Everywhere you look, dystopia stories abound. Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games became the movie event of the spring while the most talking about new NBC series is J.J. Abrams’ Revolution. Little surprise then that basic cable’s ratings darling in 2011 was TNT’s Falling Skies. With the show’s second season debuting June 17, the first season has been released on DVD from Warner Home Entertainment. The premise is not necessarily an original one: aliens have arrived and have largely conquered Earth while small bands of resistance fighters struggle to free humanity. What the aliens want remains a mystery.
The series, which has been in development since 2009, was conceived by Bob Rodat, writer of Saving Private Ryan, and has been produced by Steven Spielberg, who enhanced many of Rodat’s notions. The showrunner for season one is my old pal Mark Verheiden (who handled a different dystopia on Battlestar Galactica), who brought his own point of view to the project. Verheiden’s sure hand made the ten episode first season quite entertaining and he’ll be missed when he moves to consulting producer (at least he wrote the two hour season opener for a smooth transition).
A history professor turned soldier, Tom Mason, is the series’ protagonist and is well played by Noah Wylie, mixing his knowledge with some grit while putting his two sons ahead of all else. He is part of a regiment, the Second Massachusetts (near Concord, get it?), periodically receiving intelligence from nearby groups and sporadically getting news from armed forces elsewhere in America. The enemy, known as “Skitters”, are insectoid and reside in mammoth craft looming over key cities around the world. Using mechanical soldiers dubbed “mechs”, they maintain martial law and kill adults who oppose them, taking the children. (more…)
Censorship can, sometimes, be a spur to the creative mind. It’s more often a pain in the ass but there are times when a creative mind finds ingenious ways of getting around the bans, whatever they may be.
For example, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, them crazy guys who created South Park (and, even more oddly, the Tony Award winning musical The Book of Mormon) originally wanted to call the South Park movie South Park: All Hell Breaks Loose. That got rejected by the MPAA for having the word “Hell” in the title. Parker and Stone re-named the film “Bigger, Longer, Uncut,” which is more salacious. Evidently, the MPAA were the only ones who didn’t get the penis reference. Creativity trumps censorship.
George Carlin in 1972 famously listed seven words you could never say on television. Not only can I say them here, but I think editor Mike Gold would insist. They are: “shit,” “piss,” “fuck,” “cunt,” “cocksucker,” “motherfucker,” and “tits.’’ These days I think you can get away with “shit,” “piss,” and “tits” on television sometimes) but the other ones are still right out. You definitely can’t say any of them in mainstream comics.
For example, Marvel’s Luke Cage is a streetwise badass motherfucker who swears like your granny. “Sweet Christmas!” is his most common swear word. When I wrote him in Heroes For Hire, I had a villain taunt him about it. Cage, as he beat the shit/poo (take your pick) out of the guy explained it was because his grandma didn’t approve of swearing and “she was tougher than you.”
On Battlestar Galactica, instead of saying “fuck,” the characters said “frak” but we all knew what they meant. The word has gone on to enter the vocabulary of the fans and some other sci/fi works. One of the things I enjoy about it is that the process of raping the earth and poisoning it to get at natural gas is called “frakking.’’ For me, it means they’re fucking us all to get at the natural gas and its profits.
George Carlin also famously noted that when we say “Fuck you” we’re actually wishing something nice on a person. Working from that, in some sci-fi stuff I tried replacing “fuck” with “nuke,” as in “Nuke you and the nuking horse you came in on.” Or calling someone a “mothernuker.’’ “Nuke” has the harsh “uk” sound as “fuck” and hoping that someone gets nuked is not wishing them a good time. However, the substitution seemed a little forced and drew too much attention to itself. It read like the author was trying to be clever, which I guess he was, so I dropped it. Sometimes you just can’t beat the fucking classics.
