From the folks who are doing Once Upon A Time, another twisty little show, this time redoing Alice for modern times: Once Upon A Time In Wonderland. It hits the small screen (OK, not so small for those who have 4K TVs with a huge screen, but lots of us are still watching in SD) on October 10th on ABC. It tends to look like the creators watched the Syfy channel’s Alice and said “I could do that, but with an American accent”, but I really don’t care. I will watch any variation of a classic by Lewis G. Carrol, Frank L. Baum, Edgar Rice Burroughs, or a select few other writers from the 1800s, and enjoy them no matter where they take them.
The Colony is about the survivors of humanity, living underground to escape the never ending winter that has taken over the planet. If that doesn’t interest you, The Wizard of Oz: 3D is an IMAX 3D processed run of the original 1939 classic. I am going to be at that one, if only because I have never seen it on the big screen.
World War Z is the US movie this time around with actual high speed zombies who could really catch you when they chased you. The Hong Kong offering this time around is The Last Tycoon, not genre but pretty good.
In TV we have season 1 of Arrow, which was the best new Broadcast TV show of last year in my book. Season 2 rolls out on the CW on October 9th, and I am looking forward to it. We also get Grimm: Season Two, the best new broadcast TV show from the year before that. And to complete this weeks set, we have The Mentalist: The Complete Fifth Season, kind of a near-genre show what with it’s Not A Psychic screaming through the bullhorn.
In Anime, Sword Art Online: Aincrad Part 2 picks up two years after everyone was trapped in the murderous game, and the challenges get more deadly the further up through the levels they go. The Future Diary, parts 1 and 2 also comes out this week. 12 people now have diaries on their cell phones that can tell them of events in the future, and they are in a race to see which of them can use that foreknowledge to become a god. Only one can win; the rest will die, repeatedly, as their glimpses of the future always include their own deaths. Trust me when I say that even though these two anime’s are not lighthearted, they are both very, very good.
Michiko & Hatchin is also being released with both parts 1 and 2 coming out on the same day. A sexy prison escapee rescues an abused girl, and their lives become entangled as they search for the man in their past they have in common.Naruto Shippūden: The Lost Tower is a feature film length story that has Naruto traveling back in time, visiting ancient civilizations, and getting in trouble while trying to save the day. Finally, Golgo 13: Complete Collection puts all 50 episodes of the TV series starring the assassin’s assassin in a single box set. Mind, there are also two live action movies, an animated feature film, an OVA, a radio play, and six video games all for the same character. Every one of these is based on the Manga Golgo 13, which is the oldest manga still in publication, having started in 1969.
What looks to be another interesting show from the CW, The 100 is about human survivors in orbit around Earth after a nuclear confrontation. When the radiation dies down a little and the nuclear winter ends, they collect up 100 juvenile delinquents, throw them in an orbital lander, and fire them at the Earth. The goal is to see how many of them survive, because the orbital habitats are over populated after 3 generations, and they are running out of resources rapidly. I do not know what the expected broadcast date is, although Murphy’s Law says it is probably some time next week, next month, or next year.
I love Radio Plays and Audio Books, and wanted to mention these for anyone who does not already know of them. Escape Pod is a podcast that delivers a weekly free Sci-Fi audio story, and has been doing so since 2005. It is so successful at it that it is listed as a qualifying professional sale at the SFWA. In addition it has generated two spinoffs, Pseudopod for Horror fiction, and PodCastle for Fantasy fiction. You can subscribe to their podcasts, download the MP3 files from their sites, or got to the Escape Pod Archives searchable collection at Wikipedia.
Yes, Robocop has been remade yet again, or is in the process at least, and I for one am looking forward to checking out the results. The Robocop 2014 regeneration looks to be a bit slicker than the original, which should allow them to make the sleaze and corruption even more obvious.