Casey (The Vampire Diaries) and Richard Gilliland (Desperate Housewives).

Will Ricky Gervais be the next Doctor, or just steal a Tardis. Check out this report.

A new trailer for Season Six of Dexter. The next season is going to skip ahead so that Dexter can be past the death of Rita and Lumen moving away, allowing him to get back to being Dexter.

Friday Night Lights concluded its series, but now there is talk (and tweets) of filming a movie. Sometimes that works (Firefly/Serenity) and other times such movies have failed to materialize (Arrested Development and Veronica Mars).  The idea is to continue from where the series left off. This would work well with Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton, and it would be easy to work in some other characters, but unless the movie shows the Taylors moving back to Dillon, it would be hard for it to be a direct continuation of the series.

Last  season  Thursday night featured two genre comedies up against each other. Alison Brie and Gillian Jacobs of Community got kinky for Esquire in the video above.  What will Kaley Cuoco and Melissa Raunch of Big Bang Theory do to match this? For more on the sex life of Alison Brie (of both Community and Mad Men) check out this essay she wrote.

Quote of the Day

“I’m Welch.” –Gwen Cooper, Torchwood: Miracle Day Episode 2, Rendition.

Must be seen in context. This will probably also be appreciated by more people after Thursday when the episode is broadcast in the U.K.

SciFi Weekend: Torchwood: Miracle Day & Doctor Who: Let’s Kill Hitler

 

Torchwood: Miracle Day has now aired in the United States, Canada, and Australia, but will not be airing until Thursday in the U.K. This post does contain Spoilers, although virtually all of the major events in the fist episode where those revealed in reports prior to airing. Far less is known about the following episodes. The first episode primarily served to introduce Torchwood to American audiences who were not familiar with it, introduce some of the new characters known to appear this season, and set up the situation which the story is about. Miracle Day was the first day in which nobody dies, setting up a catastrophe for the planet as the population will explode beyond the numbers we can support. Length of stay will also increase dramatically in critical care units, creating a crisis for the insurance industry.

As with many science fiction stories, it is necessary to accept something which might not appear possible, and this is acceptable as long as the story remains plausible given the acceptance of the facts established in the story. I found it easier to accept the implausibility of a story where nobody dies when characters within the story also discussed how implausible this is, considering the wide variety of situations which might lead to death. Once the premise of the show was accepted, I had more difficulty believing another aspect– that Oswald Danes would be released because of not dying during his scheduled execution. While in a sense he did serve out his sentence, he was also a convicted child killer. Even if a governor was susceptible to bullying by someone such as Danes. any real governor would be far more concerned about the public’s response to releasing someone who killed a twelve year-old and then said, “She shoulda run faster.”

It was not necessary to know anything about Torchwood going into this episode as viewers learned about the organization as the CIA did. Viewers of the previous seasons would appreciate the references to previous seasons such as Jack going by the  name of Dr. Owen Harper, a character from the first two seasons. Seeing how Jack retconned Esther was reminiscent of when Jack once did the same to Gwen in the first episode. The return of PC Andy also provided a little more continuity with the past. Is there a connection between the the 456 regulations mentioned in this episode and the aliens in Children of Earth being known as the 456?

There are many mysteries to be solved beyond the obvious ones of who is preventing people from dying and how they are doing it. Were they the ones who sent out the email message saying “Torchwood” and why was this done? Jack quickly shut this down with malware destroying all mention of Torchwood, but if he really had this capability I would have expected him to use it after Torchwood was destroyed and Gwen went into hiding. While presumably there is some connection between all of this and Torchwood, it is less clear if Oswald Danes’ survival was coincidental or if triggering Miracle Day on the date of his scheduled execution was intentional. While I suspect that Rex Matheson’s automobile accident was no accident, it would have made more sense to try to harm him on a day when he would have stayed dead. It would have also made more sense to fire upon Gwen’s home prior to Miracle Day, but perhaps they thought she would have turned into a blown up blob who could not have gone after them despite remaining alive.