Worse than that is anything sexual. You can rip a guy’s arm off and beat another guy to death with it, all the while spurting gouts of blood but you show too much skin or a couple getting it on or (Christian Right Forbid!) any sort of same sex naughtiness going on and there will be a hue and cry far greater than any uproar over profanity. See the current Right Wing brouhaha over Alan Scott’s Green Lantern being gay or Northstar over at Marvel marrying his boyfriend.
For a long time, if a movie had a couple in bed together, at least one of them had to have one foot on the floor. On TV, I remember that on The Dick Van Dyke Show, whenever they went to the bedroom of Rob and Laura Petrie, they had separate beds. Who were they fooling? I was young at that time and even I, sheltered Roman Catholic boyo that I was, knew my folks slept in the same bed. I didn’t want to think whatever else they might be doing in that bed (still don’t – shudder!) but I knew sure as hell they didn’t have separate beds.
Still, there is a certain sexuality, a certain sensuality in suggestion rather than in statement. I remember when First Comics was doing Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg! everyone talked about the sex and the nudity and all except … there wasn’t. It was implied. Sexy, yes – and sensual. It was a great, classic series whose rep is dirtier than the book ever was.
Over at DC, on Wasteland, we did all sorts of crap. We tossed a baby out of a window in a story called R.Ab (which stood for retroactive abortion) and we managed to honk off both pro-lifers and pro-choicers (and, if memory serves, our publisher) at the same time. We eviscerated a biology teacher for laughs and tried to get the reader into the mind of a serial killer among other things. Without bad language and without sex. We got accused of bad taste, which we reveled in, but rarely bad language or blatant sex.
I’m not saying that the envelope shouldn’t be pushed or that censorship is a good thing. However, if you try to establish boundaries and tell creative folks not to go there, odds are the creative folks figure out a way around it, if they can. That’s why they’re called creative. They’re never more creative when trying to do something naughty. Or juvenile. Or naughty juvenile.
Whoaaaa! Sounds dirty, that! Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more!
“Hell Is Empty” is as much about the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming as it is about the people who live within their shadows. Absaroka County Sheriff Walt Longmire is transporting several prisoners to an out of the way wilderness locale to unearth the remains of a slain Indian boy murdered by one of the convicts; a psychopath named Raynaud Shade. Upon meeting Longmire for the first time, Shade tells him he hears ghosts and believes the sheriff possesses the same ability. Longmire, having fulfilled his duty in getting this human monster to the site, packs it in and starts down the mountain.
Within hours of digging up the boy’s bones, the convicts, following a plan devised by Shade, escape; killing several federal agents and marshals in the process. When the news reaches Longmire, he realizes he’s the only lawman left on the mountain able to give chase and sets out after the killers alone. Thus begins his incredible journey that will ultimately test both his body and his spirit as a savage winter storm is descending on the mountains and becomes a deadly participant in the drama.
Johnson’s title; “Hell Is Empty,” is an homage to Dante’s classic fantasy, “Inferno,” where the lowest levels of hell are not hot but numbingly frozen over much like the very peaks Longmire must conquer to capture Shade and save the female marshal he holds hostage. Now a resident of Colorado, I am daily reminded of the power and majesty of these mountain ranges and threat they pose to any who venture into them naively without the proper outdoor skills. This book is more an adventure odyssey than a mystery. Longmire must confront his own inner demons while climbing higher to reach the snow blanketed Cloud Peak which is Shade’s final destination where both will confront each other in a primal contest of good versus evil.
The book is multilayered and despite it Heminwayesque narrative style, Johnson adds a new twist by having his protagonist guided by a giant Crow warrior called Virgil White Buffalo; his version Dante’s Roman poet guide. There is a crucial connection between the giant Virgil and the fleeing killer that Longmire slowly uncovers as the pair make their way through the brutal storm. Soon the physical suffering the sheriff has to endure begins playing tricks on his consciousness until the reader realizes his companion may simply be the hallucination of a fevered mind.
