The Newsroom Exposes Tea Party And Irresponsibility of Republicans On Debt Crisis

We heard very little about the erroneously-named Tea Party during the past two weeks of the conventions. Unfortunately that doesn’t mean that these know-nothing extremists are no longer an influential part of the Republican base. The real news media has done far too little to expose the dangers which these Koch-Suckers present to the United States. The best coverage of the Tea Party came from Aaron Sorkin’s fictional television network on The Newsroom.  See the two clips above.

Rather than trying to invent fictional news events for episodes of The Newsroom, Sorkin based episodes on real events. The second clip was from an episode on the debt crisis. This incident showed how far the Tea Party and the Republican Party were willing to go, regardless of the harm they were doing to the United States, and crash the economy for political gain. The Republicans threatened to renege on debts which they were largely responsible for rolling up, leading to a downgrading of the credit rating of the United States in direct response to the irresponsible acts of the Tea Party and Republican Party.

This week in Wing Nut Land, apologists for the party which wrecked the economy have tried to cherry pick items from Bob Woodward’s new book to rewrite history and place the blame on Obama. There are two major problems with their argument. First, their premise that Obama was responsible for the debt talks breaking down is false. Woodward’s description of events was rather simplistic, but even his account shows Boehner was the one who refused to negotiate in the end. Secondly, even if it was true that this was Obama’s fault, this would still not give any justification whatsoever for threatening to fail to raise the debt ceiling in order to pay debts which the Republicans had already approved.

Of course the most significant lies from the right wing in this election year are those from Mitt Romney. Steve Benen has posted Volume 33 of Mitt’s Mendacity.

SciFi Weekend: Doctor Who; Sherlock; The Newsroom; Downton Abbey; Three Breasted Prostitute; Superman; Harry Potter Ten Years Later

Here’s more Doctor Who news from Comic Com and elsewhere since last week’s report. Above is video of an interview with Steven Moffat and Caroline Skinner. Den of Geek has posted a selection of comments from various interviews with them along with the cast:

On how much of a plot arc there will be in series 7:

Steven Moffat: “There’ll be something going on, yes. Last time we went for a very big arc, this is a much more lightly sketched one this time, but there is something yeah, to reward the one who watches it every week.”

Will the series 7 story arc continue between the two chunks of episodes?

SM: “There’s obviously the story of the Doctor saying goodbye to the Ponds and there’s obviously him saying hello to someone else, but wait and see, wait and see how we do that. I can’t say something else without giving everything away.”

On how Amy and Rory will re-join the show:

SM: “What you’ve seen is them leave the TARDIS. What you’ve seen is a decision, ‘let’s go and get on with our lives’. It’s not that they then move back in as it were, it’s a continued relationship with the Doctor. Something that’s always intrigued me about the Doctor, certainly in the old series you know, someone would leave the TARDIS and he’d never see them again, I mean, who does that? You’d go and visit.”

On Asylum of the Daleks:

SM: “You’ll be seeing more generations of Daleks than you’ve ever seen before”

Matt Smith: “My favourite Dalek is one from, I think it was the Troughton era, the sort of blue and white one. We had to draw in every Dalek that had ever been made around the world so we could fill a room full of Daleks, and it was sort of incredible. I think we’ve made them scary again in a way that perhaps we didn’t achieve in my first season, and that’s really exciting.”

Arthur Darvill: “They’re really, really scary in this one. They’re really, genuinely, brilliantly scary. That is such a great episode.”

Karen Gillan:Asylum of the Daleks is such a great episode. And then we have four more, we have five, epic, movie-style episodes and we’re going to leave in the fifth one.”

On how the new companion changes the show’s dynamic:

SM: “It does, and in some ways having a new companion about is the biggest change, bigger than even changing the Doctor. It’s always about how their life is changed because of that, so yes, it does give a new dynamic, it’s brilliant and brings out a very new side to him, pretty much a different Doctor really.”

MS: “The show remains the show. The Doctors come and go, the companions come and go, that’s the nature of the beast, that is what happens. By its very nature it’s a show that regenerates itself so you’ve got to move with that and you’ve got to go with the times. Of course we will miss Karen and Arthur, they’re great friends of mine, but Jenna’s doing a wonderful job, she’s a wonderful actress, very dedicated and I think Steven’s writing her in a very interesting way, in a very different way to Amy Pond.”

