Taking a look at some of the latest news stories from TV, including the end of epic TV dramas and new cast members for 24 and Heroes.
Lost producer claims show will end epic TV storytelling According to one of the writers and producers of the show Jack Bender, The last season of LOST will finish epic television dramas for a long while.
It’s going to be one of the last huge television shows in terms of size of cast and scope of production… Given the fact that network television is changing, it may be one of the last great rides of this kind of big epic storytelling. That’s not to say there won’t be another great big old show that is a serialized show in the future, [b]ut for awhile I think it’s going to be smaller and more procedural.
There will be an ending to our show and I trust it will be a stimulating, satisfying ending… This show needs to be building toward a story finish. The audience can’t feel like the creative wheels are spinning and critically, there were times during [earlier seasons] where we were critically, and in terms of our audience, getting busted for spinning wheels a little bit.
Battlestar Galactica’s Starbuck Joins 24 Katee Sackhoff, the actress best known for playing Starbuck on Battlestar Galactica, has joined the cast of the eighth season of Fox’s 24. Sackhoff will play Dana Walsh, “a highly respected and down-to-earth data analyst at the new and improved” New York City branch of CTU.
GeekTyrant | SCI FI Wire | /Film
New cast members for Heroes Prison Break star Robert Knepper is to join the cast of US TV drama Heroes as a new villain, according to industry newspaper The Hollywood Reporter. NBC bosses also confirmed that Californication star Madeline Zima will be joining the show as a friend to current character Claire, whom she meets at college. Ray Park, the stunt man/actor who played Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace and Toad in X-Men, will be playing “one of the colorful characters at the centre of the show’s Carnivale-esque storyline. Also, Deanne Bray (from The L Word) is “nearing a deal” to come on board for multiple episodes as “a deaf love interest for one of the main Heroes”.
BBC News | SFX (T-Bag | Ray Park) | SCI FI Wire
Richard Hatch thinks a proposed Battlestar movie can learn from Star Trek Universal Pictures quietly entered into negotiations with Battlestar creator Glen A. Larson to produce a big-screen version of the property he created, which would be unrelated to the recently concluded SCI FI series headed by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, according to The Hollywood Reporter in February.
“I think they saw the success Paramount had with their Star Trek reboot,” Hatch told the site. “But unlike Paramount, who seems to know the Star Trek audience, I don’t think Universal ever quite got Battlestar. I just hope they hire the right people and make a good movie.”
New Futurama series Comedy Central, after its four feature-length toes in the water, has commissioned a full series of Matt Groening’s beleaguered sci-fi Simpsons sibling Futurama. Creators Matt Groening and David X Cohen are already working on stories for the new batch of episodes which should premiere on Comedy Central in mid-2010.
There have been quite a lot of news stories so here are some links to those that didn’t get featured above:
- SCI FI Wire – Heroes’ James Kyson Lee fights giant space bugs in Star Runners (with spoilers)
- SG-1’s Michael Shanks will guest-star in an episode of Sanctuary
- SFX – Torchwood Exhibition in Cardiff
- SCI FI Wire – Sarah Connor creator Josh Friedman on why the show won’t be coming back
- SFX – SFX and Doctor Who nominated in British Fantasy Awards
- SFX – Being Human Star In Tennant Who Finale
- SCI FI Wire – Battlestar’s Olmos reveals why The Plan will leave you gasping
- SI FI Wire – Sci-fi TV veteran Jeff Bell will run the show at ABC’s V revamp
- SCI FI Wire – Anthony Head: The Buffy spinoff Ripper may still be possible
