MOVIES – Opening this week:

• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) was scheduled to come out half a year ago, but was delayed so that Warner Brothers could have a big July tentpole movie. This is the sixth Harry Potter movie, and it sets up a lot of crises that will be resolved in the final two films. Since the last movie came out two years ago, star Daniel Radcliffe has gotten good notices in Equus on Broadway, and here he's opposite Jim Broadbent, who elicits strong performances from everyone he works with. I've got tons of video clips, trailers, and interviews on this one, so be sure to check out the video page.
  - Watch trailers, clips, and video for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
  - Image Gallery for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Brince

TELEVISION – New episodes this week from:

• Warehouse 13,
• Eureka,
• Primeval,
• Merlin, and
• True Blood.

Guest stars this week include glamorous Battlestar alumna Tricia Helfer, on Warehouse 13; Leela Savasta, who was the ridiculously underutilized Alicia Vega on Stargate Atlantis and Tracey Anne in the final episodes of Battlestar, on Eureka; and Kenneth Cranham, who was Pompey on Rome, on Merlin.

Next week: BBC America airs Torchwood: Children of Earth. Watch for my review and more stuff on the 5-part miniseries later this week.

Synopses below the jump. For details see the listings (regular or alphabetical). Read more...

HOME VIDEO – Out on DVD this week:

• Alex Proyas's latest movie, Knowing (2009), starring Nicholas Cage (out July 7), never gained much traction.
  - Watch trailers, clips, and video for Knowing
  - Rebecca's review (2 stars out of 5)
• The likewise disappointing Push (2009), a psychic powers thriller with Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning, tried hard to build a world ordered by different kinds of special abilities, but didn't quite hold together (July 7). Random connection: If the actor playing the child version of Chris Evans looks familiar, it's Colin Ford, who occasionally plays Young Sam on Supernatural.
  - Watch trailers, clips, and video for Push

TELEVISION – Lots of good TV this week, with new episodes this week from:

• Warehouse 13 (series premiere),
• Eureka (return),
• Primeval,
• Eli Stone (series finale),
• Merlin, and
• True Blood.

Guest stars this week include Michael Boatman (Spin City) on the premiere of Warehouse 13; Kim Poirier (Paradise Falls) on the return of Eureka; Kate Magowan (Una in Stardust) guests on the third-season episode of Primeval; and Julian Rhind-Tutt (Quartus in Stardust) is a mysterious physician on Merlin. This week's repeat episode of Supernaural is the one with Ted Raimi.

Synopses below the jump. For details see the listings (regular or alphabetical). Read more...

Everything old is being resurrected again. Sometimes it works (Battlestar Galactica); a lot of times it doesn't, perhaps because the planning process doesn't progress beyond "Let's bring back Bionic Woman!"

And yet the trend seems to be escalating, despite recent disasters like the unloved update of Knight Rider. Current projects for next season alone include revamps of V: The Series, Eastwick, and The Prisoner. Fran Kuzui is reviving Buffy (the movie, not the series). Even Teen Wolf, the 1985 Michael J. Fox teenage werewolf romantic comedy, is being brought back by MTV.

So it's perhaps inevitable that someone should turn to Alien Nation, the story of a small population of spotty-headed Newcomers who try to integrate into human society. It began as a film (1988) and then ran on Fox for one season (1989-1990). It was canceled, the victim of a network financial crunch, but Alien Nation never really went away: its loose ends were explored in a series of books and comics and five made-for-TV sequel films airing from 1994 to 1997. Unlike some properties with a lot of potential that flared brightly and then vanished in the ether, Alien Nation has maintained a presence in the sci-fi pantheon.

And its time is now again. Sci Fi Channel, which next week will start calling itself Syfy, has let on it's in development on a new version of Alien Nation.
Read more...

NBC's last-minute renewal of Chuck in May was all about the numbers, so it's not surprising that the network looked to the show's major sponsor, Subway sandwiches, to shoulder a greater burden of the costs. NBC officials have confirmed that their decision to renew the show was made after Subway agreed to (shudder) "step up" its level of brand integration in the show next season.

