SciFi Weekend: Hannibal; San Diego Comic Con Highlights Including Doctor Who, Arrow, The Flash, SHIELD, Muppets, Star Wars, Orphan Black, Heroes Reborn, Superman v Batman, & More

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This week’s episode of Hannibal, Digestivo, involved a lesbian relationship between Margot and Alana, a pig-baby, and an escape from Muskrat Farms.  We learned that Mason’s plan was to cut Will’s face off, place it onto his face, which had been destroyed, and then eat Hannibal piece by piece with Will’s face. His butcher/surgeon, Cordero, is at least as sadistic as Mason, and planned to both cut off Will’s face without anesthetic (but paralyzed) and keep Hannibal alive while he is eaten piece by piece.  Mason’s best line of the episode, discussing another cannibalistic murder was, “you go to all that trouble to eat a friend, and you overcook his penis.” In telling this story, Mason did promise not to overcook Hannibal’s penis.

Alana and Margot, who became lovers, had major roles in this episode. Alana knew that Mason’s sadism would work to her advantage: “He’ll torture them and take the time to enjoy it: That gives us time.” Alana even warned Mason as to how this would all turn out: “Play with your food, Mason, and you give it the opportunity to bite back.”Alana and Margot set Hannibal free, while Chiyoh was nearby to shoot anyone pursuing them. Finally Chiyoh’s presence in the earlier episodes this season had a reason. Instead of getting Will’s face, Mason saw himself with Codero’s face lying on his own before he was killed in his eel tank. Hannibal gave up on his earlier desire to eat Will, possibly because of how intrigued  he was when Will took a bite out of Cordero’s face. Regardless of motivation, Hannibal kept a to promise he made to Alana to take Will to safety, but was shocked when Will realized he was all through with Hannibal–so shocked that Hannibal surrendered.

Now there is going to be a three-year time jump, and on to the events of Red Dragon.

Caroline Dhavernas and Katharine Isabelle discussed their characters’ romance in the episode post-mortem video above.

Bryan Fuller discussed the episode with TV Guide, answering the big question I had as to why Hannibal surrendered, and discussed future plans:

This episode felt like a finale, and particularly brought back many of the emotions I had watching the Season 2 finale.
Bryan Fuller:
This was the breakup that we had been driving toward. One of the benefits of having two distinct chapters in the season is you get two distinct climaxes. This one had to serve as a stopping place for the story before it can be launched again next week three years later. So, this is the breakup, and when we pick up in the second half of the season, it’s that awkward moment when you have to see your ex again.

Will’s motivation has always been hard to read. Should we believe him when he says he wants Hannibal out of his life?
Fuller:
We come back to that moment in the final episode of the season and break it down between those two characters, and they address it themselves. Will is telling Hannibal, “I don’t need you anymore, I don’t want you anymore, I release you.” And Hannibal is saying, “No you don’t. You’re telling yourself that. You don’t want to know or think about where I am? I am going to give you the knowledge of exactly where I am and let that eat away at you for as long as it takes you to come back into my orbit, and I am patient enough to wait.”

Does Hannibal surrender to Jack out of spite towards Will or is he once again heartbroken? Does he no longer feel like playing this game without Will as a willing participant?
Fuller:
Will realizes that he can’t win and Hannibal can’t win. So, the only option for him at that moment is to stop playing. That, for Hannibal, is a huge rejection. It’s an even stranger rejection than the betrayal of Season 2 because Will has gone into Hannibal’s past and understands him better than ever. Will has realized that this is not an evil man, this is just a monster doing what he has always been designed to do essentially. So, he can’t give him any more energy. For Will, a magic door presented itself that he could step through and leave Hannibal and all of this behind him. But what Hannibal knows is going to come around again on the cannibal carousel is that that Will can’t live without him…

As Will predicted/suggested, Alana played an active role in Mason’s demise. What kind of impact will that have on her moving forward?
Fuller:
Once Alana made the devil’s bargain with Mason, it felt fated that she would play a role in bringing Mason down. In her mind, she always knew that she was going to stab him in the back one way or another. She put up with his ugliness inside and out for the purposes of capturing Hannibal, but she always intended to bring in the cavalry at the last moment. … We continue Alana’s shift into a less naïve, more hardened spirit in the Red Dragon arc. We see who she’s become three years later as a result of this pact and her relationship with Margot and this cabal against Mason. There’s a lot of bargains that were struck between various characters that, even though we’re picking up three years later, we still feel them resonating in the next arc of episodes.

And, of course, Hannibal reminded Alana that he always keeps his promises….
Fuller:
Yes, and that’s something we carry through into the Red Dragon arc. Alana is fully aware that if Hannibal gets away in any way, shape or form, he is absolutely intending to kill her.

Is this the last we’ll see of Chiyoh this season?
Fuller:
Yes. She told Hannibal that she was going to be his keeper. She was always going to be that angel in the bushes with the rifle making sure that no one further was killed by him. That’s the penance she’s willing to pay for 20 years of keeping a prisoner out of the interest of not taking a life. In essence, she’s saying to Hannibal, “I’m not going to cage you, but I’m going to serve as your jailer.” But as she’s watching the takedown of Hannibal, she realizes her job is done and she’s free, for the first time in her life, to go off and pursue her own life.

You mentioned that the next episode jumps ahead in time three years. How big of a reset should we expect?
Fuller:
It feels huge. We’ve leapt forward in all these people’s lives. Everyone is stained in their own way from the experiences of the first two and a half seasons, and yet everyone has a sobriety and they go into this new chapter with eyes open. But even so, they’re in for some horrible, horrible surprises.

Will it feel different tonally than the first half of the season?
Fuller:
It’s a slightly more grounded narrative than what we experienced in the first part of the season. So much of the first arc was all about the grieving process and also the trauma of what these people had experienced. I didn’t want to skip over what these characters were feeling, and that’s why so much of the first part of the season was contemplative and brooding and surreal. Everyone was in shock.

Red Dragonhas already been adapted into two different movies. How do you think your version will be different?
Fuller:
The version of Red Dragon that we are telling is very faithful to the literature with the exception of the relationship we’ve been building over the last two and a half seasons. Will and Hannibal’s relationship in the previous adaptations was nowhere near as wet and dark and sticky as what we’ve come to learn of the dynamic between the men in this version of the telling. So, to have Will and Hannibal truly possess a history together that informs their approach to the Red Dragon didn’t necessarily feel like an opportunity to change the story, but to provide many more layers of the tiramisu for the audience to enjoy.

(more…)

SciFi Weekend: Orphan Black; Outlander; Roy Leaving Arrow; Oliva Munn, Super Hero; Gotham; Veep; Daredevil; The Americans; Sopranos Ending Explained; Jon Stewart On Why He Is Leaving The Daily Show

Orphan Black Helena Dream The Weight Of The Combination

Orphan Black returned on Saturday, beginning with a fun scene for the fans. It was another scene with Tatiana Maslany playing multiple seestas at once in Helena’s dream of perfect baby shower, reminiscent of  the clone dance party scene last season. The theme for the season is girl clones vs. boy clones, which sort of sounds like a season of Survivor. So far I have far less interest in the male clones. They didn’t get the chance to be introduced gradually as the girl clones were and, as most were raised in the military, there also probably is not as much difference these clones. One does have a mustache and one does have a scar to help tell them apart.

The conspiracy aspect continues to grow as once we learn about one group another turns out to be above them. Now we are dealing with Topside, who sent a “cleaner” named Ferdinand, who was secretly plotting with Rachel in a plan called Helsinki to kill all the female Project Leda clones.  After finding out about this I didn’t feel sorry at all for Rachel, who wasn’t recovering very well after Sarah poked a pencil through her eye and into her brain. She was also at the Mercy of Delphine, who is the new Rachel at Dyad, and can also be rather evil when necessary. Ferdinand’s arrival set up scenes where Sarah pretended to be Rachel, requiring Alison to pretend to be Sarah.