While nobody dies, they can be injured. The immortal Captain Jack Harkness was surprised to find he could now be injured, with the possibility of his death being one twist in the series which was revealed before the first episode aired. Seeing that he could be inured does not necessarily mean he could be killed. A plausible interpretation might be that Jack has become like everyone else, who can be injured but not die. The preview for the second episode shows that this question might be answered next week (video below):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KznzaL_wCLE&feature=player_embedded

Rex Matheson has some bizarre ideas in this episode, from obsessing over the charges for crossing a bridge to handling the situation by trying to take Jack and Gwen back to the United States by force. If there was reason to believe that there was a connection between Torchwood and the Miracle, it would make more sense to begin investigating this around Cardiff (even without knowing about the rift). It might also have made more sense to try to recruit them to voluntarily work with the CIA unless there was more reason to mistrust the two surviving members of Torchwood.

We saw with Children of Earth that a continuing story has advantages over trying to come up with a new threat to fight every week. We will have to watch over the course of this season how well they continue with this single storyline. Besides answering the basic questions raised, and solving other problems which come up over the next several weeks, I wonder what this will mean for Torchwood in the long run. Will the organization be reestablished in the U.K. or will next season again have Jack and Gwen interacting with others as free agents? Hopefully we will see the return of Torchwood. It makes much less sense to have an ongoing series named Torchwood about survivors of an organization which no longer exists. I also wonder if some of the characters introduced this season will become regulars for future seasons. In the case of Rex Matheson, this might depend upon whether those who are still living because of Miracle Day remain alive at the end. I would expect that those who would have died due to chronic diseases and aging will remain dead, as well as those who remain severely injured when death returns. Rex Matheson could conceivably survive, with Miracle Day having provided him a chance to heal from his wounds in a way which would not normally have been possible.

The cliff hanger after the first half of the season of Doctor Who, set up in A Good Man Goes To War, is to be continued in an episode named Let’s Kill Hitler. A synopsis for the episode has been released: “In the desperate search for Melody Pond, the TARDIS crash lands in 1930s Berlin, bringing the Doctor face to face with the greatest war criminal in the Universe. And Hitler. The Doctor must teach his adversaries that time travel has responsibilities – and in so doing, learns a harsh lesson in the cruellest warfare of all.”

Alex Kingston discussed her role as River Song on BBC Breakfast last week in the video above.

SciFi Weekend: Torchwood and Doctor Who News

John Borrowman discussed Torchwood: Miracle Day in the video above. Are we really in store for “full-on, naked sex”?

The BBC Press Office has released a synopsis of the first episode of Torchwood: Miracle Day. The listing is for BBC One on Thursday on July 14, with the episode premiering in the United States on Starz on July 8. It also airs on July in Canada and Australia.

One day, nobody dies. All across the world, nobody dies. And then the next day, and the next, and the next, people keep ageing – they get hurt and sick, but they never die. The result: a population boom, overnight.

With all the extra people, resources are finite. It’s said that in four month’s time, the human race will cease to be viable. But this can’t be a natural event – someone’s got to be behind it. It’s a race against time as CIA agent Rex Matheson investigates a global conspiracy. The answers lie within an old, secret British institute. As Rex keeps asking: “What is Torchwood?”, he’s drawn into a world of adventure, and a threat to change what it means to be human … for ever.

In The New World, the launch episode of Torchwood: Miracle Day, Agent Rex Matheson is impaled in a car crash and miraculously survives, while his analyst, Esther Drummond, sets out to discover what Torchwood is. Far away, in Wales, Gwen Cooper lives in hiding with her husband Rhys and daughter Anwen – she’s the last surviving Torchwood member and is determined to stay hidden. In Kentucky, convicted murderer Oswald Danes survives his own execution. And when Esther meets the mysterious Captain Jack Harkness, assassins are activated to kill them all…

Alex Kingston discussed her role as River Song on BBC Breakfast in the video above. Karen Gillan also made some news with allegations in The Daily Mail that she was found nude in a New York hotel after partying. My theory is that either it was a Ganger or that Karen had been traveling in a TARDIS and her clothes wound up lagging behind in her trip through time.

There is some interesting news from Steven Moffat coming out of ComicCon Paris. Moffat has again tried to calm fans about rumors about a shortened series of Doctor Who for 2012:

Moffat said Contrary to what you may have heard, there will be the same number of episodes next year. At the end of the conference, Steven Moffat returned to the subject to add There will be the same number of episodes. But its true that there will be a change in the mode of distribution. I would explain it all. Later.

