A guide to the new sci-fi and fantasy shows that geeks should be
checking
out this fall!
Cheryl Lightfoot
We are well into August as I write this, and that heralds the beginning
of my favorite season...the new TV season! Merely weeks from now, old, dead reruns will
fall off the networks branches like so many desiccated brown leaves. And while
actual tree branches will remain barren throughout our long norther winter, TV
networks will soon start unfurling new programming for you to geek out over.
I'm no math geek, so I'm not actually going to count the number of
sci-fi and fantasy concept shows that debuted last fall vs. what the nets have
to offer us for this year, but it's safe to say that there are quite a few, quite
possibly more than in years past. Certainly within the genres on offer, there
is quite a lot of diversity so that there should be something for everyone.
What's your poison? Witches? Robots? Mutants? Superheroes? Period pieces with
classic monster-movie villains and/or legendary American folk tale frights?
Yeah, they've got that.
Here's a list, in alphabetical order, of some of the
shows you may want to give a chance this fall season.
ALMOST HUMAN – Fox, premieres Monday, November 4th at 8pm
Fringe fans, you might be interested in this...J.J.
Abrams will be executive producing and Fringe scribe J.H. Wyman will write this
futuristic buddy-cop show starring Karl Urban (Star Trek) and Michael
Ealy (Common Law, Flash Forward). Urban plays Kennex, your classic
not-by-the-book cop with a bionic leg and crappy attitude. It's set in the
we-FINALLY-have-hovercars future, so there's robots. Ealy is Dorian, the
human-like android companion that Urban must cart around with him to keep him
from going rogue again.
Naturally, Kennex and Dorian don't get along, at first at least (going
by the trailer), but despite the cliché set-up, the series still looks
promising. The settings are visually arresting (pardon the cop pun) and seems
capable of some very interesting storylines. The show has great bona fides, at
least for Fringe fans. With luck, it will transcend the serial police
drama formula the way Fringe did and give us some great character
development as well.
(photo (C) FOX Network)
DRACULA – NBC, Premieres Friday, October 25th at 10pm
By turns sexy and gory, this is not a show for kids, to state the
obvious. Starring Johnathan Rhys Meyers (The Tudors) as the vamp in
question, this show reimagines Dracula in Victorian England rather than in Transylvania, and introduces Dracula as American entrepreneur Alexander
Grayson, who arrives in society promising scientific marvels. He soon meets
Mina Murray (not yet Harker), played by Arrow's Jessica De Gouw, and has
an instant connection with her. (Flashbacks reveal their connection has roots
deep in a shared past.)
The usual gang, Johnathan Harker, Lucy Westenra, Van Helsing and
Renfield, are still there, though their characters are variations on the
classic versions. New characters, like
vampire huntress Lady Jane are introduced, and judging by the trailer, accents
are hit and miss across the board. (Dublin-born Meyers' American accent is a
decided miss.) The show looks luxe, and if you have a strong stomach (for both
acrobatic vampire sex and gobs and gobs of bloody limbs and appendages) you
might really enjoy this show.
MARVEL'S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. – ABC, Premiering Tuesday, September 24th
at 8pm
This is the Big Kahuna of Geek TV. Set after the events in the
billion-dollar Avengers movie, Marvel and EP Joss Whedon bring
superheroes to the small screen. Not-dead Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg; and at least
one of my kids owes me something for losing a certain post-movie bet) emerges
as the head of S.H.I.E.L.D's Level 7
operations and sets about recruiting what looks like a sort of junior-varsity team of powered-up
good guys who save the day, albeit with less fanfare than the gods, monsters
and iron-suited avengers in the movie.
Ming-Na Wen (ER) is Melinda May, a former pilot and fighter who
is recalled from desk duty to lead the new team. J.August Richards (Angel)
is one of the more recognizable recruits, and Cobie Smulders will appear in at
least one episode as Maria Hill, her character from the movie. It's hard to see how ABC could go wrong with
this one, even if some of our fave Marvel characters don't show up (though I
hope they will!) Though trailers for the pilot make it look exposition-heavy,
once this show gets going it should be action-packed fun for the whole family.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN WONDERLAND-ABC, Premiering Thursday, October 10th
at 8pm
ABC takes its fairy-tale drama down the rabbit hole, introducing the
character of Alice (Sophie Lowe, a relative newcomer) as a kind of warrior
princess of Wonderland. Aching to fight her mortal enemy, the Queen of Hearts,
and out to save her true love, Peter Gadiot as Cyrus, Alice is busted out of a
sanitarium (!) by the White Rabbit (!!) played by John Lithgow (!!!) In true Once
Upon a Time tradition, the spinoff show will mix up its fairy tales, with
Naveen Andrews of Lost appearing as Aladdin's Jafar.
THE ORIGINALS-CW, sneak preview Thursday, October 3rd at
9pm; regularly Tuesdays at 8pm.
In The Vampire Diaries, Joseph Morgan's Klaus is THE original
vampire, so it makes sense that he is big enough for his own show now.
Accompanied by his brother Elijah (Daniel Gilles), sister Rebekah (Claire Holt)
and his werewolf girlfriend, Hayley (Phoebe Tonkin), Klaus decamps from Mystic
Falls to The Big Easy in order to put the fear of himself in one of his vampire
underlings (Charles Michael Davis as Marcel.) There are more witches and
werewolves and vampires ready to revolt, so Klaus decides to stick around and
reclaim his title as number one Vamp. If you like TVD, and the prickly yet
sometimes decent character of Klaus, give the sequel a try.
SLEEPY HOLLOW-FOX, Premiering Monday, September 16th at 9pm
Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison) rides into the 21st century,
pursued by the legendary Headless Horseman. With the cops on his side, old Ich
tries to bring the supernatural demon to justice, and along the way, as the
trailer unoriginally states, heads will roll. Nicole Beharie, Orlando Jones and
John Cho also star.
Actually, this one looks pretty good. Although it does not seem to have
a sustainable multi-season story, a short season of this good-looking show by all appearances would be great. George Washington himself cameos in flashbacks and
Ichabod's flame-haired wife Katrina (Katia Winter) in dream sequences, so the
story we learned in elementary school will also be explored, along with the
Revolutionary-fish-out-of-water trope of having a Minuteman in today's New
York.
(photo (C) FOX Network)
THE TOMORROW PEOPLE-CW, Premiering Wednesday, October 9th at
9pm
Based on the U.K. series of the same name (which had two iterations, in
1973 and 1992), this show sticks with the theme of super-powered mutants who
are, of course, hunted by a shadowy government agency and are fighting the
forces of evil from a secret lair. Though that seems done to death, and the
pilot is quite laden with exposition, this show still seems like a good
investment of your time. Not only does it appear after The CW's hit show Arrow
(my favorite new show last year), and if you geeks find the lead familiar-looking, that's because it stars the cousin of Arrow's
abdo-licious star Stephen Amell, (Robbie Amell, 1600 Penn, Revenge). And
there's an interesting twist at the end of the first episode involving the head of the shadowy government
agency, played by always creepy Mark Pellegrino of Lost that could give
the show legs beyond the X-men style set-up.
(photo (C) CW Network)
Of course there are more shows for geeks: Arrow, Revolution and Beauty
and Beast (among others) are returning for second seasons, and even more sci-fi
goodness is slotted for mid-season, including the return of Josh Holloway of Lost
fame as a human supercomputer in Intelligence on CBS. Geeks like me, and
maybe you, should find a lot to occupy our imaginations (and free time) this
fall!
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