The New York Times Magazine looked at the filming of Orphan Black recently.

Outlander Devils Mark

The Devil’s Mark had major revelations on Outlander. Geillis revealed that she is a time traveler and this was the third show recently (besides The Americans and Game of Thrones) where someone apparently died by burning to death, although her death was not actually shown. I fear that this is an exception to the television rule that if you don’t see the body the character most likely didn’t really die, but maybe we will see her again. Hopefully Geillis’s confession won’t come back to harm Claire, and any other time travelers who might show up from the 20th century, after she claimed that her smallpox vaccine is the Devil’s mark.

Claire was saved by a combination of Jaime showing up and Gellis claiming to be true witch, followed by her telling Jaime. Surprisingly Jaime accepted it all, and even took her to the stones to make the decision as to which husband to be with. It appears she chose Jaime, although I imagine it is possible she tried to return home and failed. The possibility didn’t seem to come up that if she did travel in time again by touching the stones, there was no guarantee she would return to her original time. (It would have really been awesome if she turned up in the splinter facility on 12 Monkeys.)

Arrow Broken Arrow

On Arrow we learned that Roy’s sacrifice to save Oliver was part of a plan which left everyone alive and out of prison, but left with Roy needing to leave town to keep anyone else from realizing he is still alive.  While this leaves Oliver free, I still wonder how they are going to get the Arrow back openly in action. The moment the Arrow is spotted Detective Lance has new justification for following up on his knowledge that Oliver is really the Arrow.

Deadline spoke with  co-creators/executive producers Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim on Colton Haynes leaving the show as a regular (but will already be returning for an episode later this season).

DEADLINE: When did you know that Colton Haynes was leaving after Season 3?
BERLANTI: When we made the deal. We made a two-season deal that had a clock on it, we always knew that. When he was coming off Teen Wolf, we described the role to him, and we agreed to do it for a couple of years. At that particular moment, he had a lot of opportunities to do things, and we’re lucky he chose us. He brought a lot of notoriety and viewership to Arrow when we were growing, and the show wouldn’t be the show it is without him. He is such a talent and such a nice guy, everybody from the crew to the writers were so enthusiastic to have him for the time we had him. We are sad to see him go but excited to see what he does next.

DEADLINE: How and when did Roy’s Season 3 storyline came about?
BERLANTI: We knew based on what had happened last season. Roy has struggled with guilt after killing a policeman. In saving Oliver, he sees a chance to absolve himself. Hopefully it was surprising for the audience as some thought for a moment that he might die.
GUGGENHEIM: We were able to deign his arc for the season with the end point in mind. We always knew he would take a heroic stance and redeem himself for his actions. It’s always a blessing when you know where exactly you are going to end up.

DEADLINE: Did you consider killing off Roy?
BERLANTI: We wanted to do something different. These characters are so young, they represent the next generation of superheroes, and we love the idea of having them just out there. And as a person we like Colton so much, we all would love to see him back. Such a talented, great guy.
GUGGENHEIM: The hope is that he’ll continue to be part of the universe we are building. We love working with his so much. We’ve talked to him about returning to one of the three shows, and if available, he has expressed interest. He is gone but definitely not forever.

DEADLINE: What will the impact of Roy’s departure be on Team Arrow?
BERLANTI: It’s always affecting the show when one character is moving on to the great beyond. That allows the show to grow and change, with the state of loss providing high stakes. The end of this season is very much a punctuation mark on the first three seasons. Third season will feel like the end of a trilogy, with elements and pieces coming together. We are heading into a big, epic, climactic battle, and I’m not not going to give away who is going to make it. Everything will be changed after this season.
GUGGENHEIM: The third season finale is among our best episodes, with each twist more shocking and surprising than the next.

Olivia Munn Suck It Wonder Woman

Geek Olivia Munn finally gets to become a super hero character. She will play Psylocke in X-Men: Apocalypse

Jada Pinkett Smith’s charter, Fish Mooney, was a good addition to the Batman back story on Gotham, but they don’t seem to know what to do with her since Oswald Cobblepot got control of her nightclub. I am glad that they seem to have ended her recent storyline on the island, which seems pointless as it was totally unconnected to anything else going on. It doesn’t help matters that she escaped so easily (once setting up a distraction) thanks to a helicopter being unguarded and ready to go. Jada Pinkett Smith has said she will be leaving the show after her contract runs out this season but the producers have hinted that they might find reason to keep her around. It better be a better story line if they do.

HBO has renewed Veep and Silicon Valley just after their current seasons began and Netflix has renewed Orange Is The New Black for a fourth season before the third season has become available. Selina Meyer in now President on Veep and Hugh Laurie will be guest staring later this season. The Hollywood Reporter has interviewed Veep series creator Armando Iannucci about the current season.

There were complaints previously that blind people could not appreciate Daredevil, a show with a blind hero, because Netflix did not use audio description as some networks do. Netflix has  remedied the problem to make the show more accessible to the visually impaired.

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The penultimate episode of The Americans, I Am Abassin Zadran, may have concluded one story line but leaves many story lines open. The producers have said they plan to carry some over to next season. The situation with Paige is pretty obviously ongoing. It is hard to believe they will wrap up Nina’s storyline in Russia. There has been very little of Kimmy recently and, while this conceivably could be wrapped up in the final episode, I suspect they are intentionally moving slowly on this to wait until next season.

Of course the big cliff hanger of the episode occurred when Phillip slowly removed his wig and revealed how he really looks to Martha, who was sitting on the bed with a suitcase, on the verge of leaving town. At least two quite different interpretations for this come to mind. Maybe he is revealing himself to her prior to giving her the Annelise treatment and packing her up in her own suitcase. Maybe he is thinking of how he came clean with Paige, and is also planning to tell Martha a variation of the truth in a last attempt to get her to trust him. This could be either to continue spying for him, or to get her to safety before the FBI figures out that she was the one to plant the bug. If that is his plan, he is taking a bigger risk. Previously if she was arrested she might have given the FBI a description of Phillip in disguise. Now there is the risk she will give a description of how he really looks, and just maybe Stan will recognize him.

It was also good to see Margo Martindale return in her scene in the diner with Gabriel as they discussed background information going back to last season when Jared killed his parents, along with how Americans have too many choices for their tastes. I was surprised to see that Gabriel was so sympathetic to Phillip’s desire to protect Paige.

Tony Soprano Finale

David Chase gave a fascinating description of what he planned scene by scene in the finale of The Soprano’s. Here are the descriptions of the final scene, but check out the full article for his description of the scenes leading up to this:

This is the last shot of the family, or the three of them anyway. Framing is extremely important. I think it makes you feel so much below the level of verbiage and words. What they’re talking about is how good those onion rings are. For me, food is always central to a feeling of family and to a feeling of security and happiness. A.J. had remembered a moment at the end of the final show of the first season when they were all sitting down, eating in Vesuvio’s Italian restaurant and Tony said, ‘Just remember … value the good times,’ the moments, there really aren’t that many of them. And this is one of the very good times. And yet there’s something wrong with it because Meadow is not there. So the family isn’t really together. I think on some subliminal level that raises the tension. We know the family should be together and they’re not.

I said to Gandolfini, the bell rings and you look up. That last shot of Tony ends on ‘don’t stop,’ it’s mid-song. I’m not going to go into [if that’s Tony’s POV]. I thought the possibility would go through a lot of people’s minds or maybe everybody’s mind that he was killed. He might have gotten shot three years ago in that situation. But he didn’t. Whether this is the end here, or not, it’s going to come at some point for the rest of us. Hopefully we’re not going to get shot by some rival gang mob or anything like that. I’m not saying that [happened]. But obviously he stood more of a chance of getting shot by a rival gang mob than you or I do because he put himself in that situation. All I know is the end is coming for all of us.

