Episode 67: “We deserve fans, man”

I hate trailers that give too much away and if possible, would rather forgo them completely. That’s why I love these type of promotional videos for movies; they show the spirit of the movie without spoiling anything (the Wall-E and the vacuum cleaner/magnet/etc set is another good example). The video shows Hellboy (the titular character of the upcoming movie) and Chuck (from the tv show Chuck) together playing a video game:

I love how they combine these two worlds! There’s also a second one:

I haven’t been watching Doctor Who for that long; I only jumped in at the end of season 2, but since then it only seems to be getting better. Last week I decided to watch all the episodes I hadn’t seen and watched the first two seasons, so now I’m kind of on a Doctor Who high. I loved last Saturday’s Doctor Who episode, the penultimate episosde of this season (The Stolen Earth) and just had to take some time to theorize about the finale. I don’t want to spoil anything, so: beware, spoilers after the pic!

Beware: Here be spoilers! 

If you’re reading this I assume you’ve seen the episode I’m talking about and the major cliffhanger at the end: the Doctor starts regenerating! Seriously, was anyone expecting that? The moment he got shot, I of course had the feeling that would happen, but before that? No way. And now what? How will this be resolved? Reports are that David Tennant has signed on for the three specials of next year and has even started filming some of it. But can we actually trust these sources?

I think there are 5 possible situations that could happen:

1. The Doctor regenerates into a new actor and stays that way.

If this is the case, I have to applaud the makers for keeping this secret. In this darn age it seems an impossible mission and if they actually managed not to reveal this major spoiler… freaking amazing. I don’t think I’d be that happy though with this option, cause that means no more David Tennant! I’m sure whoever they’ll get to replace Tennant will be great and we’ll warm up to him, but still let us keep Tennant a few more seasons.

2. The Doctor regenerates into a new actor, but turns back into Tennant.  

In this scenario there are two things that could happen. First one is that this new form the Doctor turns into is a one time appearance. He changes back into Tennant and this form is never seen again (with some mumbo-jumbo that time has changed so the next time he regenerates it won’t be into that form). Second thing that could happen is that this is a preview of the next Doctor. Whenever Tennant leaves the show, this is the actor who will take over.

3. The Doctor “degenerates” into a previous incarnation and stays that way.

Ehm, well, it is a possibility, right? But, yeah, highly unlikely.

4. The Doctor “degenerates” into a previous incarnation, but turns back into Tennant.

I could see this happening. I wouldn’t put it pass Davies to bring Christopher Ecclestone or an earlier Doctor back for a moment, only to “fix” it and continue with Tennant. It also wouldn’t be too difficult to have kept secret; a couple of scenes with the previous Doctor on a closed set, pretty easy to keep quiet.

5. The Doctor tries to regenerate, but is stuck in his current form.

I think this would be the most boring option; something goes wrong, so the regeneration can’t be completed and they have to find some other way to heal the Doctor or something like that. After all the big fuss, it would kind of feel like the easy way out and I would really be disappointed if they do this. It has to be something “grander” than this, don’t you think?

The first situation would be the most shocking and sure to go down in TV history, but I don’t think it will happen. With what we’ve heard about Tennant, I truly think he’ll be back for future episodes. I’m hoping it won’t be the 5th option, but from the others I’m not sure which I’d rather prefer.

So do you think I’ve covered every possibility? Or will Davies do something even more ridiculous? Any other possible scenarios you can come up with?

Episode 60: “And I’m commando too, they shoot me from here up.”

These videos are almost from a year ago from the SciFi Digital Press Panel with the Battlestar Galactica cast, featuring Aaron Douglas, Michael Hogan, Jamie Bamber, Grace Park, Tahmoh Penikett and executive producer Harvey Frand. It was during the shooting of the episodes we’re watching now, but they’re mainly talking about their experiences with (famous) fans and the evolution of their characters (so no spoilers).