Of course, you know what we'll be getting in return: even more intrusive product placement on a show where we've already had to watch major characters tell each other how wonderful and delicious their Subway sandwiches are.

Subway ended up getting drawn into the campaign to save the show after industry news mavens reported in April that its renewal was in jeopardy. Online fans decided that one of the most obvious ways to leverage their virtual numbers was to purchase lots of 5-dollar footlongs at their local Subway shops, which were already kitted out with tie-in Chuck imagery.

Chuck's producers haven’t said so far exactly how Subway will be introduced into the series, but they expect the chain to be a prominent fixture. There are lots of obvious possibilities: in previous seasons the cover for CIA handler Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski) was as a counter girl in a nearby wiener or frozen yogurt shop. Before, those shops were fictional chains (like Buy More), allowing the writers to use or abuse the fictional products as they pleased; but if Sarah's working at Subway, what choice will she have but to shill the sandwiches to her costars – and to us? Read more...

The thrilling season finale for Supernatural, in which Sam and Dean were maneuvered into raising Lucifer, definitely upped the ante for a show that's been driving its characters harder with every year of slogging against evil. It's easier to maintain the menace with the culminating evil in the shadows, and minions like Christopher Heyerdahl doing the dirty work and making things look desperate for the boys. And at first creator Eric Kripke was saying Lucifer would be a "presence" rather than a person in season 5.

But Lucifer will be made manifest at some point next year, and the man cast for the recurring role is seasoned bad guy Mark Pellegrino. Pellegrino has probably made the biggest impact as Paul, the wife-beating ex of Dexter's girlfriend on several episodes of Dexter in late season 1 and early season 2, and he showed real promise there – on the one hand, you hated the guy because of what he did to Rita (Julie Benz), but it was fascinating to watch him fight Dexter's hastily set-up frame. Pellegrino has also done Lost (where he turned out to be the leader of the Others) and a bunch of other movies and TV.

Also up for next season is a one-off return of always welcome Adrienne Palicki (Friday Night Lights), apparently reprising her role as Sam's long-dead girlfriend Jess. Since Jess's death, way back in the pilot, had a lot to do with setting Sam on the path that eventually led to demon-blood-drinking and being totally duped by Ruby, that actually sounds perfect. Chuck, the prophet played by Rob Benedict, may also return, though that has yet to be confirmed.

As usual, I can't wait. I'm already reprising my season 1 DVDs. Sept. 10 – the season 5 premiere for Supernatural seems a long ways off.

Smallville's eighth season came to an end with the foreshadowed return of Clark's Kryptonian archenemy, General Zod.

Last time around on Smallville, back at the top of season 6, Zod possessed Lex Luthor, so it was Michael Rosenbaum that was hollering "Kneel before Zod!"

But this time, at some point after season 9 premieres (on Fri., Sept. 25), Zod will arrive on Earth in person, in the form of British actor Callum Blue. Wait – Callum Blue? Mason from Dead Like Me? As Zod? I was thinking something a little more along the lines of Callum Keith Rennie... If, you know, we're doing Callums...

Actually, I'm kidding. Callum Blue is a great actor, with plenty of dark side (he's also dome a bunch of episodes of The Tudors), and he's also an unexpected choice, which usually turns out well. Not to mention, he has the Terence Stamp skinny, hollow-eyes thing down.

Blue also presents a huge contrast from last season's conflicted supervillain, the broad-shouldered Sam Witwer (who I recently saw on an old episode of Angel, totally randomly) – and from series star Tom Welling, who'll be exploring Clark's own Kryptonian side more than ever next season.

Weirdly, both Blue and new Supernatural villain Mark Pellegrino were both in the movie Caffeine. Evidently that was some kind of TV bad guy nexus.