I thought the ending would be somewhat jarring, sure. But not to the extent it was, and not a subject of such discussion. I really had no idea about that. I never considered the black a shot. I just thought what we see is black. The ceiling I was going for at that point, the biggest feeling I was going for, honestly, was don’t stop believing. It was very simple and much more on the nose than people think. That’s what I wanted people to believe. That life ends and death comes, but don’t stop believing. There are attachments we make in life, even though it’s all going to come to an end, that are worth so much, and we’re so lucky to have been able to experience them. Life is short. Either it ends here for Tony or some other time. But in spite of that, it’s really worth it. So don’t stop believing.

So apparently when Chase has said in some interviews that the final scene had a definite meaning, the meaning was more along the lines of “don’t stop believing” than whether Tony was killed here or at some other time.

Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart spoke with The Guardian about why he is leaving The Daily Show:

“Honestly, it was a combination of the limitations of my brain and a format that is geared towards following an increasingly redundant process, which is our political process. I was just thinking, ‘Are there other ways to skin this cat?’ And, beyond that, it would be nice to be home when my little elves get home from school, occasionally.”

He has a 10-year-old son, Nathan, and a nine-year-old daughter, Maggie; Stewart and his wife, Tracey, have been married for almost as long as he’s been doing the show, after Stewart proposed to her via a crossword puzzle.

If anything, it was the prospect of the upcoming US election that pushed him to leave the show. “I’d covered an election four times, and it didn’t appear that there was going to be anything wildly different about this one,” he says.

Ah, but who could have anticipated the excitement over Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails?

“Anyone could, because that story is absolutely everything that it’s supposed to be about,” he says, with a groan; as a revelation, it managed to be at once depressing and completely unsurprising. “I also felt that, for the show, you don’t want to leave when the cupboard’s bare. So I think it’s a better introduction when you have something providing you with assisted fuel, like a presidential campaign. But really, the value of this show is so much deeper than my contribution,” he says.

This means he will no longer have to watch Fox, but he did answer a hypothetical question as to a situation in which he might watch again:

Now that he is leaving The Daily Show, is there any circumstance in which he would watch Fox News again? He takes a few seconds to ponder the question. “Umm… All right, let’s say that it’s a nuclear winter, and I have been wandering, and there appears to be a flickering light through what appears to be a radioactive cloud and I think that light might be a food source that could help my family. I might glance at it for a moment until I realise, that’s Fox News, and then I shut it off. That’s the circumstance.”

Dan Aykroyd told The Huffington Post that “America is flat-out gun crazy.”

SciFi Weekend: Orphan Black; Hannibal; Arrow; Agents of SHIELD; The Americans; Fargo; Continnum; Game of Thrones; The Newsroom; Hugo Nominees

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Orphan Black returned for a second season following several days of receiving a considerable amount of publicity for being such a high quality show, even if few knew about it when it aired last season. Nature Under Constraint and Vexed picked up right where the show left off last season, but BBC America did run a show last week which might help new viewers catch up, and has been rerunning the entire first season. It is definitely worth watching the full season before starting the second season.

The initial moments, while not as dramatic as the first moments of the first season, when Sarah saw someone who looks just like herself jump in front of a train, did have a similar feel. Sarah was on the run, and initially could not contact anyone else. Subsequently Sarah did reunite with Felix and then with some of her clones. Tatiana Massany has been widely praised for her work as multiple female lead characters in roles far more challenging than those faced by Patty Duke.This includes the following characters mentioned here: Sarah, Beth, Allison, Cosima, Helena, and Rachel.

Last season Sarah did frequently pretend to be Beth, taking her place after her suicide, and briefly impersonated Allison last season. Beyond this they did not take advantage of the fact that Sarah and her clones are even more alike than identical cousins. I liked that Sarah did use this to her advantage twice this week, both with using Alison as a decoy and impersonating the lesbian scientist Cosima, even fooling Delphine when she kissed her. They were also less concerned about hiding their existence, but it hardly matters that Ramone saw someone identical to Allison.

Orphan Black Sarah as Cosima

The episode made excellent use out of the supporting characters. Felix’s performance, and clothing, were most notable, but other characters were also important. I’m glad that Art is now in on what is going on and expect to see him help Sarah more in the future. Paul is at least partially under the control of Dyad, but does seem to want to help Sarah. Delphine seemed to have sided with Cosima, then betrayed her by doing the one thing Cosima told her not to do-give a sample of her blood to Dr. Aldous Leekie. Even Leekie’s motivations are not entirely clear, and in the end I can see him acting to protect the clones.

Besides the clones on one side and Leekie and the Dyad Institute on the other, it looks like other people, another branch of  the anti-clone religious extremists of Proleatheans, will have a major role in the second season. It appears that they have Kira and possibly Mrs. S, and the biggest surprise of the episode was that the presumed-dead Helena is still alive. A lesser surprise, but still unexpected, was how little interest Rachel seemed to have in Kira, except as bait to capture Sarah.

The location of the show remains purposely ambiguous. The show films in Toronto but unlike Continuum doesn’t actually state its Canadian location. They have not tried especially hard to hide this, with Canadian money and license plates visible in some scenes. The federal agency brought in to investigate was intentionally not named, while mention of a Supreme Court decision on genetic material suggests an American background. The show is written to seem like any city, including one surrounded by suburbia with big box stores (where an employee had guns and other items to sell out of his trunk) and a community theater, which fortunately is not putting on a new production of Cats.

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On the surface Su-zakana was like a first season episode of Hannibal, with Jack, Will, and Hannibal working together to solve the  murder of the week. The three even started out the episode having dinner together, except with the Chesapeake Ripper supposedly out of commission, Hannibal served fish instead of red meat. I could even imagine yet another fish in the episode–Richard Fish of Ally McBeal saying “bygones.” When speaking around others, Hannibal explained overlooking Will’s attempts at killing him as being because of Will believing that Hannibal was a killer. This included telling Alana that Will was acting to protect her.

Under the surface, both Will and Hannibal knew that Hannibal really is the killer, and they were more honest when alone. Hannibal might have revealed his own code in saying, “Doing bad things to bad people makes you feel good.” If this is his motivation for killing, he is far less consistent in sticking to his code than Dexter Morgan was to sticking with his.

The murder of the week story was also a bizzaro recreation of the Will/Hannibal dynamic. Peter Bernardorne was a crazier version of Will who was  manipulated by Chris Diamantopoulos, playing a weaker version of Hannibal. We also saw that Will remains damaged, even if not as much as Peter, by Hannibal’s manipulations. Will even considered killing Chris as a substitute for Hannibal, until Hannibal warned him that it wouldn’t feel the same.

The episode also introduced Margot and Mason Verger, who should become more significant in future episodes.

The Man Under the Hood

On Arrow, Laurel has learned more about The Man Under The Hood but took the news far better than expected, deciding against letting Oliver know she knows his secret. That should be the subject for a future episode. The writers have often had difficulty in deciding what to do with her character, and in this episode she appeared far stronger than before. The producers had also been undecided as to whether to ultimately make Isabelle an ally or villain, deciding in last week’s episode that she would be a villain working with Slade. She appeared to be dead, but we learned that Mirakuru is as effective as alien blood on Agents of SHIELD at bringing people back from the dead. While we are not certain as to all the effects of the alien blood, we do know on Arrow that Mirakuru both gives superpowers and makes people go crazy. I wonder if Slade will regret creating an army of crazy super-villains who might be more difficult to control than herding cats.