On the thinking behind the Doctor’s new costume:

SM: “Well that is plot-driven, so the reason is… he goes through stuff.”

Caroline Skinner: “It kind of just works, you’ll see next year.”

MS: “Weirdly enough, when I started I always wanted a sort of purple-y coat, but they felt it was too much like the Joker, and I liked it being a bit longer to the leg. It’s still tweed. I always thought that the costume would evolve year after year. I’m absolutely part of those conversations, we have a wonderful costume designer who comes in and does great work, you know, different hats every year, it’s fun to keep it moving.”

On plans for the 50th anniversary episode:

SM: “We know what we’re doing, but we’ll tell you when the time is right. Every time when you sit down in meetings about the next episode of Doctor Who, it’s the same size of challenge, because they’re always different, they’re always huge. So we set ourselves the task of never making an ordinary episode, they all have to be exceptional.”

On the rumoured big-screen Doctor Who movie:

MS: “I don’t know. There’s talk of it. I think David Yates was attached to do something. For my money, whoever is playing the Doctor should be in the movie. I don’t think there should be two Doctors. I think it would take four or five years to get something like that off the ground, and I don’t anticipate that I’ll be playing the Doctor then. […] I think they should get Steven to write it because he’s the best.”

The video above has more from Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill. The two also say the Weeping Angels have become even more scary.

Sci-Fi Storm reports that Moffat might reveal the Doctor’s real name:

At Comic-Con he said of the Doctor, “He never gives his name. Other Time Lords do, but he doesn’t. Clearly the question is tremendously important… And only I know why! We actually find out the truth.” When pressed on whether he really knew the Doctor’s name, he said, “Yes… You’ll see.”

 

Here’s a gadget I can’t wait to buy–a television universal remote in the form of the Sonic Screwdriver.

The cast of Elementary commented on the comparisons to Sherlock.

Aaron Sorkin is replacing most of the writing staff for the second season of The Newsroom.

It was obvious by the end of last season that Emily’s mother would surface on Revenge. The character has been cast–to be played by Jennifer Jason Leigh.

News on Season 3 of Downton Abbey:

THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’ | A rather revealing trailer – which was met with excitement and audible gasps by the assembled press – proved that the Season 2 finale’s respite of happiness will be short-lived. Major financial woes will plague the Earl of Grantham and his family – Maggie Smith’s Countess remarks that an aristocrat with no money is as useful as a glass hammer – while Mary and Matthew are in the midst of wedding planning. But will the big celebration actually take place? The two are already arguing. Elsewhere, a new footman enters the downstairs world and former chauffeur Branson (now the husband of Lady Sybil) elicits some strong reactions at a family dinner. Plus, one of his old cohorts doesn’t want to dress him!

A WHOLE NEW WORLD | “This season is about the recovery from the war,” previewed creator Julian Fellowes. “There were those few years where people were trying to decide [if] the world was going to go back? Is it going to be the same as it was before? Was the future going to be completely different? That’s the theme of the [season].”

CORA THE EXPLORER | One person on the grand estate is more prepared for the changing world coming in Season 3 than any other. The introduction of Cora’s mother, Martha (played by Shirley MacLaine), “reminds us that Cora’s upbringing was not the same as Robert’s,” explained Fellowes. “Cora is less afraid of the future than Robert is. She’s much less afraid of change. She’s less afraid of expressing that. … If anyone understands the world that’s coming, it’s Cora.”

GREAT DAMES | MacLaine admitted that she was not a fan of the show before she was cast. But she overhead the hairdressers at her Malibu salon chatting away about it and went to them for scoop on Martha. Joining the series “was an extraordinary experience for me in stamina and work ethic,” she said, recalling long shoots in the rain and wind while wearing her formal attire. As for whether she and Dame Maggie Smith – whose characters went head-to-head with pointed barbs in the sneak peek – knew each other before the show, the actress joked, “We were lovers in another life.”

WELCOME TO AMERICA | Now that Mary’s decided to brave it out in England, the show will not be traveling across the pond. Instead, “we have chosen the other route and brought America to us [with MacLaine’s character],” said Fellowes.