Moffat responded to the fan speculation about the number of times Rory has appeared to die, noting that Rory really did die and return once. Moffat says “dead Rory leads to something. There will be a pay-off.”

Moffat had this to say about the revelation that River Song is Amy Pond’s daughter: “River Song, you do not know anything yet.” This conceivably could cast doubt upon what we learned, but I take this as meaning that just knowing that River is Amy’s daughter hardly tells us much about the character. I’ve already pointed out in previous posts that a tremendous number of questions persist about River Song.

In the one bit of non-Torchwood/Doctor Who news for this week, word came from Starz last week that Camelot is not being renewed. The show was mixed, but I wish it got more time to establish itself. A second season after the basics of the show were set up in the first might have been much better. It was also harder for the show to get established this year, competing for attention with the much better show from HBO, Game of Thrones.

Torchwood: Miracle Day Premiere Date Announced for the UK.

Torchwood Miracle Day UK premiere date finally announced–Thursday July 14 at 9pm on BBC1. The season is premiering July 8 in the US (Starz), July 9 in Canada (Space) and July 9 in Australia (UKTV).

SciFi Weekend: Scheduling for Doctor Who and Spin Off Shows

Last week’s news that Doctor Who had been renewed for fourteen episodes in 2012 turned out to be far less straight forward than initially believed. Word came from the BBC that many of the episodes will be held back until 2013, sparking a lot of rumors and speculation with no definite answer.

The current season will conclude in the fall of 2011, but it is not clear what will happen after that. Initially there was speculation that episodes would be held back in order to have around twenty episodes in 2013 for the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who.

My suspicion is that this move might be to shift the entire series back for future seasons, beginning in the fall as opposed to the spring. They might stick to the same pattern with two half seasons along with a Christmas episode, except we would have to go longer without episodes in the spring of 2012. In that case there would be fewer episodes airing in 2012 while returning to the usual number in 2013.

Yet another possibility is that the regular season might be an episode or two shorter in order to have specials before the fall of 2012 to break up the hiatus.

Steven Moffat has denied initial claims from the BBC that the schedule for Sherlock has anything to do with delaying Doctor Who. Beyond this, he has been vague regarding future plans, recently tweeting: “Dr Who: misquotes and misunderstandings. But I’m not being bounced into announcing the cool stuff before we’re ready. Hush, and patience.”

Meanwhile, Torchwood: Miracle Day begins in the United States on July 8 and in Canada on July 9. After years of being behind the U.K. on several shows, reportedly Torchwood will be aired on the BBC after the United States. The exact date has not yet been announced.

The final three episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures filmed before the death of Elisabeth Sladen will air this fall on CBBC. There are no plans, despite some rumors, to continue the show with a different star.

SciFi Weekend: Doctor Who and Torchwood– News And Interviews On Their Upcoming Seasons

Matt Smith and Karen Gillan discuss the upcoming season of Doctor Who in the above video. More from Matt Smith here and Karen Gillan here. Here are some of Karen’s comments:

“There were clues planted in the last series that are going to become major storylines in this one,” divulges a conspiratorial Karen Gillan; a revelation which is bound to have all Whovians avidly watching Series 5 to spot what the Inverness born actress is referring to.

“There’s a really interesting arc in this series that involves all of the major characters and it’s evident from the first episode that everyone on the TARDIS is withholding secrets from one another,” continues Karen.“It makes for a fascinating dynamic between the characters and it’s incredibly important to the overall series.”

Karen also believes that Amy has more respect for her new husband Rory after his recent adventures.“I think Rory has perhaps developed the most out of all the characters,” explains Karen.“By the end of last series he became a Roman Centurion hero and he had changed a lot; it felt like he had earned his place in the TARDIS. In fact, it’s hard for me to imagine the TARDIS without him now!”

But has married life changed Amy Pond? Karen quickly sweeps that concern out of the way exclaiming “if anything she is even more Amy Pondish! I don’t think it would work for Amy to completely change now that she’s a married woman and I certainly don’t think she should become a subdued version of herself. However, I do think being married has helped to define the Doctor and Amy’s relationship and I can reveal thatsomething takes place this series which makes Amy see Rory in a new light…,” teases the actress.

