FORTIER TAKES ON THE ADVENTURES OF LAZARUS GRAY!
It is “The Wicked Day,” indeed, for Merlin, Arthur – and all of Camelot.
It begins with a festive birthday celebration for Prince Arthur … but ends as the destinies of Arthur and the warlock Merlin come clear. This one enormously fateful day is the backdrop for an all-new episode MERLIN, titled “The Wicked Day,” which premieres Friday, January 20 at 10 p.m. ET/PT only on Syfy.
Written by Howard Overman, creator of the popular British sci-fi series Misfits, and directed by Alice Troughton, “The Wicked Day” is a pivotal episode in the saga of Camelot – and begins with the arrival of a sinister-looking visitor named The Gleeman. (more…)
CBS has greenlighted a pilot, a revamp of Sherlock Holmes, that will place the legendary sleuth in modern-day New York.
The pilot, currently titled “Elementary,” comes via CBS Television Studios and Timberman-Beverly Productions, the company behind the network’s current series “A Gifted Man” and “Unforgettable.” Robert Doherty, whose credits include “Medium” and “Ringer” will write the pilot and executive-produce. Sarah Timberman and Carl Beverly will also executive-produce.
LOST Veterans Elizabeth Sarnoff and Jack Bender join us to talk about their role in the new Fox series, ALCATRAZ, plus more with Jorge Garcia and Sarah Jones. DC drops the axe on 6 New 52 titles and Mark Millar creatures a universe.
Ah, there you are. Still with us. Good. You survived the turning of the new year and the doom some are predicting hasn’t happened. Yet. But be of good cheer, you who are longing to manifest the death instinct that Sigmund Freud said is common among homo sapiens. According to something I read somewhere, the Big Erasure isn’t due until the fall. So we might yet be annihilated, thank you very much.
Meanwhile, we can read comic books and/or go to the movies. That’s what I did day before yesterday, went to my local monsterplex and saw the new Sherlock Holmes flick. And pretty much enjoyed it. Director Guy Ritchie and his associates have done what, I maintain, must be done with olden characters if they’re to appeal to contemporary audiences; he reinvented Sherlock and Dr. Watson and even Sherlock’s smarter brother, Mycroft.
Sherlock is still the world’s greatest “consulting detective” and Watson is still loyal, courageous and honorable and Mycroft is still brilliant and still needs to get to the gym, urgently. Nothing here alien to the 60 Holmes stories Arthur Conan Doyle gave us more than a century ago. But although Doyle’s Sherlock was occasionally a man of action – he could give a good account of himself in a donnybrook, by Jove – and he had a streak of the rebel in him, he was primarily a thinker and a scientist, and despite that tiny flavor of rebellion, he espoused the Victorian values: respect for order and tradition and law and, despite the denseness of some of the policemen he dealt with, also a respect for authority.
Those aren’t our values.
The world has churned and we know that science isn’t always benevolent and order is not the highest good and scoundrels can hide in tradition and authority figures…oh, come on! Check the headlines or a reputable newscast or two.
Mr. Ritchie and friends haven’t gobsmacked those quaint values – if you squint hard you might be able to discern them – but they’re largely ignored. What’s emphasized is comedy and action, along with enough science and ratiocination to qualify the hero as Sherlock. If you’re familiar with the Doyle canon, you might react to the movie’s references and rearrangement of plot elements. If you’re not… no harm, no foul. What you need is up there on the screen, though you might have to pay close attention to get it all.
I have one gripe, and for me it’s not a new one; I can level it against a number of entertainments. It’s this: much of the action is rendered in blurs and pans and ultra-swift cuts and so we popcorn eaters don’t know exactly what’s going on. The Asian actioners have demonstrated that there is considerable entertainment value in a clearly seen, cleverly choreographed fight scene. Why deny us that pleasure, particularly in a movie the budget of which is the size of Neptune? I mean, you can hire really good stunt people.