SEE YOU NEXT DECADE? | Don’t look for Downton to jump to the 1930s anytime soon. Fellowes intends to continue “moving pretty slowly through the 1920s” because he finds the transitional period “very interesting.” For one, it allows him to explore major events of the time such as “the impact on this family [by] the Irish problems.” So where will it all wrap up? “We could end with the Wall Street crash and have Robert playing the ukelele,” joked the creator.

The three-breasted hooker from Total Recall remains in the remake, and she was seen at Comic Com, played by Kaitlyn Leeb.

Two Man of Steel trailers can be seen here.

Wonder what happened after the events of the Harry Potter books and not satisfied with the epilogue? Check out the first installment of the web series, Harry Potter And The Ten Years Later.

SciFi Weekend: Doctor Who News; Fringe; Emilie de Ravin; Spider-Man; Star Trek; Game of Thrones; The Newsroom; Rory Gilmore; Cards and Cake

Caroline John, who played Liz Shaw, died at age 71 last week. Liz Shaw was a companion to the third Doctor, played by Jon Pertwee during the seventh season of Doctor Who in 1970. Here are some clips from her first appearance when she was recruited by U.N.I.T.

Additional clips can be found here.

Did Matt Smith give away a hint as to Amy Pond’s fate:

There’s something coming up in the final days of the Ponds that was in The Eleventh Hour,” he said. “There’s a shot in that. [Moffat’s] been thinking about it that long. He always knew how she was going to… I’m saying too much already.”

Entertainment Weekly interviewed John Noble about Fringe:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Let’s talk about some of your favorites.
JOHN NOBLE: I had some favorites. I loved the “Letters of Transit” episode, which was the one where we went into the future. I thought that was really a beautiful looking episode, beautifully told. I very much liked “Return to Westfield” because it was the first time that really the old team had got back together again — Walter and Olivia (Anna Torv) and Peter (Joshua Jackson). It was a very interesting story for all sorts of reasons. Those two stand out.

Episode 20, where the two worlds were bridged was also a fan favorite.
I loved the final conversation between Walter and Walternate where they’re in the corridor together. I waited a long time to see how that would be handled, and I thought the writers really handled it beautifully and eloquently. I loved doing that scene.

Tell me what it was like filming that.
I think I was so ready for it. For me, I realized there needed to be a payoff between the fellows. And I’ve always seen them as two shades of the one man. You know, he’s the same man, but circumstances took him in a different direction. So it was like a personal reconciliation for Walter, Walternate. I was really touched by the way they were able to be so kind to each other. I found that encouraging, and it was the way that I would have wanted it to happen. There had been plenty of abuse flying around, previously. But it was just like a human being finally coming to some sort of resting point in their life and saying, “OK, let’s stop fighting.Let’s just agree on what we can agree on.” So, on a much larger scale, I thought it was beautiful. The whole sequence was beautiful. Looking back on it now, it was really sad that separation of the two worlds. No one kind of expected it to be because I have to tell you, they’re brutal to film, those doppleganger sequences. They are really demanding, and they take forever and ever and ever and ever. But I loved that scene.

Was it hard for you to say goodbye to that character?
I always had a soft spot for Walternate. I always figured that if my world was in trouble — I mean, really in trouble — he’d be the one I’d want to be in charge. And obviously he was painted as the baddie, initially. But I never personally took it that way. I took it as a man with a job to do and a huge burden and very good reason to be incredibly angry and vengeful should he choose to go that way. But he never did take that these actions; he just wanted to save his world. And then I got the chance — I think it was maybe last season– to humanize him a bit.
Look, Walter…Walternate, I don’t really think he’s gone. I think he’s just one suit away — just put another $2000 dollar suit…

Well, let’s keep you away from suits, then — for the good of the universe.
[Laughs]

Peter and Walter had an amazing scene in the finale, right after he shot Olivia and he was working to save her. Did you actually slap Josh?
There is a little story to that. When we were doing it, it was very complicated. What Josh had realized was that his girl was lying there dead — hurt — and then [Walter] had just come trying to reason with him. There was just no way he would have done anything except strangle Walter really. So I said to [Josh], “We need [him] to snap on this one.” And we’d never done it; there’d never been any physical contact between the men. So I said, “How about if I slap you?” And he said, “Yes, that’s what it needs.” So we put that in. And it did; it was very powerful. When a person’s in distress, sometimes they slap them. So we put that in, and it was terrific. It was effective. And it was dramatically right for what we needed to do.