More from Matt Smith and Karen Gillan here. Karen Gillan will also be a guest on Craig Ferguson’s show on April 13. Perhaps she will show him how to operate the TARDIS on his desk. The picture above is from the third episode.

Steven Moffat had these comments on the upcoming season:

How has this series evolved from last year?

Steven Moffat: Well we’ve moved through the funfair a bit – we’ve done the rollercoaster, now we’re on the ghost train. Last year, in a way, was all about saying, don’t worry, it’s still him, it’s still the same show, nothing’s really been lost. Losing a leading man like David Tennant is seismic – unless you gain a leading man like Matt Smith. It’s been the biggest joy to see him stride in and just claim that TARDIS for his own. But now he’s really here, and the part is his, and the bow tie is cool, he’s ready to lead us places we didn’t know existed. Last year we reassured you – this year, to hell with that, we’re going to worry the hell out of you. How well do we really know that man, or what he’s capable of? We’re putting the Who? back in the Doctor.

Is there a major story arc to look out for?

Oh, there’s a big story being told this year, and major mysteries from the very off. As ever, in this show, the stories all stand alone, and every episode is a perfect jumping-on point for a new viewer. But at the same time the over-arching plot will be a bigger player this year. More than hints and whispers – we’re barely ten minutes into episode one before our heroes face a dilemma that they’ll be staring at months from now. And there will be no easy answers.

Will there be new monsters?

They’re … scary. Very scary. And, ohh, I don’t want to say more – there’s the Silence in 1 & 2, the Siren, in episode 3, the Gangers in 5 & 6, all these are more than just freaky costumes and masks; there are SCARY ideas here. And just wait till you meet Idris in episode 4.

Is this series scarier than the last one?

See above. Yes, I think so. But it’s not JUST scary – it’s funny and moving and revelling in its own insanity too.

How have the characters evolved?

The big difference, I suppose, is how long the Doctor is hanging around in the lives of his Companions. His normal MO is get them while they’re young, and leave them while they’re young too. He’s careful to put them back where he found them, before he screws up their lives. But here he is, married couple on board – and much as he loves them both, he does wonder if it isn’t time he got out of the way. Before something really BAD happens.

What can you tell us about the cliff-hanger at the end of episode 7?

Normally our cliff-hangers are lives being threatened. With this one, three live are changed FOREVER.

The poster for The Impossible Astronaut (above) is available for pre-order. Here’s  the synopses of the first two episodes:

Episode 1: The Impossible Astronaut

Four envelopes, numbered 2, 3 and 4, each containing a date, time and map reference, unsigned, but TARDIS blue. Who sent them? And who received the missing number one? This strange summons reunites the Doctor, Amy, Rory and River Song in the middle of the Utah desert and unveils a terrible secret the Doctor’s friends must never reveal to him.

Placing his life entirely in their hands, the Doctor agrees to search for the recipient of the fourth envelope – just who is Canton Everett Delaware the Third? And what is the relevance of their only other clue: ‘Space 1969′? Their quest lands them – quite literally – in the Oval Office, where they are enlisted by President Nixon himself to assist enigmatic former-FBI agent Canton, in saving a terrified little girl from a mysterious spaceman.

Episode 2: Day of the Moon

The Doctor is locked in the perfect prison. Amy, Rory and River Song are being hunted down across America by the FBI. With the help of new friend and FBI-insider, Canton Everett Delaware the Third, our heroes are reunited to share their discoveries, if not their memories. For the world is occupied by an alien force who control humanity through post-hypnotic suggestion and no one can be trusted. Aided by President Nixon and Neil Armstrong’s foot, the Doctor must mount a revolution to drive out the enemy and rescue the missing little girl. No-one knows why they took her. Or why they have kidnapped Amy Pond..

Beyond the two-part story opening the season in the United States, an episode written by Neil Gaiman entitled The Doctor’s Wife is attracting considerable attention. Newsarama interviewed Gaiman:

“Getting to write a Doctor Who episode, for me anyway, was probably the nearest to being God that I have ever been or will ever get,” Gaiman told Newsarama. “I remember a similar feeling of megalomaniac power for about fifteen minutes in 1988 when I got to write my first Batman line. I got to bring on Batman and write dialogue for Batman and, I’m making Batman talk.  But making Batman talk does not actually compare to the feeling of glorious power you get the moment you type, ‘Interior TARDIS.’”

