SciFi Weekend: Homecoming; Star Trek Wins Governors’ Award & Other News; The Arrowverse; Professor Proton; Tatiana Masslany, Bryan Cranston, and Aaron Paul

Homecoming looks like it should be one of the more interesting genre television shows of the fall season, premiering on Amazon Prime on November 2, with the first four episodes shown recently at the Toronto Film Festival. The series is based on the podcast of the same name, and to give the feel of a podcast will be shown in twenty minute episodes. The TV Addict summarized the plot:

HOMECOMING, the new Amazon Prime Video psychological drama, is based on the podcast of the same name. Julia Roberts stars as Heidi Bergman, a caseworker at the Homecoming Transitional Support Center — a facility that is helping soldiers transition back to civilian life. Enter Walter Cruz (played by Stephan James), a soldier who is eager to move on to the next phase of his life. There’s also Colin Belfast (played by Bobby Cannavale), Heidi’s supervisor who seems to have questional motives.

Fast forward four years, when Heidi has left the center and is working as a small-town waitress while living with her mother (played by Sissy Spacek). A Department of Defense auditor visits her one day to ask questions about the work she did at the Homecoming facility and why she left. As she relays her story, Heidi realizes there’s more to the story than she told even herself.

Besides the strong cast as listed above, the series will be directed by Sam Esmail of Mr. Robot. Deadline spoke with Esmail about both Homecoming and season four of Mr. Robot.

While the network broadcast of the Emmy Awards won’t be on until tomorrow, Star Trek received the Governor’s Award at this year’s Creative Arts Emmy Awards. Above is the video of the tribute to Star Trek. Bill Nye praised Star Trek saying, “It may have started off as an entertainment series but it changed the world — and I feel that it changed the world for the better.”

Deadline discussed the show with several cast members:

Backstage, Koening, Burton, Ryan, Shatner, Martin-Green and Kurtzman talked about how the Star Trek franchise still resonates after all these decades.

“It resonates because we were talking about topical issues and socio-political content,” said Koening, who played the memorable Chekov. He said that it still resonates today.

Burton chimes in, “It’s all about good storytelling.”

“We still worry about living together and having a fruitful and joyful experience,” continues Koening. We are beset with problems that we had in the ’60s.”

As the newest member of the fleet, Martin-Green points out that she hopes Discovery gives justice to the franchise and furthers it. “It was very important to us anew, but be our own at the same time,” she adds.

Kurtzman adds that Star Trek “has been a beacon of hope for so many people for so long.”

The USS Callister episode of Black Mirror, which was a warped homage to Star Trek, also won three awards.

In other Star Trek news, Michael Chabon, who is working on the new Picard series, revealed that the show will take place in 2399. This brings us into uncharted territory, finally showing what happens beyond the 24th century when TNG, DS9, and Voyager took place.

William Shatner has discussed why Captain Kirk was killed.

Episodes on the CBS All Access app will be available for download for offline viewing, including Star Trek: Discovery. There are a few catches. Downloading will only be available for subscribers to the commercial free tier, downloads expire after 30 days, and after watching a show it will only remain available for another forty-eight hours.

Rainn Wilson teased returning to Star Trek: Discovery to reprise his role as Harry Mudd.

Sonequa Martin-Green was recently asked about season two of Star Trek: Discovery:

It’s way too soon to talk in any detail about season two of Discovery, but give us some sort of sense of what fans can expect in terms of the show’s direction, Michael’s path…

Well, I think people expect the fallout from everything that happened last year. There’s so many things that happened. So many decisions were made. So many changes happened. There was evolution in season one, but we weren’t able to dig into it because we were at war. So, you will see all of that. You will see people dealing with what’s left. Dealing with the residual, dealing with, “OK, what do I have now? What have I done? What does that mean? Who am I? Who are we?” You’ll see people asking those questions and seeking to answer them in season two. And there is a lot more…. there’s a little more joy just because we aren’t at war. We’re able to smile a little bit more. There’s a sense of levity that’s there simply because we’re not fighting for our lives.

And Michael will be part of that? Be a bit lighter?

Oh yeah, for sure. There’s certainly a heaviness that is present with me as Burnham, just because of everything that is driving me and because there are deep-seated problems there. So, those are still at play, for sure. But yes, you see the smile, and you see the chuckles that we allow ourselves to have, including Burnham, because we’re not fighting.

How will the presence of Captain Pike affect Michael?

In that big way that a captain affects a ship and a crew. A crew is almost defined by the essence of the captain. We went through the ringer with Lorca, and so there’s a little bit of PTSD there. There’s a little bit of distrust there because of what we’ve gone through and because we had someone who manipulated us and sought to kill us for his own gain. And so, Pike being the deeply rooted good guy he is, he is going to have an effect on us. He’s soothing in that way. He’s comforting in that way. And hopefully you will see us sort of galvanize because of that.

Elizabeth Tulloch of Grimm has been cast to play Lois Lane in the upcoming season’s Arrowverse crossover episode. This adds her to along list of actresses who have played the role, including Margot Kidder, Teri Hatcher, Amy Adams, Kate Bosworth, Noel Neill, Phyllis Coates, Erica Durance, Megan Fox, Uma Thurman, Dana Delany, Mandy Moore, Stana Katic and Pauley Perrette. As previously announced, Tyler Hoechlin will reprise his role as Superman. Cassandra Jean Amell, wife of Stephen Amell, will play Nora Fries, the wife of Mr. Freeze.

Grant Gustin has teased the upcoming season of The Flash in an interview with Entertainment Weekly:

“I don’t want people’s expectations to be through the roof, but I really think this could be very similar to season 1 in [terms of] the heart and humor it had and the scope,” Grant Gustin tells EW.

One thing contributing to the season’s lighthearted tone is the arrival of Barry and Iris’ (Candice) daughter from the future Nora (Jessica Parker Kennedy), which essentially thrusts parenthood onto the couple. “They’re learning all of the lessons new parents learn when their kids grow up, but since she’s an adult it sort of adds this heightened scenario to all those decisions,” says EP Todd Helbing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=wyswYomalVo

The CW Network has released the above teaser for Supergirl.

Netflix has released the above trailer for season three of Daredevil.

Bob Newhart will be making a final appearance as the ghost of Professor Proton on The Big Bang Theory.

Tatiana Maslany of Orphan Black will be appearing with Bryan Cranston on a Broadway version of Network.

Aaron Paul, who starred with Bryan Cranston on Breaking Bad, will be appearing as a regular on season three of Westworld.

SciFi Weekend: Doctor Who Return Date; William Shatner Interview; Blakes 7 Actress Dies; Evangeline Lilly on the Lost Finale; A Historian on Why Science Fiction Is Important

We finally have an announcement of a return date for Doctor Who, Sunday, October 7. I don’t know about viewing habits in the UK, but the change to Sunday could help ratings here in the United States. For years I have been downloading Doctor Who shortly after it airs in the UK instead of waiting to watch late on Saturday evening. BBC American plans to air the first episode of Doctor Who this season at the same time it airs in the UK, followed by a repeat showing in the evening. Subsequent weeks I guess I’ll be back to downloading.

With the change to Sunday I might have to reconsider how SciFi Weekend is posted. The post was initially called SciFi Friday, with the subsequent move to the weekends (generally Sunday) helpful for covering Friday night shows. I have been reviewing new episodes of Doctor Who on Sundays, the day following their release. Sunday releases create a problem with this schedule, as I ran into last year with my weekly reviews of the first season of Star Trek: Discovery not being posted until a week after the show aired.

Jodie Whittaker literally breaks the glass ceiling in the trailer:

Despite the point made in this promo, Chris Chibnall says that the gender change is barely mentioned in the opening episode, with the Doctor more concerned with surviving. The title of the episode will be The Woman Who Fell to Earth, sounding like it picks up where the last season ended. Chris Chibnall recommends:

New Doctor, new home. Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor is about to burst into Sunday nights – and make the end of the weekend so much more exciting. Get everybody’s homework done, sort out your Monday clothes, then grab some special Sunday night popcorn, and settle down with all of the family for Sunday night adventures across space and time. (Also, move the sofa away from the wall so parents can hide behind it during the scary bits). The Thirteenth Doctor is falling from the sky and it’s going to be a blast.”

According to Syfy Wire, Doctor Who director Jamie Childs said  that ’80s-era Spielberg served as an inspiration for the upcoming episodes in an interview with Empire Magazine.Executive producer Dan Strevens said the new season will be like Forrest Gump. “It’s a box of chocolates of a series. There’s something different in every episode.”

BBC America will be rebroadcasting every episode of Doctor Who since the reboot. This will take place over thirteen days, beginning on September 25 at 6 am.

TrekMovie.com interviewed William Shatner, who has a new memoir out entitled, Live Long and… What I Might Have Learned Along The Way. Some excerpts from the interview:

In the book, you talk about regret, although mostly framed as how you regret the things you haven’t done. I’m curious about something you did do that may have cut off future opportunities. Do you regret agreeing to do Star Trek: Generations, and allow them to kill off Kirk?

Well, I didn’t think I had any choice in the matter. Paramount had decided that the ceiling that they could reach in our box office had been reached and they thought that by putting in the Next Generation cast, that they would reach a higher box office. That decision had been made. It was either I was going to appear and die, or they were going to say he died. So, I chose the more practical of the two.

So, they were killing you no matter what?

That was their theory. It didn’t work out that way, but that is the way it was.

Recently you gave an interview where you said you were happy for Patrick Stewart and his new Star Trek series, but doing something like that wasn’t for you. Some in the media took that to mean you were done with Star Trek entirely. Last year you told me you were open to returning to the character. You may not want to do a new TV series, but if they can find a way to make it work, you would still return to the role, right?

That is exactly right. If they can find a way of writing a 50 years older captain and it was meaningful and had something to do with the plot, I would jump at the chance.

Evangeline Lilly was recently asked about the Lost finale at a convention. Here is her response:

“Well, I’m going to have to go straight to the finale. Vote of confidence, who liked the finale? [The room broke out into cheers] Who did not like the finale? [about the same amount of cheers] About 50/50. So, for those of who you didn’t like it; you loved our show, because at the end of every week, we would leave you with an impossible and pressing mystery. It would force you to the water cooler, or the dinner table, asking each other the most difficult questions. Usually philosophical questions. Sometimes questions that touched on God or religion and reality, and what it means to be human.

And then, on the finale, you sat waiting with baited breath, thinking ‘they’re gonna give us the answer.’ Well, that’s what religions do. So if you want the answer to the great big question of life, go to church, go to God, find the answer, but art…art is supposed to, every time without fail, turn the question back on you, and asks you to look at what you’re seeing, listen to what you’re hearing, experience it, and then look at it in the mirror of your soul, and figure out what it means to you.

And so there is no one interpretation of the finale of LOST. For as many people that are in this room, there are that many true, real, endings for LOST.

Because it’s just a reflection of who you are, and it’s the ultimate question being posed to you, not the ultimate answer being handed to you.”

Jacqueline Pearce, who played Servalan on Blakes 7 has died at 74.