It appeared from the season finale of Once Upon A Time that it only made sense for Emilie de Ravin’s version of Belle to reappear frequently next season. Her pilot for ABC, Americana, didn’t get picked up, leaving the former Lost actress free to become a regular on Once Upon A Time.

The Amazing Spider-Man will be out soon. Links to early reviews can be found here. Emma Stone discussed how scary the Lizard was.

While Star Trek‘s greatness really came from the television series, it lives on in the movies. Geek Tyrant notes that with the release of the movie currently in production, Star Trek will tie (with the Friday the 13th movies) for second in number of movies made.  Both series will have twelve movies but they have a long way to go to catch up with James Bond who is going on twenty-four. As I pointed out several weeks ago, Bond director Sam Mendes has compared the James Bond franchise to Doctor Who.

What if there were SuperPAC ads in Kings Landing like those we have here? See one example above, and more here.

The Newsroom premiers tonight and most of the ads are negative. It doesn’t matter to me. If it is written by Aaron Sorkin I’ll watch every episode and enjoy them, just like Studio 60. (I probably agree with every criticism of Studio 60 out there, but still enjoyed the show.)

Seeing Rory Gilmore lower herself to having an affair with Pete Campbell on Mad Men before undergoing the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind treatment makes me nostalgic for Rory before she became corrupted. This is how Rory should be remembered: The Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge. And how did Amy Sherman-Palladino manage to get a young clone of Rory for Bunheads?

I don’t think that the flaws in the science will affect whether audiences enjoy the recently released movie, Seeking a Friend For the End of the World.

Last week was Father’s Day. Here’s a couple of kids out shopping for a card for their famous but evil father.

Or if you are in need for a birthday cake, this recipe can be found here. Extermi-cake?

SciFi Weekend: Doctor Who; Star Trek; Bush’s Decapitated Head (Game of Thrones); Sane Republicans Only Found In Science Fiction; Mad Men Finale

Steven Moffat give some hints (or perhaps misleads) about Jenna-Louise Coleman’s role as the new companion on Doctor Who during a recent radio interview:

The new companion will, again, be a human from contemporary earth. This is necessary for audience identification and a ‘jumping on’ point for new viewers

How the companion gets where she is and what that means for the character is what will make her utterly different and fascinating

The new companion will not have any links to any previous characters

Her ‘journey’ will be shocking and intriguing. The Doctor has never met anyone quite like her before

Her very presence in the TARDIS will change the Doctor and there’s something different about her that will have a knock-on effect for the Doctor/companion dynamic

Or how about Jean-Luc Picard as a companion? Above is from the comic miniseries  Star Trek: The Next Generation and Doctor Who: Assimilation².

The two greatest science-fiction properties of all time cross over for the first time in history, in STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION/DOCTOR WHO: ASSIMILATION²! Captain Jean-Luc Picard faces one of the most difficult decisions of his life, but the fate of the galaxy may depend on it! Can the Doctor convince him to make the correct choice?

Another example of cover art from the miniseries can be seen here.

There was controversy this week when it was revealed on the DVD extras that one of the heads used on Game of Thrones during the first season was that of George Bush. It sounds like it was just a matter of using  materials which were handy and nobody would have noticed if this was not mentioned during the commentary. From the DVD commentary:

“The last head on the left is George Bush. George Bush’s head appears in a couple of beheading scenes. It’s not a choice, it’s not a political statement. We just had to use whatever head we had around.”

The full scene is above.

This was an interesting bit of trivia about the show which apparently nobody noticed when it aired,  but once revealed HBO really had no choice but to have this edited out. In a nation split near 50:50 it is understandable that a media company would not want to alienate a large percentage of the country in such a manner. The season finale was taken down and DVD sales stopped to allow for digital removal of Bush’s head–which would create a problem for those desiring to watch the first season. I just checked HBO GO and found that the episode is back up. The scene with Bush’s head is unchanged except that there is now hair digitally inserted over much of the face making it unrecognizable.

One of the biggest puzzles about the first season of Once Upon A Time is why they didn’t use Meghan Ory more often. The producers apparently agreed and are making her a regular for the second season, along with adding new characters.

