Roundup: Sci-Fi Central Casting

A couple of very interesting big names are joining established summer series next year.

True Blood--Anteing up from past fan-wowing gets like Michelle Forbes and Scott Foley, True Blood is adding a true sci-fi icon to its season 6 cast. Rutger Hauer, the formidable Dutch character actor whose craggy face immediately brings to mind indelible scenes from Blade Runner for genre veterans (and whom younger sci-fi geeks will remember as the more interesting of the two Morgan Edges on Smallville) is joining the cast as a regular for the show's first post-Alan-Ball season.

TV Line reports that Hauer, still busy at 68 years old, will play Macklyn, who has a deep and dark connection to Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) and her brother, Jason (Ryan Kwanten)--you know, one of those deep, dark connections that we'll only start to find out about right before the credits of the season 6 premiere, no doubt. I can't wait for him to use that silky voice and crooked smile on Sookie.

Falling Skies--Meanwhile, another sci-fi veteran is surfacing over at the TNT summer series Falling Skies. Stephen Collins, the guy who's the star of the long-running 7th Heaven to everyone else but who, to us, will always be Will Decker (and one of the more interesting people to watch on the canceled-too-soon No Ordinary Family), will be guest starring as the president under whose watch all this alien invasion stuff happened.

The press release describes the president, Benjamin Hathaway, as "a confident man exuding charisma who has been forced into combat against the aliens--sending out sniper teams all over the nation to locate survivors" from a base in Colorado. Season 3 of Falling Skies will also feature Robert Sean Leonard, Gloria Reuben, and Doug Jones.

Alphas--Meanwhile, much closer on the calendar, this is the week that Sean Astin starts guesting on Alphas. He plays Mitchell, an Alpha with enhanced memory capabilities which allow him to store and replay other people's memories and even draw individuals into them as if they're actually happening--and is therefore much wanted by the Alphas team lest he fall into the hands of recurring bad guy Stanton Parish.

Tags: True Blood, Falling Skies, Rutger Hauer, Stephen Collins, Sean Astin Follow me on Twitter  |  Follow me on Facebook