I highly recommend reading Sapiens by historian Yuval Noah Harari. Wired reports that Harari is a big fan of science fiction and that he “includes an entire chapter about it in his new book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century.”

“Today science fiction is the most important artistic genre,” Harari says in Episode 325 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy  podcast. “It shapes the understanding of the public on things like artificial intelligence and biotechnology, which are likely to change our lives and society more than anything else in the coming decades.”

SciFi Weekend: The 100 Season 5 Finale; Star Trek News; Space Force Humor

The season five finale of The 100 showed why I have had mixed feelings about this series for the last few years.  While the show has its problems, it sure knows how to put together an intriguing season finale. It was the end of yet another cycle of continuing battles, followed by another reset, which I fear will lead to more of the same. Yet the reset in the finale has me interested enough to give the show yet another chance next season.

This season did do some interesting things. Once again the cast was put in a situation in which terrible decisions had to be made to survive. This led to fighting pits and cannibalism, along with a major character developing a drug addition in response to the decisions which were made. However, each season’s enemy and war might be more enjoyable if they didn’t drag on so long and sometimes become so convoluted. Jasper summed up the problem in his suicide note earlier in the season: “There is no light at the end of the tunnel, there is only the tunnel. Another enemy to fight, another war.”  Diyoza showed how convoluted the plots become in saying to Clarke, “It’s hard to keep track of whose side you’re on.”

The time jump and new setting starts Book 2 of the series, and largely resets to being more like early in the series. Instead of a dying earth there will be a new planet. The characters we know, which combines various groups as opposed to the original 100, and at least one new character, will again be trespassers on an inhabited planet. Most likely they will go through yet another tunnel with another enemy to fight and another war. The question will be what interesting things come into play while doing so with a new combination of characters.

TV Line interviewed Jason Rothenberg about the finale:

TVLINE | Let’s start at the very last shot: “End of Book One”? Explain yourself.
As the season was unfolding, we didn’t know that we were going to get another season, which is a difficult position to be in. I assumed we would, but we hadn’t gotten an official order. So I had to write an ending that would be both satisfying as a series finale and would tee up the next adventure. That was my target, which I feel like we hit. Had that been the end of everything, it would have been a bummer not to explore what’s down [on that new planet], but it would have been emotionally satisfying the way Monty’s life passes before our eyes and Bellamy and Clarke weep during his final speech. Thematically, Monty’s speech summed up a lot of what we’ve been talking about for five seasons. As we move into this new world, I really wanted it to be a new book. The first volume is closed and now we get to tell an entirely new adventure with the people we’ve come to love. It’s going to be crazy and amazing and beautiful and very, very different…

TVLINE | How did Christopher Larkin and Chelsey Reist react to finding out that this was their last episode?
It’s always a hard conversation to have. When I called Chelsey about it, she was in her car on the way to work, and she had to pull over because she got upset. But when I pitched her what it was, she immediately embraced it, loved it and saw how beautiful it was and what a satisfying emotional ending it would be for her character and the Monty-Harper relationship. I start from the point of those characters and what they wanted all season. Monty wanted to get back to space. He was happy in space. He did not want the war. So he found a way to live an entire happy, long life with the woman he loves, and to create a family. It felt like something we hadn’t done before, and I knew it was going to be emotionally devastating. I actually wrote the final act of the finale before the rest of the episode. It came out all in one creative burst. On the day we shot it, it was the most emotional anyone has ever been on set. Dean White, who did a fantastic job directing, knew that as soon as Chris [Larkin] started reading his lines, everyone would just burst into tears. So we had our first AD, Ian Samoil, read Monty’s part — and people were still crying. The camera guys were crying, I was crying, Dean was crying. It was crazy! You see it on camera where Bob and Eliza are just … the tears are pouring. I actually had to edit it down, because there was too much crying. I needed to pace it.

TVLINE | As was I. And I’m so thrilled we finally got to meet Shannon Kook’s character! As the son of the people who saved everybody, how important will Jordan be to the survivors in Season 6?
He’ll be very important. And his story is very fascinating. He’s a blank slate. He’s never been off that ship. He’s never known anyone but his mother and father. Everything he experiences is going to be for the first time — he’s never tasted anything other than algae before! It’s going to be a fascinating journey to see if he can keep that innocence and wide-eyed excitement that he’ll enter the season with, surrounded by all these people who are drenched in blood. As for how the other characters are going to feel about him: Murphy will be the uncle who tries to corrupt him, Bellamy and Clarke are the protective aunts and uncles who won’t let him get into danger. Everyone will have a different reaction to the child of Monty and Harper.

TVLINE | Switching gears a bit, many fans were worried that Octavia was becoming irredeemable. Do you think her actions this week (and last) helped, or does she still have a lot of work to do?
She definitely reached a breaking point and had a realization that it was her fault, for lack of a better word. She was willing, in last week’s episode, to try and make good by letting Bellamy, Indra and Gaia escape. Had she been killed saving them, that would have been a redeeming death for her. But she didn’t get that. We see that scene between Bellamy and Octavia at the end of the finale, where he’s putting her into cryosleep, and she’s looking for some sort of emotional connection with her brother, but he doesn’t really give it to her. She’s broken, and when she wakes up 125 years later, she’ll be in the same place where she went to sleep. It’s not like the six-year time jump of last season. She’ll be bringing everything into the new world with her. Her character in Season 6 is going to have to grapple with what she’s done and who she’s become and how everyone looks at her. It’s going to be a fascinating arc; it would have been too easy ending this season by killing her off. I do look forward to some sort of reconciliation in the future between the Blakes.

TVLINE | Even though nearly everyone survived, some of the injured characters are played by actors who are involved with other projects. What can you say about the fates of Kane and Gaia, specifically?
Everybody who went into cryo will come out of cryo. So all the characters who are with us at the end of Season 5 will be with us at the beginning of Season 6. Actors have deals that make things tricky, but we’ll do our best to work around [schedules] as much as we can. It’s a show where characters don’t necessarily get jobs in Cleveland and move away — especially in a world where there is no Cleveland anymore. The business side of it is always tricky, but creatively, I love Gaia and I think there’s a lot still there to explore. And what can you say about Henry Ian Cusick? He’s a legend, he’s amazing. He was great all season, and for the last five seasons. It’s been an honor to have him on the season. And he, too, will continue to play a role in Season 6.

TVLINE | Lastly, I have to ask: What was the significance of Clarke and Bellamybeing the first to wake up.
It was Monty’s plan to wake the two of them. When the two of them are on the same page, things go well. They are the leaders of this show and of the remaining people in the human race — until we find out what may or may not be on the ground of this new planet. [Monty] wanted to wake them and talk to them first and let them decide who to wake next and how to break the news. So that’s where that came from.

There was plenty of additional news coming out of the Star Trek Las Vegas Convention since last week’s post. TrekMovie.com has several quotes from the cast, including Anson Mount on his role as Christopher Pike:

There is “The Cage” and then there is  “The Menagerie,” and those are two very different things. I do kind of play around with this idea that we have this established character and now we are going back, and I am wondering, am I establishing a guy we can see moving forward that ends up making that decision in “The Menagerie,” but in a way that is victorious and self-realizing and not a tragedy. But, that hasn’t really informed me at all.

What has informed me more is growing up and watching The Original Series, and knowing the series and knowing Roddenberry’s work and that if this is Roddenberry’s original guy, he kind of has to be the embodiment of an optimism, the same optimism that Roddenberry had that we are at our most basic, good and curious and adventurous. So, having to put together a guy that covers those bases, but is still not a flat portrait of something that is just a protagonist. Because I am not the protagonist. I am here to augment the protagonist of this show.

It was announced that the Discovery season one Blu-ray and DVD will be released in November, providing an opportunity for those who do not subscribe to CBS All Access another means to view the series. However, unless you really want to own the set, the more economical way to legally view the season for those who do not want to pay every month would be to subscribe for one month and binge. Another option would be to get the seven day free trial and use it to watch quickly. As the price for the Blu-ray is currently $47.77, I personally have no plans to purchase considering that I can rewatch any episodes if desired on CBS All Access.

CBS TV Studios president David Stapf  told Deadline that the planned Star Trek series with Patrick Stewart reprising his role as  Jean-Luc Picard is part of a plan to have “a Star Trek something on all the time on All Access.” As I suggested last week, this should help give fans a reason to continue a subscription to CBS All Access throughout the year. I just hope they don’t dilute the quality of Star Trek as has happened with other franchises. Ron Moore also warned about the risk of franchise fatigue, among other quotes at TrekMovie.com. In this age of peak TV, I also wouldn’t mind if they did take a month or two break between each series. From the interview, after a discussion of other shows planned for All Access:

DEADLINE: How did the idea of bringing back Patrick Stewart’s character come about, and how long did it take to get him to do it?
STAPF: It came to us, as do all things Trek now, through Alex Kurtzman, with the idea of, wouldn’t it be cool to do something Next Gen-oriented, and/or get Patrick Stewart and/or any of those iconic Next Gen characters. As Patrick himself has said, he was of the opinion that “I’ve done that character,” but he got a meeting with Alex and some of the other guys and they won him over. The deal didn’t take that long once he decided to do it.

DEADLINEAny other former Trek franchises you are looking at next?
STAPF: No.

DEADLINESo that’s a definite No on William Shatner?
STAPF: (laughs) I would say, never say never.

DEADLINEIs it certain that one of the new Trek series will be a spinoff from Discovery, and how big a franchise universe are you looking to build?
STAPF: My goal is that there should be a Star Trek something on all the time on All Access. We know it draws an audience, and Discovery has done quite well.
DEBEVOISE: We started well and we’d love to have a second one.
STAPF: Yes, and as we learned, we want to do it right.

We have learned that we will be introduced to a new Spock on Discovery. Not it appears that there might be a new Kirk for the movie series. The Hollywood Reporter says that talks have fallen through with Chris Pine and Chris Hemsworth. Apparently the poor box office for Star Trek Beyond leaves Paramount reluctant to pay Pine what previous contracts provided for (or what he can make in the Wonder Woman movies). Chris Hemsworth can also pull in far more as Thor than Paramount is willing to pay for him to reprise the role of George Kirk for the planned time travel story in Star Trek 4.

It is possible that this is all a negotiating tactic which will be worked out. If not, Paramount might come down to a choice of paying more in hopes of long term profits from the movie series versus recasting. If they recast Pine and Hemsworth, this then leaves open the question of a recasting the rest of the crew–which then might include Chekov following the death of Anton Yelchin.

It seems to me that with it coming down to money, another possibility might be to give in to Chris Pine, who is far more important for continuity. It would be far easier to have a different actor play George Kirk, who only appeared briefly in the first movie, unless they were counting on Hemsworth bringing in a larger audience.  If they do want a big name actor to play Kirk’s father, but one who might not be in as much demand as Chris Hemsworth, what about William Shatner? He does currently look like he could be Jim Kirk’s father, but that would have been more feasible if George Kirk had lived to an older age.