The two top writers of rapid-paced dialogue are back on the air this summer–Aaron Sorkin with The Newsroom and Amy Sherman-Paladino with Bunheads. Sorkin discussed his work in an interview here–but I would give higher grades to Sorkin’s previous shows than he gives himself. Another interview with Sorkin  touches on science fiction as well as politics:

In one episode of Newsroom, we hear Will say, “I’m a registered Republican—I only seem liberal because I believe that hurricanes are caused by high ­barometric pressure and not by gay marriage.” So—

Your question is “Are hurricanes caused by high barometric pressure or low barometric pressure?” The answer is both. Hurricanes are caused when a high-pressure system surrounds a low-pressure system. That wasn’t your question, though. Your question is, why is Will a Republican?

No. My question is, if he really is a ­Republican with moderate-to-liberal beliefs, when did you become interested in science fiction?

You’ve answered the question I thought you were asking, which is, why is he a Republican? There are several reasons, but the biggest is: I haven’t seen this guy on TV.

Or anywhere, lately.

For the last year or so, but really since Obama got elected, I’ve found the most interesting op-ed political writing to be from Republicans who are looking at the extreme right and saying, “Those guys aren’t with us. I don’t know what happened here, but they’ve kind of co-opted our brand name. But these aren’t Republican values.” Guys like David Frum, Mark McKinnon, Andrew Sullivan. Even George Will. I hadn’t seen that guy on television. There’s CNN, which tries very, very hard either to not be anything or to be both things. And then, of course, there’s Fox and there’s MSNBC, on either side.

Amy Sherman-Paladino’s new show Bunheads premiered last week, with many similarities to Gilmore Girls. Inevitably interviews about the new show led to questions about Gilmore Girls, including the mysterious four words which she had intended to conclude the series with:

You always said you knew the four words that were going to end the last Gilmore Girls episode, and you obviously never got to have them said. Any chance you’d share them now?
To me, because I didn’t have control of that last year and [whispers] I still haven’t seen the last year … Here’s the deal. All the people who ran the last year, David Rosenthal, I hired him, he’s good people, he’s a good writer, I really like him. I don’t think he thought Dan and I were going to leave. We didn’t think we were going to leave. Everyone was caught unaware. It was literally a situation of bad negotiating. Our interests were in staying and keeping the show going. Once the CW bought it, we called Warner Bros. and said the CW is going to need this show to launch new product for the next couple of years. You don’t want the show to go down this year. We instigated that. When the negotiations got so crazy we thought, Maybe we’re high? Maybe they don’t want it for the next couple of years. But by not having control of that, it shifts the focus of what my last words would have been. I was also holding on to it for a long time because I was thinking if we did do a movie, I would be able to use it there. I don’t think that’s ever going to happen so, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll eventually say the four words. I feel like now I’ll let people down because it’s been so built up. “Really? That’s what we waited all these twelve years for? Well, thanks so much.”

Maybe the four final words were, “Rory, you were adopted.”  Doubtful, but amusing speculation.

Alexis Bledel’s appearance on Mad Men this season also came up:

I’m sure you know a very grown-up Alexis Bledel was on Mad Men a few weeks ago.
We have a place in Brooklyn and she lives right around the corner from us. I have to say she is taking a very thoughtful, interesting approach to her career post-Gilmore. She’s being very particular. I think it’s very smart. She’s not rushing. I applaud it. She did have her shirt open, however, and her boobs hanging out. I was behind. I’m behind on everything that’s not Game of Thrones. And then I read some headline that said, “Most Boring Mad Men Ever Except for Rory Gilmore Getting Naked!” I thought, Holy shit, is she naked? She wasn’t. She had a fur and some underwear. When you’re young and your boobs look like that? Why not?

Speaking of Mad Men, I noticed that critics were generally dissatisfied with the season finale last week. I disagree. Certainly there was more drama in the previous episode in which Lane committed suicide, but the finale did an excellent job of tying up some loose ends and presumably setting the stage for next season. They might have saved the suicide for the finale, but handling it this way allowed viewers to see the aftermath of the act.

