Tagged: Torchwood

Who’s Porg?

Who’s Porg?

The British media have been busy snapping photographs of "Porg" (not his real name), who’s been hanging around the set of  "Voyage Of The Damned," this year’s Doctor Who Christmas special. This is the one that hooks U.K. pop singer Kylie Minogue up with the temporarily companionless Doctor, as currently played by David Tennant.

It seems Porg – that’s just his on-set nickname, by the way – crashes the Titanic’s launch party by donning a white dinner jacket. Hey, look, Superman fooled people by putting on glasses… Anyway, it is believed the alien will not be smoking cigarettes on-camera.

The Doctor finds his TARDIS materializing on the Titanic, where he is joined by an on-ship waitress named Astrid (Minogue) to save the planet from the evil red spikey thing and, no doubt, tons of CGI. Mr. Tennant has some scenes where he doffs his trademark longcoat for a tuxedo.

The one-hour ""Voyage Of The Damned" airs on the BBC, aw, you guessed it, on or around Christmas. The second season of the spin-off series Torchwood is expected to begin a couple weeks later.

Science Fiction/Fantasy News & Links

Science Fiction/Fantasy News & Links

Mark Evanier shows off the cover to his upcoming book Kirby: King of Comics, and explains what this book is (a big, heavily-illustrated look at Jack Kirby’s comics work) and what his next book will be (a much longer, text-heavy biography of Kirby).

Columnist Alex Stein, in the Guardian, likes to argue with a friend about the use and importance of science fiction. (He’s on the side of the angels) Sadly, Stein seems to be content to argue that there’s some good stuff out there amid the dreck, rather than calling the friend on his category error – the unnamed friend stacks the deck by using the new Transformers movie as the SF exemplar and “some new French slow-burner about adultery” as his example of “real life.” The equivalents of a good serious “real life” movie are movies like Gattaca, or 2001, or Blade Runner; if you want a “mainstream” comparison movie on the same level as Transformers, you’ll have to dig up something like Monster-In-Law. Defenders of SF need to point out that there’s just as much “real life” dreck as fantastic dreck – and our dreck at least has cool pictures to go with the lousy plots.

The Baltimore Sun reports on an exhibition of Star Wars paraphernalia at Geppi’s Entertainment Museum in Baltimore. The materials are all from the collection of Thomas Atkinson, who runs the Star Toys Museum.

(more…)

… Or Is It Donna The Bride?

Donna says According to the BBC, Runaway Bride star Catherine Tate is set to return to the TARDIS for the complete 13 week run of series four (a.k.a. season 30) of Doctor Who, reprising her role as Donna the runaway bride from last year’s Christmas special.

Previously, British media (including the BBC) reported Tom Ellis was going to stay on with the series, possibly in his season-ending role as Doctor Thomas Milligan. These reports have not been discounted – and, of course, it’s also possible that he would visit Torchwood, along with Martha Jones.

In any event, neither Donna the Runaway Bride, Dr. Milligan nor Dr. Jones are expected to be placed between The Doctor and the Titanic this year’s Christmas special. But, to quote Fats Waller, "one never knows, do one?"

Thanks and a tip o’the hat to our pal Lisa Sullivan.

 

The Doctor’s New Companion?

The Doctor’s New Companion?

And, again I state, there’s a spoiler or two here.

British media are reporting the new companion next season on Doctor Who will be played by Tom Ellis, who was the handsome Doctor Thomas Milligan on the season finale, The Last of the Time Lords. Ellis is perhaps best known for playing the handsome Doctor Oliver Cousins on the long-running (except by Doctor Who standards) soap opera and PBS money-sucker Eastenders.

The BBC has not confirmed these reports, several of which ran this morning on the BBC. Freema Agyema’s character of Martha Jones will be appearing on three episodes of the adult Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood, and will be rejoining the Doctor Who cast mid-season. We don’t know if the new companion will stay around, but it certainly wouldn’t be the first time (is that a pun?) there were two companions. Or even three.

We also don’t know if Ellis would be repeating his Doctor Milligan role; we recall that Martha Jones was revealed to be the identical cousin to the character Freema Agyeman played in the previous season.

 

 

Martha Jones to chase Captain Jack?

Martha Jones to chase Captain Jack?

Over at Doctor Who, Martha Jones, the tenth Doctor’s second companion, is getting tired of unrequited love. Next season, she’s starting to look at everybody’s favorite object of lust, Torchwood‘s Captain Jack Harkness.