Speaking of William Shatner:

Except that I don’t think that only having played a Captain on television would change Trump’s mind about hiring him. Space Force has probably been the most popular meme on political sites this week, including one based upon Arrival below. Some more examples:

While this really has nothing to do with the proposal for Space Force, here is an interesting take on the risk of unintentional interplanetary war. While I don’t know enough about the physics to evaluate it, the article seemed worth looking at. If nothing else, it gives a potential science fiction plot. After I posted this on Facebook, I received a response with this article.

SciFi Weekend: 12 Monkeys Series Finale; Attempts At Third Season For Timeless Fail; Star Trek News

12 Monkeys concluded the series with an epic finale on Friday which tied up many loose ends from the past four years, and provided somewhat of a surprise with the ending. While listed as two episodes, it was really produced as a continuous story over the final two hours. Before getting to spoilers in discussing the episode, I will mention for the benefit of any who have not seen the series that it would be an excellent series to binge from the start. It is available both on Hulu and from Syfy.

The big surprise (spoilers) is that there was a happy ending after recent episodes foreshadowed an unhappy one. Last week it was shown as necessary to release the plague in order to have time travel to stop the plan of the Witness to destroy time itself. We have also been warned by showrunner Terry Matalas that at some point Cassie had to die at the CDC. Cassie has also brought up the fact that if they were successful, she and Cole would not be together. However, the show is about time travel, meaning that what happens is not necessarily the only way things can wind up.

The release of the plague would be prevented with the removal of Cole from the time line, but this means no happy ending for Cassie. For a moment Cassie was even tempted to allow the plan to proceed, so that she could remain in the Red Forest forever with Cole. This ending would have also meant that Cassie was the real Witness, which would have been another big twist. Meanwhile Cassie splintered half of Olivia to 894, where the dormant virus in Olivia became the source of the virus.

In order for a happy ending to play out, at least three improbable or unexpected things had to happen. The first is that the attack on Titan is successful, with success against all odds in such a fight being commonplace in television or movies, regardless of genre. The fight included an homage both to Thelma and Louise, and to Dirty Dancing as they rode off with (I’ve Had) The Time of My Life  playing. Thanks to time travel, we also got to see both Ramse and Deacon again, with both taken before they died. This means that at the moment of his death earlier this season, Deacon had already experienced the ending.

The first unexpected event was to see that Cassie knew that something was wrong when Cole did not appear as he once did after he was removed from time, with everyone remembering what happened. This conflicts with what is often seen in science fiction stories when the timeline is changed, but it is not unprecedented for there to be characters who are in a position to be aware of the change. Besides, with time travel stories fiction anything plausible can be fair as long as the writers keep their rules consistent.

The next unexpected event was to have Cole appear and to find that Jones found a way to alter the code so that the final version of Cole would be spit out in the Florida Keys. Jennifer, still a Primary, and involved in other projects as seen in the picture below, was there to meet him. This led to the reunion with Cassie. This happy ending was a surprise, but should anyone object, a possibility of a second  interpretation was provided by showing a red leaf at the end. Most likely this just means it is fall, but it could mean that Cassie never destroyed Titan and they are in the Red Forest.

Terry Matalas discussed the finale with TV Line:

TVLINE | What did you want the show’s final message to be?
I think it’s all there in Cole’s last voiceover. In a lot of time travel, there’s always talk about the past and the future. But 12 Monkeys talked about how important now is. You have the opportunity to pick up the phone right this very minute and tell somebody that you love them, or you can see them. It’s just something we take for granted. It’s just an important philosophy and an interesting one to come at through the epic, sprawling nature of time travel.

TVLINE | As I was watching the finale, I was bracing myself for a heartbreaking end to Cassie and Cole’s story. But instead, they got a “happily ever now.” How did you arrive at that conclusion for them?
Back in Season 1, I remember telling people, “Here’s how it’s going to end. You’ll think he’s been erased forever, but he’ll find his way back to her in the very, very last moment of the series.” It’s a show that totally could have had a bittersweet ending, and we really make you think it’s going to be that until the coda. But I love a happy ending, and it feels earned, that everybody could live happily ever after. But there’s another way of looking at it, too. You can certainly look at the last image of the show, that red leaf, and ask yourself, “Did Cassie really turn off that machine in Titan? Is something else going on here?” The right ending is the one you choose…

TVLINE | Do you care to share your answer?
My ending? They save the world. But there are others in the writing staff who believe that they might be in the Red Forest, and those people have dark souls. You need to print that…

TVLINE | When Cassie goes back to 2013, how much does she remember? Or is it more that she’s just being haunted by an echo?
I think it starts as an echo and [ultimately] she remembers everything. Clearly, Jennifer [remembers]. Clearly, Jones does. Should the episode have kept going, they all would have found themselves finding each other again and reminiscing about their years of adventures…

TVLINE | Are there consequences for Jones breaking the laws of the universe?
I guess that would be a question for Season 5. So if you can make that happen, we’ll discuss it.

TVLINE | Was Olivia truly The Witness?
If you are referring to the true Witness being that which causes the Red Forest, then that depends on how you view the end of the series. The Alpha Primary in medieval times said to Olivia that they’ve “always known the true Witness would bring about the Red Forest because she fears loneliness. Nothingness.” If you believe that Cassie did not turn off Titan’s central spire, then you could argue Cassie is the true Witness by that definition. If you believe Cassie and Cole saved the world and lived to see that result, then your answer is it was Olivia…

TVLINE | You brought Deacon into the fold at a much earlier point in his timeline. So the Deacon that we first met when the show began knew about time travel, and Cassie and Cole, and the whole shebang?
No. We saw a first run of Deacon where he didn’t know. Then in Episode 407, when he’s in Titan, and he sees the West VII symbol, and he gets the idea of the West VII coming for a last battle at Titan, he has a bloody nose. At that moment, he becomes the Deacon who has lived through this cycle. And the same with Old Jennifer. You see Old Jennifer get a bloody nose in 407, too. Now she knows what she has to do. So in 408, when he gets his head cut off, a few scenes earlier, he says to Cole, “Things are coming to a head,” basically broadcasting that he knew what his fate was going to be and that this Deacon knows the end of the series.

TVLINE | How did you come up with the “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” song cue? 
We needed a perfect song for them to go out in a blaze of glory. I think maybe the first option was going to be Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’,” and Journey said no. And thank God they did, because it’s just not nearly as good. So then I was just brainstorming what would be the perfect song, and I actually think I have that song on my iPhone just because I’m really cheesy, and I played it in my car. I was like, “Oh, my God, that would be perfect!” So I had the editors lay it in, and we just laughed and laughed and laughed and said, “Let’s try and get it.” To our delight, they said yes.

While we saw Ramse and Deacon again, it is conceivalbe that other characters might have also returned. Some were discussed in an interview with Terry Matalas by IGN:

We got Ramse and Deacon back for the finale along with Max, but were there considerations for bringing in more people who helped the crew — like Agent Gale or Aaron — to come back and form a Team Splinter Avengers of sorts?

Aaron’s story never really felt tied into the adventure in that way. It would have felt like a distraction. With Gale we thought about it, but we weren’t sure he fit into that last battle. There is a deleted scene, that will be on the Blu-ray, where we see Cassie in the new timeline where she looks him up and sees he lived a long, healthy life and became the director of the FBI.

With 12 Monkeys over, we know that Amanda Schull will become a regular on Suits and Terry Matalas has another project in mind:

As for what’s next, now that 12 Monkeys is officially wrapped? Matalas said he couldn’t say much, but revealed he is actually working on another adaptation of a Universal movie (much as 12 Monkeys was loosely based on the 1995 film of the same name), and teased that it would have “some of the same character and puzzle DNA” of 12 Monkeys, though he admitted it’s not a time-travel tale this time around.

While 12 Monkeys got to tell its full story, another time travel series, Timeless isn’t as fortunate. Attempts were made to find another network to continue the series, but these attempts were unsuccessful, with the contracts with the cast running out. The chances for a television movie to wrap up the series are also in doubt as series co-creator Shawn Ryan has pointed out that “there are considerable economic obstacles that make it an uncertainty.” At least this remains a consideration.

Details for the Star Trek: Discovery panel at San Diego Comic Con have been announced:

The Star Trek: Discovery panel will be held on Friday, July 20 at 1:30 pm in Hall H. Cast members scheduled to appear include Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Shazad Latif, Mary Wiseman, Anthony Rapp, Wilson Cruz, Mary Chieffo and Anson Mount, alongside executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Heather Kadin. The panel will be moderated by series guest star Tig Notaro, who will appear as Chief Engineer Reno in Season 2.

I recently noted rumors, including here, that Patrick Stewart might be returning to Star Trek. Marina Sirtis thinks this is just a rumor:

Trekkies have been buzzing since news broke two weeks ago that CBS had tasked Star Trek: Discovery executive producer Alex Kurtzman with expanding Trek on TV. While there were no confirmed details on what new projects were in the pipeline, an article in The Hollywood Reporter discussed “rumblings” of Sir Patrick Stewart returning to Trek as Jean-Luc Picard. There have been subsequent tabloid reports on Stewart’s imminent return since, from both sides of the Atlantic.

On Tuesday, Stewart’s Star Trek: The Next Generation co-star Marina Sirtis was asked if she will be returning to Trek with Stewart, and the actress responded by saying she thought it was “just a rumour” that there was to be a new Star Trek show featuring Picard.

However, when pressed about if she was interested in returning to Trek if the stories turn out to be true, Sirtis replied back with an emphatic all caps “YES.”

Perhaps we will receive more definite news at Comic Con.

CBS Consumer Products and Silver Screen Bottling Company have announced James T. Kirk Straight Bourbon Whiskey. The bourbon celebrates Kirk’s “bold spirit of adventure” and will be available for $60 a bottle at Comic Con. Additional Star Trek themed spirits are planned.

Zachary Quinto believes that the cast of the J.J. Abrams reboot would be in the Star Trek movie being developed by Quentin Tarantino:

“My assumption is that it’s with us. I mean, that’s how it’s been presented. I don’t know. Look, until deals are done and contracts are signed and schedules are cleared, nothing is set in stone, so anything can happen. My understanding is that Quentin had this idea and they were shaping it and forming it and he’s off to do his Manson movie. And it would be after that that [the 2009 cast] would maybe go and do one with him, which is pretty exciting, pretty cool.”

SciFi Weekend: Agent Carter; Mr. Robot; Supergirl and The Flash; TV Renewals; Malevolent

Agent Carter Hollywood Ending

Agent Carter recently concluded its second season, showing once again the advantage of telling a self-contained story over a short season. Whitney Frost made a great villain for the season, with the dark matter providing a strong science fiction aspect. Other highlights of the season include meeting Jarvis’s wife and the return of Dotty. Howard Stark was also used well, just appearing enough to spice up some episodes. Peggy’s love life also attracted a lot of buzz.

The season finale provided an excellent Hollywood Ending which tied up the plot lines of the season and, other than for a cliff hanger at the very end, would make a satisfactory series finale if it comes to this. Major spoilers ahead.