We did learn that there is a cure to Mirakuru, which might turn out to be the way that the new army is ultimately defeated, and perhaps be used to keep Roy from going insane. The back story makes more sense in giving Slade additional motivation beyond the death of Shado to want to destroy Oliver. Back on the island, Oliver had chosen to kill rather than cure Slade. The episode also introduced characters from the upcoming Flash spin-off.

Collider spoke with producer/writer Andrew Kreisberg about Oliver’s relationship with Laurel and the ramifications of the Queens’ financial problems now that Isabelle has taken control of Queen Industries:

Where are Oliver and Laurel at now, romantically?

KREISBERG:  It’s Oliver and Laurel.  It’s Lois and Clark.  They can break up, get together, sleep together, break up, get married, get divorced, and she can forget him.  The best part about the success of the show is that it’s always our desire to speed through story.  The fans appreciate that.  We just blow through things.  We’re not like, “Well, we’ll do that in Season 4.”  No, we’ll just do that now.  On the other hand, success has enabled us to slow play some things.  We’ve really adopted this mantra of, “We’ll give people what they need, even if that’s not what they want.”  Having Oliver and Laurel get together in Season 1 is what people needed then.  But then, they needed them to go on a break, so Oliver could have his storyline with Sara for this season.  That’s what felt right to us.  Oliver has women in his life.  He has Laurel.  He has Felicity.  Helena is doing a 10 to 20 stretch.  But Laurel will always be one of the closest people to him, whether that’s romantic or not.  That’s why it’s so powerful to us that, in his darkest hour, Laurel is the one who pulls him out of it.  There has been a subset of fans who have questioned our sanity and our talent, for making some of the decisions we’ve made, over the course of last year and this year, but somebody is always going to be upset.  A lot of the things we have done have been leading up to what we’re doing in the finale, and then moving that forward to Season 3.

How long-running are the ramifications of the Queens’ financial problems?

KREISBERG:  We’re gonna make it a thing.  That plays out in the last five episodes.  We’re gonna start Season 3 with Oliver in very different circumstances than he’s been before.  Obviously, him being in different circumstances changes the circumstances of his paid bodyguard and paid assistant, since he can no longer pay them.  For Season 3, you’ll see that some of our familiar standing sets from Season 1 and 2, that you’ve come to know and love as being Arrow, are gonna be retired for reasons that will become apparent, as you see these last episodes.  We have already seen designs for some of the new sets for Season 3, which are amazing.  We want the show to feel like it’s constantly evolving, changing and growing.  If this year is the sequel, then next year is Arrow 3.  As different as 2 is from 1, in 3, they got Ewoks.

BRETT DALTON, BILL PAXTON

Providence continues the story of Agents of SHIELD after the infiltration by Hydra destroyed the organization, at least as we knew it. The have a secret base, Coulson learned that Director Fury is alive, and they are determined to remain Agents of SHIELD rather than Agents of Nothing. Last week there was a lot of speculation as to whether Ward had been brainwashed like the Winter Soldier or was faking allegiance to Garrett.  Anything is possible in this series, but the exchanges between Ward and Garrett suggest that Ward was recruited as a teenager and really has been working with Garrett from the start, with many of his actions designed to obtain trust from Coulson and his team. It appears that the only way that this could not be real would be if false memories were implanted into Ward, or if Ward spying on Garrett was intentionally withheld from Coulson. Such explanations would seem extremely contrived, and I hope that they just keep Ward the villain. Besides he is more interesting that way, although his feelings for Skye might complicate matters, especially as Ward’s allegiance so far seems more personal with Garrett as opposed to Hydra as an organization.

Besides the direct continuity in the recent episodes to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, there is further continuity with the Marvel universe with the Hulk’s old enemy, Colonel Talbot. Next episode Amy Acker visits as Coulson’s cellist girlfriend.

The Americans - Episode 2.08 - New Car - Promotional Photos (3)_FULL

The Americans maintained its usual quality with New Car. Once again Elizabeth and Philip had to deal with questions as to who to kill, or allow to be killed, and hand child rearing problems. Unfortunately for Lucia, it turns out that Larrick was far more important to the Russian plans than she was.  Plus Elizabeth really hates Ronald Reagan. The big surprise of the episode was to see Vasili alive along with Anton in the Soviet Union.

Fargo was off to an excellent start. It does remind me a little of Breaking Bad with over the top events portrayed as plausible in an area where I would not want to live. You would have to combine both Martin Freeman’s Lester Nygaard and Billy Bob Thornton’s Lorne Malvo to have a Walter White. While the premiere episode had a few murders, it looks like the series will be more about the consequences of the actions than a traditional detective series to uncover the identity of the murders.

I continue to avoid writing too much about Continnum as I’m a few weeks ahead of the American schedule by downloading from Showcase and I want to avoid any spoilers. The third episode, Minute To Win It, aired in the United States this week. The sequence taking place in the future revealed Kiera as being less blood thirsty than her superiors, but perfectly willing to ignore what they do. This week it was the future police shooting someone unnecessarily. Next week look forward to seeing Kiera’s take on a shooting which really has occurred in our history.

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Major Spoiler if you have not seen last week’s Game of Thrones: I make a point of not posting predictions about Game of Thrones as many people know far more than I do about the series if they have read the books. I would have never predicted that Joffrey would be killed off until late in the series. This should create a lot of interesting situations, ranging from speculation as to the murderer, effects on various characters, and a new fight for power. Natalie Dormer discussed the impact on Margaery in this interview. George R.R. Martin discussed the death here.

There is a little more news on the script being worked on for a Farscape movie which will follow the son of John and Aeryn.

Laura Pepon is only returning for four episodes of the second season of Orange Is The New Black but will return full time assuming there is a third season.

Aaron Sorkin only plans to write six episodes for the probable third and probable final season of The Newsroom. As he writes every episode of the series, I imagine it is better that he limit this to what he can handle if this leads to better scripts. HBO has not let the cast out of their contracts in case Sorkin decides to do more according to an interview with Olivia Munn.

The Hugo Award Nominees for 2014 are out. Doctor Who dominates the nominations for Dramatic Presentation (short form) with two episodes of the show, Adventures in Space and Time, a documentary about the origin of the television show, and The Five(ish) Doctors about the former Doctors who did not make it into the 50th Anniversary episode. An episode of Game of Thrones and Orphan Black complete the nominations in that category.

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION (LONG FORM)

  • Frozen Screenplay by Jennifer Lee; Directed by Chris Buck & Jennifer Lee (Walt Disney Studios)
  • Gravity Written by Alfonso Cuarón & Jonás Cuarón; Directed by Alfonso Cuarón (Esperanto Filmoj; Heyday Films; Warner Bros.)
  • The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy & Michael Arndt; Directed by Francis Lawrence (Color Force; Lionsgate)
  • Iron Man 3 Screenplay by Drew Pearce & Shane Black; Directed by Shane Black (Marvel Studios; DMG Entertainment; Paramount Pictures)
  • Pacific Rim Screenplay by Travis Beacham & Guillermo del Toro; Directed by Guillermo del Toro (Legendary Pictures, Warner Bros., Disney Double Dare You)

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION (SHORT FORM)

  • An Adventure in Space and Time Written by Mark Gatiss; Directed by Terry McDonough (BBC Television)
  • Doctor Who: “The Day of the Doctor” Written by Steven Moffat, Directed by Nick Hurran (BBC)
  • Doctor Who: “The Name of the Doctor” Written by Steven Moffat, Directed by Saul Metzstein (BBC)
  • The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot Written & Directed by Peter Davison (BBC Television)
  • Game of Thrones: “The Rains of Castamere” Written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss; Directed by David Nutter (HBO Entertainment)
  • Orphan Black: “Variations under Domestication” Written by Will Pascoe; Directed by John Fawcett (Temple Street Productions; Space/BBC America)

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.