It seems Captain Jack has been working his sexual magic on the latest companion. According to the London Daily Mirror, when the 30th season of Doctor Who goes up next year, Martha will not be in all episodes – but will pick up the slack by appearing in a number of episodes of Torchwood. A new companion will join the cast of the former series, and Martha will not be in this year’s Christmas special. However, singer Kylie Minogue will co-star in the latter event.

The 29th season of Doctor Who ends in Britain tomorrow with the last of the three-part battle with The Master (John Simm, star of Life On Mars). This season is already being broadcast in many parts of the world, including Australia and Canada; it goes up in the United States on the SciFi Network a week from today.

 

Conan: Red Nails Voice Cast Set

Conan: Red Nails Voice Cast Set

The upcoming R-rated animated feature film Red Nails, based upon Robert E. Howard’s famous Conan story of the same name, has its voice cast in place.

Co-writer and producer Steve Gold notes in his blog Ron Perlman (Hellboy) has been cast as Conan the Cimmerian, Cree Summer (Ben 10, The Boondocks) as Valeria, Marg Helgenberger (Mr. Brooks, CSI) as Tascela, James Marsden (X-Men, Smallville, Buffy, Torchwood) as Techotl, Clancy Brlown (Lex Luthor in Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League Unlimited) as Olmec, and Mark Hamill (Star Wars, and virtually every decent U.S. animated show in the past decade) as Tolkemec.

Vic Dal Chele is directing Red Nails. There are tons of development sketches and storyboard art on their website; Mike Kaluta handled much of the development artwork, including the piece above.

Artwork copyright Swordplay Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Smallville / Buffy Star Goes To Torchwood

Smallville / Buffy Star Goes To Torchwood

James Marsters will be guest-starring in an episode of the R-rated Doctor Who spin-off, Torchwood.

Perhaps best known as Spike in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel teevee series and as well as Dr. Milton Fine in Smallville, Marsters has also voiced the role of Lex Luthor in the upcoming D2DVD Superman: Doomsday. He is also a musician and singer, playing solo and as lead singer of Ghost of the Robot.

The second season of Torchwood goes up in the U.K. after the first of the year; the first season goes up on BBC America in September.

Sarah Jane’s Back

Sarah Jane’s Back

The second spin-off from the revived Doctor Who teevee series, The Sarah Jane Adventures, has finally completed casting and is now being written.

The show, starring Elisabeth Sladen as former Doctor Who companion Sarah Jane Smith (she co-starred with Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker from 1973 to 1976) plays an investigative journalist with a passion for extra-terrestial stories. Her previous life is only known to a trio of neighborhood children. Whereas the Doctor’s robotic dog K-9 appeared in the pilot, he/it is not expected to have a regular presence in this new series.

The pilot aired in England at the beginning of this year with a somewhat different cast. The Sarah Jane Adventures is oriented towards children in the way Torchwood is oriented towards adults, and is executive produced by Who honcho Russell T. Davies. No air date has been confirmed by the BBC.

Sladen has also played Sarah Jane in eight original full-cast audio adventures by Big Finish Productions.

Doctor Who 3 hits Sci-Fi this summer

Doctor Who 3 hits Sci-Fi this summer

The third season of the new Doctor Who series will hit the U.S. cable channels in July, starting with the 2006 Christmas Special, "The Runaway Bride".

The new series will run on the Sci-Fi Channel, home to the previous two seasons of shows. Ultimately, it will be syndicated and appear alongside its "adult" spin-off show Torchwood on BBC America.

The week following "The Runaway Bride" U.S. fans will meet the Doctor’s new companion Martha Jones in the season’s opening episode "Smith and Jones."

 

Torchwood season 2 announced

Torchwood season 2 announced

Torchwood co-executive producer Julie Gardner disclosed the show’s second season will begin airing on the BBC at the beginning of next year.

In its article about the new Doctor Who season in the British publication The Stage, Ms. Gardner stated last season the show didn’t have as much post-production time  as they would have liked. This year, the season debut will be pushed back a bit – after the as yet unannounced Doctor Who special that airs on or around Christmas. This would likely push the debut of the next season of Doctor Who back a few weeks.

The current  Doctor Who season will be featuring several guest appearances from Torchwood‘s Captain Jack. The first season of Torchwood will be making its American debut on BBC America this September.