“Hell Is Empty,” is the seventh book in the Walt Longmire series by Johnson and a terrific, gripping read unlike anything else on the market today. It is fresh with interesting characters and skillful in its economic storytelling. As the book’s cover announces, the series has been turned into a new A & E television series that will soon premier on Sunday evening June 3rd and features Australian actor Robert Taylor as Walt Longmire with Katee Sachofff of Battlestar Galactica fame as his chief deputy Victoria “Vic” Moretti and Lou Diamond Phillips as best friend, Henry Standing Bear. If the show is as much fun as this book, then we’re all in for a treat.
A long time ago – in 1959 – in a galaxy far, far away – well, actually, just over the Bayonne Bridge on Staten Island – I met Kara Zor-El.
I was six. She was 12 years old … in Earth years.
I could walk, run, ride a bike, and ride a horse. She could fly.
I was always getting numerous cuts and scrapes and bruises. She was invulnerable.
I had 20-20 vision. She had X-ray vision, telescopic vision and heat vision.
I would get in trouble for not hearing my mom or dad calling for me to come in and eat supper. She had super-hearing.
I was fast. She could break through the time barrier.
I got kicked out of Girl Scouts (remind me to tell you why – it’s not what you think). She joined the Legion of Super-Heroes.
My mom gave me money to go rent a horse for an hour so I could ride. She had her very own horse. Okay, he was actually a handsome man from another planet, but let’s not get Freudian here, okay?
I didn’t have a dog. I really wanted a dog. My parents said no. Okay, she had a cat. Not a fan of cats. Why couldn’t she have a dog?
I wasn’t Superman’s cousin. She was.
If Superman got in trouble, I couldn’t do a damn thing to help him.
She was his secret weapon. Which meant that he depended on her to pull his green-glowing ass out of the Kryptonite frying pan time and again.
No wonder I loved her.
Kara Thrace.
A long time ago – 150,000 years ago – in another galaxy far, far way, she fulfilled her destiny and led the rag-tag fleet led by the Battlestar Galactica – all that was left of the human race after its destruction by the Cylons – to a new beginning on a new Earth.
Stogie-chomping, card-sharking, Viper-jockeying, Kara Thrace.
Hard-drinking, troubled, two-timing, bitchin’ Kara Thrace.
Killed in action, resurrected, disappearing-into-thin-air Kara Thrace.
Call sign: Starbuck.
Frakkin’ Kara Thrace.
No wonder I loved her.
Buffy Anne Summers.
Not that long ago – 1992 – in still another galaxy far, far away, an apt description of California to some – a fifteen year old girl who lived in Los Angeles met her destiny while sucking on a lollipop on the steps of her high school. Soon after she burned down her high school gym. Her parents divorced and she and her mom moved to Sunnydale to start over.
Only Buffy couldn’t start over.
For “in every generation, there is a chosen one. She alone will stand against the vampires the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the slayer.”
For seven years, Buffy took on the natural and the supernatural, the unworldly and the all-too-real world, took on and stood up to and faced it all.
Vampires. Robots and a cyborg. Witches. Demons. Gods.
High School. College. Relationships. A job she hated.
For six seasons, he played the traitorous Gaius Baltar on Battlestar Galactica. This Friday, James Callis brings his acting talents to the international hit series MERLIN, playing the equally unscrupulous Julius Borden.
And in his first scene in this Friday’s episode, titled “Aithusa,” Callis comes face to face with the man who was once his mentor – fittingly, court physician Gaius.
Once the pupil of MERLIN’s Gaius, Borden left Camelot during the Great Purge, but in the darkness returns to Camelot looking for the third part of the Triskelion – an ancient object that promises to reveal the location of the last dragon egg.
Despite a stern warning from Gaius, Merlin offers to help Borden if it means he can fulfill his obligation as the Last Dragonlord to ensure the survival of the species. But the task turns deadly when Merlin realizes exactly why Borden wants the egg.