I still am surprised every time I hear Jamie Bamber’s accent, even though I first saw him as Archie in Hornblower. And Aaron Douglas is hilarious! He is so different to his character on the show. It’s a long video (about 46 minutes), but if you’re a fan, it’s worth watching.

Episode 53: “What?”

A couple more days and Lost will be back with more episodes. Lost can be pretty confusing and this video only highlights this even more:

From Wikipedia:

Shipping

Derived from the word “relationship”, shipping is a general term for fans’ emotional and/or intellectual involvement with the ongoing development of romance in a work of fiction.

I have to admit I am a bit of a shipper: I always have some preference to who has to end up with who. I hate all those Brangelina like type of names though and I refuse to use such monstrosities on my beloved TV and book and video games friends (Brangelina is allowed though, those are celebrities, not real people). So who have I shipped for in the past? Veronica and Logan, Buffy and Angel, Buffy and Spike, Sarah and Grissom, Delenn and Sheridan, Ivanova and Marcus, and many more.

One of my favourite “they’ve always been hinting, but never actually went there” couples were Samantha Carter and Jack O’Neill in Stargate: SG-1. Throughout the entire series they never actually even kiss (right? tell me if I’m wrong, I might be forgetting something here), but there was always the feeling there was more between the two. The writers of the show seem to agree with me: in a blog post Stargate writer Joseph Mallozzi shows a scene that was cut from an episode of Stargate Atlantis (episode 4×16 Trio to be exact):

Carter: So…you seeing anyone?

Keller: What?

Carter: Around the base, you seeing anyone?

Keller: I dunno…I had a moment with - with this…guy. He’s not exactly easy to read so…I guess the short answer is “no”. You?

Carter: Well, I’m the boss, so I can’t really…

Keller: Right Anyone back home?

Carter: Uhm…

Keller: Un-huh, I thought so. Give it up.

Carter: Well, it’s complicated.

Keller: Show me a relationship that isn’t.

Carter: He’s in Washington…I’m here.

Keller: Ouch. Long distance relationship.

Carter: He’s going to retire soon, so maybe -

Keller: Really! Retire? So…an older man, huh?

Carter: Not that much older.

Keller: Washington, older man…is he like a Senator or something? Someone famous? Would I know him?

Carter: Probably not.

Too bad the scene was cut from the episode. It also gives a good explanation to why Keller almost kisses Ronan the one week, then suddenly asks Rodney out the next week.

In the last week I’ve watched the entire first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender and initially this post was going to be about why you should watch it (which I’ll cover in a future post). Strange enough though, thinking about this new show (for me at least it was new) has given me a major eye-opener about myself: I had totally lost faith in the creation of good great cartoons.

Looking back, I realized that I hadn’t seen a single animated tv show since high school (six years ago), casually dismissing all series without even trying them. During that time I did consider myself an animation lover, but just believed that nothing that was produced now could ever reach the standards of previous shows. I did keep watching animated films, but subconsciously just disregarded new animated tv series. I’m really only fully realizing that now and I’m still in shock by it; how could I not watch potentially addictive material?

I guess I do understand where this in part comes from. In the years before I stopped watching, you couldn’t exactly say that the quality of the then-new shows were any good. On the other hand, it could also have been that only bad ones were being shown on Dutch television (if that was the case, why the hell didn’t they broadcast any good stuff?). Or alternatively, that my standards were just way too high. No matter the reason, somewhere along the way I started believing that all new cartoons were bad and that from that moment on only bad cartoons would be created.

What was I thinking?! How could I ever be so halfwitted to even think there would never be a good animated tv show ever again? I’m still amazed, baffled, flabbergasted that my mind (no, scrap that, I shouldn’t be giving my mind the blame) that I could ever believe such a thing. And yet, it is true. I’ve lived under this weird illogical delusion. Me, someone that prizes herself for being a logical person. It’s as if never reading another book in your life again, just because you read a couple of bad books, even though you read hundreds of great books before that. It’s a fallacy, an utterly faulty reasoning, a down-to-the-core wrong deduction.