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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.

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.

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 Weekly: Doctor Who; SHIELD; JK Rowling Exposed as Mystery Writer; Star Trek3; Summer Glau; Kristen Bell; The Newsroom

A prom apparently has a different meaning in the U.K. than in the United States. There were rumors that the identity of the next Doctor would be revealed at a prom this weekend. That didn’t occur, but there was an appearance by Matt Smith and Jenna Coleman in the video above.

Entertainment Weekly interviewed Steven Moffat. Following are some of the more interesting/news worthy answers:

Are you hoping the new Doctor will appear in this year’s Christmas special?
Yes. That’s not the hope — that’s the plan. It’ll be the traditional regeneration. You know, the eleventh will fall and the twelfth shall rise. And you’ll see that in the closing moments of the show. I mean, you sometimes sit and think, “Are there better ways of doing it? Is there a different way of doing it?” But quite honestly what could be better than that? It’s just too exciting. [Laughs]

Am I right in thinking that the new series—the first post-Matt shows—will be broadcast in late summer 2014?
I think that’s probably right. But these things change so often.

What can you tell us about this November’s Doctor Who 50th anniversary show?
[Laughs] Oh, well, very, very little. It will feature of course Matt and Jenna Coleman, but in addition there’ll be Billie Piper and David Tennant and John Hurt. But we’ve been really quite careful. We have a philosophy that anything we shot outside we had to own up to but the rest of it…You’re just going to have to wait until November to find out about.

What is the format of the 50th anniversary special? Is it movie-length?
It’s a special episode. I think you could call it movie-length, yeah. I mean, I’m saying that with a slight hint of vagueness because I don’t know the finished running time. [Laughs] It’s certainly well over an hour.

How much longer do you yourself intend to stay with the show?
I think a year at a time. I’ve signed up for this next year, with the new Doctor. It’s one of those jobs when you know when you’ve had enough. At the moment I haven’t had enough and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. I’m very excited for the challenge of the new Doctor and establishing that new Doctor. So, no plans to leave as yet. But that doesn’t mean I’ll be here for 20 years. There will come that day when I think it’s time someone else had a go and it’s time I did something else.

You’re also the executive producer of Sherlock. Have you finished shooting the new series yet?
Oh, I wish! We’ve done two. But we’ve now got a small gap — a small gap? A large gap! — while Martin (Freeman) goes back to New Zealand to film a bit more of the Hobbit and then he’ll return to us. Hopefully, by that time, I’ll actually have finished the Sherlock script I’m writing and we’ll make another one.

shield-interrogation

Entertainment Weekly has picked up some news on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. in preparation for their Comic-Con panel. Here are a couple of the top items:

1. The pilot hints at how mild-mannered kick-ass bureaucrat Agent Coulson (Clarke Gregg) was resurrected  to lead the team after being killed off in The Avengers (his S.H.I.E.L.D. colleagues say he must “never know the truth” about his death). Yet you’ll have to keep watching to learn the full story. “We can’t wait to pull the curtain back on that,” says co-creator Jed Whedon. “[But] we’re going to take our time.”

2. The S.H.I.E.L.D. story will work in tandem with the Marvel films, both past and upcoming. In fact, the first episode will pick up a storyline that’s familiar from one of the Marvel hits — and it’s not The Avengers. “We plan on trying to weave in between the films and try to make them more rewarding on both ends,” says Jed Whedon, who points out the trick is to make the audience not ask a certain fanboy-bar-fight-style question: “In any of these [episodes], you can always ask: ‘Why don’t they just call Iron Man?’” Yeah, that would be annoying! So our next question is: Why don’t they just call Iron Man? “They are aware of each other,” Whedon says of the S.H.I.E.L.D. team and the metal-suited Malibu playboy, “but they do have to have their own lives.”

Cuckoo Calling

J.K. Rowling had a detective novel published under the name of Robert Galbraith earlier this year, with her identity leaking out this week. io9 has a rundown of reviews of the novel, which sound quite favorable. Conveniently, the book is scheduled for paperback release later this month.

Zachary Quinto has this speculation regarding the next Star Trek movie:  “Star Trek 3 should be filming, I suppose, next year. It’s going to be made a lot quicker than the last one. That’s the plan, although nothing is confirmed yet.” That would make it difficult for J.J. Abrams to direct as he will be busy with Star Wars. Presumably they will want to release the next movie for the 50th Anniversary in 2016.

With J.J. Abrams directing movies for both franchises, and with the recent Star Trek movies in many ways being more Star Wars than classic Star Trek, the old Star Wars vs. Star Trek fan wars seem to have died out. George Lucas provides more reason for peace between the two:

The documentary “Trek Nation” chronicles Rod Roddenberry’s personal journey to explore the importance of the legendary sci-fi franchise dreamed up by his father Gene.

The film comes to DVD on Tuesday, and among the bonus materials included in the release is an interview with “Star Wars” creator George Lucas talking about the important role “Star Trek” played in paving the way for his own space opera.

“‘Star Trek’ softened up the entertainment arena so that ‘Star Wars’ could come along and stand on its shoulders,” Lucas said in an interview.

While Star Trek worked far better as a weekly show than as movies, it also must be kept in mind that Star Trek probably would have never been released as a movie, reviving the franchise, if not for the success of Star Wars.

Summer Glau

Summer Glau has been cast for a recurring role on Arrow:

Glau, who has amassed plenty of genre street cred in TV series like Joss Whedon’s Firefly and Dollhouse, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and most recently as a recurring on Syfy’s Alphas, is set to play the dangerous Isabel Rochev, Vice President of Acquisitions of Stellmoor International, a company looking to take over Queen Consolidated.

Entertainment Weekly reports that Kristen Bell (currently busy filming the Veronica Mars movie) will have a guest appearance on Parks and Recreations next season, in an episode to air in early October:

After shooting the Veronica Mars movie, Kristen Bell will guest-star in an episode of NBC’s Parks and Recreation as Ingrid, a snooty City Councilwoman from Eagleton. “She’s Leslie’s equivalent, but richer and better dressed,” executive producer Michael Schur tells EW. The two will first meet up at the annual Pawnee-Eagleton high school basketball game. Bell and Parks actor Adam Scott previously worked together on Party Down and Veronica Mars, and she currently stars with frequent Parks guest Ben Schwartz on House of Lies.

A lot happened in last week’s True Blood–the type of changes and revelations we might not have expected until towards the end of past seasons. The show certainly has its flaws, and I almost gave up on it a few times, but enough is happening this season to keep my interest.

olivia-munn-newsroom-my-trailer.sl.7.olivia-munn-newsroom-ss05

The Newsroom returns for a second season tonight. Oliva Munn discussed preparation for her role on The Newsroom with Vanity Fair:

“I write a lot of notes in my scripts,” she explains. “It’s important for me to have them there as a reference so I can keep on track for what I’m wanting to convey. Sometimes, no matter how much I prepare, I can let my emotions of the day affect my choices in a scene, so I like to have my notes with me to remind myself of what track I should be on. And with scripts as complicated and rich as Sorkin’s, it’s vital for me. My notes become my sheet music.”’

Netflix is quickly establishing itself as a service worth subscribing to for its original content now that there are multiple choices for on-demand movies. Orange Is The New Black premiered this week and is up to premium cable standards, and they are negotiating for a second season of Arrested Development. Besides their original series, Netflix recently released the excellent BBC2 series The Fall before it completed its run in the UK.