…Gaiman isn’t exactly sure why Doctor Who is making such a big splash in the U.S. finally, but he did venture a guess. “I think partly, it’s probably broken at the States because there isn’t anything like it and I think it probably took it five years to break in because nobody was really promoting it. It was something that has been driven by fans,” he said. “If I can say this without being taken outside and beaten up by the BBC, it was probably in many ways, driven by people downloading it and torrenting it. It was being driven by people falling in love with it one person at a time and then telling somebody else, ‘Look, you have to watch this. Here’s ‘Blink,’ watch this. Here’s ‘The Girl In The Fireplace,’ watch this. Here’s ‘Dalek,’ watch this,’ and I think that’s what drove it.”

“But I also think the lovely thing about having a new Doctor is, it gave everybody a nice place to jump on. You didn’t have to feel that you were in this five episode…you know, Russel’s [T. Davies] arc was this five year run and now we’re into the new one,” continued Gaiman. “But also, I think the worst thing about Doctor Who is also the best thing about Doctor Who, which is you’ve got 47 years of mythos and it’s unfortunate, but people think that they need to know or understand that 47 years of mythos rather than the simplicity of Doctor Who which is, there’s this wonderful man, in this blue box, that can travel through space and time and it can turn up anywhere and it will turn up somewhere where there’s a problem and he will sort it out.”

Gaiman didn’t reveal too much about the episode, providing this summary:

Although he was reluctant to give too many details, Gaiman also mentioned a few actors he was excited to write for in his episode, “The Doctor’s Wife,” and what we can expect. “It stars Suranne Jones playing a character named Idris who may turn out to be an old acquaintance of the Doctor’s with a new face. It co-stars Michael Sheen as a mysterious baddie called The House,” he revealed to Newsarama. “It begins on a junkyard planet out on the very edge of the universe and I thought it would be fun to start in a junkyard just because Doctor Who started in a junkyard, so this does.”

Thirteen minutes were cut from the final version (which hopefully will be included on the DVD) and Gaiman had to settle with less CGI than he initially wrote into the story:

The other thing Gaiman had to get used to, was writing for a show that doesn’t necessarily have the biggest budget in television. “There’s a lot of CGI. I remember handing in the first draft to them and having a dinner afterwards at Steven Moffat’s place where they said, ‘Look Neil, we love the first draft. It’s brilliant, it’s funny, it’s clever, it’s wonderful. Just so you know, each episode of Doctor Who has,’ I forget what the exact numbers were, I think they basically said 100 man-hours of CGI, ‘You have 640.’  So there was a level on which lots of things went away,” he said, “They still wound up essentially taking other episodes out around the back of the bike sheds, beating them up and taking their lunch money and giving it to me. All I know is the finished episode looks beautiful and it has, like I say, it has everything I would have wanted and it takes you places you’ve never been before.”

Interview with John Borrowman and Bill Pullman on Torchwood: Miracle Day at Cannes in the video above.

SciFi Weekend: The Cape; A Baby Timelord; Torchwood Casting and Filming News; The Voldemort Effect

With the limited number of genre shows on this season, and No Ordinary Family taking a lighter approach to super heroes, there has been considerable anticipation for the premiere of The Cape. The show has been billed as a more serious and realistic superhero show. While there is a limit to how realistic such shows can possibly be, we have seen excellent results with such an approach with Iron Man and the latest Batman movies. Unfortunately it is unlikely that television will match the qualities of  Iron Man or The Dark Knight.

Like Iron Man and Batman, The Cape is an ordinary guy who learns tricks and utilizes gadgets as opposed to having true superpowers. The Cape learned his skills from a gang of criminal circus performers. Unfortunately we had all we wanted of mixing a circus and superheroes in the final season of Heroes.

The story would probably have been stronger if they used the full two hours of the premiere as an origin story instead of cramming in a weak follow up story. It is hard to judge shows such as this entirely by their first episodes as there is often room for improvement after initially setting up the situation. Even the last few episodes No Ordinary Family have been much better than the initial stories.