Although the Great Dragon, Kilgharrah (voiced by John Hurt), figured prominently in the first season of MERLIN, in the last two seasons his primary function has been to give advice to Merlin and help him in times of greatest threat. It was Kilgharrah, for instance, who cautioned Merlin that “your determination to see goodness in people will be your undoing.”
In “Aithusa,” however, the Great Dragon assumes a much more prominent role in the story. In the last two seasons, MERLIN “has shown his separation, his independence from the Dragon,” says actor Colin Morgan, who plays Merlin. “At the beginning of Season One, the Dragon was a confidante, someone Merlin needed help from. Slowly and slowly, they grew apart, and the Dragon’s motives became slightly unclear, so there has been a question of trust between them.” (more…)
You know how a few weeks ago I talked about what it’s like to be a writer? One thing I didn’t mention was the awfulness of staring at a blank screen – or a blank piece of paper for those who still use a typewriter, and yes, they are out there – without a clue in the universe of what you’re going to write about.
That’s when procrastination sets in.
After a half-hour, or maybe even an hour, of sitting at the computer and absolutely nothing is coming, I suddenly realize that the bathroom really needs to be cleaned. I gather up the Comet Bathroom Cleaner and the SOSand go to it, attacking the bathtub and the toilet, the sink and the floor. I Windex the mirror. Then I decide to rearrange the shelves. Then I realize that I need to put some clean towels out.
Okay, done. Bathroom looks and smells great.
Now I’m ready.
And still nothing comes.
I pick up the pile of comics that’s lying on my rocking chair. DC’s Legion: Secret Origin #2. Superman #3. Star Trek #3 from IDW. A bunch of others. Nothing sparks my interest really. I throw them back down and go into the living room. I slept on the couch last night, falling asleep while trying to stay awake and watch The Best Of The Dr. Who Christmas Specials on BBCAmerica. The blanket and pillow are still lying on the sofa.
I fold up the blanket and put it away, throw the pillow back on my bed. I sit down at the computer again.
Fifteen minutes later I’m back in the living room. I’ve been watching Battlestar Galactica repeats on BBCAmerica and all the commercials have been driving me mad – plus it annoys me that they cut out the “Previously on Battlestar Galactica” and I’m sure they’re cutting other scenes out too. I resolve to pull out my DVDs of BSG, watch an episode or two, and then sit down and do the column. It’s only 2 P.M.; lots of time left. I put Disc One of Season Four into the DVD and sit down to watch.
Three hours later it’s 5:30.
Okay, this is bullshit. Mike is going to kill me, and I’m being really, really unprofessional here.
Back at the computer. Maybe I should write about Christmas Eve.
Drove down to my brother and sister-in-law’s with the parents, Alixandra and Jeff. The plan was to be at my brother’s in time for the start of the Giants-Jets game, which started at 1. Alix and Jeff were supposed to pick me up at 10; they got to my house closer to 11. The radio was turned to NPR and Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me (which is one of my favorite shows on NPR) was on, and surprise! surprise! – Neil Gaiman was the guest. Haven’t seen Neil in too many years to count, so it was fun to listen to him play “Not My Job” and answer questions about Will and Kate – he nailed them, and so won Karl Cassel’s voice for some guy from Chicago’s voicemail; no, it wasn’t you, Mike.
Settle down at my brother’s to watch the game. First half – well, let’s not talk about that – except for Victor Cruz!!! What a runback! What a catch! Then the second half – Gaints come alive. And then it’s deep in the fourth quarter, it’s a long game, it’s 4:18 – New York is leading by 6 – the score is 20-14 – and FOX switches to the Eagles-Dallas game because of “NFL rules.” Chaos reigns! I throw a hissy fit, I yell at my brother, “I told you should have gotten the NFL Network!” while he cursed and ran for a radio. Jeff, always a calm in the center of my storms, suggests streaming it on the computer. I think, “what a great idea!,” so I run to my sister-in-law’s computer and hook into ESPN.com. No visual, just real-time audio, so I might as well go back and listen to the radio with the rest of the family. But I stay long enough to hear the Gaints make a safety. And between the time I left the computer and got back to the rest of the family, there was an interception, a touchdown – and I still don’t know who made it – and Tynes hit a field goal. 29 – 14. And Corey Webster intercepted to end the game.