The finale included Pete Campbell getting punched, not once but twice, making this twice as good as the previous episode in which this occurred. Pete seemed to becoming too successful at SCDP, but we learned of his dissatisfaction with his life during his visit to the hospital. Perhaps he was demonstrating even more self-understanding when he told the conductor, “I’m president of the Howdy Doody Circus Army.” There was an Eternal Sunshine Of Spotless Mind conclusion to the Rory Gilmore storyline. We saw that SCDP has become a successful firm, suggesting an end to the new company struggling to survive story lines which can become tedious. Most importantly, we may have seen the beginning of the end of Don and Megan. The episode contained clues, such as Don telling Peggy, “That’s what happens when you help someone. They succeed and move on.”  Don warned Megan against taking  help from him, telling her she would be better off being “someone’s discovery than someone’s wife.” Don might now believe that Megan will move on as Peggy did. Now that Don has helped Megan get the role in the ad, she has become too much like Betty when they met, and might ultimately suffer the same fate.  The episode ended with what might be the old Don Draper going into the bar to order a highball. We don’t know how he answered the question, “are you alone” but things will never be the same between Don and Megan.

The Avengers ended with the heroes going out to a shawarma restaurant after saving New York. When watching this scene (at the end of the credits) did you wonder where Loki was? The answer is above.

SciFi Weekend: Season Finales and Reboots; Dan Harmon Fired From Community; Moffat Wins Special Bafta; Doctor Who Wins Nebula Award; Karen Gillan At Cannes; Farewell to Kristen Wiig

J.J. Abrams has been highly successful in keeping shows interesting by rebooting them over time so that each season isn’t a rehash of the exact same format as previous seasons, and viewers cannot assume that fundamental changes cannot occur. This worked with Lost and Alias in the past. It worked a little less well on Fringe, with the fourth season failing to maintain the quality of the second and third seasons (with the show still worth watching). If Alcatraz survived, it was clear from the finale that it would also have been a different show. I had concerns as to whether Once Upon A Time could be successful over multiple seasons if left with a situation where Emma must always fail to break the spell. As was rumored before airing, Once Upon A Time had a major reboot, with Emma breaking the spell, followed by Rumpelstiltskin bringing back magic. The highlight of the week was the appearance of Amy Acker on Person of Interest, also shaking up this show.

Amy Acker’s character, who turned out to be the hacker Root, surprised Finch and Reese, and from reviews it appears also fooled most viewers. While this was the second time that the person they were protecting turned out to be far different from what the person seemed, the set up was done so well that we were fooled again. The series began with a simple format of the machine giving Social Security numbers. A simpler show would have continued the format, failing to raise the underlying questions of what it would mean to have such a powerful computer. The episode ended with Finch in danger and a phone call to Reese which just might be the machine, making it likely that the machine will be more significant next season. I hope that Amy Acker’s character also becomes a recurring character next season. Seeing how this show has evolved, it would most likely be as a protagonist to Reese and Finch, but not being sure of Root’s agenda, she could also turn into an ally over time.

Awake is in the midst of a two-part series finale so I will wait until it is completed before saying much about the show, but what is the deal with Britten visiting Britten in the preview? I do hope they end this series with a satisfying explanation as to what has been happening with the two realities.

If seeing Amy Acker on Person of Interest was the network television highlight of the week, the low point was the firing of Dan Harmon as show runner of Community. Producing a season of Community without Dan Harmon as show runner is like doing West Wing without Aaron Sorkin or Gilmore Girls without Amy Sherman-Paladino. Neither show was as good as when their creators ran the show, but in this case the consequences will be far worse. Those who took over West Wing and Gilmore Girls still attempted to do a similar show without breaking from the past. In this case I fear that the goal is to make Community a more traditional sit-com about a group of people going to school together. The show has an excellent cast and might still be an above-average sit-com, but it will not be the same without Harmon’s variations from the normal sit-com formula.

As is usually done in such situations. Harmon was given a title, but it is doubtful he will have any further influence on the show. He explained how he learned about being fired after getting off a plane and turning on his phone, without any previous discussion with Sony.

Apparently great show runners are treated better  Great Britain than here. Steven Moffat is to receive as special Bafta award for “outstanding creative writing contribution to television.” One of Moffat’s current shows, Sherlock, is now running in the United States while Doctor Who recently filmed the final scene with Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill. Gillan is seen in the picture above taken at Cannes, and will soon start filming Not Another Happy Ending, a movie about an eccentric author with writer’s block. She did manage to steal something before leaving the TARDIS for the last time.