The best thing about The Cape is the return of Summer Glau as super-hacker Orwell. While I welcome her presence, I also fear that her character risks providing easy solutions to any problems. There is also an exaggerated view of the powers of technology in the show. Besides Orwell’s hacking abilities, having Vince Faraday (The Cape) have a card which opens multiple safes and is never canceled was far-fetched.

Besides Orwell, the show provides other supporting characters such as Faraday’s wife. Faraday is forced to take on a secret identity when framed for crimes committed by Chess/Peter Fleming, and when Fleming threatened Faraday’s family. While I can accept the situation of having Fleming keep secret the fact that he is still alive from the public and from Fleming, there is no reason why he can’t secretly see his wife.

Both Faraday and Fleming were pretty careless with their secret identities. The worst mistake was for Fleming to continue to appear as Chess after making it appear not only that Faraday was Chess but that he had been killed.

It is hard to evaluate the show without seeing future episodes. The weekly format of the show does place limitations on it, such as the need to keep Peter Fleming around  for further episodes as opposed to resolving that conflict as a stand alone movie might. James Frain, who plays the title role,  has provided hints as to where the series is going:

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Frain teased that Vince (David Lyons) and Peter will be involved in a number of confrontations in the future.

“They have to go head-to-head,” Frain said. “Vince has to confront this guy but he’s in a very unusual position of not being able to destroy him.

“The obvious thing to do is to take your revenge and go get the guy who framed you, but he can’t do that. He needs to keep this guy alive because he can’t prove his real identity without him, and so he realises that to really be free, he has to frame this guy and flip the tables on him. And so it’s not just a straightforward combat – it’s more psychological warfare.”

Frain also suggested that viewers will learn more about Peter as the series continues, saying: “We start to find out that Peter is a little bit more of a ladies’ man than we first thought. As the show goes on, the guy who he is by daytime, the guy who he is in the mask, becomes more and more separate and this conflict starts opening up.”

He added: “There’s going to be some action with a young woman that comes up that’s very interesting.”

I am glad that they will be expanding more upon Peter’s character. Having him be the head of a corporation who turns out to be evil was far too much of a television cliche.

Series creator TomWheeler has provided more background on where he wants to go with the series:

Wheeler says that the cape in The Cape also has its own backstory, and it will be explored throughout the life of the series. “In episode three, you get a big chunk of it,” he says. “One of our writers is getting his doctorate in mythology, and one of the things we talk about is the cape has a lot of primal symbolism. There’s the blanket you tie around your neck as a kid. That’s your first contact with being a superhero, so as a symbol, the cape connects you to childhood. But there’s also the cape in Jungian mythology/psychology that represents the shadow. So we are setting up a history for the cape that is quite dark. Even though the cape has no supernatural ability to do something to the wearer, we do get into what it means to embody your shadow; we explore the question ‘Do you wear the cape or does the cape wear you?’ That becomes an issue. We will be planting clues and mysteries along the way about the cape because there’s a big story to be told about the cape and what Vince is destined for.”

Another aspect of the superhero mythos that The Cape indulges is the super-villain. We’re not talking garden-variety crooks–we’re talking diabolical masterminds and high strange baddies. Wheeler’s ambition is to give The Cape a large rogues gallery, though Vince’s ongoing conflict with Chess provides the narrative spine of season 1. “Chess is a psychotic James Bond and we deal a lot with him and his alter-ego, Peter Fleming,” says Wheeler. “But we will see that while Peter is awful, he has a complicated life. In total, we’ll introduce seven new villains in the first season, including one that’ll be the center of a two-parter in the middle of the season.”

Wheeler says viewers can expect a show that will span a range of genres. There’s an episode that’ll be more sci-fi. There’s an episode that’s more “gothic” and scary. He believes non-geeks will be able to connect with emotional heart of the show–a story of a husband and father trying to reconnect with his wife and family. For all its old fashionedness, Wheeler believes The Cape is as entertaining as other state-of-the-art superhero action fantasies–even the ones of the grim and gritty stripe. “I think there’s a thirst out there for something that can marry the old and the new, something everyone to sit down and watch together as a family,” he says. “But we are very aware of the other entertainments that are out there and we believe we can be a compliment to them. God willing, we can be considered a branch on the tree of the great things Chris Nolan is doing or Zack Snyder or Jon Favreau have done–all the great adult stuff that’s out there.”