SciFi Weekend: Doctor Who, A Town Called Mercy and other News

A Town Called Mercy brought Doctor Who to the old American west (even if filmed in Spain) for the first time since 1966. The Doctor once again got to wear a Stetson. Another alien doctor, played by Adrian Scarborough of Gavin and Stacy and the recent remake of Upstairs, Downstairs. His character on this episode, Kahler Jex, turned out to be rather morally ambiguous, a situation which Scarborough has experience with in his role of Mr. Pritchard on Upstairs, Downstairs. The ambiguity with regards to who was good and who was evil saved the show from being simply a story of fighting an evil cyborg killing machine. In contrast to the other more ambiguous guest stars, Ben Browder’s character was unambiguously good, although less fun than his character on Farscape.

We are now three episodes into the five episode run scheduled for the fall. There have been some continuing themes. Light bulbs have played a recurrent role in each episode as with Rory’s father changing the bulbs in Dinosaurs On A Spaceship and with the flickering light bulbs at Amy’s photo shoot in Asylum of the Daleks.   The theme of memory was seen with a girl looking back on the story at the beginning and end but, at least at this point, there is no known connection between this and other events of the season. The Doctor’s increased willingness to kill was seen again, until Amy stopped him.

Some memorable lines and dialogue from the episode:

Rory: “The sign does say ‘Keep Out.’”
> The Doctor: “I see ‘Keep Out’ signs as suggestions more than actual orders. Like ‘Dry Clean Only’!”

***

The Doctor: “Anachronistic electricity. ‘Keep Out’ signs. Aggressive stares. Has someone been peeking at my Christmas list?”

***

Jex: “That wasn’t the plan. He’s not following the plan.”
Amy: “Welcome to my world.”

***

And, with regards to the horse: “No, his name’s Susan and he wants you to respect his life choices.

Next week we see an alien invasion and the return of UNIT in The Power of Three. From Radio Times:

“The day the Earth got cubed. The year of the slow invasion. The time the Doctor came to stay.”

There have been many ways to invade the Earth, and the Doctor has seen them all. Or so he always thought – and then the human race wakes up one morning and discovers the world has been overrun by… small black cubes. Which then proceed to… do nothing much at all. A plan is afoot, humanity is endangered – but by what and how and, above all, when? For the first time in his world-saving career the Doctor has to call upon the least of his virtues: patience. And the Ponds face something possibly more terrifying than any world-ending apocalypse – the Doctor is moving in!

Not just a tale of alien intervention, this is also the story of a nice young couple who happen to have a bow-tied lunatic from space staying in their spare room. It’s halfway between an alien invasion movie and The Man Who Came to Dinner.


Steven Moffat and Matt Smith have commented on the return of UNIT:

Moffat told the BBC: “When I was a kid, and just getting obsessed about the Doctor (still not recovered) it was the Jon Pertwee era, and UNIT was as big a part of the show as the TARDIS itself. So when Chris asked if he could bring them back I couldn’t say yes fast enough. And being Chris, he gave it a clever little twist which I know the fans are going to love.”

Matt Smith also spoke about working with Jemma Redgrave, who plays UNIT’s new leader Kate Stewart.

“I loved Jemma Redgrave! She was graceful, funny and charming and an absolute delight. UNIT’s return is one for the fans. I think they like cyclical things and we have a good story. It was great to do an episode with UNIT and I hope the true fans like it.”

It is just two more weeks until the final episode with Amy and Rory. Steven Moffat discussed The Angels Take Manahttan with Digital Spy:

“All stories have to end, and painful though that is, the most important thing about a story is how it finished,” said Moffat. “I had over a year’s warning to get this sorted out, and I’m very proud of what we’ve done. A fitting end to the mighty era of the Ponds!”

Head writer and showrunner Moffat explained that he had devised the characters’ exit while in New York, which influenced the episode’s setting.

“There was something about [returning monsters] the Weeping Angels and New York that just seemed to make sense to me,” he revealed. “And I thought of the story for this episode while in New York.

“It’s always good to find a new form for [the Angels] and we’ve got little cherubs this time. I had loads of ideas for the Weeping Angels on both the previous stories that I never got anywhere close to using, so it was good to find the opportunity.”

Moffat previously revealed to Digital Spy that he “completely” rewrote Amy and Rory’s final scenes after completing his first draft.

“I completely changed the ending as I was writing it, thinking ‘No, I’ve got it wrong… I’m on the wrong emphasis’ – but it’s a good one and it’s properly emotional,” he insisted.

This week marks the start of another heavily hyped J.J. Abrams genre show, Revolution (promo above). The big mysteries are why there is no electricity and whether this genre show can survive. You can find out more about the show here, here, and here.

This was a big week for topless pictures on the internet. Besides the highly publicized  pictures taken of Kate Middleton, Alison Pill of The Newsroom accidentally sent out a topless picture of herself on Twitter. So far the show has referred to Anthony Weiner tweeting pictures and had an episode in which a character accidental sent out email to everyone. Being that it is on HBO, there’s nothing to keep Aaron Sorkin from working this nude pic tweet into the show. He might receive even higher ratings if he has Oliva Munn’s character do this. As for Kate Middleton, I guess I was wrong when I wrote that these nude pictures of Camilla Luddington, who played Kate on the television movie William and Kate, were the closest we would get to seeing Kate Middleton nude.

SciFi Weekend: Fringe; Trinity & Barney; Toy Story Returns; Tyra Collette is Wonder Woman, Alessandra Torresani As Princess Leia Slave Girl

This week’s Fringe was not one of the greatest episodes in the show’s history but it did move the story forwards slightly. We saw  signs that the problems faced by the alternate universe are beginning on this side and the relationship between Peter and Olivia move forwards. The episode also served to demonstrate that the conflict between the two universes is not one of good versus evil but each side taking the steps felt necessary to protect itself.

The story probably did work best with Mr. and Mrs. Merchant letting go, realizing they were seeing alternate versions of their spouses and not their actual dead spouses, so that the rift would close. It might have been more interesting, however, if they could have had one cross over to the other side. While neither would really be united with their dead spouse, having the version from the alternate universe would have been the next best thing. Could they have continued their former relationships in this manner, somewhat analogous to Peter unknowingly having a relationship with Fauxlivia instead of Olivia?

Apparently Peter was always intended to become involved with our Olivia, with next week’s episode showing them together as children.

Spoiler TV has more from a conference call with Fringe executive producers Jeff Pinkner and J.H. Wyman:

When it comes to Olivia and Peter:
Things “will get worse and better,” said Pinkner. “Since Olivia returned and their relationship sort of shattered, they’ve been trying to pick up the pieces. They’ve been getting closer and they will continue to, but the problems that they’re dealing with are going to continue to complicate … We’re throwing a whole bunch of things at them.” That includes last week’s revelation that Faulivia (aka Bolivia or the alternate Olivia) is pregnant with Peter’s child.

“We’re always trying to get deeper, more complex emotions because we find that’s a really rich area for us to investigate in,” said Wyman. “There are so many facets to a real relationship, and these are incredible circumstances that they’re going through. But we try and make it as deep as we can. So you’ll see a whole bunch of shifting still to come in the entire rest of the season.”

As far as Peter’s shape-shifter killing ways:
Peter’s been killing shape-shifters and keeping it a secret from Olivia and the Fringe team. But “there’s a reason,” said Wyman.

And “Peter will come clean soon enough,” added Pinkner.

Peter has been more concerned about what the shape-shifters are up to “than anybody else on our show. There’s a drawing of him standing inside that machine. So he’s got questions, and by nature he’s a character who for years has only relied on himself,” he said.

“This season was always going to be a season about self-actualization for a lot of the characters. So this is the beginning of those steps,” said Wyman.

There’s still two of almost everything:
“We get to do two shows about one show. So that turned into a great thing,” said Wyman. And that allowed them to explore things like the murder of alternate Broyles “and having our Broyle actually stand next to his own dead body.”