An episode of Doctor Who, The Doctor’s Wife, was awarded the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation at the Nebula Awards. That was quite a major accomplishment, beating Midnight in Paris, Hugo, Captain America, Source Code, and The Adjustment Bureau for the award.  Among Others by, Jo Walton won the Award for Best Novel.

Someone is demonstrating for time travel in the real world, but is being patient about it.

Besides the recent finales in genre shows. Saturday Night Live concluded its season last night, with quite a farewell to Kristen Wiig–video above.

SciFi Weekend: The Romantic Triangle of Fringe; Cobie Smulders of SHIELD; Nolan and Sorkin Win Awards; V To End on Cliffhanger; And Daleks

On Fringe, Olivia expressed the belief that she had difficulty competing with Fauxlivia due to being less fun after having been experimented upon as a child. While Fauxlivia definitely is the hotter of Anna Torv’s characters, Olivia needs to understand that the real problem is that she has been pushing Peter away. I had even been rooting at times for Peter to get back with Fauxlivia, until we learned in this week’s episode that possibly only one universe will survive and it will be the one with the version of Oliva which Peter chooses. Actually I suspect the show will end up with both universes surviving, but it now does sound far too risky to root for Fauxlivia, regardless of how much hotter she is than Olivia.

A major component of the episode involved an excuse to bring in someone who could read minds so that they could read Peter’s thoughts. This led to the scene in the picture above where Olivia read that Peter still had feelings for Fauxlivia. The mind reader might have been more helpful if he also pointed out that Peter clearly also has feelings for Olivia.

Strange that Fringe, which is probably the top American science fiction show now on the air, has essentially turned into a gigantic love triangle.

In an interview with Jimmy Fallon,  Samuel L. Jackson revealed that there would be a female side kick for Nick Fury in the upcoming Joss Whedon Avengers movie. The latest rumor is that Cobie Smulders of How I Met Your Mother is the front runner for the role of SHIELD Agent Maria Hill.

Olivia Wilde is rumored to be in consideration to play Lois Lane in the Superman reboot.

Christopher Nolan and Aaron Sorkin won major awards last night at the Writers Guild Awards. Christopher Nolan won for best original screenplay with Inception and Aaron Sorkin won for best adapted screenplay with The Social Network.

Sorkin is currently working on a pilot for HBO which goes behind the scenes of a cable news show. Sorkin has shown interest in this type of show in Sports Night and Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. Going to a cable news show would allow him to include the type of politically-oriented stories he wrote for The West Wing which didn’t work as well when mixed into Studio 60.

Although it is far from certain that V will return next season, the season will reportedly end on a cliffhanger. This could turn out to be like the original series, which ended on a cliffhanger. By that time the series had gotten so bad that nobody really cared. The Cape also appears in trouble of not coming back, being reduced to only ten episodes. The return of The Event is being postponed until after The Cape concludes its brief run.

Community had another great genre-oriented episode involving a game of Dungeons and Dragons. The episode even included a shot with a picture of a Dalek on the table.

Ironically, this occurred the same week on which Jim Parsons, whose show The Big Bang Theory is on opposite Community, admitted in an interview with Craig Ferguson that he doesn’t watch Doctor Who (video above).

Last week I had a video of kids and Daleks. It appears that Steven Moffat is looking into this trend.

Here’s a must buy item. The Doctor Who Site reports that this Tardis mug is available for pre-order. For unexplained reasons it is available in the United States and Australia but not the U.K.

SciFi Weekend: Amy’s Kiss, Torchwood, Hope For FlashForward To Return, Dollhouse, Caprica, and The Promethius Awards

The season is over on Doctor Who but that doesn’t mean we won’t see more of what happened to the Doctor and Amy over the past year. The season five boxed set, which will be released on November 8 in the UK and November 9 in North America, will contain a feature showing some scenes which took place between episodes. This includes why Amy was floating in Space above Starship UK and what happened after Amy kissed the Doctor (video above).

The Los Angeles Times has a story on Neil Gaiman writing a story for Doctor Who next season along with blogging.

Torchwood in the USA

Torchwood will be very dark when it returns, like last year’s Children of Earth miniseries. The upcoming ten-episode  miniseries, being  jointly produced by the BBC and Starz, will have Jack and Gwen return along with adding some additional American characters.

Starz might do more to continue genre shows than co-producing Torchwood. They have expressed some interest in reviving FlashForward. The show showed tremendous potential but sagged creatively in the middle of the season, losing much of their audience. The series ended on ABC with an episode which was clearly intended as a season-ending cliff hanger and which did not work as a series finale.

