Following is an electronic press release published in its entirety as a service to our readers.
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David Speakman wrote a new blog post: Bryan Fuller to bring 'Lotus Caves' to Syfy _cropped.jpg)
Finally, someone is trying to bring back space opera to television, at least, according to Entertainment Weekly . In "The Ausiello Files" TV section, EW columnist Andy Patrick reports that Syfy has hired Bryan Fuller to adapt John Chrisopher's novel, The Lotus Caves into s script for a possible series. Among SFTV fandom, Fuller is known both as the [...]
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_cropped.jpg "Bryan Fuller")
Bryan Fuller (Image via Wikipedia)
Finally, someone is trying to bring back space opera to television, at least, according to Entertainment Weekly.
In “The Ausiello Files” TV section, EW columnist Andy Patrick reports that Syfy has hired Bryan Fuller to adapt John Chrisopher’s novel, The Lotus Caves into s script for a possible series.
Among SFTV fandom, Fuller is known both as the creator of Pushing Daiseis as well as the main writer for some of the best episodes of Heroes (or, when Heroes didn’t suck) and as the creator of cult classics, Wonderfalls and Dead Like Me.
PREMISE FOR THE NEW SHOW:
It’s set on a future Lunar colony where the colonists tumble upon the fact that intelligent aliens have set up shop on our moon in the caves for a very long time.
But a final caveat – this is just a production deal. It’s for a pilot script and series treatment. There is no guarantee that this show willa ctually make it on the air.
It used to be journalism was the fourth estate holding up our fragile democracy while digging the rot out of the other three all while beating the stuffing out of the crooked side corporate America.
Newspapers and many TV station groups were held by families or family trusts with independent wealth and who, out of a sense of duty, ran their news operations as a pubic trust… until their bratty descendants decided to cash in after the original owners’ deaths in the 1990s and 2000s.
Once local cross-ownership started to fall, and national ownership caps became but token gestures, the new national corporate owners cared more about quarterly profits than actual local journalism. It gets worse every day.
Under Rupert Murdoch’s clarion call, the final and decisive blows are landing as more and more news outlets dump American-style public-trust journalism and dump it for Australio-British biased blunt advocacy and tabloitainment formats that are loathe to do investigative reporting that could piss off advertisers and lower short-term profits.
But “news” needs controversy for its sense of immediacy. So the solution is finding a way to mine an endless vein of controversy that is guaranteed *not* to piss off advertisers attracted to your audience. FNC is brilliant in how it solved this dilemma: the controversy is in demonizing the people who AREN’T and never will be your audience. That way – you only alienate he folks your advertises don’t care about anyway – the folks who will remain non-watchers. Added benefit: your core audience grows because you cater to it and make it feel special.
MSNBC followed suit in 2009, growing an anti-FNC audience and – crippling CNN in the process by stealing much of its younger, advertiser-sought audience.
Of course programming executives who have their noses up in everything, anyway, sniffed that shift in fortune and are marching in lock-step to Murdoch’s pied piper tune; in doing so, they are dismantling the Fourth Estate and building the Fifth Column from its debris.
I fear the only American-style journalism that will exist after the dust settles will be one or two publications still controlled by benefactors instead of public corporations – and public broadcasting.
The New York Times has been teetering on bankruptcy for the past few years and, quite frankly, I don’t think it will survive the decade. Online sources like HuffPo are just going keep taking market share and continue to eat away at that newspaper’s audience.
Case in point: Generation X was the last U.S. generation that grew up with newspaper as a primary source of information. I’m a member of that group – but these days we’ve pretty much ditched newspaper for the Internet. I’m a news junkie, but I do not think I’ve bought a “paper” newspaper in more than 3 years.
Baby Boomers are the last generation that still reads newsprint in any significant number. But the youngest Baby Boomer is … 47? 50? It depends on where Boomers stop and X begins. Anyway, the fat lady is warming up for her song; the time is coming – probably before 2020 – when there just will not be a viable audience for newsprint news in most cities.
But face it, as illustrated above by your post – it’s much worse as far as TV is concerned. Gen X is SOOO yesterday. There hasnt’ been a 20-something Gen Xer in years – but we’re used to being ignored having lived in the trough between the Boomers and their kids.
The big awakening in my opinion will be, once again, caused by Boomers. The last of you guys are about to age out of the 25-54 age demographic within the next couple years. Unlike Gen X, which is accustomed to being ignored and adapting behind the scenes… Boomers are not known for being quiet or taking a back seat to anybody – I wonder what will happen when the last Boomer turns 55 and the last advertiser not selling adult diapers, age-disease medication or erection treatments turns its back on America’s trouble-making generation. A revolution, I hope.
But until that happens the bloodbath now is just going to get worse.
This is why I became disheartened and finally gave up on my 20-year career in news in 2006, went to law school and graduated in June with a J.D. at age 42.
If I’m gonna sell my soul, anyway – I’d rather be upfront about it and make money while doing it.
(This was originally published as a response to an article by Peter Shaplen, a friend and former boss of mine.)
David Speakman wrote a new blog post: Syfy plans December holidays with Eureka, Warehouse 13 
The following is a press release from Syfy, presented as a service to the readers:
THIS DECEMBER… ‘TIS THE SEASON TO JOIN SYFY FOR FIRST EVER HOLIDAY-THEMED EPISODES OF HIT SERIES WAREHOUSE 13 AND EUREKA Judd Hirsch (Taxi) and Paul Blackthorne (The Dresden Files) Guest Star on Warehouse 13
and Chris Parnell (Saturday Night Live) and Matt Frewer [...]