Entertainment Weekly discussed the finale, and some questions left open, with executive producers Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Why did you kill off Jack Thompson?!
MICHELE FAZEKAS:
We did not kill off Jack Thompson, we shot Jack Thompson.

In the chest!
FAZEKAS:
Yup, that was the intent. We shot him. Honestly, he might not be dead, and that’s what we as writers have said, and that’s what we told Chad. That’s the truth.

Let’s talk about the person who may or may not have killed Jack. Is it someone we know? Are they connected to the Council of Nine?
FAZEKAS:
It’s unrelated to the Council of Nine. It is not for the reasons that you’d expect. It’s unrelated to Council of Nine, Zero Matter, any of that.

Purely related to the file?
FAZEKAS:
Correct.

This file reveals Peggy’s exploits with the S.O.E. and some kind of massacre. Thompson thought it was too good to be true, ultimately, and it didn’t seem to affect Peggy when he mentioned it. What’s really going on here?
FAZEKAS:
You have to pay really close attention to what exactly we showed that was in the file. You see that there was some sort of massacre, and I would say, don’t make assumptions by what you see in that file. We were really specific about what information was given for a reason.

Later in the interview:

Turning to Whitney Frost, why did you ultimately decide to have her go crazy? And is that the last we’ve seen of her?
BUTTERS
: I hope not. I hope we get to bring her back. She was delicious.
FAZEKAS: We probably don’t exactly tell that story again, but I loved working with Wynn. We didn’t want to kill her off. The Zero Matter, all along, had this increasing affect on her, where it was driving her mad. That felt like the organic way to end that story, because we didn’t start out that way, but boy did she end up that way. That was a direct result of Zero Matter.
BUTTERS: There was a little Frances Farmer connection of Old Hollywood taking its toll. I like her being a rogue’s gallery for Agent Carter, people who can come back like Dottie (Bridget Regan).
FAZEKAS: I really like how sad I feel for Ken Marino. Oh, Manfredi still loves her!

In the closing moments of the episode, Peggy is torn between New York and Los Angeles. Are you already thinking about whether you would keep the show in L.A. or whether you’d move the setting back to New York in season 3?
FAZEKAS:
The nice thing is you can put the show anywhere, because it’s spies. We loved doing L.A. If I had a choice between doing New York and L.A. again, I’d pick L.A. But London has been dropped. It’s all going to be determined by what story we want to tell. I loved L.A. I loved how it looked, I loved how it looked on Peggy. We would be very happy to do another L.A. season, but we’re not married to it.

Haley Atwell Hollywood Ending

Haley Atwell has also discussed the finale, and the question of who Peggy Carter will ultimately marry:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How do you feel about Peggy and Sousa finally making a go of it?
HAYLEY ATWELL:
I’m so happy! I love Sousa! I think what makes it work is that she saw something in him that’s the same quality she found attractive in Skinny Steve (Chris Evans), which was a man with great morals dealing with very real physical hardships. In the workplace, her gender is considered a disability. Sousa has a disability from the war, and therefore has to deal with that limitation. Because he deals with it with such dignity in the way that Skinny Steve did, that’s what attracts her to people. I think it’s inevitable that they end up together. He’s not intimidated by her. He respects her and admires her, and supports how brilliant she is and how good she is at her job, and is not threatened by that. I think that’s a bloody hard thing for men in the 1940s to not be intimidated by. He’s pretty special in that regard.

Do you think Sousa could be the husband that Peggy was talking about in Captain America: Winter Soldier?
I don’t know, because she says that Captain America saved her husband. It could be that what we don’t know yet is that in the war, at one point, Steve Rogers did save Sousa, and Sousa wasn’t telling me or didn’t know it at the time. Or they embark on a fabulous love affair, but then they realize they’re really bad at domestic chores and that they can’t compromise on who washes the dishes and they decide to go their separate ways. That’s a possibility, too. I like to think that this is the start to a beautiful relationship.

How do you think Peggy will handle Thompson’s potential death, especially since it’s happened because of that file?
She has an interesting relationship with Thompson. I think she deals with him with a bemused tolerance. I think she sees his façade and she understands why a lot of his bravado and his need to be liked and approved comes from, because he’s harboring a very guilty secret about his past that he confided in her in season 1. She’s not a dismissive person. She’s quite tolerant of people. She’s quite patient and wants to appeal to the good in him. Planting that seed in him is her hope that he will continue to be a good man. So to lose him, I think she would grieve, but it’s not the same. I don’t think she would regard him as a friend. He’s not someone that can be trusted. She suspects that he’s capable of making really bad decisions, but not malicious ones. I can imagine that he would get blinded by Vernon Masters, Whitney Frost and power, but she has sympathy toward that rather than sees that as something bad in him.

How much do you actually know about this file that discusses Peggy’s exploits with the S.O.E. and a massacre? Peggy seemed to dismiss it before, but do you know what’s really going on there?
James D’Arcy is so nosy, so he went sniffing around the writers’ room trying to figure it out. He finally found out what the secret was, and then on the last day he ran up to me and told me. I do know what that secret is. It’s really exciting, and it changes a lot. It basically gives us our core for season 3 if we were to go to a season 3. It’s really amazing, but I don’t want to get too excited about it in case we don’t get picked up again, so I can’t really say anything. Or it might get picked up in a couple years. I’m sworn to secrecy on it, but it’s really clever. Those clever writers!

Word as to whether there will be a third season is expected in May, but it appears Haley Atwell is interested despite working on another pilot. Even if she is busy with other projects, perhaps the series can be kept alive with fewer episodes to make it feasible.

Mr Robot s01e03

It appears that Mr. Robot will remain topical next season with encryption becoming a major subject. Deadline reports:

Mr. Robot showrunner Sam Esmail insisted at SXSW today that he’s no “fortune teller,” even though the show’s first season went into production just as a massive post-Snowden national debate about surveillance and the collusion between government and big business flared up. In any case, his luck continues, with the USA Network show’s second season heading into production with a storyline about privacy and encryption just as the FBI and Apple are having a very public fight about access to private iPhone user data.

“What’s weird is that we were really going into [Season 2] talking about encryption and privacy,” Esmail said during a SXSW show panel titled “Coding on Camera: Mr. Robot and Authenticity on TV.” “And then this whole thing with Apple and [CEO] Tim Cook happened.”

Esmail said he thinks the difficult-to-grasp real-life issue will play out over the next decade, with public discourse over the idea of a right to privacy. “Do we have that, do we not?,” he asked.

Is Mr. Robot meant to be a straight-up polemic? “I don’t know if it’s to make commentary, but it’s to bring it up and have a conversation,” Esmail explained later, offering as an example “the Apple/FBI thing. … We talked to our FBI consultants about this, and their view is that encryption should allow for this sort of third-party side-door thing.”

Esmail says he’s “totally opposed” to that. “I’m on Tim Cook’s side,” he said, a line that unsurprisingly got huge cheers from the SXSW room. Ultimately, he says, “if you keep breaking [the issue] down in a credible way and if you show both sides so that the audience can understand the debate, hopefully it gets people interested and invested in wanting to learn more about it. If our show contributes to that conversation, brings that conversation up again,” then he’s happy with the reception.

There will also be a lot more on Evil Corp. as two characters have been promoted to series regulars. From TVLine:

The acclaimed USA Network drama has promoted Stephanie Corneliussen (who recently guested on Legends of Tomorrow) and Michael Cristofer to series regular status for the sophomore run, as Joanna Wellick and Phillip Price. They join the previously announced Grace Gummer, who will be playing an FBI agent investigating the Evil Corp. hack.

Supergirl Flash

CBS has released the above promotional picture and a synopsis for the upcoming Supergirl/Flash crossover (and Glee reunion):

Kara gains a new ally when the lightning-fast superhero The Flash (Grant Gustin) suddenly appears from an alternate universe and helps Kara battle Siobhan, aka Silver Banshee, and Livewire in exchange for her help in finding a way to return him home.

I can recall old DC covers with Superman racing the Flash but I’m not aware of whether Supergirl ever raced him. With CBS not having the television rights to Superman, several story lines and other aspects of Superman have been used in Supergirl–similar to how Arrow borrows from Batman.

The CW has renewed its lineup shows, including several genre shows. Renewed shows include:

Arrow (season five), Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (season two), Legends of Tomorrow (season two), The Flash (season three), iZombie (season three), Jane the Virgin (season three), The Originals (season four), Reign (season four), Supernatural (season 12), The Vampire Diaries (season eight) and The 100 (season four).

USA Network has announced that the eighth season of Royal Pains, which starts on May 18, will be the final season.

Netflix will release the second season of Daredevil on March 18 and Luke Cage will be released on September 30.

Malvolent

Malevolent is requesting assistance to get out this animated horror movie, which has quite an impressive cast:

  • Morena Baccarin (Deadpool, Gotham, Firefly)
  • Ray Wise (Twin Peaks, Robocop, Agent Carter)
  • Bill Moseley (The Devil’s Rejects, Texas Chainsaw Massacre II)
  • Rising star Dani Lennon (Bite Me)
  • William Shatner (Star Trek, Boston Legal)

MALEVOLENT is about a young woman named Miriam DeKalb (Dani Lennon, FearNet/Machinima’s BITE ME) who works for a non-profit which promotes global peace initiatives. When her billiionaire sociopath father Cyrus (Ray Wise) learns he is dying, Cyrus calls Miriam and her three siblings together to “discuss his will.” However, what he actually has planned is to pronounce judgment on them all. They are, in his view, traitors, and he has grisly death traps planned for each of them.

The wrinkle: a race of intergalactic gamblers, who wager on human conflicts as bloody sport, have chosen Miriam as their protagonist for this match. Thus the entire situation is being manipulated by the Gamemaster (Morena Baccarin,) who has the power to reverse time and reconfigure events as they play out. And so the playing field is constantly changing under Miriam’s feet — sometimes to her benefit, but usually, not. Through it all, The Overseer (William Shatner) calls the game.

Inhabitants Of A Class M Planet Say Goodbye To Leonard Nimoy

Leonard Nimoy Twitter

Above is the final tweet posted by Leonard Nimoy, who died yesterday. His twitter feed remains open, retweeting messages of condolence.

Among those with tweets in memory of Nimoy were Barack Obama, President of the United States and William Shatner, aka Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise:

George Takai posted this on Facebook:

Today, the world lost a great man, and I lost a great friend. We return you now to the stars, Leonard. You taught us to “Live Long And Prosper,” and you indeed did, friend. I shall miss you in so many, many ways.

From NASA:

Yesterday night I pulled out the Blu Ray remastered discs of Star Trek: The Original Series. The picture quality is amazing, and for a short time Spock lived. There will be additional material on television this weekend in honor of Leonard Nimoy. Syfy will devote five hours of programing to the memory of Leonard Nimoy with his appearance on The Twilight Zone, the two part story which he appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and his last movie role with the original Star Trek cast. (He also had an appearance in the first J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie.) The following will be on Sunday morning:

9:00AM The Twilight Zone/”A Quality of Mercy” 9:30AM Star Trek: The Next Generation/”Unification: Part I” 10:30AM Star Trek: The Next Generation/”Unification: Part 2” 11:30AM Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country

Epix is running two interviews with Leonard Nimoy:

The premium netowrk will run A Conversation with Leonard Nimoy on Friday, Feb. 27 at 11 p.m. (ET), followed on Saturday at 5:40 p.m. and 10 p.m., as well as Sunday, March 1 at 8 p.m.