Go Giants!!!!
Still don’t know what the hell to write about.
Oh, I know.
Gave my eleven year-old niece Isabel the original Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld maxi-series by Dan Mishkin, Gary Cohn and Ernie Colon along with the Amethyst mini-series by Keith Giffen and the late Esteban Maroto… oh, yeah, and me! She was delighted and wanted to sit down and start reading right away – but her mom (rightly so) said no, not now. This could get me writing about the continual ignorance of the comic book business when it comes to attracting young female readers; I mean, Amethyst was back in the 80’s, and the honchos are still trying to figure it out? Some things, as the saying goes, never change.
I could tell you about how we all stuffed ourselves on an introductory course of smoked salmon, white fish, and smoked trout on various breads and crackers served with bloody mary’s, followed by a dinner of tender romaine hearts with baby cherry tomatoes in a vinaigrette dressing, braised beef tenderloin in a garlic and horseradish sauce, roasted cauliflower with parmesan, latkes (potato pancakes, as I mentioned last week) and fresh grilled squash with red onions sprinkled with honey; followed by an upside down orange polenta cake served alongside a Carvel“Frosty the Snowman” ice cream cake.
What else could I write about? Don’t feel like saying anything about politics this week. Well, I could talk about the House Republicans trying to block the extension of the payroll tax cut and how they had to cave and how the “orange man” sounded like a fool when he tried to make it a Republican victory, but, nah, just not in the mood.
Lots of ruminating this week. Mostly political. Mostly causing me to make sure my passport is up-to-date and to wonder what the hell country I can move to if the Repugnanticans – my term for what passes as the Republican Party these days – actually win the Presidency.
This past Thursday, November 17th, marked the two-month anniversary of the start of Occupy Wall Street. Some smart mouth caller to the Tom Hartman show pointed out that the prefix “anni” comes from the Latin anno, which means “year,” so November 17th couldn’t be the “two month anniversary.” Why did I think while listening to this jackass that he was a front for the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity or Karl Rove’s American Crossroads? So just call it an observance, a tribute, a celebration, or a commemoration, asshole.
The Los Angeles Times reported on November 20th that police officers who just walked up to students peacefully demonstrating in solidarity with the Occupy movement at the University of California-Davis and pepper-sprayed them dead-on in their faces have been put on administrative leave while their actions are investigated. (You can go to my Facebook page to see the video, or check out this link.) Hmmm. Administrative leave. That means they’re getting paid. Just like…
“This isn’t about humanity! This isn’t about the future!”
So said a member of the Outcasts cast late in the show’s abbreviated run and it’s a shame because a story set in the future should be about that very thing. Creator Ben Richards wrote earlier this year,
“The inspiration behind Outcasts was the desire to tell a pioneer story, and the only place you can do that really now is in space.
“I wanted to explore second chances, most fundamentally whether humanity is genetically hardwired to make the same mistakes again and again.
“The stories that kick start the series are intense, and hopefully moving, but the world view is never cynical or willfully pessimistic.”
In other words, he was hoping for the critical success of Battlestar Galactica but told stories more worthy of Space: 1999. The BBC series ran eight weeks earlier this year while it came to America in June to meet the same dismal critical reception. Now, BBC Video releases the complete series on a three-disc set.
Never heard of the show? That says a lot about how poorly received it was on both sides of the Atlantic. It was a serious-minded SF series, a counterpoint to the more over-the-top SF from England including Doctor Who, Torchwood, and Primeval. Sadly, it may have suffered more from self-importance than bad production.