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The following is a press release from Syfy, presented as a service to the readers:
THIS DECEMBER… ‘TIS THE SEASON TO JOIN SYFY FOR FIRST EVER HOLIDAY-THEMED EPISODES OF HIT SERIES WAREHOUSE 13 AND EUREKA
Judd Hirsch (Taxi) and Paul Blackthorne (The Dresden Files) Guest Star on Warehouse 13
and Chris Parnell (Saturday Night Live) and Matt Frewer Visit Eureka
New York, New York – August 11, 2010 – This December Syfy fans no longer have to imagine what the holidays would be like in their favorite government hideaway or quaint town of geniuses. For the first time, two of Syfy’s most popular original scripted series will debut special stand-alone holiday episodes featuring both new and familiar guest stars (exact premiere dates are TBA).
On Warehouse 13, as the Warehouse team prepares to celebrate the holidays in snowy South Dakota, Pete (Eddie McClintock) and Myka (Joanne Kelly) are called upon to hunt down a malevolent Santa Claus. Meanwhile, in time for Hanukkah, Artie and his estranged father, Isadore Weisfelt reunite after 30 years. Award-winning actor Judd Hirsch returns to television guest starring as Artie’s father. Paul Blackthorne also guest stars as a harried work-a-holic who becomes terrorized by a strange series of robberies committed by a thief dressed as “jolly old Saint Nick!”
Judd Hirsch has been nominated for an Oscar for Ordinary People and honored with an Emmy for the revered comedy Taxi. He has also received a Golden Globe (Dear John) and two Tony Awards (I’m Not Rappaport, Conversations with My Father). Paul Blackthorne previously portrayed the wizard P.I. Harry Dresden on the Syfy series Dresden Files, appeared on Lipstick Jungle with Brooke Shields and can currently be seen on The Gates. Executive Producer and Showrunner Jack Kenny will direct the December holiday episode.
On Eureka, as the Global Dynamics employees celebrate the season at the company holiday party, staff member Dr. Noah Drummer (Chris Parnell) nearly absconds with a volatile experiment. The halls get seriously decked when Dr. Drummer’s unstable hydrogen crystal starts to grow at a frightening rate. Carter (Colin Ferguson) and Henry (Joe Morton) attempt to deal with the potentially explosive crystal, but before long the true scope of the problem is revealed, and it will take more than tinsel and carolers to save Christmas and Eureka. Former series regular Matt Frewer also returns as Taggert.
Chris Parnell appeared as a regular cast member on ten seasons of Saturday Night Live and was featured in the show’s breakout digital short Lazy Sunday. He is a recurring guest star on 30 Rock as Dr. Spacemen.
Warehouse 13 follows two Secret Service agents who find themselves abruptly transferred to a massive, top-secret storage facility in windswept South Dakota which houses every strange artifact, mysterious relic, fantastical object and preternatural souvenir ever collected by the U.S. government. The Warehouse’s caretaker Artie (Saul Rubinek) charges Agents Lattimer (Eddie McClintock) and Myka Bering (Joanne Kelly) with chasing down reports of supernatural and paranormal activity in search of new objects to cache at the Warehouse, as well as helping him to control the Warehouse itself. Scagliotti plays Claudia, Artie’s apprentice.
Eureka seems like any other cozy, Pacific Northwest town, but is actually a secret community of geniuses assembled by the government to conduct top-secret research. What they’ve unwittingly created is a place where anything imaginable can happen… and does. Eureka stars Colin Ferguson, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Joe Morton and James Callis. The series also stars, Erica Cerra (“Jo Lupo”), Neil Grayston (“Douglas Fargo”), Niall Matter (“Zane Donovan”) and features Jordon Hinson (“Zoe Carter”). Returning special guest stars include Jaime Ray Newman (“Dr. Tess Fontana”) and Matt Frewer (“Taggart”). Co-creator Jaime Paglia and Bruce Miller are Executive Producers.
Both shows are produced by Universal Cable Productions.
Syfy is a media destination for imagination-based entertainment. With year round acclaimed original series, events, blockbuster movies, classic science fiction and fantasy programming, a dynamic Web site (www.Syfy.com), and a portfolio of adjacent business (Syfy Ventures), Syfy is a passport to limitless possibilities. Originally launched in 1992 as SCI FI Channel, and currently in more than 96 million homes, Syfy is a network of NBC Universal, one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies. (Syfy. Imagine greater.)
LGBT-inclusive advertising (which depicts same-sex couplehood either in images or words) among mainstream advertisers is a rare thing, indeed. This is part of my series to document companies who market a product or service meant for the general population but with an ad that targets, focuses on or includes the LGBT community.
GALLERY OF ADS IN THIS ISSUE:
LGBT-inclusive advertising (which depicts same-sex couplehood either in images or words) among mainstream advertisers is a rare thing, indeed. This is part of my series to document companies who market a product or service meant for the general population but with an ad that targets, focuses on or includes the LGBT community.
GALLERY OF ADS IN THIS ISSUE:
LGBT-inclusive advertising (which depicts same-sex couplehood either in images or words) among mainstream advertisers is a rare thing, indeed. This is part of my series to document companies who market a product or service meant for the general population but with an ad that targets, focuses on or includes the LGBT community.
GALLERY OF ADS IN THIS ISSUE:
Dragon*Con may only be twenty-two days away, but we are far from done! Just a few of our exciting new guests and performers are:
Look up in the air… it’s a bird… it’s a plane… no! It’s a super hero changing history while boldly going where no one else has gone and breaking world records along the way!
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