Nimoy looks back at his 50-year involvement with one of the sci-fi genre’s more famous franchises with Star Trek Into Darkness on Saturday at 10:15 p.m. and the following day at 8:15 p.m.

The following video is of Leonard Nimoy at Comic Con 2011:

Update: More in SciFi Weekend, our weekly review of science fiction and genre. A longer statement from President Obama on Leonard Nimoy and the comparisons between Obama and Spock.

SciFi Weekend: Tuesday Shows Go Dark (SHIELD and Person of Interest); Sleepy Hollow; Under The Dome (“Nothing But A Giant Suck Hole”); Doctor Who; Outlander; Arrow; Gotham; Shatner Star Trek Rumors; If Ayn Rand Wrote Buffy

Shield Go Dark

Tuesday night featured the return of two television shows which have both changed for the post-Snowden era, Agents of SHIELD and Person of Interest. On each show the heroes are now working in secret, or even greater secrecy than they had operated in the past.

The premiere of Agents of SHIELD was not as good as the final episodes of the first season following Captain America: The Winter Soldier but did show promise of setting up a far better second season than the first was.  A couple problems from the first season are now solved. No longer can the team theoretically call upon the vast resources of SHIELD. This group is also easier to root for in the post-Snowden era. There is no doubt that the old SHIELD would have been listening in on our phone calls, reading our email, and have no problem with extraordinary rendition or even torture. That SHIELD no longer exists. We can dislike General Talbot as the nominally good protagonist (wondering if Bruce Banner is also in the neighborhood) and root for SHIELD in opposing him.

The episode started with a flashback of Agent Carter, including a glimpse of a green being in a box, suggesting the alien which was used to save Coulson, and later Skye (who works far better as an agent rather than the outsider) along with connecting to Guardians of the Galaxy.The show now makes mention of multiple Marvel characters, and included a super-villain, which gives the show much more the feel of being in the Marvel universe than seen in the first season. Lucy Lawless made her appearance as Isabelle  Hartley and lost her arm if not her life. There is certainly the possibility of her return on a show where two characters have returned from death or near-death, and now we have Dr. Whitehall, who hasn’t aged since seen in 1945.

While we don’t know whether Lucy Lawless will return, there is news that Adrianne Palecki of Friday Night Lights (and who almost became Wonder Woman) will be guest starring as Mockingbird later this season.

There were additional consequences to the events of last season beyond the breakup of SHIELD. Fitz is more interesting than last season now that we found that he did not recover from the lack of oxygen to his brain, and is imagining that Simmons is with him after she left. I would anticipate some recovery on his part and probably a Fitzsimmons reunion down the road. Agent Ward is also a bit nuts compared to last season, and may or may not really know anything about Skye’s father. I suspect he really does, and we might be in store for some Hannibal/Clarice type scenes between Ward and Skye this season.

Person of Interest s04e01

Go Dark was the strategic order from Director Coulson on Agents of SHIELD, and also describes the strategy Root devised with the Machine to keep everyone alive and hidden from Samaritan on Person of Interest.  The increased concern over the dangers of the surveillance state has been fortuitous for the show. Initially the Machine’s surveillance was primarily a gimmick to get the heroes into the story of the week, but last season the show transitioned far more into a series about the dangers of government surveillance and artificial intelligence in the wrong hands. The show has largely been rebooted this season, and shows promise of being even better than previous seasons.

Series co-creator Greg Plageman compared artificial intelligence to the creation of the atomic bomb at San Diego Comic-Con:

I think when we started out this show we were answering a lot of questions about the Orwellian surveillance state and people asking us if that was science fiction and now, in a post-Snowden era, no one’s asking those questions anymore. So what does the show become now?

I think the most interesting question in terms of our show and technology that is emerging is artificial intelligence. We’re living in a world now where not just nation states—Israel, United States, the Russians, whoever—are trying to build an artificial intelligent. The thing closest to this was the Manhattan Project, the greatest existential risk the world has ever faced: the development of the atomic bomb, and the race to get it, and who was going to get it first and what that meant in terms of ending World War II.

We are now at a similar crossroads with artificial intelligence. The only difference is it’s not just DARPA. It’s not just nation states. It’s a bunch of billionaires in their 30s up in Silicon Valley who are buying up all the artificial intelligence companies. It’s fascinating. Look up ‘Deep Mind,’ see what’s going on. No one really knows.

Harold Finch built a machine, an artificial intelligence, that he supposed was sympathetic to humankind. But what if someone built one that didn’t take that into consideration at all? And I think we’re dealing with the next great existential risk to the world and I think that’s something our show can deal with in a really cool way.

The Blacklist was among other shows which returned, once again turning what would otherwise be a mediocre show into a hit due to the presence of James Spader. Mary Louise Parker makes an excellent addition as his ex-wife.

Sleepy Hollow also returned with a strong season premiere. This is a series which I am reluctant to write much about as any description of the show sounds absurd. They manage to pull off its absurdities very well (far better than Under the Dome does). It is always fun to see what they come up with to tie early American history into their mythology, such as revealing that they key used on Benjamin Franklin’s kite is used to unlock Purgatory. As I said, it sounds like it makes no sense, but the show is so much fun.

Under the Dome Season 2 Finale

Under the Dome ended and the series could be summed up by what Noreen said: “It’s nothing but a giant killer suck hole!” The giant suck hole appeared the previous week after Melanie, a character who came back from the dead, was apparently killed a second time. In other recent episodes there was a tunnel under the school in which people could jump off a cliff and appear in another city, until Big Jim messed that up. Recently it became cold and nobody in town had any warm clothes to put on. The Dome started contracting, and when they began to time the contractions I wondered if next they were going to say the Dome was pregnant.

In the second season, and hopefully series, finale, everyone in town who could make it went through a tunnel where the giant suck hole had appeared. The final moment showed Melanie once again back from the dead, saying “Follow me, we’re going home.”But isn’t Chester’s Mill their home? If the show returns next summer, we will presumably see where Melanie leads them. I wouldn’t be surprised if they follow her, perhaps to an intermediate destination, and they ultimately wind up back in Chester’s Mill, like Patrick McGoohan trying to leave The Village. I imagine that if it doesn’t return, we can just assume that they escape, possibly coming back to rescue those who didn’t make it.

Doctor Who The Caretaker

On Doctor Who, The Caretaker returned to its 1963 roots at Coal Hill School, and Gareth Roberts, writer of episodes such as The Lodger, once again showed the Doctor attempting to blend in with humans. The killer alien story was weak, and primarily existed as a vehicle to have the Doctor finally meet Danny Pink. Along the way the Doctor got mislead when seeing Clara speaking with a fellow school teacher wearing a bow tie, thinking that she had fallen for someone who looks like his previous regeneration. While we had long been led to believe we will have another couple in the TARDIS, with Clara and Danny replacing Amy and Rory, it now looks like there once again might be two schoolteachers and a student, with Courtney joining along, at least temporarily, despite being a disturbance:

Clara: “I would say, yes, I’m afraid Courtney is a disruptive influence.”

Response: “Yeah, but last year you said she was a very disruptive influence. So I suppose that counts as an improvement.”

Courtney discovered the TARDIS after ignoring the Doctor’s sign to keep out, or more precisely, “Go Away Humans.”

The meeting between the Doctor and Danny Pink didn’t go very well. The Doctor continues to object to soldiers, apparently forgetting all the time he spent with UNIT, along with many other individual soldiers over the centuries. Danny sees the Doctor as an arrogant aristocrat, concentrating on the Lord part of Time Lord. He also wondered about about Clara (“Are you a space woman?”).

The episode also introduced another gadget for the Doctor, an invisibility watch. This raises the question of why this was never used on many occasions when it could have come in handy in the past, and whether it will be used again. Another plot hole which we will just have to ignore.

Among other top lines of the episode:  “You’re running out of time.” “For what?” “Everything! Human beings have incredibly short lifespans. Frankly, you should all be in a constant state of panic. Tick tock, tick tock.”

After not seeing this in recent episodes, The Caretaker also showed a character who died in the episode wind up in the Nethersphere, or perhaps Heaven.

OUT_108-20140501-ND_0513.jpg

Saturday night’s other time travel series, Outlander, got deeper into time travel in the mid-season finale. Frank heard of the possibility of time travel at Craig na Dun, and by the end of the  episode was willing to accept it as a possibility. In addition to seeing a poster with a reward for information related to Claire, there was another poster in Frank’s era seeking information about someone who sure looks like Jaime, suggesting that he might also wind up traveling in time.

It was surprising that a spy like Frank would fall into such an obvious trap when seeking information about Claire, but he was quite well prepared to take care of himself. He seemed to enjoy beating up his attackers too much, perhaps intending to show a comparison between the violence of his evil ancestor and Frank. Are we to question which husband Claire is really best off with?

The episode had a tease that Claire might return home. At very least she did hear Frank calling out to her through time, but it was intentionally left ambiguous as to whether Frank could hear Claire calling back. Just before getting a chance to return, she fell into the hands of Black Jack once again, with her attempts to deceive him failing. We don’t know  how Jaime managed to get into his window, but he came to attempt to save Claire just before she might have received an involuntary mastectomy. We will see what happens next when Outlander returns in April.

Arrow Oliver and Felicity

Arrow returns October 8 and Marc Guggenheim has discussed the upcoming season:

“He is going to get some new toys to play with,” Guggenheim said. “One of them is a new bow that looks identical to the old bow, but it does something that you’ve never seen before.” Guggenheim disclosed that the explanation behind Oliver’s new equipment will be detailed in DC Comics‘ currently unfolding digital-first series “Arrow: Season 2.5,” taking place between the second and third seasons.

While “Arrow” has traditionally been more grounded, the show’s second season embraced superpowers a bit more, both in laying the groundwork for spinoff “The Flash” and in Slade Wilson and his Mirakuru-fueld army that served as primary antagonists. With “The Flash” now its own series on The CW, Guggenheim stated that “Arrow” will return to a more realistic direction.

“We’re not really planning on revisiting superpowers or enhanced abilities during season three,” Guggenheim told Weiland. “We are really returning to the show’s roots of a very grounded world where it’s very realistic. We may take occasional artistic license with things, but for the most part, everything is pretty well and truly grounded in real-life things and real-life science.”

Another DC comic-based series began with the premiere of Gotham. I think we will need to see more to determine if is worth watching a show with Bruce Wayne before he became Batman. While it includes the origins of several villains, I think we will have to view this as another version of the legend, not connected chronologically with other Batman stories. While we think of the murder of Bruce’s parents as occurring years ago, Gotham appears to take place in the present (or a parallel universe were cell phones have been around a lot longer).