Dollhouse Comic Epitaph

At least Dollhouse managed to wrap up their brief run with Epitaph Two which showed what happened after the events of Epitaph One. A comic is also being planned to fill in the gaps which never made it to television. It will be distributed with the DVD and Blu-Ray sets of Season Two which will be released in October.

The second half of Caprica has been postponed until January. There’s no official word on whether there will be a true second season, but many involved with the show do sound optimistic in recent interviews.

The Libertarians Futurist Society has announced their annual Promethius Awards. The Unincorporated Man by Dani and Eytan Kollin won as best novel.

Aaron Sorkin To Produce Movie On John Edwards-Rielle Hunter Scandal

Aaron Sorkin, one of my favorite television and movie writers, will be producing and directing The Politician, a movie on Andrew Young’s book on the downfall of John Edwards. I certainly intend to watch this, and from a box office perspective the story of the affair between Edwards and Rielle Hunter certainly makes a lot of sense. Still, as there are so few writers with Sorkin’s ability, I would prefer to see him take on a different target.

There is really no benefit in anything further to take down John Edwards. His career is over. I’m not being merciful because of any sympathy for Edwards. If anyone cares to dig through the blog archives you will see that I was writing about how dishonest, slimy, and superficial Edwards was well before the Rielle Hunter scandal. It’s just I find Sorkin’s work to be the most beneficial when he is taking on targets which still matter, such as the religious right. He did a great job of this in The West Wing, and even had some great moments in Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. But yes, this upcoming movie is far more likely to be a success than Studio 60 was.

Aaron Sorkin Returning to Television

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TV Guide reports that Aaron Sorkin (Sports Night, The West Wing, Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip) will be returning to television:

Sorkin tells TVGuideMagazine.comthat – like his previous series Sports Night (set around an ESPN-style sports news show) and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (set around a Saturday Night Live-esque sketch comedy show) – his next effort will take place backstage on yet another TV series.

“I’m going to be starting on a new TV series” when filming is done on the upcoming movie “The Social Network,” the Sorkin-penned account of the founding of Facebook directed by David Fincher, he says. “It’s going to be what turns out to be the third in the trilogy of TV shows that take place behind the scenes of a TV show, but this will be a different kind of TV show. That’s all I can let out of the bag right now.”

Sorkin said he “hopes” to reunite on the project with at least some of the actors he’s worked with previously. “If you’re a writer, when you’re find an actor like Josh Malina, Felicity Huffman, Brad Whitford, Matt Perry, Allison Janney, Richard Schiff, all these great actors that I’ve worked with, you just want to stick them in your pocket and work with them forever, so I hope so.” He also expects to be working with director and longtime collaborator Tommy Schlamme “for sure.”

I hope that whatever type of TV show it is set in lends itself to considering political issues.  Watching Studio 60 I often felt that Sorkin would have preferred writing The West Wing.

Amy Sherman-Palladino To Do Show For HBO

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According to The Hollywood Reporter, Amy-Sherman Palladino creator of Gilmore Girls, will be doing a show for HBO. Like her previous show, it will deal with mother-daughter relations:

Sherman-Palladino will write and executive produce the untitled drama, which chronicles the complicated relationship between three adult sisters, all writers sharing the same upper east side apartment building, and their mother, a domineering literary lioness who reserves most of her affections for their ne’er-do-well brother.

“It’s a story of love, hate, family — and finding the perfect opening line,” Sherman-Palladino said.

I’m glad she is concentrating on opening lines. She reportedly had the final four words to Gilmore Girls in mind for years, and then never had the opportunity to use her closing lines as she left the series in its final season.

While her last series, The Return of Jezebel James, was a flop, I’m hoping that cable allows her to match and possibly surpass her work on Gilmore Girls. The show featured rapid fire dialogue similar to that of Aaron Sorkin with frequent pop culture references. While Palladino’s work was not as overtly political as that of Sorkin, she did throw in political comment from time to time. I previously posted some examples here.

I noted a few days ago that Gilmore Girls star Lauren Graham will be returning to network television this winter in Parenthood, in which she will once again play a single mother. Alexis Bledel appeared in the final episode of E.R. last season and has had several movie roles.