Set in the middle of the 21st Century, mankind has ruined the Earth and its survivors have been coming in drips and drabs to the world of Carpathia, a mere five years’ travel distance. The remnants of humanity are trying to forge a new society but they all come with such baggage that fresh starts seem impossible. We join them ten years after the first colonists arrived and long after regular contact with the nuclear-devastated Earth was lost. A ship, perhaps the very last from Earth, arrives as we begin the series. We then see how life tries to work with the Protection and Security team keeping the peace while the Expeditionaries goes foraging for foods and medicines while studying their new home.
Richards wrote five of the eight episodes and may have had good intentions, but his internal story logic and execution left a lot to be desired. There’s a sprawling, attractive cast ill-served by their individual storylines and they never really gel as an ensemble. His talkative scripts rob the show of momentum and its slow pacing, reminiscent of 1999, doesn’t help.
His characters all feel like ones we’ve seen before, in far better science fiction concepts. There’s the President (Liam Cunningham), the madman (Jamie Bamber), the better former VP (Eric Maibus), the man with a secret past (Daniel Mays), and so on. It’s an international group, trying to reflect humanity so there’s Maibus the American, Bamber the Brit, and the South African (busty model Jeanné Kietzmann). If only we grew to care about them.
About the freshest element in the series is the notion of the Advanced Cultivars, artificially created humans designed to survive in the alien environment and blamed for unleashing a virus that killed many of the colony’s children, threatening the humans’ future.
The thing is, each episode should be advancing stories and themes but there are a lot of retreads and flashbacks and no real sense that the society is settling in. Still, there’s something, some quality to each episode that keeps you watching, keeps you hoping things get better. By the sixth episode, things feel like they are finally coming together then the subsequent episode spins its wheels and the final episode ends on a less-than-compelling cliffhanger. One that will never be resolved because the ratings dropped so dramatically that the series was yanked from its high profile time slot after five airings and dumped on late Sunday nights when good British telly watchers had gone to sleep. The day after the finale aired, the BBC announced the show’s cancellation.
The episodes look fine in high definition and there was at least some interesting thought into the colonization of this alien world that is as bleak as the stories told on its surface. One of the set’s extras if a set tour for Forthaven, which details the thinking. The other is “Reach to the Stars”, a featurette that has cast and crew try to convince you they’re doing something unique and wonderful.
You can judge for yourself whether this was a missed opportunity or hidden gem. Either way, these eight installments are all you’re ever going to see of this world and its dreary inhabitants.
We all knew about this, but with the film debuting at next week’s Comic-Con International, Warner Home Video has shared the details. We’re kind of excited to see the classic story adapted for the screen, but we might be even more excited about the spot-on vocal casting for the Catwoman that accompanies the feature.
BURBANK, CA, (July 13, 2011) – Comics legend Frank Miller’s classic retelling of Batman’s gritty, formative days makes its full-length animated debut in Batman: Year One, the next entry in the popular, ongoing series of DC Universe Animated Original Movies. Produced by Warner Premiere, DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation, the all-new, PG-13 rated film arrives October 18, 2011 from Warner Home Video as a Blu-ray™ Combo Pack ($24.98 SRP) and DVD ($19.98 SRP), On Demand and for Download. Order due date is September 13, 2011
Batman: Year One is based on the landmark 1987 DC Comics titles from 12-time Eisner Award winner Frank Miller and illustrator David Mazzucchelli. The film depicts young Bruce Wayne’s return to Gotham City in his first attempts to fight injustice as a costumed vigilante. The playboy billionaire chooses the guise of a giant bat to combat crime, creates an early bond with a young Lieutenant James Gordon (who is already battling corruption from inside the police department), inadvertently plays a role in the birth of Catwoman, and helps to bring down a crooked political system that infests Gotham.