I’m still in shock. I just can’t believe it. It’s not about Avatar. It’s not about not watching cartoons. It’s about realizing that there’s this weird little part of my mind that’s been influencing my choices in life (even though it’s something as simple as tv-watching) based on a reason that is so out of sync with the rest of me. It just feels so very, very weird.

Maybe I’m overreacting, but then I’m writing this in the wake of my illumination. And very late at night, after 2 days of sleep deprivation. Yeah, not the perfect time to blog, I know. But I know that for me this has just been a revelation and my mind it still trying to cope with it. Hey, blogging is supposed to be therapeutic, right?

Episode 49: “We’re not in bloody Cardiff anymore, we’re in London”

What do you get when combine a group of sleep-deprived geeks, lots of sugar and the anticipation of the series finale of Torchwood? This video:

To find out more about this video, check out the Torchwood Swede Blog.

Episode 46: “It’s a deeply intense moment in our lives.”

I came across this video while searching for more info on the new Joss Whedon internet musical Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. To my surprise, there’s already a fan site up and running: Doctor Horrible (then again I shouldn’t really be surprised, should I? I’ve even fallen in love with series without having seen anything of it yet). On their site they had this little gem of a video. It’s a clip from the Megan Mullaly Show of an interview of the cast members of How I Met Your Mother, where Neil Patrick Harris and Jason Segal sing one of the songs from Les Mis.

Yesterday I finally took some time to hang up a couple of posters, some of which were lying around for months. The two big posters were both of Heroes, which I got from Cristiano for my birthday. One of them is the “main” poster of the show; the one with the faces on the bottom and the clouds and the skyscrapers. You know, this one:

I don’t think the image works that well when you see it like this “on screen”, but as an actual poster it looks pretty impressive. The second poster is (in my eyes) extremely cool and as far as I can tell it’s quite difficult to find. It’s the cover of the fourth 9th Wonders, the Heroes webcomic, featuring Claire coming out of the flames:

Next to those large posters, I got a couple of smaller ones. A few months ago I managed to get some promotional posters (Fearless, Aeon Flux, Ratatouille and Transformers ) for about $2 at the London Film and Comic Con. Now I finally put them up:

I love the design of these small ones and am hoping I can find more of these in the future. I’ve got a couple of awkward pieces of wall that desperately need to be covered. Here are some overall shots of how the posters are:

Yes, that’s a Spiderman 3 poster there. I bought it before the movie came out and haven’t got around to replacing it with something better (aka almost anything else). There are two particular sets of posters I’ve got my eye on, but I don’t have that much space in my room. Maybe someday later when I got a place that’s bigger than a single room. Anyhow, the first set contains Battlestar Galactica propaganda posters, including the cut-off edges:

The second set is of a similar vein, but this time they’re travel agency adds from Firefly:

I’ve fallen in love with these posters and every time I come across them I want them even more. Each of them is so different than the others, but still you can see that they form a set together. And don’t you just love the “Visit tranquil Miranda”? So Santa, Birthday Bunny, Tooth Fairy, could I please have these for my next Christmas/birthday/wisdom tooth removal?

It’s that time of the year again when networks are looking around and searching for new TV shows for next fall. And may I say that we’ve got quite an interesting bunch so far. If some of these projects turn out as great as I’m hoping they can be, I’m going to have trouble fitting it all in my schedule.

Dollhouse
Finally Joss Whedon is returning to TV! This news isn’t exactly new, but it’s one TV show I’m dying to see. Dollhouse is created/written/produced by Joss Whedon and has been picked up for 7 episodes by FOX. Yep, the same FOX that’s responsible for the deaths of countless innocent series. So don’t hold your breath (just warning). The TV show will feature Buffy-alum Eliza Dushku as Echo:

… a young woman who is literally everybody’s fantasy. She is one of a group of men and women who can be imprinted with personality packages, including memories, skills, language—even muscle memory—for different assignments. The assignments can be romantic, adventurous, outlandish, uplifting, sexual and/or very illegal. When not imprinted with a personality package, Echo and the others are basically mind-wiped, living like children in a futuristic dorm/lab dubbed the Dollhouse, with no memory of their assignments—or of much else. The show revolves around the childlike Echo’s burgeoning self-awareness, and her desire to know who she was before, a desire that begins to seep into her various imprinted personalities and puts her in danger both in the field and in the closely monitored confines of the Dollhouse.