Syfy has renewed both Defiance and Dominion.

CaptainKirkShatner_1

There have been a number of rumors, denials, and perhaps an admission that J.J. Abrams has spoken to William Shatner about doing a cameo for his third Star Trek movie. I have my doubts as to whether it is a good idea, but it is more plausible now than in the first Abrams movie in which Spock from the original time line went back in time. Kirk could not do that because in that time line he was dead. However this doesn’t prevent a future Kirk from being seen from the Abrams time line.

There is yet another rumor that the next Avengers movie will be split into two parts.

If Ayn Rand wrote Buffy The Vampire Slayer

SciFi Weekend: Hannibal; The Fall; Crisis; Orphan Black; Continuum; History of Science Fiction; HIMYM; Gotham; Agent Carter; SHIELD; The Americans; Under The Skin; Under The Dome

Hannibal-Season-2-Episode3

Hannibal has now become a courtroom drama, with Will Graham on trial for the murders committed by Hannibal. We appear to have another murderer out there, but without Will investigating we never get into the new murderer’s head and do not even know their identity. Is Hannibal also committing these murders in an attempt to free Will and regain him as a (manipulated) friend? Hannibal was forced to admit that there were some differences in how the murderer was operating. Hannibal would know better, unless this was part of a bigger plan.

Another favorite scene in the trial was the return of Freddie. She first seemed to bury Will by saying that Abigail had confided in her that she was afraid Will  might kill and cannibalize her. The defense then asked Freddie how many times she was accused of libel (six) and how many times she settled (six), quickly discrediting her testimony.

Assignment X has an interview with Mads Mikkelsen:

AX: Did you watch any of the earlier incarnations of Hannibal?

MADS MIKKELSEN: I think we all watched that, growing up, right? We were certain from the beginning that we could not detach ourselves from the character. Obviously, he’s a man who loves anything beautiful – beautiful music, beautiful people, beautiful wine – so we had to address that, but we had to detach it from what Anthony did. Obviously, it would be creative suicide to go down his path. He was so wonderful, and if you try to copy something like that – but I think any actor would make it his own, regardless of if it’s me or somebody else, but it was a conscious choice that detached us.

AX: Can you say what you’re bringing to Hannibal?

MIKKELSEN: A lot of it is already in Bryan’s scripts. He’s already given life to the character to a certain degree, and then it’s up to me to step into those shoes. As I said before, any actor would color it somehow, and I’m coloring it – I’m trying, to a degree, to make him human. What he does is absolutely not human, but his emotions are true and honest.

AX: You’ve compared Hannibal to Lucifer. Is he becoming more Luciferian or less Luciferian as you go along?

MIKKELSEN: He is Lucifer. He is the fallen angel. The thing about him is that he’s honest – he’s honest with his emotions regarding Will. He’s having a hard time here trying to regain his friendship. That’s uphill, of course. But that’s his main target in this season.

AX: Do you think Hannibal qualifies as a psychopath by regular psychiatrist standards, or is he something else?

MIKKELSEN: I don’t think he is a psychopath. I mean, reading about psychopaths, they normally have a traumatized childhood or something they’re struggling with. He doesn’t have that. He’s as happy as you can get. He’s a happy man. I have rarely given life to a character that is as happy as him, I must say.

AX: What would you say Hannibal’s relationship is like with his erstwhile psychiatrist Dr. Bedelia du Maurier, played by Gillian Anderson?

MIKKELSEN: That’s obviously a very unique and kinky relationship that they have, and we will address it a little more in this season. I think she has been a very important partner for him, in a sense that we will see a different side of Hannibal, and he will be quite emotional with her to a degree. Why he’s doing that, we don’t know. And I think that’s just his little space of freedom where he can be what he is.

Gillian Anderson is gone from the series for now, busy with two other series. She has begun filming the second season of The Fall for BBC2, a series well worth watching (and available in the United States on Netflix). Another series, Crisis, begins on NBC tonight with some  initial reviews being very favorable. Entertainment Weekly has more on the show.

Gillian Anderson had a great response to a question posed on Reddit:

Question: My question is assuming your character is made into a gourmet meal by Hannibal what type of food would you want to be made into?

Gillian Anderson: Something so rich that he’d choke on it and die.

EW Orphan Black

Orphan Black has put BBC America on the map (and cover of Entertainment Weekly) with one of the top genre shows of all time.Tatiana Maslany spoke about one of her clones being gay:

Even while Orphan Black received praise for the diversity of its characters, there was some debate online about the decision to have Cosima be gay, because If she has the same genetic code as her clone sisters, does that mean the show is implying that she chose to be gay as opposed to being born that way (since other clones like Sarah and Alison appear to be heterosexual)? Absolutely not, says the woman who plays her. “By no means are we saying that Cosima chooses to be gay,” says Maslany. “It’s by no means that. It’s just that there are so many biological factors into the mother’s womb, into the conditions of the womb. So much of the research I was doing about clones was about identical twins, right? Identical twins would actually be closer in expression than clones because clones are birthed from different wombs. And there’s so much information that gets fed through the mother. I think we’re not saying anything about that in terms of choice and biology or whatever. We’re saying more that everyone could be anything.”

I think we have to give the show some leeway being fiction and not try to use it as actually revealing anything about the genetics of sexual preference. More from the interviews at Screen Rant.

Spoiler TV has information (and video) on a new clone to be introduced in the second season:

A brand new season of Orphan Black means a brand new clone. And we have all the intel on said clone right here! Meet Jennifer Fitzsimmons, a 28-year old teacher and swim coach. And you are about to meet Jennifer the same way Cosima does, through a series of video diaries that Cosima discovers while researching her own respiratory illness.

Amazon has obtained exclusive streaming rights to Orphan Black, along with Hannibal, and the first season is available if you missed it.

Besides their science fiction drama, BBC America will also be airing a show on The Real History of Science Fiction beginning April 19:

From Star Wars to 2001: A Space Odyssey, and from Jurassic Park to Doctor Who, each program is packed with contributors behind these creations and traces the developments of Robots, Space, Invasion and Time. Narrated by Mark Gatiss, Doctor Who writer, actor, and co-creator of the BBC’s Sherlock, the series determines why science fiction is not merely a genre… for its audience it’s a portal to a multi-verse – one that is all too easy to get lost in.

Among those taking part are: William Shatner (Star Trek), Nathan Fillion (Firefly), Zoe Saldana (Avatar, Star Trek), Steven Moffat (Doctor Who), Richard Dreyfuss (Close Encounters of the Third Kind), Chris Carter (The X-Files), Ronald D Moore (Battlestar Galactica), John Landis (An American Werewolf in London, Schlock), David Tennant (Doctor Who), Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future), Rutger Hauer (Blade Runner), John Carpenter (Dark Star, The Thing), Karen Gillan (Doctor Who), Neil Gaiman (The Sandman, Stardust), Kim Stanley Robinson (Mars Trilogy), Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap, Star Trek: Enterprise), Ursula K Le Guin (The Left Hand of Darkness), Syd Mead (Blade Runner), Kenny Baker (Star Wars), Anthony Daniels (Star Wars), Nichelle Nichols (Star Trek), Peter Weller (Robocop), Edward James Olmos (Blade Runner, Battlestar Galactica), and many more.

The four part series will be divided into episodes on Robots, Space, Invasion, and Time.

Continuum - Episode 3.01 - Minute by Minute - Promotional Photos (5)_FULL

Continuum returns tonight on Showcase, but American audiences who resist the temptation to download the episode will have to wait until April 4. I certainly intend to get a hold of the earlier (and uncut) episodes after aired on Showcase. I will warn of any spoilers before the American showing. Some Spoilers have already been released prior to the first episode of the season, but presumably nothing which truly spoils the episode. Those who want to know nothing might want to skip the rest of this section which discusses what I have already heard.

The first episode, Minute By Minute reportedly reveals who the Freelancers really are, and someone new  joins up with them and gets the tattoos. Kira teams up with Garza, which comes as little surprise considering the changing alliances we have seen. As suggested in the second season finale, Alec goes back in time to try to save Emily, and reportedly there is a lot of timey wimey stuff with potential end of the world consequences. With time travel involved, other dead characters do return. The first ten minutes have already been released in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbdOVrqHuCU

The Marvel vs. DC feud will heat up next year, this time in the movie theaters. Both Captain America 2 and the next Superman vs Batman movie will be released the weekend of May 6, 2016.

CBS has renewed The Big Bang Theory for three more seasons. Bazinga!

Cristin Milioti has called the theories that her character dies on How I Met Your Mother “some crazy conspiracy theories, which actually just makes me really love the fans more,” but never actually denied the rumors.  The show runners also dodged the question at PaleyFest. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is intentional misdirection, but if there is some other surprise at the end. The cast will also be appearing on Inside The Actors Studio later this month prior to the series finale on March 31.

Gotham

Fox has released more information on their upcoming series, Gotham:

Everyone knows the name Commissioner Gordon. He is one of the crime world’s greatest foes, a man whose reputation is synonymous with law and order. But what is known of Gordon’s story and his rise from rookie detective to Police Commissioner? What did it take to navigate the multiple layers of corruption that secretly ruled Gotham City, the spawning ground of the world’s most iconic villains? And what circumstances created them – the larger-than-life personas who would become Catwoman, The Penguin, The Riddler, Two-Face and The Joker?

“Gotham” is an origin story of the great DC Comics super villains and vigilantes, revealing an entirely new chapter that has never been told. From executive producer/writer Bruno Heller (“The Mentalist,” “Rome”), “Gotham” follows one cop’s rise through a dangerously corrupt city teetering on the edge of evil and chronicles the birth of one of the most popular super heroes of our time.

Growing up in Gotham City’s surrounding suburbs, James Gordon (Ben McKenzie, “Southland,” “The O.C.”) romanticized the city as a glamorous and exciting metropolis where his late father once served as a successful district attorney. Now, two weeks into his new job as a Gotham City detective and engaged to his beloved fiancée, Barbara Kean (Erin Richards, Open Grave, “Breaking In”), Gordon is living his dream – even as he hopes to restore the city back to the pure version he remembers it was as a kid.

Brave, honest and ready to prove himself, the newly-minted detective is partnered with the brash, but shrewd police legend Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue, “Sons of Anarchy,” “Terriers,” “Vikings,” “Copper”), as the two stumble upon the city’s highest-profile case ever: the murder of local billionaires Thomas and Martha Wayne. At the scene of the crime, Gordon meets the sole survivor: the Waynes’ hauntingly intense 12-year-old son, Bruce (David Mazouz, “Touch”), toward whom the young detective feels an inexplicable kinship. Moved by the boy’s profound loss, Gordon vows to catch the killer.

As he navigates the often-underhanded politics of Gotham’s criminal justice system, Gordon will confront imposing gang boss Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith, The Matrix films, “HawthoRNe,” Collateral), and many of the characters who will become some of fiction’s most renowned, enduring villains, including a teenaged Selina Kyle/the future Catwoman (acting newcomer Camren Bicondova) and Oswald Cobblepot/The Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor, “The Walking Dead,” Another Earth).