“I think we knew how much there was to discover with Walternate and Bolivia and how much those two characters would provide a counterpoint and shed light on their alter egos that we’ve known for going on three seasons now.” said Pinkner. “I think one of the things that’s been really fun for us [was] the dynamic between Lincoln and Charlie and Bolivia and the energy of the stories on the other side. It feels like a different version of our show that just has a different inherent rhythm and different inherent chemistries in those characters, and that’s been really joyful for us.”

And speaking of the joy of the Other Side:
“What we discovered was that the energy of Lincoln and Charlie and Bolivia made up for the lack of Walter,” said Pinkner. “Obviously Walternate’s John Noble was in the episodes, but energetically and rhythmically it made up for missing Walter, so rather than recognizing or discovering that, it became a creative challenge. The discovery for us that was really wonderful was that it was a joy to go to the other side, and it was really a joy to explore another version of our show with cases that affected everything happening on our side with characters that we, as writers, had come to love.”

While Pinkner admits that fans started out “inclined to hate Bolivia, slowly over time they’ve started to … whether or not people want Peter to be with Olivia or Bolivia is a separate issue. But at least as far as we can tell, people are finding the relationship between the characters on the other side and the stories we’re telling on the other side charming and also really intriguing. It’s just deepening everything that’s happening over here. So rather than a challenge, we actually found it to be a really great creative outlet.”

Extinct sheep, myth-a-lones and the dangerously out of control Over There:
“The other side gives us an opportunity to do some pretty wild things, as you can imagine, because things are dangerously out of control there,” said Wyman. “So we’re fascinated enough with the notion that things we take for granted, like sheep for example, don’t exist over there because they were killed out by this beetle.”

Pinkner and Wyman continue to embrace what they call myth-a-lones, “where you’re watching the freak of the week type of concept, but it’s connected to our mythology. You’re going to see a lot of things … taking things and tropes that we know in our world and sort of turning them on their head,” said Wyman.

When it comes to Sam Weiss:
The mysterious bowling dude who has helped both Nina Sharp and Olivia, could be a good guy or a bad one. According to Wyman, “You know, don’t trust that Weiss.”

“If anybody unfurled the anagram that was on the chalkboard in Walter’s lab on the other side, it said, ‘Don’t trust Sam Weiss,'” said Pinkner.

“Sam is a character that I feel safe in saying that he still has many, many, many, many layers to reveal, and his motivations will become clearer and you’ll get a better understanding. I’m saying that we’re not going to keep pushing it down the line and not answering it, because that frustrates everyone. You’re going to find out about him. Hopefully it will be something that you don’t see coming,” said Wyman.

If you’ve been paying attention, things will fit together:
“If you go back into season one and you see the bus … There was a pattern episode that the bus had amber on it. I don’t know if you remember that, but the truth is the people here didn’t really know what amber was. They really didn’t understand what it was, but we knew,” said Wyman.

“So it’s like you can really set things up and they can pay off in really great ways. I think there’s a lot of that stuff coming up that will demonstrate the forethought, and the keen viewer will be able to say, ‘Oh, my gosh. Oh, I remember that.’ Now that’s taken on a whole different meaning. The only way that we can do that is if we know where we’re going.”

“The truth is we’ve been setting up season four in brush strokes very early on in season two, and we’ve been setting up what we imagine, with luck and grace and hoping we stay on the air this far, we’ve been sort of setting up season five since season one. It’s just a matter of whether we have the good fortune of getting to tell these stories,” said Pinkner.

“We need more time, and we’re trying to tell thematic stories,” said Wyman. “The multiple levels that we like takes time. I’m sure that we fall short of our goals all the time, but there’s enough fear every week, and like okay, what story are we going to tell this week … We have kind of a blue print.”

Joshua Jackson (Peter Bishop) has also discussed the show recently, including his thoughts on the First People.

While the major quest on  How I Met  Your Mother is Ted’s prolonged personal journey before meeting his eventual wife, there is also Barney’s quest to find his father. Imagine the shock when it turns out to be the Trinity killer. Well, not really, but Barney’s father, Jerome Whitaker, will be played by John Lithgow in two episodes. This is Lithgow’s first television role since playing Trinity on DexterHIMYM co-creator Carter Bays joked that there are some similarities between Jerome and Trinity:

“[Jerome] is [also] a family man who lives in the suburbs [but] he’s not going to be naked in the bathtub strangling someone,” he quipped.

Toy Story Barbie Ken

Toy Story 3 wasn’t the end of the toys. Pixar is going to release at least two shorts with the Toy Story characters, with the storyline of only one of them having been released:

The short that will be shown in front of ‘Cars 2’ will focus on the characters of Barbie and Ken after their exploits in ‘Toy Story 3’. After being left behind for their Hawaii vacation, Buzz Lightyear and Woody attempt to recreate a Hawaii paradise to please the disappointed Barbie and Ken.

In a follow-up of last week’s story, it now looks hopeful that a Robocop statue will be built in Detroit with private donations.

Taylor Kitsch Adrianne Palicki Wonder Woman Friday Night Lights

Adrianne Palicki, Tyra Collette on Friday Night Lights has been signed to play Wonder Woman in a remake which NBC finally picked up after all the networks had rejected it. I’m sure Tim Riggins and Landry Clarke agree in considering her a Wonder Woman. There are also rumors that Oliva Wilde will play Laura Croft in a movie remake.

I’ve had a number of posts with pictures of actresses in the old Princess Leia Slave Girl costume. The video above, Nerding Out – Tonight I’m Frakking You, features Alessandra Torresani of Caprica in the outfit along with multiple other science fiction references.

Previous pictures here (Kelly Brook) and  here (Kristen Bell & Olivia Munn), with a picture of the original is here. Interviews with the stars of Tonight I’m Frakking You in the video below:

SciFi Weekend: The Lodger, Torchwood Filming News; A New Series From Alan Ball; and Another Recreation of Princess Leia as Slave Girl

Matt Smith Nude Scene

This week BBC America broadcast The Lodger, the last episode of Doctor Who before the two-part season finale. Spoilers are included for this episode only as I impatiently wait for BBC America to get caught up so I can write about the season finale and fez hats.

This was unfortunately an Amy Pond-lite episode, but still an entertaining one. The Doctor was stranded on earth and had to figure out what was messing with time to save Amy from being lost in the Tardis forever. Fitting in was not easy for the Doctor, but he did turn out to be a fantastic soccer player (with the episode airing just before World Cup coverage on the BBC).

The episode was largely a stand alone episode but it did include references to other evens of the season. The house where the Doctor rented a room had a card for the Vincent van Gogh exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay on the refrigerator. Many reviewers have noted that a crack on the wall was shown at the end. While it was shown most prominently at the end of the episode, I also noted that it was shown briefly earlier. The most significant event was that Amy, while searching for a pen, found the engagement ring from Rory. Clearly this story line did not conclude with Rory being pulled into the crack and disappearing from time.

Matt Smith had one of the rare nude scenes in Doctor Who history, appearing dressed in only a towel, creating some controversy Ironically Smith has previously appeared on television undressed in such a manner, and it happened to be in a scene with a former companion of an earlier Doctor. Smith played one of Billy Piper’s clients in Secret Diary of a Call Girl, also dressed only in a towel.

Van Gough Card in Doctor Who: The Lodger

The Doctor In The Tardis has some limited news, and a bit of speculation, on the filming of the next season of Torchwood:

It has been confirmed by Gavin Barker Associates that John Barrowman will only be filming Torchwood in the US from January to June. That’s roughly about 16 weeks worth of filming, before coming back to the UK.