More from Wheeler here.

Doctor Who, which has had many inconsistencies during its near fifty-year run, has both had stories stating both that Timelord children do and do not exist. If the British tabloids are to be believed, we might have a Timelord child born on Earth this spring. Reportedly Georgia Moffat, who already has an eight year old son, is pregnant. News was recently released that Moffat is engaged to David Tennant. Tennant played the tenth Doctor, including staring in The Doctor’s Daughter where he met Georgia Moffat. Besides playing the Doctor’s daughter in the 2008 episode, Moffat is the daughter of Peter Davison, who played the fifth Doctor from 1981 to 1984.

There will be another reunion of cast members from Doctor Who. John Sim (who has played The Master, in addition to staring in the BBC version of Life on Mars) will be staring with Marc Warren (Elton Pope in a 2006 episode of Doctor Who entitled Love & Monsters) in Mad Dogs:

Woody (Beesley), Quinn (Glenister), Baxter (Simm) and Rick (Warren) have been friends since sixth form. The fifth member of their gang is Alvo (Ben Chaplin, Dorian Gray), a risk-taking opportunist who, having made his fortune in property, leads a luxurious lifestyle in Majorca.

Now in their 40s, they’ve all taken different paths in life with varying degrees of success. When Alvo flies them to his extravagant villa to celebrate his early retirement, they enjoy a trip down memory lane.
However, all does not go to plan and they find themselves entangled in a web of deception and murder involving beautiful police women, large yachts, Speedos and a rather short assassin in a Tony Blair mask…

Continuing Sky 1 HD’s dedication to homegrown high definition drama, Mad Dogs is a dark and twisted comic tale in which four ordinary guys discover how easily the line between friend and foe can be blurred.

The Doctor Who News Page has a report on the first week of filming Torchwood: Miracle Day. TV Squad has more information from Russel T. Davies on the series.  Lauren Ambrose, who played Claire Fisher on Six Feet Under, has been added to the cast. She will play Jilly Kitzinger, “a sweet-talking PR genius with a heart of stone who’s just cornered the most important client of her career … and maybe of all time.”

Julian Sanchez has blogged about The Voldemort Effect:

…as Harry’s sage mentor Dumbledore notes at one point, it was Voldemort’s choice to regard Harry as his predestined foe that made it true.

There’s a similar phenomenon in American politics, which I long ago mentally dubbed The Voldemort Effect. Maybe it’s always been this way, but it seems like especially recently, if you ask a strong political partisan—conservatives in particular, in my experience—which political figures they like or admire, and why, they’ll enthusiastically cite the ability to “drive the other side crazy.” Judging by online commentary, this seems to be an enormous part of Sarah Palin’s appeal. Palin herself certainty seems to understand this. Her favorite schtick, the well to which she returns again and again, is: “Look how all the mean liberals are attacking me!” Weekly Standard writer Matt Continetti even titled his book about the ex-governor “The Persecution of Sarah Palin.” Perversely, liberals end up playing a significant role in anointing conservative leaders.

This is, I think, a bipartisan phenomenon everyone at least subconsciously recognizes: A political figure—though more often a pundit than an actual candidate or elected official—gains prominence largely as a function of being attacked or loathed with special vehemence by the other side. Which means it’s crying out for a convenient shorthand so we can talk about it more easily; I propose “The Voldemort Effect.”

Matthew Yglesias responded:

I think the equivalence here is not only mistaken, but actually 180 degrees off base. You do see this Voldemort Effect in a lot of conservative thinking, but if liberals go awry it’s more likely to be in the reverse way—a lot of Team Blue’s thinking about politics is dominated by a kind of desperate search for leaders who won’t drive the other side crazy. Hence Bill Clinton, southern good ol’ boy. Hence John Kerry, decorated war hero. Hence calm, rational compromising Barack Obama instead of polarizing meanie Hillary Clinton. And that goes back to war hero George McGovern, southern good ol’ boy Jimmy Carter, Massachusetts Miracle technocrat mastermind Michael Dukakis, etc. In retrospect all of these people are hated by the right and “obviously” represent just another strain of out of touch liberalism, but in advance each and every one appealed to the rank and file as somehow “different” from his predecessors in some key way.

