Warning: Not work friendly, but a real fun video! Now to see if I can accurately type that many words as a URL with no typos…
The Prisoner miniseries will kick off Sunday the 15th and run for 3 nights. This miniseries is a remake of the 1967 cult classic, and will run for three consecutive nights. Currently the original Prisoner is available on On Demand and on DVD.
That was the good TV news; the bad news is that Dollhouse is canceled, which figures, since it was getting better every episode. You can see what Joss has to say about the final episodes.
Torchwood, on the other hand, now has a real good chance of having a season 4! Add that to word that Ray Bradbury’s new miniseries should hit the airwaves soon as well, and the tally comes to 3 good announcements to one bad.
This one is just what it says: Animals with Lightsabers. Io9 has an excellent review of last Friday’s Dollhouse, which is a pivotal point in this seasons story arc. Kind of sad that they had one of their lowest viewer numbers just as the story gets dark and twisted. And how about a little Klingon propaganda?
Fox is usually the last network on the planet I would recommend to people as a place to get their product distributed, but there are signs recently that it might be improving. With its renewal of Dollhouse, it has finally proved it understands there are gains to be made beyond the current weeks ratings. Part of that new understanding has to have been caused by another Joss Whedan property, Firefly, which sold 440,000 copies in its first week of release as a DVD, even though Fox had canceled the show. Now they are running a competition to add to their animation lineup, and YOU could be that animator! The contest entry point is at Aniboom, and they are looking for a 2 to 4 minute animation segment showcasing why your concept should be picked up by the network and produced into a weekly series. If you ever wanted to build your own sci-fi, this is a perfect opportunity to get started.
The changes include a smaller budget and a limit of 13 episodes, but even so I was very happy to learn that Dollhouse has been renewed for a second season by Fox. It joins the ranks of Fringe on the same network, Heroes and Medium on NBC, Lost on ABC (for 3 more seasons), and Smallville and Supernatural on the CW. All shows I watch and enjoy, although some more than others. Still undecided are Chuck (decision on Monday, promising), Reaper (perhaps syndicated with cast changes), and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (not very hopeful). There are some excellent shows that have been confirmed canceled, like Eli Stone and Pushing Daises, and some new shows worth looking forward to, like Flash Forward from Robert J. Sawyer, or the remake of V, from the folks who did The 4400 and staring several Firefly actors. So as with all years, it’s a mixed bag. And while I want to see every one of the Undecided shows returning, if there can be only one, I hope it is Chuck.
A report from SciFi Wire says that Fox will not air episode 13 of Dollhouse, which would either be the season or series finale. After the way they let Idol run long, making sure those of us who depend on recording Fringe in order to see it would never see the end of the episode, I am scratching the network off my good-guys list. Wait, I did that last year. And the year before. And pretty much every year since they canceled Firefly (or was it Buffy?). So just like Firefly, Harsh Realms, and so many shows before it, you will have to wait for the DVD in July before you can see all the episodes. John Scalzi has a nice article in praise of Dark Star and other B movies, which is appropriate. The site he posted on, AMC, has just launched a B Movies Classics site, where you can watch many of them online for free. They also have the original Prisoner series and some other goodies.