Assuming Eve Myles was correct in her statement earlier this week about a 7 and a half month shoot, it could mean that the other 3 and a half months shooting will be taking place in the UK, especially as John Barrowman has previously stated he will be appearing in all episodes of the new series.

Alan Ball already is responsible for two of the greatest television shows of all time, Six Feet Under and True Blood. Both deal with death, and if HBO wants another series on this topic Ball is obviously the person to turn to. Deadline Hollywood reports that HBO has ordered another pilot from Alan Ball:

HBO has greenlighted a pilot for All Signs of Death, a dark comedic drama based on Charlie Huston’s 2009 crime noir novel The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death. Ball is executive producing and directing the pilot, which was written by Huston. The project, which is now casting for an August production start date in Los Angeles, centers on an inveterate twenty-something slacker who stumbles into a career as a crime scene cleaner, only to find himself entangled with a murder mystery, a femme fatale and the loose ends of his own past. “It’s not so much about the crime, it’s about the personal story of the central character and his journey back to being fully connected with his life after some very traumatic things,” Ball said.

As a director, Ball will experiment with smaller, portable cameras for a cinema verite style. “The show is about contemporary Los Angeles, but not the glamorous LA, it’s about the dirty underbelly of LA,” Ball said. “We’re going to try to go against the grain, away from the overlit, stylized noir for a more frantic, contemporary, naturalistic style.” Ball is executive producing All Signs of Death through his company, Your Face Goes Here Entertainment, under his overall deal at HBO. Huston is co-executive producing, with Your Face executives Christina Jokanovich and Peter Macdissi also producing.

Kelly Brook dresses in the Princess Leia slave girl outfit

Many actresses have dressed in versions of the Princess Leia slave outfit from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, including Kristin Bell and Olivia Munn. Pictures of these two can be seen here, and a picture of the original is here. Kelly Brook has created several Princess Leia poses for Total Film, including the Leia slave girl pictured above.

SciFi Weekend: Star Trek Timelines; Olivia Munn in Playboy; Topless Thirteen; and Kristin Bell

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J.J. Abrams made things simpler for himself in developing an alternative timeline, but this makes the overall Star Trek universe more complicated. Above is a view of the timeline, with the Abrams timeline included (click on image to enlarge). Star Trek Online discussed the significance of the two time lines:

In the movie, two characters travel back in time from the year 2387. When Nero arrives in the year 2233, he disrupts the time continuum, creating an alternate reality from the point of his arrival. Star Trek (the new movie) takes place in this alternate reality. This is explained in the film in a conversation between Uhura and Spock on the bridge of the Enterprise.

Star Trek Online is set in the “prime” Star Trek reality. This is the timeline of the five television series and the first 10 movies. It is the world in which the Gorn attacked Cestus III, Kirk fought Khan in the Mutara Nebula, Picard explored the galaxy, the Federation fought the Dominion War, Voyager was stranded in the Delta Quadrant and Captain Archer and the crew of the NX-01 showed us how it all began.

Events in the movie that happened in the prime timeline (the destruction of Romulus, and the disappearance of Spock and Nero) have affected STO. You can learn more about the aftermath of these events in the Path to 2409 and in STO itself.

So how can the movie and STO be in different realities? When working on Star Trek, screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman referenced the theory of quantum mechanics, which allows for the simultaneous existence of parallel timelines and universes. Parallel universes are self-contained, separate realities that exist as a consequence of different choices and outcomes. This concept was explored in the TNG episode “Parallels,” in which there were thousands of alternate timelines (and thousands of Enterprises!). It also is seen in the Mirror Universe, which is a darker take on the world of the Federation.

There are many, many stories to tell in the prime universe. The fallout of the destruction of Romulus and the upheaval that causes in the Alpha and Beta quadrants creates storytelling opportunities that we at Cryptic didn’t even imagine when we first began working on STO. We’re excited by the possibilities, and fans should be as well. The best is yet to come.

Star Trek has been inconsistent in its handling of changes in the timeline. In many episodes involving alternative timelines, when something changed the timeline the timeline we know was obliterated and the episode centered around restoring the original timeline. Other episodes, as in those of the Mirror Universe, showed the alternative timelines as existing in parallel to the one we know. The new timeline created in the last movie is clearly intended to represent an example of a timeline in parallel to the one of the television series and previous movies.

If we are to have a totally different timeline, there is another way that I would like this to have been done. Previous Star Trek shows existed in a timeline different from our own as the history presented in Star Trek is inconsistent with late 20th century history. If we must have a new timeline created for a  new movie series, I would have had the difference from the original timeline occur in the 20th century to create a timeline which includes both our history and a Star Trek universe.

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If we are looking at science fiction timelines, Dan Meth has made the above timeline of multiple science fiction movies. In discussing this project he wrote, “This is by far the geekiest thing I’ve ever done.”

JUL Cover Olivia FA.indd

Olivia Munn of G4’s Attack of the Show has a role in Iron Man 2. She will also appear in Date Night with Steve Carrell and Tina Fey. In addition to additional movie roles Munn has made the cover of Playboy (picture above).

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While Olivia Munn wears a bikini in some of the pictures and doesn’t reveal much in Playboy, another Olivia revealed more. Olivia Wilde, who plays Thirteen on House, posed topless in Maxim.

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The beginning of summer also seems like a good time for a picture of Kristin Bell (Veronica Mars and Heroes) in a bikini. There’s no good reason for including this picture, but is it really necessary to have a reason to post a picture of Kristin Bell?

SciFi Friday: Lost Spoilers; Star Trek and Boston Legal; Kristen Bell as Princess Leia Slave Girl; and Respecting Jessica Simpson

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcdfL7tejkc]

Lost returns on January 31 and will air Thursdays at 9 pm. The video above shows a trailer for the upcoming season and gives a (very slight) hint regarding the cliff hanger from last season. Charlie is also seen, but considering he is dead I suspect this is some sort of vision. More spoilers regarding the Oceanic 6 are available here for those who want further clues as to the direction the show might be going.

Boston Legal must have set the record for the most appearances by actors and actresses who have appeared in any of the versions of Star Trek. William Shatner isn’t going to be the only starship captain on the show as Scott Bakula (Enterprise) will be making a guest appearance. A comprehensive guide to the cross overs between Star Trek and Boston Legal is available here. Bakula also appeared as Murphy Brown’s love interest in 1993 and he will be appearing with Candice Bergen during this guest appearance. Boston Legal’s season ends December 14 due to the strike.

If Boston Legal likes everything Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica really likes Bajorans. After giving a prominent guest appearance to Michelle Forbes in the episodes involving the Pegasus, as well as in the made for television movie Razor, another former Star Trek actress who played a Bajoran will appear next season. Nana Visitor (Kira Nerys on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) will play Emily, a cancer patient who Laura Roslin gets to know in sickbay. More information on the upcoming season of Battlestar Galactica is available here.

The scenes of Princess Leia as a slave girl in Return of the Jedi has been a major fantasy for geeks for the last generation. (Photo of the original in this previous post.) Kristen Bell has recreated this image for her role in Fanboys, with two pictures above.


In researching this post (tough job, somebody’s got to do it) I also discovered that Olivia Munn of G4’s Attack Of The Show also did the Leia slave girl thing last spring (pictured above).


And, finally, Female First reports that Jessica Simpson is desperate to be respected as an actress and has found a role which she believes will grant her this:

Jessica is in the running for a role that, if she gets it, will put her right on the map in terms of acting. The only hitch is that the script requires a number of quite graphic scenes including a full-frontal nude scene. Jessica is so desperate to land the role and get the industry’s respect that she’s ready to go against her better judgement, and her family, by agreeing to bare all.

Yes, Jessica, do it. I promise to respect you if you do.