MOVIES – Opening this week:

• Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009) is the third installment in Fox Animation's overextended Ice Age franchise.
  - Watch trailers and video for Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

HOME VIDEO – Out on DVD this week:

• Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, the sequel to the video game adaptation, comes out on DVD on June 30.
  - Watch trailer for Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li.
• Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) have been out on DVD before, but they're being reissued in a new keepcase version June 30. Rumor has is that director George Miller is working on a fourth film, without Mel Gibson involved. No one knows why.
  - Watch trailer for The Road Warrior
  - Watch trailer for Beyond Thunderdome

TELEVISION – Not much on TV this week, though Merlin, already off to a strong start, is introducing its version of Lancelot, played to great effect by Santiago Cabrera (Isaac Mendez from season 1 of Heroes).

Next week: the return of Eureka and the premiere of Warehouse 13, both on the channel that as of July 7 we will be calling Syfy.

New episodes this week from:

• Eli Stone, and
• Merlin.

Synopses below the jump. For details see the listings (regular or alphabetical). Read more...

MOVIES – Opening this week:

• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on Wednesday (June 24). The sequel to 2007's blowed-up-real-good surprise blockbuster returns director Michael Bay and star Shia LaBeouf in a geographically expanded threat to Earth. Check out the latest video, trailers, and clips.

HOME VIDEO – Out on DVD this week:

• Inkheart (2009) on Tuesday (June 23). The little-noticed Brendan Fraser version of the latest Hollywood trope, the adult bringing his child's bedtime stories to life, deserved better than it got. Based on the novel by Cornelia Funke. Video, trailers, and clips.
• Phoebe in Wonderland (2008) on Tuesday (June 23). A dreamy fantasy about a misfit girl (Elle Fanning), her hyperactive imagination, and her unconventional teacher (Felicity Huffman). Video, trailers, and clips.

TELEVISION – New episodes this week from:

• Primeval,
• Doctor Who,
• Eli Stone,
• Merlin, and
• True Blood.

Guest stars this week include David Morrissey in the 2008 Doctor Who Christmas special, debuting on BBC America, and Michelle Ryan (Bionic Woman) on the Merlin two-parter.

Synopses below the jump. For details see the listings (regular or alphabetical). Read more...

Now that there are no new ideas, everything is being remade. But fans of the 1988 cult classic anime Akira waiting (excitedly, angrily, or otherwise) for the live-action remake announced last year can stop waiting, because the project has reportedly died a gruesome death in development hell.

The project, initiated by Leonardo di Caprio of all people, collapsed after the departure of up-and-coming director Ruairi Robinson, according to the horror site Bloody Disgusting (which is enjoying lots of hits off what for them is a slightly off-topic report, as they did when they broke the story that the film was in development a year and a half ago). Robinson had been nominated for an Oscar for the sci-fi animated short Fifty Percent Grey.

The film, which might have been divided into two parts, was to have been written by Gary Whitta, based on the original manga by Katsuhiro Otomo. Whitta's current project is the futuristic Denzel Washington film The Book of Eli.

Considering that – while the storyline is certainly powerful – it's the revolutionary animation that makes Akira a landmark film in both the east and the west, the idea of a live-action version struck many as downright perverse, and many bloggers and fans are reacting to this news with jubiliation. Still, as Bloody Disgusting points out, an anime as innovative as Akira might just have spawned a seriously cool live action film that broke new ground in its own way. Either way, we'll have to wait for someone else to take up the challenge.

A strange lawsuit by the estate of Adrian Jacobs alleges that "substantial parts" of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fourth book in J.K. Rowling's worldwide bestselling series, were cribbed from the late author's 1987 fantasy short story The Adventures of Willy the Wizard, No. 1: Livid Land.

The suit was filed against Bloomsbury Publishing, the British publishers of Rowling's books. Scholastic, the American publishers, and Rowling herself, are not yet named in the £500 million lawsuit put forward by Jacobs's son and grandson.

Bloomsbury responded that the suit was without merit, asserting that Rowling had never heard of Jacobs or his book until the claim was first floated in 2004 by a lawyer for Jacobs's son.

The nature of the alleged plagiarism is conceptual, not textual, involving ideas like wizard contests and wizards traveling on trains. Read more...