RECOMMENDED READING: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle
FRIDAY: Martha Thomases
The new Fox Series, ALCATRAZ, might seem a little familiar to LOSTies – there’s JJ Abrams, an island and even Hurley but there’s a lot more hidden in the mystery than you might think. Jorge Garcia and Sarah Jones join us to talk about what you can be sure will be different this time. Plus DC breaks the line and goes to $3.99 on Bat-Books.
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This week the ESO Crew is back in the station as we travel to 221b Baker Street to discuss the world’s greatest detective, Sherlock Holmes. Our guests this week are Holmes Artist Mark Maddox, Holmes Author Bernadette Johnson, and Holmes Historian Tom Elmore. Also Bobby sits down with Pulp 2.0 Press publisher Bill Cunningham to discuss his upcoming Sherlock Holmes project, the return of Martin Powell and Seppo Makinen’s Scarlet in Gaslight graphic novel.
Join us for yet another episode of The Earth Station One Podcast we like to call: It’s Elementary, Dear Watson. The Game is Afoot!
You get all this and more at http://www.esopodcast.com/.
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Next week, Earth Station One steps back inside the TARDIS to review the new Doctor Who Christmas Special as well as a roundtable discussion with some special guests about our favorite holiday-themed stories as we travel from 2011 to 2012.
And we would love to hear from you. What are your favorite holiday-themed stories? Leave us a comment at http://www.esopodcast.com/, at the ESO Facebook Group, email us at esopodcast@gmail.com, or call us at 404-963-9057 with your list. We might just read yours on the show.
The ESO Crew
TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT-Reviews of All Things Pulp by Tommy Hancock
MYTHS FOR THE MODERN AGE: PHILIP JOSE FARMER’S WOLD NEWTON UNIVERSE
Various Authors
Edited by Win Scott Eckert
Monkeybrain Books
2005
This is the first review of three today in recognition of Wold Newton Day. What is Wold Newton Day? In short, it commemorates the date in 1795 when a meteor crashed into the small English village of Wold Newton. According to iconic Author Philip Jose Farmer, this meteor crashed as a group of people were passing through the village and radiation from the space borne rock affected the genes of these already mostly fantastic specimens in such a way that their descendants became both the Heroes and Villains of Fiction via mediums of all sorts. This posit by Farmer led to Sherlock Holmes and Tarzan sharing family as well as hundreds of thousands of others being tangled together in the Wold Newton Family Tree. Other writers and scholars have taken up the cause of Wold Newton and have developed fantastic tales as well as scholarly works about both Farmer and the wonderful universe he brought into existence.
MYTHS FOR THE MODERN AGE is a wonderful piece of scholarship, a grand escapade into imagination, and a fitting remembrance of a man who with words and ideas literally captivated creators both while he lived and will likely for centuries to come. In his introduction to the volume, Mr. Eckert, the editor, poses several questions, queries about Holmes, Moriarty, Mowgli, Doc Savage, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and more and although he states that the essays that follow do not answer every question, they prove a good place to start.
Counting the introduction, MYTHS contains 29 works, essays focused on Farmer, his work, and on Wold Newton. Authors such as Rick Lai, Brad Mengel, Matthew Baugh, Dennis E. Power, Jess Nevins, Farmer himself, and many others fill these pages. Names like Tarzan, Captain Nemo, Rick Blaine, Lord Rufton, Charlie Chan, Zorro, Chtulhu, Fu Manchu, Joh Carter, and oh so many more dot these pages like spectacular plumage of a grand bird. Although not a Wold Newton Scholar, I do have a background as a historian and can say that the research and effort to be academic that went into each article is impressive and notable. These are not people sitting around having fanboy chats, although I’m sure they all have and would do that. This is instead a serious endeavor to bring true study to Wold Newton as a concept, to Farmer as a Man, and to the duty of imagination in furthering our society.
FIVE OUT OF FIVE TIPS OF THE HAT-You need to know what Wold Newton is? You want to know more than just the basics? This is as close to a Wold Newton Textbook as we may ever get.