Prime time television stars Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad), Ben McKenzie (Southland, The O.C.), Eliza Dushku (Dollhouse, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica) provide the core voices for Batman: Year One. Three-time Emmy® Award winner Cranston gives voice to young Jim Gordon, while McKenzie makes his animated voiceover debut as Bruce Wayne/Batman. Fanboy favorites Dushku and Sackhoff fill the roles of Selina Kyle/Catwoman and Detective Sarah Essen, respectively. Alex Rocco (The Godfather) is the voice of crime lord Carmine Falcone.
Animation master Bruce Timm is executive producer of Batman: Year One. Directors are Lauren Montgomery (Superman/Batman: Apocalypse) and Sam Liu (All-Star Superman) from a script penned by Academy Award® nominee Tab Murphy (Gorillas in the Mist, Superman/Batman: Apocalypse).
“Batman: Year One offers fans and newcomers alike an animated perspective on one of the true benchmark works in Batman comics history,” said Hersin Magante, Warner Home Video Marketing Manager, Family &, Animation.. “Bruce Timm and the Warner Bros. Animation team have gone to great lengths to realize Frank Miller’s ground-breaking, influential vision. Batman: Year One stands tall as the next DC Universe Animated Original Movie.” (more…)
Creator/producer Russell T Davies has started serious work on fourth season of Torchwood. Right now, that means doing his writing bit – and gathering the other writers for the 10-episode season. His team lacks nothing in heroic fantasy street cred.
According to the Chicago Tribune’sMaureen Ryan, joining Davies and returning Torchwood writer
John Fay will be John Shiban (Breaking Bad, Supernatural, The X-Files), Jane Espenson (Game of Thrones, Battlestar Galactica, Buffy), and friend of ComicMixDoris Egan (House, Smallville, Tru Calling, Dark Angel). That’s one hell of a writing staff.
Despite the presence of five writers, the season is expected to be tightly woven together, more along the lines of the third season’s Children of Earth five-parter than the first two seasons, which featured single-episode dramas.
Once Davies has fleshed out the new characters, filming will begin in North America around the first of the year. This new season is being co-produced by the BBC and by Starz, and will be run in the United States next summer on the Starz premium channels.
John Barrowman and Eve Miles will be returning as Captain Jack Harkness and Gwen Cooper, respectively. It will be set at Torchwood’s
North American operation, and Barrowman will no longer be the sole American in the cast. The Doctor is not expected to make an appearance in this series, but one should not rule out Captain Jack returning to Doctor Who in the next season or two.
No word on the return of the weevils as of yet.
UPDATE
According to Zap2It, Russell T. Davies told a press tour that “Torchwood picks up a while after the events of ‘Children of Earth,’ but still deals with Capt. Jack’s state of mind after those devastating events… A new character, CIA agent Rex Matheson (who has yet to be cast), will serve to introduce new audiences. Rex has no idea what Torchwood is and has to investigate. We also have a watch analyst at the CIA called Esther. The two become embroiled in the Torchwood legend.
“The Welsh setting still features in a really significant way,” Davies continued. Gwen Cooper’s “story will take place in the U.S. but also very much in the U.K.” Davies also noted that Cooper’s husband and baby will be in the story, but James Marsters will not be in the next season.
He further noted that since Torchwood is on a premium cable network, it can have nudity and sex scenes but, as they always say, only if the story demands it. Right. Hello!!! We’ve seen the first three seasons of Torchwood!
Everywhere you look, dystopia stories abound. Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games became the movie event of the spring while the most talking about new NBC series is J.J. Abrams’ Revolution. Little surprise then that basic cable’s ratings darling in 2011 was TNT’s Falling Skies. With the show’s second season debuting June 17, the first season has been released on DVD from Warner Home Entertainment. The premise is not necessarily an original one: aliens have arrived and have largely conquered Earth while small bands of resistance fighters struggle to free humanity. What the aliens want remains a mystery.
Creator/producer Russell T Davies has started serious work on fourth season of Torchwood. Right now, that means doing his writing bit – and gathering the other writers for the 10-episode season. His team lacks nothing in heroic fantasy street cred.