Sounds interesting, right? For more info on the other characters, take a look at Ausiello’s report. They’re still busy with the casting of those characters, but I’m curious to see if we’ll get any more familiar faces. [Source]

Caprica
I’ve been waiting for ages for this TV show to be greenlighted and today it finally has. It was first announced way back in April 2006, only to get stuck in the fiery pits of Development Hell. The show will be a prequel to Battlestar Galactica, focusing on events 70 years before the current BSG series. It’s been described as television’s first science fiction family saga:

The series will revolve around two families: the Adamas and the Graystones. Joseph Adama, father of future Battlestar commander William Adama, is a renowned civil liberties lawyer who becomes an opponent of the artificial intelligence/Cylon experiments wrought by the Graystones, owners of a large computer corporation that builds the first Cylons.

We need more good scifi shows on TV and while I’m normally not a fan of spin-offs, in this case it could turn out really great. Especially because the “mother” series is wrapping up before production on Caprica starts and I’m guessing most of the production team will continue working on that. [Source]

Cupid
Ten years ago, before Veronica Mars, Rob Thomas had another little short-lived TV show called Cupid. Now the ABC has asked him to write a pilot for a new version of this show. I never watched the original show, but I’ve heard from various people that they used to love it. The old show starred Jeremy Piven as:

Trevor, a man who believes he’s Cupid and must fix the problems of couples on Earth so that he may gain access to Mount Olympus and begin sipping ambrosia and living the good life. The catch? He lost all his mythological abilities. The other catch? He may just be a normal guy who is missing a few screws.

It sounds like a great plot and if Rob Thomas stays on board for the entire series, I’m definitely going to tune into this one. [Source]

Beverly Hills, 90210
Rob Thomas is a busy, busy man. Besides being asked by ABC for a Cupid-remake, the CW has approached him to write and produce a re-envisioning of Beverly Hills, 90210. I would have skipped this, if Rob Thomas wasn’t involved, cuase come on do we really need this? Don’t get me wrong, I get that people like the drama/soap series about rich kids with problems (The O.C., Gossip Girl), I’ll admit I’m one of them, but why a remake of 90210? Why not something completely new? The list of characters came out today and so far I’m not seeing anything to get excited about. Ah well, I also didn’t get hooked on The O.C. until half-way season one, so I’ll just wait and see how it goes. [Source]

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog
For me, this sounds too good and way too weird to be true, but I’m completely geeking out on this small project. It’s a three part Web musical (with each episode only being 10 minutes) written by Joss Whedon and his brothers during the writer’s strike. The idea is this:

It’s the story of a low-rent super-villain, the hero who keeps beating him up, and the cute girl from the laundromat he’s too shy to talk to.

To make it even better, the role of the super villain Dr. Horrible will be played by Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother) and the role of the hero Captain Hammer goes to Nathan Fillion (Serenity, Buffy). Can this project get any better than this? [Source]

Alice
I kind of liked Tin Man, the SciFi Channel re-imagination of The Wizard of Oz. It wasn’t as great as I thought it would be, but still was pretty entertaining. The same creative team responsible for Tin Man will be back with another re-imagination, this time of the classic Alice in Wonderland. I can see how this can work; it seems like the perfect story to adapt to a scifi setting. I’m surprised actually that no one has done it before (or am I just blanking here?). I wonder what type of adaption it will be though? Will it follow the path of Tin Man with other dimensions? Or virtual reality? Or maybe something less obvious like space travel? [Source]