SciFi Weekend: A Timelord Wedding; Torchwood: Miracle Day; Dollhouse Stars on Torchwood & Community; Caprica; Mad Men to Return; January Jones as Emma Frost

David Tennant and Georgia Moffet are engaged with plans to get married next New Year’s Day. This sounds like a Timelord Wedding. Not only did Tennant play the tenth doctor, but Moffet has two ties to Doctor Who. She played The Doctor’s Daughter in a 2008 episode and Moffet is also the real life daughter of Peter Davison, who played the fifth Doctor from 1981 to 1984. (For those missing the old episodes, the BBC has announced the opening of a Classic Doctor Who channel on YouTube.)

David Tennant is also going to be working with another character from his days at Doctor Who. Tennant and Catherine Tate will be appearing together in a production of  Shakespeare’s Much A Do About Nothing.

The upcoming season of Torchwood has a tentative starting date of July 1 and a new title: Miracle Day.

As Davies explained, “The premise is a miracle that happens to the world. That one day, on Earth, no one dies. Not a single person on Earth dies. The next day, no one dies. The next day, no one dies. And on and on and on. Now, the sick stay sick, the old keep getting older, the dying keep dying, but no one quite dies.”

And at first, this seems a wonderful thing, “But globally, it’s an instant overnight population boom. The Earth relies on people dying.”

Davies understandably didn’t want to offer too many details on how and why “Torchwood” hero Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman, who couldn’t appear at the press tour session because he was acting in a play in England) comes back to our planet after running away at the end of the “Torchwood: Children of Earth” miniseries. But he did say that the notion of a world where no one can die would prove very intriguing to a man who suffers from immortality.

There is more information on the show and cast here. Dichen Lachman, who played Sierra on Dollhouse, who will play an FBI agent. Another cast member from Dollhouse will have a role on Community:

Enver Gjokaj, who played Victor during Dollhouse‘s brief life, will guest star on Community in episode 17, “Custody Law and Foreign Entanglements,” as Lukka, a love interest for Gillian Jacobs‘ Britta.

The character of Lukka is an “attractive, accent-y, oily Eastern European” fella who uses his finer points to seduce our girl Britta, but Lukka obviously is not exactly as delightful as he appears to be on first meeting.

The episode will most likely air sometime in March.

Miss the final episodes of Caprica last week? SyFy is streaming them online for free. As I’ve mentioned before, the concluding episodes were excellent, while the series as a whole was of mixed quality. Den of Geek! interviewed Eric Stoltz about some of the problems with the series.

Do you think that the show fell on the wrong side of a double-edged sword, following Battlestar?

I don’t think it was what the majority of Battlestar fans wanted, for the most part. It probably would’ve served us all better to have not even been connected to it.

It’s rare to find characters so instantly complex as we got in Caprica. How do you balance the many levels of Daniel Graystone? How do you set about giving the audience a way into a character like that?

That’s a very thick question, one which really requires a three page answer, which I won’t bore you with. The levels of the character were largely in the scripts, and usually left to the directors’ control: a little bit more malice here, a little more loving there.

That being said, there were certain relationships, like Greystone and his wife, that seemed to take on a life of their own, even beyond Paula Malcomson and myself. And that was wonderful to be a part of.

It was always a fascinating show to watch, and clearly the narrative had many, many threads to it. In hindsight, though, do you think the show was slightly off balance? Or wouldn’t you change a thing about it?

It’s rare for a show to find itself in the first season. There are exceptions, of course, but a lot of shows take two or three years to find the right ingredients. I’m sure we were off balance at times, and I’m sure I would change a few things if I had that power, but I’ve moved on.

It comes as little surprise, but it has been officially announced that Mad Men will return for a fifth season. No date for the season has been announced yet. January Jones will also be appearing in X Men: First Class, which will be a prequel story which, like Mad Men, takes place in the 1960’s. Jones will play the scantily mutant telepath Emma Frost. It would take an actress with the looks of January Jones to pull off the role.

”The costumes are insane,” Jones said.

“It’s a lot of very body-conscious stuff. If you look at the comic book, she’s barely dressed. She’s got quite the bod, which is very intimidating.”

I do think January Jones can handle the costumes.