Move over southern vampires, now we have southern zombies.
A science fiction/horror zombie dystopia is set to invade U.S. TV screens starting this Halloween as the AMC cable channel launches its first genre TV series with The Walking Dead, an adaptation of the Image Comics title to the small screen.
The series follows the exploits of Police officer Rick Grimes (played by Afterlife‘s Andrew Lincoln), who wakes up in the hospital after a near-fatal gunshot wound to discover the world has suffered a zombie apocalypse while he was sedated.
The stock unlikely hero, Grimes leads a rag-tag group of survivors on a quest to find his family and a new home. Kinda sounds like Battlestar Galactica with zombies instead of cylons, huh?
The series starts Halloween weekend on AMC and will run weekly after that.
The official series trailer is below:
Compare that to the teaser motion comic that AMC has on its website:
Starting this Labor Day, PBS stations will start airing a slice of fandom with the one-hour documentary, Four Days at DragonCon. Filmed by Atlanta- based documentarians, Jack Walsh and Gordon Ray during the 2009 con, the film is set to debut 9 p.m. (ET) Aug. 28 on WPBA PBS 30 in Atlanta and then roll out nationwide to other PBS member stations in the following months.
Dubbed in the media as “Woodstock for nerds,” ”the ultimate pop culture convention” and “the South’s sci-fi fantasy Mardi Gras,” this is no small regional sparsely-attended fan convention as Dragon*Con has grown to become the largest fan-run science fiction and fantasy convention in the world with tens of thousands of attendees taking up more Atlanta hotel space than the 1996 Summer Olympics (true, ComiCon is larger and gets more attention – but it is put on by a large corporation, not volunteer fans – and it shows.)
Below is a sneak preview of “Four Days at DragonCon”
The Syfy channel announced today that it has picked up Merlin for its third season with 13 new episodes planned for
Bradley James as Prince Arthur on BBC/Syfy’s “Merlin.” (Image via Wikipedia)
spring 2011 after first airing on BBC One in the UK starting in September 2010.
“We are thrilled that Syfy will be broadcasting the third series of Merlin. The upcoming season will add an exciting new twist to Merlin’s ongoing struggle to protect Prince Arthur, as well as thrilling audiences with bigger and bolder action sequences, stunning CGI monsters, mysterious villains and comic fun for all the family,” Merlin creator and executive producer, Johnny Capps said in a written statement.
Syfy citing ratings as a prime reason for the announcement. Merlin almost doubled Syfy’s Friday 10 p.m. timeslot overr the previous year. “The enchanting imagination of Merlin proved very popular with our audience and we’re delighted to bring the series back for a third season on Syfy,” Chris Regina, Syfy VP of programming, said.
TV Guide published a list of the best-paid stars for the upcoming 2010-2011 television season, with Charlie Sheen
Anna Paquin at DragonCon (Image via Wikipedia)
topping the list at $1.25 million an episode – outpacing the next-highest paid performer, Two and a Half Men, co-star Jon Cryer’s $550,000 per episode salary by almost a million dollars an episode.
Of the stars of genre TV, only four stars made TV Guide’s list, with Anna Paquin, of HBO’s Ture Blood, topping the list of returning stars at $75,000 per episode. Tied with her is Blair Underwood, star of the new NBC entry in genre TV, The Event. Next up is The Vampire Diary‘s Ian Somerhalder at $40,000 an episode. The last genre TV star is Selena Gomez, start of Disney Channel’s veteran fantasy kid’s comedy, Wizards of Waverly Place.
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.
Noted British fantasy and science fiction Diana Wynne Jones has decided to stop treatment to fight the lung cancer she was diagnosed with last summer, according to Ansible 275.
According to tor.com you can send well-wishes via her publisher:
You can email at the address (e-mails to meredithxyz at googlemail dot com) where well-wishes will reach Diana.
A prolific writer and Hugo winner, among her better-known works are:
The following stories are getting traction on Google today:
TiVo vs. SFTV: It appears a skirmish is brewing between Film Fidder and SF Signal as to whether or not TiVo and other DVRs are hurting or helping science fiction televiiosn.
David Speakman | FanDominion
_(series_2).jpg "List of Merlin characters")
.jpg "Actress Anna Paquin – Comic-Con 2009 -")
_cropped.jpg "Bryan Fuller")
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