Although the crime drama will follow Gordon’s turbulent and singular rise through the Gotham City police department, led by Police Captain Sarah Essen (Zabryna Guevara, “Burn Notice”), it also will focus on the unlikely friendship Gordon forms with the young heir to the Wayne fortune, who is being raised by his unflappable butler, Alfred (Sean Pertwee, “Camelot,” “Elementary”). It is a friendship that will last them all of their lives, playing a crucial role in helping the young boy eventually become the crusader he’s destined to be.

captain-america Agent Carater
Collider has spoken with Captain America screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeel  about how they envision the planned Agent Carter series. From this description, I’m more hopeful about this show than Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Here are the key points reported:

  • ABC has the script for the pilot but nothing is greenlit yet.
  • Markus and McFeely have recently spoken to Hayley Atwell and she is very interested in doing the show.
  • Howard Stark would be a recurring character, not a series regular.  This is assuming Dominic Cooper would be willing to continue to play the role.  I’ve spoken to him about this and he seemed very interested.  But this was a few months ago and things change.
  • The show would start in 1946, sort of in the middle of the timeline of the One Shot.  McFeely said, “We can’t get her to the end of S.H.I.E.L.D. that fast.  We wanna stay in that world longer where people are disrespecting her and she’s proving herself and going on missions and things like that.”
  • Unlike most network shows that are 22 or 23-episode seasons, Markus and McFeely think Agent Carter should be a limited series with a maximum of 13 episodes per season.  McFeely said, “[13 episodes] is how this is envisioned, maybe even less… That’s my hope, is that it would be something like [Under the Dome].  Our case would be that it would be a limited series and you would wrap up that one bad guy and that one case, and then if you like it we’ll do it again next year and it’s 1947.”

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. did have one of its better episodes of the season with the Thor crossover, guest staring Jaimie Alexander as Lady Sif. While both a big event for the show and entertaining, the storyline still showed the weakness of the show. If they knew that Lorelei had the ability to control men, why would they have not one but two of their male agents wind up in a position where she could so easily take them over. Plus that plane of theirs has to be the least secure government facility in existence. Last week’s episode did also advance the storyline of Coulson’s return from the dead and this continuing storyline is a plus for the show.

THE AMERICANS -- The Walk In -- Episode 3 (Airs Wednesday, March 12, 10:00 PM e/p) -- Pictured: (L-R) Keri Russell as Elizabeth Jennings, Matthew Rhys as Philip Jennings -- CR: Patrick Harbron/FX

While entertaining, S.H.I.E.L.D looks like a bunch of armatures compared to the KGB in 1982. The Americans had another solid episode. Elizabeth showed she can be far more threatening than any S.H.I.E.L.D. agent as she terrified a janitor into getting her some information. Luckily for him, he stumbled upon Elizabeth’s weak spot when he showed her pictures of his children. It saved his life, but I doubt he will ever talk. Paige went do track down “Aunt Helen,” who Elizabeth was supposedly with while recovering from her gunshot wound. While the KGB was ready for this with a fake Aunt Helen complete with a picture of Elizabeth and Paige on the wall, I wouldn’t put it past Paige to ultimately bring down their entire spy operation. The episode also had a satisfying answer to my question last week as to why Nina told Stan about the walk-in by Bruce Dameran. Building up Stan by allowing him to kill Dameran is expected to be of more value to the KGB than any information they might have obtained from Dameran.

The episode also showed why the series works despite having KGB agents as the protagonists. Much of the episode dealt with family matters, including a letter from Leanne to Jared written years earlier in the event that she and Emmett were killed, so it didn’t matter that it was dealing with Russians. The subplot with Stan and Dameran, while a victory for the KGB, also involved Stan preventing an assassination, something which American viewers could root for. The scenes with Elizabeth and the poor janitor were so dramatic that it was easy to ignore the fact that they also involved American secrets falling into KGB hands.

Scarlett Johansson

The Guardian has an interview with Scarlett Johansson about her role in Under the Skin. In this portion she discussed why she wanted to take the role:

It’s one reason, presumably, that she took the part, though I’m curious to know the details. There’s only about three lines of dialogue in the entire film, so it can hardly have been the standout script. The main point of her character is that she doesn’t actually have a character. She’s an alien. She doesn’t do emotion. And it was filmed in Scotland. In winter. And most of the film consists of her standing around in wet boots and a too-thin coat. Or stripping off her clothes in a derelict squat and luring men into a vat of black ectoplasm. (At one point, she appears naked. Johansson fans, of which there are many, most especially the male variety, have been lighting up message boards for months with discussion of this particular fact.)

So why, of all the scripts she must get sent, did she decide to do this one? “I heard Jonathan was making a film and originally it was a very different story. But I met him, and it was very clear that he was struggling to figure out what he was doing with it, and what had attracted him to it. It wasn’t his passion project but there was something in the idea of having a character that was an alien that could give him the freedom to be completely observant without any judgment. I think we were both interested in that. I thought it would be incredibly challenging to play a character that’s free of judgment, that has no relationship to any emotion I could relate to.

“And for me, at this point, I think it much more interesting for me to look at something and know that I can play it, but not know how, rather than to look at something and go, ‘Ah, I can do that.’ And then just do it.”

The story also touched on other roles, including genre movies such as Captain America and Her.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CZ7R-F0ZEY

The above trailer has been released for the second season of Under the Dome. The first episode will be written by Stephen King–hopefully he can get the show back on track. Executive producer Brian K. Vaughan says “The second season is going to take us to places where the book never got to go . Stephen King gave us some ideas we never imagined.” Two new characters will be introduced, Junior’s uncle who had been hiding out and a young school teacher. Two characters from the first season will be killed in an apparent law of conservation of characters. Early opinion from fans is that killing off just two characters is not enough. Maybe they could do this every week.

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John Cho of the two Star Trek remakes and Sleepy Hollow has been cast as the male lead in Selfie, the upcoming sit-com staring Karen Gillan of Doctor Who.

Selfie, a modern take on My Fair Lady and inspired by the musical, centers on a self-obsessed 20-something woman named Eliza Dooley (Gillan) who is more concerned with “likes” than being liked. After suffering a public and humiliating breakup, she becomes the subject of a viral video and suddenly has more social media “followers” than she ever imagined — but for all the wrong reasons. She then enlists the help of a marketing expert at her company to help repair her tarnished image.

Cho will play self-assured, successful marketing expert Henry, who is a different breed from today’s social media-addicted society. As a challenge, he decides to “remarket” his coworker Eliza. He joins an ensemble that already includes Allyn Rachel, Tim Peper, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and David Harewood. Casting for the regular roles is now complete.

SciFi Weekend: The TARDIS on Google Maps; Arrow Introducing More DC Characters; Iron Man 3; Under The Dome; True Blood; Homeland; Orange Is The New Black; Orphan Black; Thor; Elementary; The Newsroom; Interstellar; Star Trek Predicting The Future Since 1966

TARDIS in on Google Maps

If you check out street view on Google Maps at Earlham Green, Greater London Nr5 8DQ, United Kingdom you will see a blue police call box on the left side of the street. Place the mouse near it and then click on the double lines which will appear. This will allow you to enter the TARDIS. You will find that it is smaller on the outside than on the inside. Once inside you will be able to move around the control room. Unfortunately you cannot go further inside the TARDIS but I assume Google Maps will be working on extending their coverage of interior spaces.

arrow_on_cw

Arrow show runner Mark Guggenheim discussed introducing The Flash on Arrow:

“I feel like I’m just following Bilson and DeMeo. Whatever they do, I seem to follow in their footsteps,” Guggenheim laughed. The writer told CBR that from comics to TV, the goal of the “Arrow” production team is to expand out the DC Universe while keeping the tone and feel of their show its own unique story platform.

“Honestly, I’m just excited to help be a part of expanding the DC Universe,” he said. “I think one of the big thing that appeals to me about comics in general is the idea of the shared universe. It’s a lot of fun to be able to do that in television, and growing up one of the things I enjoyed was the ‘Six Million Dollar Man’ and ‘The Bionic Woman’ and the way those two shows would interact with each other. We’re at least a season away from ‘Arrow’ interacting with ‘The Flash,” but the potential for that is really exciting for me.”

Kreisberg, who serves as Guggenheim’s show running partner on “Arrow,” will develop Barry Allen’s character in writing each of those three episodes this season on “Arrow,” and Guggenheim said that is all part of a masterplan that stretches back before their recent run of announcements. “Andrew is taking the lead on ‘The Flash.’ This has been in the works for a while and had been in the works since before Comic-Con. But we made the decision, as these things are announced in a rollout, to take a strategy where we’d announce Black Canary, Bronze Tiger and Brother Blood at Comic-Con. We felt like, ‘That’s a lot for Comic-Con. Let’s save something back for when T.C.A. comes around.’ I want to disabuse anyone of the notion that we decided to do Flash after Comic-Con. We’re just capable of keeping secrets every now and again.”

And overall, the writer wanted to stress that an additional superhero – and one with some more super powers – won’t change the core of what “Arrow” is. In fact, Guggenheim leaned on a comparison with DC’s main competitor to explain how each series will develop over time. “I think a lot of people are justified in asking ‘What does this mean for Arrow in terms of its tone?’ And my answer is that the trick that we have – and this is a challenge we’ve discusses a lot and have an awareness of how to face it head on – is the fact that ‘Arrow’ is like ‘Iron Man’ where ‘The Flash’ will be ‘The Hulk.’ And just as ‘The Hulk’ coming out did not change the tone of the Iron Man movies, ‘The Flash’ will not change the tone of ‘Arrow.’ We’re very cognizant of what ‘Arrow’ is all about, and I think the Marvel movies demonstrate that each piece of a universe can have its own feel. ‘Thor’ is consistent with the tone of Thor while ‘Captain America’ is consistent with the tone of Captain America’s character. ‘Arrow’s’ tone will remain consistent much in the same way, and we are looking forward to expanding our canvass a bit. And judging from the announcement, I think the fans are looking forward to it as well.”

While Barry Allen will be on Arrow for a few episodes, he will not have his superpowers, at least not at the start.  Despite not having true superpowers, Arrow does feel like a superhero show, including having the common problem of the hero being just too powerful. I just watched the first season of the show over the past week and found it to be entertaining as long as you ignore the multiple implausible aspects. On Arrow, a person with bow and arrows can easily defeat multiple people with guns. This includes not only Oliver Queen, but two other characters who use the same weapon. Oliver Queen does have fighting skills beyond this weapon. He also has an amazing ability to disappear. Typically when he is surrounded inside a closed area and anyone else would be captured, he gets away with no difficulty or even on-screen explanation. Arrow is not up to the quality of the most impressive new genre shows of the season on regular cable and broadcast television ( such as The Americans, Orphan Black, and Hannibal) but still worth watching.

There were aspects of the writing style of Arrow which makes me confident they will do a good job of gradually introducing characters. Rather than quickly giving an origin and then moving on to the main story, Arrow had flashbacks over the entire season to the island where Oliver Queen was stranded for five years and learned his skills. Rather than immediately introduce the sidekick and those who knew his secret identity, characters were gradually brought into Oliver Queen’s inner circle.

There are also a couple of reasons for Doctor Who fans to watch. John Barrowman is a recurring character all season and Alex Kingston was on a few episodes. I was hoping for the two to interact but that did not occur. Incidentally, most Barrowman fans probably know that Torchwood is an anagram with the same letters as Doctor Who. By coincidence, the name of the television show he appeared in last season is also in Barrowman’s name.

More on crossover characters from other DC comics here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeiZoM-esoY

The Mandarin appears in this deleted scene from Iron Man 3.

I’m glad to see Under the Dome turn more to the mystery of the dome, not that I’m all that confident of a satisfactory resolution. Apparently when they say “the monarch will be crowned” they are speaking of an actual monarch within the small dome. I have read that one of the major differences between recent episodes and the book has been that Big Jim and Junior work together in the book. Last week’s episode may signal a reconciliation between the two.

Last week’s episode of True Blood contained the battle which we might have expected for the season finale. There are still questions. Will Sookie keep her promise to become Warlow’s vampire bride? (I bet she does not). Is the war between humans and vampires now over, or just beginning? Will those vampires who indirectly fed on ferry blood continue to be able to be out in daylight? Is Bill now returning to his normal self? Considering how poor recent seasons of the show had become, it is a good sign that, despite some ongoing problems, the show is now able to maintain interest in such questions.

Homeland writers revealed information on their plans during season two. I’ve been questioning since the end of season one how long they could plausibly continue to have Brody around. The writers may have been thinking the same thing:

Though the show’s creators already copped to plotting an untimely end for Lewis’ character way back in season one, that is until more merciful voices at Showtime prevailed, Gordon admitted that, going into season two, the writers intended to send Brody to the chopping block yet again, and were once more persuaded otherwise by the network.  “We had sketched out this plan in the early parts of season two which called for Brody’s demise, which may have been premature, and they asked us to reconsider,” which Gordon credits as “the happy accident of having very good partners.”

If it seemed like a sudden reversal for Carrie to have decided not to leave the country with Brody, it was also a reversal of the writers’ plans:

According to Steihm, who has since left Homeland to run FX drama The Bridge, the writers all wanted Carrie (Claire Danes) to go with Brody across the border in the season two finale instead of returning to the CIA.  In fact, in the first draft, she did. After much debate, they ultimately decided it was more in character for Carrie to stay and carry out her mission with the Agency after helping Brody escape safely to an underground network.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBt-Jig6Ik0

Besides being a great show, Orange Is The New Black has supported science over religious fundamentalism, such as in the scene above with partial transcript below:

Piper: I can’t pretend to believe in something I don’t, and I don’t [believe in this]… I believe in science. I believe in evolution. I believe in Nate Silver, and Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Christopher Hitchens, although I do admit he could be kind of an asshole. I cannot get behind some Supreme Being who weighs in on the Tony awards while a million people get whacked by machetes. I don’t believe a billion Indians are going to hell. I don’t think that we get cancer to learn life lessons. And I don’t believe people die young because God needs another angel. I think it’s just bullshit. And on some level, I think we all know that.

There are a number of reports, along with a denial, that Laura Prepon will be leaving Orange is The New Black to work on a new show. If true, this would leave a major hole in the show. The reports claiming this do say that Prepon will still be present at the start of the season to tie up Alex’s storyline and she will be written out in a way which would allow her to return.

Orphan Is The New Black

Two  of the top television shows premiering in 2013, Orphan Black and Orange Is The New Black, have been combined in this mash-up giving us Orphan Is The New Black.

Natalie Portman expects there to be a Thor 3.

Fake Sherlock will be going to England in their opening episode. Maybe they will meet the “real” Holmes and Watson of Sherlock. (Ok, probably not). More news on the second season of Elementary here.

We expect The Newsroom to mix in major news stories with each episode. Last week they included plot elements reminiscent of other real events from The Today Show botching the editing on George Zimmerman’s 911 tape to the real life release of nude photos from Oliva Munn’s phone. The manner in which World Net Daily reported a rumor without any fact checking also is based on reality, along with being an excellent commentary on the unreliability of WND and the entire right wing noise machine.

Filming has begun on Christopher Nolan’s latest science fiction project, Interstellar.

William Shatner joins those arguing that Star Trek belongs on television in this interview:

Karl Urban, from the new Star Trek films said that “Star Trek, as envisioned, was about space exploration. And it would be really wonderful to harness the spirit of that and apply it to the next film”. Is that something that you would like to see? A greater focus on discovery in these films.

Shatner: I’m not goona second guess JJ Abrams, he’s a great director and he’s so talented. But I’ll tell you that I am going to the Lowell Observatory in a couple of weeks to deliver a speech that I wrote about Star Trek and its capacity to stir the imaginations of young people.

The idea is, that so many people’s lives have been touched by the imagination of Star Trek and children’s imaginations are so vital to the rest of their lives that… this is an aspect of Star Trek that I’m focused on.

Now let me ask you, trying to bring in new viewers, new younger viewers to expose that world to young kids and teenagers alike and really spur that imagination — is a TV show a more viable vehicle for that? Is it sad that we don’t have something like that right now, a Star Trek TV show that could really seize on the exploration part of the thing that the original series and Next Generation, that those things did?

Shatner: You know, I think you’re right. Because, JJ Abrams has found the key to getting a large audience into the movie theater, and that’s the ride. So you get a lot of the CGI effects, which is the epic movie making aspect of today, whereas in Cecile B. Demille’s time, you had to use real people. Now you don’t need to use real people and you can have infinity for God’s sake.

That’s in order to get you into the theater, because the majesty of the movie is shown by the large screen. But when you get into the small screen, you need stories… entertaining, interesting, vital stories that have a philosophy and also have an excitement about them, so that the viewer stays with it, but recieves the philosophy as a byproduct. Those were the best of Star Trek, those kinds of stories. And that kind of thing, there is always room for that. That kind of imaginative approach that stirs young people into wanting to be connected with science.

Star Trek Science

Via Techeblog

SciFi Weekend: Doctor Who, The Snowmen; Merlin Finale; Fringe; Star Trek Into Darkness; Dexter; and Homeland

Doctor Who: The Snowmen airs on Christmas Day, introducing a new companion. Some clips and interviews can be seen in the video above.

Another clip from The Snowmen above.

Digital Spy interviewed Steven Moffat, who talked about the upcoming episodes of Doctor Who. He also denies internet rumors that William Shatner might play the Master:

William Shatner being The Master would be too confusing wouldn’t it? He’s Captain Kirk! It’s already confusing that there are now two Captain Kirks. But if I was considering it I wouldn’t tell you. I love William Shatner but John Simm is The Master… John Simm would beat [Shatner] up if he thought he was going to take that part.

Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Smith discussed how the Doctor met his new companion in the interview above.

Jenna Louise Dec 2012

The Telegraph interviewed Jenna-Louise Coleman:

What can Coleman do with the role of companion that hasn’t been done before? Does she believe that her character moves it into a new realm? ‘Yes I do!’ she says enthusiastically. ‘The Doctor really wants to find out about her. She is obviously very clever, possibly more clever than he is, so she’s a challenge. I really liked that about the role.’

Has she any idea just how this will change her life? ‘Well,’ she says, ‘on one level it already has! I’ve been filming non-stop since it was announced, so my life has really been taken over by Doctor Who and nothing else.’ When she has had some free time, such as the occasional weekend, she has returned to the flat in London she shares with three of her childhood friends.

‘It’s refreshing,’ she says. ‘We all do different jobs now. I have to work the hardest at maintaining my friendships, though, because I am never around. I suppose my friends are very tolerant.’ She says the same goes for her relationship with her boyfriend, Richard Madden, the Game of Thrones star. ‘We both work hard,’ she says. ‘But he’s coming back from filming soon, so …’ She shrugs. ‘It’s good, work is good.

Merlin Finale

The Diamond of the Day, the two-part series finale of Merlin, received excellent reviews before it aired and another review can be found here. The series finale will air on Christmas Eve.

Fringa Nina

Fringe showed the end of Nina’s story, at least until a possible reset which was mentioned in the previews. While she killed herself to avoid interrogation by the Observers while hiding the child Observer, Nina would have been in trouble regardless of the events of this weeks episode as the Observers had already figured out that she was  source of the concrete-melting device used in a previous episode. The episode also revealed that Donald and September are the same person, leaving questions as to  whether September was once a normal human and how he became an Observer. Perhaps the arc showing Peter place the device in his neck was to set up the possibility of a human becoming an Observer.

Star Trek Into Darkness

J.J. Abramas has said more than he has revealed in the past about the plot of Star Trek Into Darkness and the villain played by Benedict Cumberbatch:

So this movie doesn’t require you have seen the first movie. The characters are a group of people who have recently come together and find themselves up against this incredibly terrifying force. His name is John Harrison and he is sort of an average – that is what makes him so scary – he is just an average guy who works in an organization called Starfleet, and he turns against the group because he has got this back-story and this kind of amazing secret agenda. After two very violent attacks, one in London and one in the US, our characters have to go after this guy and apprehend him. And it is a far more complicated and difficult thing then they ever anticipated. “Into Darkness” is very much about how intense it gets and really what they are up against.

dexter-finale_712

Dexter and Homeland concluded their seasons last week. Dexter is heading toward the end, which probably will not be good for a serial killer. Dexter has killed at least three people who do not meet his code before the season finale: someone he mistook for a killer in Season 4, the guy in the bathroom after Rita’s murder, and Hannah’s father. With LaGuerta, not only is Dexter willing to kill someone who is innocent but Debra pulled the trigger. Hannah (Yvonne Strahovsk) ominously left Dexter a black orchid after escaped policy custody, and the producers are hoping to bring her back for another season.

claire-danes-damian-lewis-homeland_finale-212

Homeland left Brody on the run and presumably they will find some way to get him back into the main action next season. Perhaps he will find information on a terrorist plot while on the run, or perhaps it will turn out that he has more knowledge which the CIA needs to obtain from him. As he is using Carrie’s network, it wouldn’t be implausible for Carrie to track him down. Carrie already believes Brody is innocent. Saul should also realize that Brody was set up, knowing that the confession tape had been filmed quite a while previously and was in the hands of others. As Brody’s daughter believes that Brody did not plan a suicide bombing this time, room is left open for reconciliation with his family. It would be harder for Brody to publicly be seen as innocent. They certainly cannot say that the tape was made not now but before a previous planned suicide bombing. Perhaps the most plausible story would be that Brody had been forced to make this tape while still a prisoner, and broken to the extent that he would read anything.

How I Met Your Mother has been renewed for a ninth and final season, dragging out the explanation as to how Ted met his wife for yet another year.

Walking Dead has been renewed for a fourth season but Glen Mazzara, is leaving as show runner.